HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-04-30 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 30, 2025 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 PM 4
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Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:00 PM 7
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ROLL CALL 9
Chair Akin: Good evening, everyone. I call to order this April 30, 2025, regular meeting of the 10
Planning & Transportation Commission. Ms. Dao, would you call the roll? 11
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 13
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Chair Akin: Here. 15
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 17
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Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 19
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner James: Here. 1
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 3
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Commissioner Ji: Here. 5
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 7
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Commissioner Peterson: Here. 9
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 11
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Commissioner Templeton: Here. 13
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Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 15
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Oral Communications 17
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 18
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Chair Akin: Very good. Do we have any public comments for items not on the agenda tonight? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Should we check on agendas, changes, and deletions first? I 1
don't remember what order we do that in. 2
3
Chair Akin: The order listed here is public... 4
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Ah. 6
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Chair Akin: ...comment first... 8
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Okay. 10
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Chair Akin: ...but that's... 12
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Well, then... 14
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Chair Akin: ...okay. 16
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...go ahead. 18
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Chair Akin: We can do it either way. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: No. I have no requests to speak. 2
3
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 4
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 5
6
Chair Akin: All right. Assistant Director Armer, do we have agenda changes, additions, and 7
deletions? 8
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I was so eager because I actually say yes this time. So as 10
stated on the agenda, Items 2 and 3 have been postponed. They were either noticed or 11
continued to a date certain from a previous meeting. The item 660 University Avenue has been 12
postponed at the applicant's request to allow time for further redesign. And the Cresent Park 13
Traffic Calming, for that item I can share that staff has met with the neighbor in an effort to 14
better understand their accessibility needs and further update will be included in a future 15
written staff report. 16
17
City Official Reports 18
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: Thank you. Do we have any questions on that? If not, Ms. Armer, could we have the 1
City Official Report? 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yes. Good evening. Jennifer Armer, assistant director. Next 4
slide. So first, our next meeting, we have a full agenda, as this evening's was expected to be. 5
First is a Vesting Tentative Map for the project at 3150 El Camino Real. We will review the 6
Capital Improvement Plan, the CIP. The role of the PTC for that is the confirm – make a 7
recommendation on compliance with the Comprehensive Plan and consistency with the 8
Comprehensive Plan for those projects. And then the South Palo Alto Bike/Ped Connectivity, we 9
will be having a study session on that item. Next slide. For City Council dates that are related to 10
the PTC's work, we did last – or on the 14th, there was a City Council meeting where they 11
discussed and approved the 70 Encina Avenue Project. On May 5th, they will be reviewing 4075 12
El Camino Way Planned Community and Commissioner Templeton, you are listed as the liaison 13
for this – for the month of May, so if you are available, that would be helpful to attend at least 14
remotely and be available to answer questions. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Do you want to sync ahead of that at all, like update me on – 17
do I want to have a conversation with you before heading into that meeting as we usually do or 18
is that something we're no longer doing? 19
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_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I did not know that that's something we've done in the past 1
but I'm happy to offer that. [Inaudible 3:39]. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: That would be amazing. Yes. 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: [Okay 3:40]. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: A quick call on the phone or a text or something with... 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Okay. 10
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Commissioner Templeton: ...just a heads up of what – here's the latest developments. Thank 12
you. 13
14
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Okay. That sounds good. And then on May 12, another item. 15
That is the Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance that was reviewed and recommended by PTC on 16
April 9. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer. Do we have Senior Engineer Rius tonight? 19
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_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Rafael Rius: Yes. Rafael Rius here, senior engineer with the Office of Transportation. Just a 1
couple minor updates. Jennifer mentioned the Cresent Park Traffic Calming Report. [That report 2
4:21] will come at a date to be determined. Also, the Parking Programs Update, right now it's 3
targeting the May 28 date to come back to this Commission. And that's the only update I have, 4
unless you have questions for me. 5
6
Chair Akin: I'm sorry, Mr. Rius. I was distracted. The parking update was on the 28th? 7
8
Rafael Rius: Yes. That's the date that Nathan is targeting right now and appears to be on 9
schedule for, so... 10
11
Action Items 12
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 13
All others: Three (3) minutes per speaker. 14
15
2. Recommendation on a Resolution Amending the El Camino Real Retail Node Map for 16
Purposes of Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.40.180: Retail Preservation. CEQA 17
Status: Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR), 18
adopted November 17, 2023 (SCH #2014052101) (Continued from March 26, 2025). 19
20
Chair Akin: Thank you. Any other questions for Ms. Armer or Mr. Rius? Very well, then. Let us 21
proceed with the first action item. Do we have a presentation? 22
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_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: We do. Just a brief presentation that I'll make this evening 1
and we'll share the PowerPoint. This is the same short pre-, PowerPoint that we had provided 2
for the previous meeting and I'll just go at – through it pretty quickly once we get that loaded. 3
All right. So this is a continuation of earlier work that staff, PTC, and Council have done for 4
implementation of the Housing Element, specifically implementation program 3.4C. As part of 5
the ordinance with the changes to the housing in-, for changes to the Housing Incentive 6
Program, the HIP and AHIP programs, the Council also adopted changes to the Retail 7
Preservation Ordinance, based on the recommendation from the PTC. And so, as you can see 8
here, the language in Housing Element Program 3.4C stated that there would be strategic 9
locations, as generally depicted in the draft South El Camino Real design guidelines 10
incorporated into this revision to the Retail Preservation Ordinance. And so that is what had 11
been presented both to PTC and Council but there was an interest in taking a closer look at 12
that. So next slide. So the nodes that were provided are these ones here in green and we can 13
zoom in if needed. It's also in your printed packets and available online. There were three 14
nodes that were included in what was brought to the PTC. In addition to that, the Council 15
requested a fourth node, which incorporates – includes some of the auto dealerships on El 16
Camino Real and so those are the nodes that are shown in green, as well as part of their – the 17
adoption by Council. 18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
They also included what we called an Interim Node, which is all of that blue area, basically 1
setting in some protections in the interim for the properties along El Camino Real, starting at 2
Paci-, to – from Page Mill Road down to the southern border, to allow time for the PTC to 3
consider and make recommendations on how these nodes might be modified or whether there 4
are additional ones needed to be included in this map for preservation. All right. So then we do 5
have additional maps and details that were included in your staff report, along with 6
recommendations for you to do site visit and consideration. So we've got different sections. We 7
can go to the next page and just scroll in on these, scroll through these. As I said, that is 8
included in your written staff report and we can look in more detail if needed. This completes 9
staff's presentation but I am happy to support you through your discussion of this item. 10
11
Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer. Do we have any clarifying questions from commissioners? 12
And let's use the conventional switch and button mechanism for now until we figure out how to 13
get the new microphones ordered. Commissioner Hechtman. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. Just wanting to confirm with staff, it appears that staff's 16
recommendation is that the PTC recommend to the Council elimination of all of the Interim 17
Nodes. Is that right? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So staff's recommendation is that the PTC consider whether 1
there are modifications that need to be made to the previous identified nodes. The green 2
nodes were identified based on the South El Camino Real plan as directed in the Housing 3
Element but what we have heard both from PTC and from Council that additional areas should 4
be considered, the example being those auto dealerships but also that some additional 5
considerations. Staff is happy to move forward with whatever your recommendation is for 6
changes or – we started with the El Camino Real plan. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I was reacting to the statement in the staff report on Page 11. 9
Right in the middle of the page – and I'm looking at the prior packet, right, where we had the 10
full staff report. So it's the second paragraph of discussion, fourth line. "Based on the objective 11
of Housing Element Program 3.4B, staff's recommendation is to retain the five nodes depicted 12
in green," and those are listed including the auto dealership you mentioned, "and remove the 13
Interim Node." And the only reason I'm trying to make clarification is that eventually there'll be 14
a motion here and if it's to support staff's recommendation, I want it clear on the record what 15
staff's recommendation is. 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that clarification. So at this time, staff's 18
recommendation is that previous map plus the auto dealerships. That does not – that is not 19
intended to indicate that we have concerns about modifications to that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: Any other clarifying questions? Commissioner Peterson. 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: So quick question. I'm under – excuse me. [You're 11:20] making an 6
assumption that the reason why these nodes, the green area, is limited is because there is 7
some kind of cost to the City if we expand those areas or is it conceptual that you – that they 8
perform better if it's a compact node that covers a very specific area? 9
10
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. The idea of having retail nodes 11
is that those areas will have more protection and requirements for preservation of existing 12
commercial space. The reason for reducing the requirements for retail preservation in other 13
locations along El Camino was part of the reduction of constraints on housing development in 14
that area to try and reduce the government constraints as required by the State for housing 15
development. And so in this case, the goal and my understanding of it was to retain those 16
protections in certain specific nodes and the best example or starting point we had was this 17
South El Camino Real draft plan and guideline and so we made that a little more specific and 18
moved forward with that as the recommendation. 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's clear. 1
2
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I was wondering if we could dive a little bit deeper into the – 5
you were saying that the original El Camino area defined these nodes. Can you help provide 6
some of the criteria that was used to define that? 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: The quick answer is no. This was a set of design guidelines 9
that were developed in the early '80s I believe but as far as I know, never actually adopted. But 10
they have been something that has been used as guidance as projects are reviewed and things 11
were looked at. It also was not really specific to exactly which parcels were included in these 12
nodes. The diagram that was included was a little bit vague on where exactly the boundaries 13
went. But what I can share from a planning perspective is that when you have a boulevard like 14
this, it is often not effective to require commercial along the entire length because it's often 15
difficult to fill that amount of commercial space and so one of the planning ideas is that you 16
have nodes spaced along it where you can concentrate those services for the people who live in 17
the area rather than trying to provide spaces along the entire length. And so I think in 18
determining how to move forward with this, there will be some question about what the 19
reason is for the City now because of course 40 years later, the reasons and motivations for 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.
City may be different than what they were when that – those previous guidelines were 1
adopted. Is it an intent of preserving specific retail areas or is it a goal of trying to set a spacing 2
between, something like that? But it may be different considerations will go into the Planning 3
and Transportation Commissions recommendations. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: And then one – I guess this is not necessarily – I guess it is a question but also 6
a little bit of foreshadow, which is I'd love to maybe see if we can draw – find the information 7
now but look into it later as well – is where that half-mile radius is around those transit hubs 8
because, at least for me, that might be something interesting to think about. I'm not asking for 9
this information right now but I think the Commission may be interested in looking at this. 10
11
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And I can quickly actually bring up the map that was part of 12
the previous – the El Camino Real Focus Area, just to give you a sense – if we could zoom in on 13
the lefthand side of that, where the circle is. You can see there that it goes kind of halfway 14
through the N.V. CAP Area. It goes past Page Mill but not very far past there; kind of to Olive 15
Avenue is the half-mile radius. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Sounds like you [pre-empted 16:03] my question. Thank you. 18
19
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: 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 Akin: Just to follow up, when I took a look at the South El Camino Design Guidelines, the 2
version of the document that I found was 2002. So is there a more recent one or some lineage 3
of documents that covered this subject? 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Nothing more recent that I'm aware of. 6
7
PUBLIC COMMENTS 8
9
Chair Akin: Okay. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions? All right, then. Do we have any 10
public comment on this item? 11
12
Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: No. I have no requests. 13
14
Chair Akin: All right. I'm going to exercise my discretion as Chair and try and structure our 15
conversation a little bit. So the idea of these development nodes has been around for a long 16
time and as I walked El Camino, I thought the current set of nodes we're talking about omitted 17
some important areas and perhaps overweighted others, which let me to question whether – 18
no matter what we decide to recommend as far as the nodes themselves – whether Council will 19
be looking at our rationale at least as much as our map. So what I'd like to do is propose that 20
we have tonight's discussion in two parts. And in the first, I'd like us to try and reach some 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consensus about our goals, what the rationale will be. And then in the second, we can either 1
recommend nodes that are consistent with those goals or, if necessary, we can create an ad 2
hoc to do the details. So just to kick things off, here are three questions I came up with just to 3
get us thinking about what goals might be. Number 1 has already been covered adequately, I 4
think. Does preserving retail discourage the development of housing? So the implication in the 5
Housing Element is that it does. And the consequence for our discussion tonight is that we 6
should think about using preservation sparingly in the areas where we know we'll be able to 7
gain sufficient advantage. 8
9
Two, who are the customers for the retail space we're preserving? Existing residents? New 10
residents in the opportunity sites? Daytime employees, which is a factor in some areas? And do 11
we want the retail nodes to be reachable by these customers on foot because that gives us 12
some indication of how many there have to be and how far apart they can be spaced? And 13
three, what types of businesses are we hoping to support? So in past discussions, I heard a lot 14
of interest in neighborhood-serving businesses like restaurants, cleaners, salons, bodegas but 15
we also have opportunities for more regional ones like larger groceries or commercial services. 16
Those would require larger sites and more access to parking than some of the smaller 17
opportunities and therefore we might include or exclude sites depending on that. So hopefully I 18
haven't biased your thinking too much with those but I thought it was important to try and get 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.
some context and now that I've delivered that, I'd like to open the discussion. What should our 1
goals, our rationale be? Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So first of all, I like the approach and how you've 4
structured this. It was a little bit aligned with mine, although some of the goals you described I 5
hadn't thought of as much. To me, I feel like, from my perspective, parking really drives this 6
issue and so the availability of parking is perhaps one of the goals that we want here. And I 7
wanted to ask staff a question. Just – I think I know the answer but I just wanted to confirm but 8
my belief is in Caltrain's revamping of El Camino through Palo Alto, I believe they're eliminating 9
all the street parking on both sides. Is that the plan? 10
11
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I know that there has been loss of street parking for the bike 12
lanes and I'm just gonna do a quick check to see if Rafael is still online here. I'm not seeing him. 13
I do not know absolutely whether it's through the entire length. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. My memory is that it is and so I'm going to speak tonight as 16
though that's true and I could be corrected. So if I can just make a couple points about the 17
parking as I see it and incidentally, I too was curious about the location of those half-mile radii 18
because in those area of course you can theoretically at least develop with no parking under 19
state law. But the entirety of the Interim Node is outside of either of those half-mile circles, and 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
so that's not a concern of ours. But what is concerning to me is the combination of what I 1
believe to be no parking on the street on El Camino combined with the low parking allowances, 2
if you will, of various state laws associated with housing that would allow redevelopment of 3
these sites with housing with less parking. And my concern is that if there is a business on these 4
properties and inadequate parking on site, since there's not parking on the street, that will push 5
parking into the neighborhoods. And so when I looked at the Interim Nodes, I'm okay with 6
staff's recommendation to not have any of it but I identified six portions of the node where one 7
or both of these characteristics occurred, which I thought would hamper retention of retail 8
and/or development of housing. 9
10
First, shallow lots along El Camino Real with R-1 directly behind them, because these properties 11
have short height limits to accommodate the daylight plane associated with the R-1 directly 12
behind them and so they have to have ground-floor parking but to the extent you have retail on 13
the ground floor, which is where it goes, you can't have the parking. They can't coexist. So of 14
the six areas I identified, some of those places I thought should not be include in the retail 15
node. And then the other area is where there are long blocks between side streets because in 16
those situations – again, if I can't park on the street and I don't want to walk a block and a half – 17
or a block to get from some neighborhood street to the dry cleaner or the bike shop, I'm just 18
not gonna go there. And so I think if we are mandating that businesses stay, I don't know that 19
we are creating an environment for those businesses that will allow them to be profitable and 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
stay and we'll end up with a bunch of empty storefronts and no more housing. So those are sort 1
of the criteria I was looking at in this goal of availability of sufficient parking to serve the retail. 2
And I'll go into the six nodes if we get there, I think in your Part B of the discussion. Thanks. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you. Next? Commissioner Ji. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman for those comments. I thought that was 7
really insightful. I want to preface by saying that I live pretty close to El Camino, pretty close to 8
the Tri-, what is described as the Triangle Node in this case. Having grown up here and gone to 9
school, I would say that I have went – been a customer to many of the establishments on El 10
Camino here. I do think that, to my knowledge as well, that there is no parking on the segment 11
that we're discussing, so I just – that's from my personal lived experience from being there. Just 12
want to confirm that. Thinking about what it would be like to add housing in this area, I do think 13
about the almost ideal of having something like a 15-minute city, being able to go to places on 14
foot from the place that you're living at and so I currently have the luxury of being able to do 15
that. I can walk to the grocery outlet that's over on Alma and I can – then I also go to Happy 16
Donuts a lot – that's not good for my waistline but it's very enjoyable – the L&L Hawaiian 17
Barbeque and also a large segment of the complex that's over by that area as well. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And so I'm gonna also target specifically – I know this is not goal-oriented but about the current 1
setup for the Triangle Node. I think there's quite a few areas over there quite a lot that aren't 2
currently covered by that node but we'll get into that in terms of the discussion later about the 3
criteria. And I do think that, for those of you who have heard my concerns previously, I am 4
currently the recipient of said let's say overflow parking into my neighborhood, so I'm very 5
conscious about that. However, I do think that there are other ways to ameliorate this. For 6
example, the grocery outlet does have underground parking and that's always an option if we 7
were to maintain ground-floor retail. I also think we should look to our neighbor cities as well, 8
such as Mountain View and other places as well where having ground-floor retail is pretty 9
popular and common for a lot of the new developments. In addition, the – having ground-floor 10
retail allows the – could possibly increase the rents for some of these – for some of the 11
buildings so the developer can potentially recoup some cost from that as well. And then finally, 12
I do agree with Commissioner Hechtman, though, that small lot sizes may provide a pretty 13
significant hinderance. I think that ground-floor retail tends to do a little bit better when the lot 14
sizes are bigger and so you're able to have larger spaces, for example, to have that grocery 15
store and things like that. So I'll just leave those comments for now. 16
17
Chair Akin: No lights? Anyone else with comments at this stage? All right. Well, I have a few. I 18
do think we need to be careful about putting too much space in the preservation zones because 19
I believe it – from previous conversations that it is a constraint on housing. It's interesting 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.
read the South El Camino Design Guidelines. They were clearly written for a different world and 1
we have a much stronger focus on housing now than we did then. So in response to that, I'm 2
inclined to put zones into places that will protect or encourage the neighborhood-serving 3
businesses which tend to be relatively small and according to both our hopes today and the 4
original ideas behind the design guidelines will largely be accessed on foot. There are areas 5
where I want to see Commissioner Hechtman's analysis because I'm quite sure I've missed a 6
few. It'll be good to see what you've – what you determined. One possible exception to that 7
that we'll get into if we talk about the design of the nodes themselves in more detail is Palo Alto 8
Square. That really is an outlier and I'll talk about that in more detail since that's outside the 9
scope of the goals discussion but it is the reason that I made the comment earlier about, "Are 10
some of your customers daytime employees?" So it is worth keeping that in mind as a goal. So 11
that's essentially all I wanted to say about the goals. Do we have any other contributions? 12
Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I'm sure this is out of scope, so I'm gonna mention it for the benefit 15
of our staff for a future meeting, but Commissioner Ji brought up Happy Donuts and I was 16
thinking about this as well in trying to research if that abandoned lot that is not claimed by the 17
City nor a property owner nor the County that is full of garbage and drug debris behind Happy 18
Donuts needs to be handled and I wonder if that's something that could be handled through 19
zoning. I don't know. I don't know how it gets done but I'm just gonna throw that plug out 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.
because it's here adjacent to all the stuff we're talking about and I was thinking about Happy 1
Donuts as well but for a completely different reason because if we do want people to be using – 2
accessing these properties on foot, we want it to be safe. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Akin: Quick question for clarification. Do you mean the alleyway behind? Okay. So... 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. There's... 7
8
Chair Akin: ...Cypress, I think. I forget its name. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: I just tried to look it up. I couldn't find it. So I'm sure it's there but it 11
is well-known around town as completely unusable land within Palo Alto and if – I bet we could 12
fit cars there if we thought somebody had ownership of it. So I'm just – I – we'll get back to our 13
focus but I just wanted to throw that out there because it is relevant but it's not noticed. Thank 14
you. 15
16
Chair Akin: Well, actually that is very relevant, thinking back to some of the comments in the 17
design guidelines. One of the justifications for not having parking out front is that people could 18
park in the alleyways. 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: [Right 33:07]. 1
2
Chair Akin: So yeah. Very relevant. All right. Let's see. I believe that Commissioner Peterson is 3
next and then Ji. 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: So I guess maybe this is a good time to also add another suggestion, if 6
this is a good time to give suggestions to staff. Just in general, listening to the other 7
commissioners talk about the complexity of the El Camino Corridor with the different lot 8
constraints, that we're gonna be expected to review that on essentially a paper, 2-dimensional 9
plan sheet with not quite hand-drawn lines on it but a good drafter could've drafted this, so 10
[it'd 33:51] look like something from the 1980s. And so if there is funding for consultants or if 11
there is in-house competencies to build a building information model for the – or a corridor 12
model to be able to show us, let's run a – maybe a simulation and color coded these different 13
constraints, that just gives us – saves us the mental computation of sitting there and thinking 14
through all these things ourselves and just let the AI do some of the work. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Akin: You have a quick follow-up to that? 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I just wanted to check and confirm that all of our new 19
commissioners have been giving – given printed zoning maps for 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
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Anyone who would like a printed one as opposed to what's 2
available online, please let me know. I'd be happy to provide those. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I think it's handy to have and the commissioners used to get 5
those. If you don't want to have a piece of paper with that, but as you just mentioned, it could 6
come in handy if you're trying to get a big picture and your screen's just not that big. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: I'm guessing that practice may have ended the year you were first 9
appointed 'cause I didn't get one . 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Well, look at that. We... 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yep. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: ...have a bunch of takers here. I'm... 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Absolutely. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: ...here to connect the past and the present for 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 Akin: Yeah. I didn't get one either, so it didn't – it wasn't resumed. 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: All right. So maybe if you would individually reach out and let 4
me know if you are interested so we're not making assumptions here during the meeting. 5
6
Chair Akin: Very good. Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I guess sorry, staff. One other comment about this. I think it would've 9
been nice to have seen the document that our Chair is mentioning about the explanation 10
behind the zone – the nodes somewhere attached in the staff report or – I didn't even know 11
that that was the background, so I think that would've been nice to have seen. Also kind of 12
jumping off what Commissioner Peterson said about the multiple layers for the building 13
information model. I think that – this is not directed to staff. This is just directed to everyone, 14
that I think that there's a lot of different discussions we're having about the El Camino Corridor 15
and I think it could be very – it'd be nice to do some planning in that having all of the policies 16
that we make, it'd be interesting to see how they intersect, right? We just went over the El 17
Camino Focus Area and seeing how maybe some of those decisions that we've made may 18
impact the way we think about the retail nodes, so having some way to kind of interface across 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the different policies that we make or recommend for the same geographic area I think would 1
be really interesting to look at. 2
3
And then I also want to jump in about Item 2 of the goals that our Chair had mentioned about 4
the customers of retail. One that may not be thought of as much is school students, so I would 5
say that especially looking on the south side towards the Auto Node and the Triangle Node, I 6
will say that I guess now Fletcher School students and Gunn students tend to go by that area a 7
lot and so – I think that the people at Greene have the ability to go to midtown and so I guess 8
this is the equivalent, so in terms of daytime users of the area, that's definitely one to think 9
about. And then when I attended Stanford, I would definitely say that a lot of those businesses 10
closer on the Page Mill side were also accessed during the day. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you. Any other comments on the rationale, the big considerations to keep in 13
mind? All right. Well, we don't have very many that are concrete but we can at least summarize 14
what we have so far. We've talked about who are the customers for the retail space. We talked 15
about using it sparingly for a number of reasons but constraints on housing development being 16
one and parking constraints being another. That may deserve a separate bullet item in our list 17
of rationale. We have talked about adding students to the list of customers that were 18
mentioned earlier, about mapping – specifically about parking, about mapping the parking 19
availability to make sure that we're not overloading both retail and residential parking into 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.
space where we can't fit both. Access to businesses in long blocks because without that the 1
businesses are not supportable. And let's see. Something like the 15-minute city criterion to 2
make sure that current and potential residents can walk to some of the potential retail that 3
we're trying to preserve here. What have I missed from the rationale part of the discussion? 4
Commissioner Ji. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Commissioner Hechtman, I just want to clarify. Can you help me understand 7
what you're saying about what is a long block? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. Let's see if I can find an example. Yeah. If you – so our 10
Attachment B consists of 3 pages, right? And the first page, I don't think we really have to talk 11
about because there's no part of the Interim Node that's on it. That's the northerly end of El 12
Camino. So really all the action for our discussion is on the second and third page. So if you look 13
on the third page of Attachment B, there is an Interim Node on the I guess southerly or bottom-14
side of the street. It's really the end of that, which starts with the Crowne Plaza Hotel and it 15
looks like it's continuous businesses through the Hilton Garden and then there's a small use 16
that I can't read at this scale next to it. So if I wanted to go to one of the stores between the 17
Crowne Plaza and the Hilton Garden, I'm probably parking in the neighborhood and walking 18
that long block. So that's just one of the examples. 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: Thank you. Just to echo that, I actually think that we see the same problem on 1
the other side as well in that you may claim that the big block where the Interim Node points 2
to, the yellow block, is – has some streets. They're all private. So if we were to, for example, 3
want to go to the Palo Alto Event Center, I think you'd be parking very far away at this rate. 4
Those were – that was just my clarifying question from before. 5
6
Chair Akin: All right. Thank you. Seeing no other contributions at this level, I think perhaps we 7
can start talking about particular areas. So I would like to add one observation here, which is 8
that our discussion is not strictly limited to modifying the Interim Node but we could 9
unrecommend some of the green nodes as well – disrecommend. And in fact, there may be 10
some benefit in doing so if we remove constraints by doing so. All right. Comments on potential 11
nodes to add, remove, consider? Commissioner Hechtman. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So let me start with a couple of them and then we can – I can 14
share the mic and we can move to other ones. But let me just identify for the Commission the 15
two portions that I think at a minimum, should be removed on the second page. So that's the 16
middle page, which includes the Focus Area Node and Creekside Inn to the – again, with this 17
northerly area, it's the west side down to the Montage Apartments on the right side. So on this 18
page, I identified two portions of the nodes that I think shouldn't be included. Let me just start 19
with the first one, which is on the northerly side of the street and it's generally between I think 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
it's Fernando and Wilton. But it actually extends a little bit farther than that because across 1
Fernando, you have one of our housing opportunity sites. That's with the crosshatching. And so 2
I think, again, we want no constraint on housing there and so I would include that. And then on 3
the other end, you have Wilton Court, which is pretty new and so I was thinking that would be 4
included as the portion to not be included. Can maybe we pull up the map? So this would be 5
Page 2 of the Attachment B. Yes. That's pretty good. Okay. 6
7
So if you can see, right in the middle is Wilton Court in yellow. And so I'm talking about that side 8
of the street and I'm moving to the left, over to the box with the slashes, which is the housing 9
opportunity site. So that's an area you can see those are shallow lots. They back up to R-1. And 10
so again, my concern there is that those building are gonna be short by necessity because of 11
the R-1 behind them and they need to do ground-level parking. Commissioner Ji mentioned 12
underground parking, which my impression from working in the development community is 13
that underground parking – first of all, it's terribly expensive. It's hard enough to build a level of 14
parking, which is why a lot of developers who bring us housing projects are wanting reduced 15
parking to save money and we've actually had some studies that I think indicate each parking 16
space costs $100,000 and when we're trying to figure out how to make a project that has 17
sufficient affordable units, going underground is actually even more expensive. And so I think 18
other than on the largest sites, underground parking probably won't be a solution and so here, 19
these aren't gonna be large sites and so underground parking won't be a solution. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
And the other thing I would mention is the concept of the rent for retail helping to support the 2
housing. I have seen that work. Santana Row is a great example in San Jose where that works. 3
And I think University Avenue is another place where it works. But from what I see, in order to 4
make it work, those have to be high foot volume areas. I had a client in Morgan Hill who was 5
building a housing development where the City required retail ground floor a couple blocks off 6
Main Street and he fought it as hard as he could because he said, "I won't be able to fill it," but 7
the City required it. It was part of their code and he built it and other than one restaurant that's 8
a part of it and is very successful, it's very difficult for him to rent the other pieces. And so I 9
agree that it can work. I just don't know on El Camino if the retail will actually support the 10
residential above it. So this is the first place that's indicated now and then the other one on this 11
page is across on the other side and it starts on Kendall, which is where the taqueria is – yeah. 12
One over from that. It's the brown taqueria. Yeah. Right there. And that I extended all the way 13
to Papa John's, at least Papa John's, really for the same reason. Narrow lots. No street parking. I 14
like that burrito place and the times I've been there, I probably parked right in front 'cause you 15
run in, you get your burrito, you leave and so you only need a couple parking spaces out front 16
but now they're not gonna even have those. So those are the two nodes on this sheet that I 17
wanted to point on. And in looking at our goals, again, I think that would discourage housing to 18
to mandate retail stay 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.
Chair Akin: [Inaudible 49:35]. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: The customers would be local, right? 3
4
Chair Akin: Yep. When you're done, I need a clarification... 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 7
8
Chair Akin: ...from staff. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 11
12
Chair Akin: But please continue with that thought. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: And I do think that if we require it, the businesses would be 15
neighbor-serving because of the small size. But parking availability is a concern for me. So those 16
are the two on that page. 17
18
Chair Akin: Quick question, Ms. Armer. I may have misread this but I thought Housing Element 19
3.4C says that the opportunity sites are exempt from retail preservation. Is that correct? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: That is correct, that they can submit an application that is 2
just 100 percent retai-, or 100 percent residential. 3
4
Chair Akin: Okay. Does that change your perception of this area, given how many are 5
opportunity sites? 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: No. a more accurate version of the Interim Node would've excluded 8
those perhaps. So next to Wilton Court, if – I guess it doesn't matter whether it's in or out 9
because it's a housing site, so then it would be from Fernando over. And it looks like there are 10
two very small housing sites in the other area I identified but it's all of the rest of those 11
businesses sort of falling into this category that I described. 12
13
Chair Akin: Okay. Thank you. Would you like to continue or... 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 51:20] on the other page? 16
17
Chair Akin: Yeah. The – bef-... 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 51:22] just a quick question for [inaudible 51:24]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Oh. Commissioner Templeton. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Sorry. Just to clarify, I know that you may have parked on 4
the street but many of those have their own adjacent parking but we're not talking about what 5
they have right now, right? We're talking about what they – if they were redeveloped, they 6
wouldn't have to have the parking lots that they have now, right? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Right. Because... 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: ... we want to eliminate the restraint on housing, we're assuming, 13
"Okay, we could do something with this that would add housing." And so when you do that, 14
you're almost certainly gonna scrape whatever's there and either just build housing or build 15
housing over retail. And you're gonna probably try to fill the lot because the land is so 16
expensive. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Thanks. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: All right. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Should we move to the next page or – I don't know [inaudible 52:18]. 3
4
Chair Akin: Yes, please. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. 7
8
Chair Akin: Oh, that's okay. I'm sure we're all going to have detailed discussions, so... 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 11
12
Chair Akin: ...let's finish this line of thought. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So then if we go to... 15
16
Commissioner Ji: I'm trying to draw [inaudible 52:29]. Tell me if [inaudible 52:30]. I'm the one 17
drawing. 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: Oh, you're doing that. That's impressive. Okay. So now we're on the 1
third page. And so here I've got four portions of the Interim Node that I think should be – 2
should not be included. The first is in the upper left corner, which is really comprised mostly of 3
Palo Alto Commons and the private court. I just think that private court is fairly new housing 4
and Palo Alto Commons is not going away. Goodwill is already in the green next to it. It's not 5
realistic that there's gonna be retail there and I don't see a benefit to designating it as subject 6
to the Retail Preservation Ordinance. Directly across the street from the Montage Apartments 7
through PC-4511, that's the fourth area. 8
9
Male: Yeah. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Perfect. Again, you're backing up to residential. You've got some 12
shallowness there. You already have housing in the Montage Apartments and that's a good 13
thing. And then the other two – let's see. One I mentioned before. If we slide this diagram up a 14
little bit so we can see the southern side – yeah, southerly side of the street. Yeah. So I didn't 15
include the Crowne Plaza but everything between the Crowne Plaza and the Hilton, residential 16
behind, fairly shallow lots, that's the fifth one. And the sixth is basically the northeast corner. 17
Basically the northeasterly edge, from the edge through the U.S. Bank. So those are the six 18
portions of the Interim Node where, at a minimum, I think the Retail Preservation Ordinance 19
should not apply. Thanks for that assist, Commissioner Ji. I have no idea how you did that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Akin: Yeah. You should demonstrate for all of us. All right. Commissioner Ji. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Just questions for staff. I had a question about the implications of the Retail 4
Preservation Ordinance. When the parcel in question is currently not retail, what is the 5
implication there? 6
7
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So the requirements of the Retail Preservation Ordinance are 8
what it sounds like. It is about replacing existing retail. There may also be other requirements 9
depending on what the zoning designation is. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: So as a follow-up here, let's use some of the examples that Commissioner 12
Hechtman brought up, which is Jacob's Court Zoned RM-15. If that were in this interim – well, 13
whatever. If it were considered in a node that then is a – has a Retail Preservation Ordinance 14
applied to it, there's no retail, so then what actually happens? 15
16
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So then we would be evaluating the project based on the 17
underlying zone designation, so if it was a commercial zone, then it may have some 18
requirement for a certain portion of commercial. In that case, I would have to look it up but I 19
would guess that's not a commercial zone. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Okay. So fundamentally, for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't really 2
matter whether or not things that are designated as residential right n-, are anything – we'll just 3
say RM or R that are there, we don't – oh, yeah. You're about to speak. I'll just let you go ahead. 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So yes. I think what you are getting at I would say is correct. 6
The other thing is that there's not really a reason to have retail preservation if there currently 7
isn't commercial on the site. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Yes. No. I understand that. I'm just trying to make sure that I – my 10
understanding is clear. And then my follow-up question is then to the adjacent site, this PC-11
5116 Palo Alto Commons. Is there a definition for retail? Because I think that is a commercial 12
business but it's a PC, so what is the definition of retail that's being used here? 13
14
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Let me open up the Retail Preservation Ordinance and see 15
what I can find in terms of specifics. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. 'Cause I think that would – I – that would change my opinion 18
based on the n-, what the Retail Preservation Ordinance says based on whatever Commissioner 19
Hechtman has provided so far. Those are just my clarifying questions. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: We'll give you a moment to find that and then Commissioner Peterson will be next. 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Or you may continue and I can come back with that answer 4
later unless... 5
6
Chair Akin: Certainly. 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I'm working on it. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 11
12
Chair Akin: All right. Commissioner Peterson. 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: So one of the things on the map that stood out to me while we were 15
going through in the more detail is the gas station. The way I understand it is gas stations 16
probably won't be around much longer. Seems fair enough to say. I think we have a mandate to 17
even move away from gasoline, petroleum-powered engines and so wondering what happens 18
to those spaces? Do those become future housing spaces? But the way we draw the line now is 19
gonna determine how those spaces are used going forward but we're fairly certain they're 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
probably not gonna be retail spaces at some point or they will. And if there's one thing I 1
remember about gas stations is they have fuel tanks and that fuel tanks tend to leak, so I'm 2
pretty certain that each one of those sites is gonna be a big problem, which sometimes is great 3
for development and if you're digging a big hole, they dig all the earth out anyway, so there's 4
your problems with the parking garage solved. And so the one gas station I just wanna use as an 5
example because I think this one here is already a discussion. Is – does the gas station move 6
back with retail toward the residential or does the residential move forward? And that's – the 7
name of the park. Not Yerba Buena. What's the name of the mobile home park that's been... 8
9
Chair Akin: Buena Vista. 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: Buena Vista. There we go. Buena Vista, I walked through there not too 12
long ago, spoke to a lot of residents when I was out, knocking on doors, getting community 13
feedback. And so I think that's an excellent site 'cause Buena Vista, at least for a case study on a 14
thought process, is Buena Vista is going to be developed but it's not being developed because 15
it's been paused. There's – I don't know what happened. The County stepped away. There's a 16
lot of – it's a very difficult site to develop. But probably about the time that Buena Vista is 17
developed is when petroleum fuels will be being phased out and now you're looking at say 18
Buena Vista being one of those nice residential sites that comes all the way out to El Camino. 19
And it's probably the last large block of land that could be developed into residential in 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.
section of El Camino, so I would propose even drawing the boundary of the resident – the retail 1
boundary and leave that gas station and give more space around Buena Vista. Buena Vista? 2
3
Chair Akin: Any luck finding the retail definition? 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. So what I did was I took a look at the existing Retail 6
Preservation Ordinance, not the most recently updated one, just to scan through to provide 7
you with additional information. It is focused on retail and retail-like uses, so that is not 8
including things like office or senior housing facilities or assisted living types of uses. And our 9
code does define retail in some detail but generally, if you'd understand it as a place that sells 10
stuff. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Sorry. You're gonna – I'm gonna have another follow-up question about this. 13
So let's say that we have – in this PC zone, they decide to amend their PC such that it becomes a 14
grocery store with, I don't know, some retail or retail-like activity. Then what is the intersection 15
between that and the Retail Preservation Ordinance if – let's suppose that they wanna ch-, let's 16
say build housing on top of that. Would then the Retail Preservation Ordinance kick in if there 17
was retail then – at a later point and it were in a node? 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.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Well, I can read you the beginning of the current Retail 1
Preservation Ordinance and our attorney, Mr. Yang, may have something more to add but the 2
first part talks about, "Ground floor retail or retail-like uses permitted or operating as of March 3
2, 2015, may repla-, be replaced only by another retail or retail-like use as permitted in the 4
applicable district." 5
6
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: I would just add that the Retail Preservation Ordinance also 7
has a specific exemption for PCs. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Sorry, can you elaborate on that? So if it's a PC, they don't need to preserve 10
the retail? 11
12
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: That's right. So if the PC itself does not require the retail 13
but simply permits the retail, it's not going to be required to remain under the Preservation 14
Ordinance. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. But it sounds like, based on what you've provided, Ms. 17
Armer, that the Retail Preservation Ordinance only applies to retail that ex-, sorry, what was 18
that date? [Inaudible 1:04:29] 2015? 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.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: It was – I believe it was March 2 but... 1
2
Commissioner Ji: But what was... 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: 2015. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: What – does it mean the retail had to have been there before 2015? I just 7
wanted to clarify that. 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I will look to the city attorney... 10
11
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Yes. 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...to confirm... 14
15
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: That's right. 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...but 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.
Commissioner Ji: So my hypothetical example, even if it weren't a PC, that – something that 1
isn't retail-like now becomes retail-like, then the Retail Preservation Ordinance would not apply 2
to that because it was not a retail-like site prior to this 2015 date. 3
4
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: That's correct. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Akin: Very good. Any other site-specific comments? If not, I have a few. All right. 9
Interestingly, I spent more of my time thinking about the nodes that had already been 10
proposed than the Interim Node. I am not convinced that the California Node is useful and 11
that's partly because there is so much retail already protected within a very short distance of 12
that node. I suspect that it was there because the original design guidelines were attempting to 13
redo the structures in that area in a way that was more consistent with a pedestrianized El 14
Camino. So looks to me like there are five sites in that node and four of them are already 15
opportunity sites, so they're not subject to retail protection, so it's not clear to me that that 16
node serves a purpose or at least enough purpose. I'm also wondering about the N.V. CAP Node 17
and not because I think that those areas are not worthy of retail protection but the question is 18
whether we have already asserted as much control over those sites as we would like as part 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.
N.V. CAP. So I don't know whether we need a separate layer of protection for those sites. So I 1
question that one. 2
3
All right. So on to Palo Alto Square. This one really strikes me as an outlier. The residential 4
customer base nearby is relatively small compared to some of the other areas that we're talking 5
about. However, the daytime employee base is large, not only because of the businesses that 6
are already in Palo Alto Square but because of traffic that I suspect would arrive there from the 7
research park. So this one seems different from the other areas that we're considering. It's 8
different in another way as well. Because of the lot config-, the site configuration, this may be 9
one of the few places where there is enough retail floor area to support a contiguous, larger 10
business and it also has good road access and transit access for regional customers. So I think 11
the customer base may be different here and the physical configuration may be different here. 12
So my inclination is to preserve at least that part of the Focus Area Node because I think there's 13
enough potential unusual uses there to make it worthwhile. I am much less convinced about 14
the Focus Area Node where we already have projects in the works that may well determine the 15
outcome on these areas and their opportunity sites as well. So I'm not sure that extending retail 16
protection explicitly to those areas is worthwhile. Pardon me. Just a second while I scroll down. 17
18
So an interesting area is the Barron Park / Ventura Area. So this is roughly from Fernando to Los 19
Robles, so it covers some of the areas that Commissioner Hechtman analyzed. So I was really 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
struck as I walked both sides of El Camino in this area at how active it is, how much it's thriving, 1
and how much of it is driven by foot traffic. And I was interested to see that that area was 2
specifically called out in the original design guidelines as a desirable pedestrian development 3
node. So my inclination would be to preserve as much as we can practically within that area. 4
Interestingly, it has both neighborhood-serving and region-serving businesses. I don't know 5
whether those would all be likely to survive given that it's clear that a lot of them are there 6
because they're in old buildings with lower rents. So if redevelopment happens, then at least 7
the uses that we see there today might not persist. But some kind of usage – retail usage there 8
might be worthwhile. So I'll leave that one for further discussion. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Through the Chair, if you could clarify which portions. You talked 11
about a few... 12
13
Chair Akin: That's from... 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: ...roads. 16
17
Chair Akin: That's from Fernando to Los Robles. 18
19
Commissioner Ji: You wanna... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yeah. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: ...pull up the map again? 4
5
Chair Akin: And that's – yeah. That's essentially Barron Park and Ventura, other than North 6
Ventura. 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And were you considering both sides of the street in that 9
recommendation of maintaining? 10
11
Chair Akin: Yes. 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Okay. Thank you. 14
15
Chair Akin: So you see there are a lot of opportunity sites there, so there's going to be a fair 16
number of sites that are not protected, regardless of the boundaries of the zone there. I was 17
not considering the parking areas that Commissioner – the parking issues that Commissioner 18
Hechtman has raised, so I'll have to think about that a little more. But this is one of the original 19
nodes specified in the design guidelines. And the – as for the Triangle Node, I can see 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.
argument for preserving retail in the Triangle itself. I'm a little less convinced about the front – 1
other frontage on El Camino Way. And the reasons for that are that walking around, a lot of the 2
retail that is there is already in new construction, so it's not clear to me that it's going to change 3
very much, whether it's in an officially protected area or not. And the Goodwill site is already an 4
opportunity site, so we don't have to worry about that being compromised. But if that had not 5
been an issue, then I think would – I would've recommended that it be excluded. I have no 6
objection to retaining the Auto Dealership Node that Council had recommended and otherwise, 7
in this part of the Interim Node, I find myself in agreement with Commissioner Hechtman. I 8
don't see sufficient justification for protection in those areas. So the key differences in what I'm 9
observing compared to what I've heard so far are the possible eliminations of the California 10
Node, the N.V. CAP Node, and a portion of the Focus Area Node and the inclusion of more 11
areas in the Fernando to Los Robles area. Commissioner Ji. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: I think you're gonna wanna pull that map back up. Okay. I'll start on the top 14
again. So I – thank you, Chair, for those comments. Do you mind starting at the California Node 15
Page? Sorry. I guess we're all just gonna have to take turns going through the top... 16
17
Male: Mm-hm. 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: ...to bottom. Okay. I think I can agree about the California Node. As previously 1
mentioned, all the sites are basically in the hash, so I think there's little point for that. However, 2
I am curious about the space that's on the s-, I guess the bottom of the page – here, I'll draw it 3
also on the diagram – between the California Node and the N.V. CAP Node and maybe 4
potentially both sides, in that this is within 0.5 miles of the Caltrain Station and I think although 5
not explicitly protected could be nice to maintain some retail there, as it's pretty close and I can 6
see a lot of people using the retail there. Okay. Well, I guess we'll move on to the second page 7
here. I'll agree with the Chair that this area is particularly walker-friendly. I walk significant 8
portions of this to get to many of these businesses. No real additional comments on that here. 9
Okay. Yes. And then we'll move to the third page. Okay. So this is where I have a couple more 10
comments, which is the one establishment that is in the Triangle – well, I guess a couple 11
establishments in the Triangle Area that I go to the most is this little corner that is actually 12
outside the node designation. It's like the Subway and the – or whatever they're describing as 13
architect and the Opus 1. There – for most of the time growing up, there was a Starbucks there, 14
there was another Boba shop there. 15
16
There's I think currently a Middle Eastern food restaurant there. It's a very, very popular shop 17
for kids coming back from school, as is – the Walgreens that's shown here is a big place for 18
people to go to get an afternoon snack. And so I am pretty interested in keeping as much of the 19
retail in this region as possible, specifically I think something I guess between – I guess the – as 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
previously mentioned by staff, the Retail Preservation Ordinance doesn't apply to sites that 1
don't already have retail or retail-like, so take my drawing with a grain of salt but somewhere 2
between the end – the Los Robles side and some part of Arastradero and that this is an area 3
where kids coming back from schools down these major roads here will be a large user for 4
these businesses. But I will agree with Commissioner Hechtman that the areas over here on the 5
south side of town, I think those are unlikely to s-, be a good place to put a node, specifically 6
also because many of these areas are housing or housing-like. I mean, if we look at it, most of 7
them are either Housing Element Sites or a hotel, so not very much to preserve there. In 8
addition, I want to echo my comment previously, where I agreed with Commissioner Hechtman 9
about the parking issues, specifically in these regions here, as being pretty tough for customers. 10
I'll end my comments there for now. 11
12
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. One of the challenges we haven't discussed and I 15
understand that that is the intention of retail preservation is that some of these sites we've 16
designated are not great sites for retail and we see a merry-go-round of businesses try and 17
leave and try and leave and try and leave and I think that's the only one that's not marked with 18
the hashtag on California Avenue, so I'm gonna agree with you there. Looking also – yeah. Sure. 19
Go ahead. The California Node, the one that doesn't have the hashmarks in it, has a large 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
amount of frequent turnover in that whole little area, in fact, even all the way to the next street 1
over, Cambridge. So I would support changing that but only with the explicit direction that 2
we're not trying to harm any retail there, even if we change the recommendation. Going back 3
to South Palo Alto, Maybell through to the Triangle Node is the primary path and Commissioner 4
Ji pointed out a couple of other paths that people take to get home who live on the other side 5
of c-, El Camino from the schools, Gunn and Fletcher. I don't know why Walgreens would not be 6
protected but we're gonna – oh. We're saving Tesla and Volvo because of the tremendous 7
amount of tax revenue they bring into the City. We should also consider saving retail there at 8
the Walgreens, which is socially important, as discussed by Commissioner Ji. That's where my 9
kids would hang out too. 10
11
And then these – the little triangle portion, I would support adding that in but I would also say 12
we have to have a – some kind of escape clause if it's not sustainable for retail. I can 13
understand that we want to encourage retail to be there but if after cycling through 10 14
businesses, they still can't stay in business, we have to as a City be able to say to the owner, 15
"Okay. You can try something else now." So I'm a little concerned about that 'cause it has had a 16
revolving door of stores there as well, even though I like to frequent them. They're right by my 17
house. So yeah. I – are we – is there any kind of escape valve that's in mind here, besides just 18
having it come back to the Planning Commission at some point in the future? Okay. Is there any 19
precedent for having some kind of escape valve for desig-, so we've had this problem in 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.
past. I don't know if you remember this. It was a grocery store just north of California Avenue 1
that was having a hard time retaining the tenants but could only put other grocery stores in 2
kind of situation. At what point do we just say, "Actually, we just only want retail there. Sorry, 3
builder or sorry, owner." 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I think the – two thoughts on that. One is that there are now 6
ways to do housing or other types of development on these sites, even if it is in the Retail 7
Preservation, right, if it were a housing site. So that could be something in the future would be 8
proposed, though on some of these sites, they're rather difficult parcels, so – 'cause we have a 9
new Housing Element every eight years. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And then alternatively, this map can be amended and we 14
purposefully described it as being amended through resolution, which is slightly simpler... 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 17
18
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...than doing it through ordinance... 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: Oh. 1
2
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...just so that there is that possibility that people could come 3
through with justification and explanation and we could consider that. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: That's really good to know. One more question. Would we consider 6
– are training studios like Taekwondo, is that a retail use? 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I believe it falls under retail-like uses... 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. And what... 11
12
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...but... 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: ...about a community chorus or a community after-school program 15
or something like that? Could that be – I'm just trying to think, what can the City get if we're 16
unable to get retail in some of those places? What can we redirect property owners to that 17
would benefit the City? 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.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Okay. So we do have a specific definition of retail and I can – 1
it sounds like reading that out to you would be helpful. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. I'm... 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...as... 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: ...sorry. 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...opposed... 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I don't have... 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...to... 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: ...it... 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...my... 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: ...handy. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...shortened version earlier. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Retail service means use open to the public during typical 6
business hours, predominantly engaged in providing retail sale, rental service, processing, or 7
repair of items, primary intended for consumer household uses. There are a few things 8
underneath that. Extensive retail, intensive retail. And then we do have a newer – relatively 9
newer definition of retail-like uses, which is intended to provide that additional flexibility and so 10
that includes eating and drinking services, hotels, personal service, which would be some of the 11
one-on-one nail salon type uses, theaters, travel agencies, commercial recog-, recreation, which 12
is those Taekwondo studio... 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, okay. 15
16
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...other types of things, commercial, nursery, automobile 17
showrooms, daycare centers, retail financial services. And some of this actually will be coming 18
back to you for further discussion 'cause we have an interim ordinance... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: I seem to re-... 1
2
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...that modifies... 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:24:44] something... 5
6
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...this as well. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...something we talked about recently... 9
10
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Right. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: ...but I keep thinking dogs. I don't know why. Is that a type of service 13
that's allowed? 14
15
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I'm trying to remember... 18
19
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...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
Commissioner Templeton: ...the concept. 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...has been some discussion as to dog grooming... 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 6
7
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...for example. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: All right. So we'll get back to that later. 10
11
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: But that's – yeah. That's gonna... 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you... 14
15
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...be... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: ...for... 18
19
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...a... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: ...reminding... 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...more in-depth... 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: ...us. 6
7
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...discussion and it will be coming back to you for discussion 8
and direction in the coming months. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: So if that's the case, I'm willing to take a gamble on that sliver of the 11
triangle that was not included. Do you have any idea why it was not included in the 12
recommendation? 13
14
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I do not know. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. We'll just say that was probably unintentional then and 17
suggest that people add it back in. So if you did make a motion like that, I'd be supportive. 18
Okay. That's all for now. Thank you. Oh, the same, whether it's useful or not to have all this 19
retail preserved, goes for that part you were talking about from Fernando to Los Robles 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 some of those are – we've seen them sit vacant for awhile. It's just hard to take a 1
gamble, even for the low rent, so we have to think about that pretty intentionally. It might be 2
better to get – we might – I don't know if we'd get more chances of new development if we 3
didn't have that zone there. So I'm not sure I would add it back in at this point but I do p-, 4
support expanding the triangle. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. Oops. Sorry. I believe that's Commissioner Peterson. [Inaudible 7
1:26:32]. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Sorry, Ms. Armer. More questions for you. So I guess I have a question about – 10
I wanted to piggyback on what Commissioner Templeton mentioned about this kind of escape 11
valve idea. So is a business able to switch to some other – not – even if it was developed as a 12
retail or retail-like, decide at some point to no longer provide a retail or retail-like setup? So for 13
example, you had a Taekwondo service that is really just a big, empty room and then at some 14
point you just decide to put desks in it and turn it into an office. Is that allowed? 15
16
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: No, it would not be allowed because the new business would 17
be required to come to the City for use and occupancy. That would be considered a use that's 18
not allowed because res-, retail preservation would require that be maintained as a retail or 19
retail-like use. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Okay. Thank you. And then one other thing that is more of a general 2
comment, which is I'm also hoping that because we plan on adding a lot of housing in this area 3
that hopefully if we make it walkable enough to local businesses that we will get more traffic to 4
some of these areas that have been more perennially closed. So that's a general comment. 5
Thank you. Oh. I mean, while this silence, I'm just gonna make one other comment, which is in 6
our previous El Camino Focus Area, we – a discussion we have talked about providing incentives 7
for larger sites. This goes back to a comment Commissioner Hechtman provided a long time ago 8
about worrying that some of those sites might be too small, so that's maybe something we 9
could also consider, in that some of the sites that we think are too small to do retail 10
preservation, maybe there's some other alternative we can provide to encourage larger sites 11
here to make the retail more sustainable. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Commissioner Hechtman. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: So a couple questions for my fellow commissioners. I'll start with 16
Commissioner Ji. When we're looking at the Triangle Node, and you've pointed out that the 17
area to the southeast, that long, narrow triangle, makes sense that it be included, either as part 18
of the Interim Node or folded into the Triangle Node. And that makes sense to me. I was 19
curious about the little triangle on the other end of El Camino Way, which looks like it's a mixed 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
use. Council wanted that looked at also. I'm looking for your guidance on whether that should 1
also be folded in. I mean, logically it doesn't make sense to me that that would be a standalone 2
housing site, so I'm thinking it should be included but I was wanting your guidance on that. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yes. My personal opinion would be to include this. Also, just to provide 5
additional commentary on this region for folks who may not go by it very often, I believe that 6
this piece that we're discussing, the Subway portion, the one on the southeast, actually does 7
have housing or some housing-like... 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Mm-hm. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: ...activity above it. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: And so I think it is conducive – I think it's been demonstrated that the housing 16
there can be fulfilled with people and also that the businesses below – I could – I literally see 17
people go down those stairs to attend to these businesses so I think that my general idea of the 18
Triangle Node, I guess we haven't even included this last little sliver on the southeast side, 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.
which I guess – what – I don't exactly know – can't recall off the top of my head what it is. It 1
claims to be an art studio 2
3
Male: [Inaudible 1:30:28]. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: ...but I don't think... 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: It... 8
9
Commissioner Ji: ...that's what it is, right? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: That's what it... 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Is it? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: It is. My... 16
17
Commissioner Ji: It's – okay. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: ...friend knows it. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Perfect. [Inaudible 1:30:34]. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 1:30:34]. Was that formerly a bar, right on that corner, at 4
– once upon a time? Okay. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. [Inaudible 1:30:42]. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: That's what I remember [vaguely 1:30:42]. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Right. So I feel like that whole island should have one treatment... 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Yes. I agree. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: ...from one end to the other. Okay. All right. My next question is for 17
the Chair. I am supportive of eliminating the California Node for the reasons you expressed and 18
reducing the Focus Area Node to keep the Palo Alto Square but perhaps not the rest, the 19
majority of which is already a housing opportunity site anyway, a big, long site. But I was gonna 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
ask you to repeat your rationale regarding the N.V. CAP area because I just missed it and I think 1
you were suggesting that it doesn't need to be there because through the N.V. CAP, there are 2
other regulations that will get us where we want to go as a City. 3
4
Chair Akin: That's precisely it. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. [Inaudible 1:31:42]. 7
8
Chair Akin: We've already analyzed that well and maybe we shouldn't second-guess that 9
process. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Then I'm supportive of that also. Thanks. 12
13
Chair Akin: All right. I see no other lights. Any other thoughts? I can... 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:32:16]. 16
17
Chair Akin: Perhaps we'll segue to the process question. So we could attempt to work our way 18
north to south through the area here and see where we can find agreement or we could try and 19
create an ad hoc to do the detail work and then report back to us. Given the reasonable 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consensus I think I see developing here – there are a few areas where we still have difficulties 1
to work out but for the most part, we're in agreement, I would say. So we could probably make 2
a go of this tonight if everyone is willing to do so. Ms. Armer, this is the area where, as we 3
discussed in pre-meeting, it sure would be nice to write down and have that visible as we go 4
along. 5
6
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Understood. Thank you. And through the Chair, I was also 7
going to provide an option to make sure there is a common understanding that you could make 8
a motion that staff return with a revised map showing what the consensus is or where there 9
might be areas of disagreement. If the PTC is willing to go through and – based on the 10
comments they've made so far, and do a little bit of confirmation right here, I think that would 11
be helpful, though I have been working to take careful notes based on the discussion. And so I 12
would recommend from a staff perspective that that probably is the best way, even better than 13
having the motion written out in front of you, to come back with a revised map. 14
15
Chair Akin: And before I respond to that, I want to see what Commissioner Templeton has to 16
say. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: She said exactly what I was gonna say, so I think that's an excellent 19
approach because we don't need to necessarily invest in wordsmithing up here amongst the six 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of us when we have already discussed at length and you can reflect that back. And also, our 1
task here is to recommend to the Council and she has documented it. So I think if we can just 2
agree on the documentation that has happened, that will be good enough. We don't have to 3
specify 'cause they're gonna rehash it all themselves and we have provided significant rationale 4
per your process. 5
6
Chair Akin: Right. I'm a little reluctant to suggest that without making a pass through to see if 7
there are any other areas of disagreement we need to document. But I think I can concur with 8
the idea that we don't need to bring this to the level of a motion. We can assign the hard part 9
to staff as long as we capture everything that we need to provide guidance. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Chair, do you have thoughts on how to approach that? Should we 12
just go node by node and capture our bullets under that? 13
14
Chair Akin: That's what I had in mind but Commissioner Hechtman has a light on, so I would like 15
to hear his comments first. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: I was trying to figure out the process that you were envisioning, so 18
Commissioner Templeton has teed that up. 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 Akin: All right. Very well, then. So shall we begin at California Avenue? My sense is that – 1
let's see. I can try and summarize what I have in my notes and then see if that needs to be 2
corrected by my fellow commissioners. Is that a sufficiently accurate approach? All right. I 3
believe the consensus is that the California Node is not needed, provided we are comfortable 4
that we have adequate retail protection for the one site in that node that is not an opportunity 5
site. I see no objections. All right. Let's move to [inaudible 1:37:14]. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: If I could ask a question about that. I suspect that that corner site 8
that's not an opportunity site may have some sort of commercial zoning on it. If staff confirms 9
that it does, is that sufficient protection or are we looking either to keep that as a little island 10
that the retail node applies to. I'm... 11
12
Chair Akin: That's a good question. It used to be the – a credit union there, wasn't it? Was that 13
the most recent tenant? So that would be a retail-like use. I don't recall the zoning off the top 14
of my head. 15
16
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I believe it is commercial but I am looking that up as we 17
speak. And while I'm looking that up, next on your discussion, we'll include the Palo Alto Square 18
and I did wanna point out that that property is a Planned Community Zone and so keeping retail 19
preservation on that site may not be very useful, just as you do move on to that discussion. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Very good point. So that does change what I'll propose for the Focus Area Node. 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And I can provide clarification for the property on the corner 4
of California Avenue and El Camino Real. That is not a housing opportunity site. That is within 5
the CC-2 zone, so that is a commercial zone with... 6
7
Chair Akin: Is it in any of the combining districts? 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yes. It's CC-2 with [R and P 1:39:26]. 10
11
Chair Akin: Okay. So it seems that it already has adequate protection as is. All right. So that 12
simplifies the recommendation, then. The California Node can be removed in its entirety. All 13
right. I will proceed to the Focus Area Node, since that was mentioned most recently. It appears 14
to me now that perhaps the only thing the Focus Area Node protects is the Driftwood Deli and I 15
don't know whether there are other constraints that protect Driftwood but I see nowhere else 16
in that node in which RPO could be applied. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Could we please update the map so we can see the Driftwood? 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 Akin: Yep. Pardon me. I – my attention is too divided. So I'm not sure of the order but I 1
believe it's Commissioner Ji and then Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:40:46]. 4
5
Chair Akin: Oh. The only thing that – in the Focus Area Node that's eligible for protection that's 6
retail appears to be the Driftwood Deli, to me. Everything else is exempt, either because it's a 7
PC or a Housing Element site or there's no retail there already. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: That's okay with me. 10
11
Chair Akin: So I know Driftwood has a very passionate user base, so of the proposals for that 12
site, I know at least some of them have the deli preserved but I'm not aware if all of them do. In 13
particular, does the builder's remedy proposal for that site include the deli? 14
15
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I don't know. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: If – a point of clarification, Chair. If we do pass this, will it apply to 18
any projects that are on that si-, or proposed for that site? 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.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I will defer that question to our city attorney... 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...online 'cause I know there are some things – so, for 5
example, if it were builder's remedy, they would not have to comply with any of our zoning 6
rules. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Is – okay. All right. 9
10
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: That's right. I don't have much to add to that. It would 11
apply to a code-compliant project on the site. It would not to a builder's remedy project. 12
13
Chair Akin: And is the current proposal that's not builder's remedy code compliant or is it a PC? 14
Anybody know? 15
16
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: For the Creekside property? 17
18
Chair Akin: That's correct. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: We only have a builder's remedy application but one of the 1
goals of the El Camino Focus Area revisions that was recently [inaudible 1:43:08] PCT was to 2
entice the owner to consider a code-compliant project. 3
4
Chair Akin: Hm. Well, if we were to create a new node to include some of the area between 5
Fernando and Los Robles, we could include Driftwood. So let's set that aside for the moment 6
and perhaps we can consider that in a minute. But I did want to get to Commissioner Ji and 7
Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: That was a ghost light. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: I had a quest-, I just wanted to clarify, Chair, what is the exact interaction 12
between something being zoned as commercial and being preserved in a certain way? If – I 13
could also direct to s-, I guess staff, do you mind answering that? 14
15
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So it's kind of layers of regulation, so the commercial zoning 16
will list what the allowed uses are, whereas the retail preservation says if there is an existing 17
amount of retail or retail-like use, that amount needs to be retained. And so if there weren't 18
any retail but you were on a commercial zone, then you would look at the allowed uses on that 19
site, which generally requires commercial of some sort, depending on the zone, potentially in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
combination with housing as a mixed-use project. But it doesn't necessarily specify a minimum 1
amount of retail as opposed to other commercial uses that might be allowed in that zone. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: So for e-, oh. 4
5
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: I would also just add that if you have existing retail but it's 6
now nonconforming and not permitted in the existing zone district, then the Retail Ordinance 7
does not apply to that. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. That's all. 10
11
Chair Akin: Very well, then. Let's tackle what I expect to be the most difficult area, then, the 12
Fernando to Los Robles, Barron Park, and Ventura areas. So I think – well, that's – sorry. I was 13
about to voice a personal opinion rather than trying to recap the discussion. I believe we have 14
essentially two interpretations here. One is that from essentially Fernando, I guess it could be – 15
we could now be discussing – huh. Don't have the street name on the map. What is the street 16
immediately to the logical north of Creekside? That's not a street. Okay. So Proposal Number 1 17
is essentially to create a node which runs essentially from Creekside down to Los Robles on 18
both sides of El Camino, relying on the high density of opportunity sites in there to take care of 19
the potential difficulty in parking load that Commissioner Hechtman analyzed. The other is 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.
explicitly carve out sections which are subject to the concerns that Commissioner Hechtman 1
had. Were there any other proposals for this area or does everything we discussed boil down to 2
those two? 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Are you speaking of both sides of the street or one side of 5
the street at this time? 6
7
Chair Akin: Both. Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Do we think that retail preservation would apply to gas stations? 10
'Cause I don't feel the need to make sure that gas station stays there for perpetuity. 11
12
Chair Akin: Well, it wouldn't be a gas station necessarily but it would be retail, I presume. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Correct, though generally it's a relatively small amount of floor area 15
of retail, so not a whole lot of preservation. 16
17
Chair Akin: Right, although comparable to the other sites that we have in that area. I'm gonna 18
be a contrarian and suggest that gas stations either may stick around for longer than we expect 19
or they may turn into charging stations. I'm not sure. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Well, my point is not to predict that part of the future but just to 2
think about what do we want. Personally, if – by the way, I have lived in Ventura and in Barron 3
Park and so I'm very familiar with this corridor and use a lot of these and I just am not sure 4
what we think the value of maintaining that kind of service long term right in the middle of the 5
neighborhood is compared to other things it could be and just wondering what flexibility we 6
have here or don't have, right, so that we understand what we're requiring so it doesn't come 7
back and bite us in the future. So that's why I asked. And then I'm thinking about also looking at 8
some of these – we've skipped – the things we've skipped are mainly restaurants and gas 9
stations, right? 10
11
Chair Akin: I was struck by the number of veterinary services that are in this area. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Bro, it's growing. 14
15
Chair Akin: And... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: It's growing. 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: ...they're new. Yeah. They're – so something is going on here. These – my guess is 1
that these are services that have margins that are high enough to deal with slightly higher lease 2
rates. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I think there's also... 5
6
Chair Akin: But... 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...some capitalism at work. Folks are seeing the opportunity to 9
provide options. If you've used any of these services, you – yeah. That's what I'm hearing. 10
11
Chair Akin: Yeah. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Anyway, so if we're also – everything's hashtagged on the Barron 14
Park side except for a couple of restaurants, so what we're saying essentially if we create this 15
part you're suggesting, is if anything is redeveloped, make sure we keep restaurant space there. 16
Is that right? Is that essentially... 17
18
Chair Akin: Doesn't have to be restaurants. Just anything that's retail or retail-like. 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: Hm. 1
2
Chair Akin: Actually, the thing that caught my eye and that's [inaudible 1:51:47] market. So 3
Ernie's may not survive in its current form but something could go there. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I mean, these services are all used, so I – if you're suggesting to try 6
and keep them, even if there is redevelopment, I'm interested in that and the only thing that's 7
happening in my mind here is I'm looking to see if somebody wants to buy up a whole bunch of 8
stuff and try and consolidate and build one larger thing there, do we still get to keep our little 9
grocer and our little restaurant? It sounds like it could be anything, so it sounds like that's sort 10
of out of scope for us to decide at this point. 11
12
Chair Akin: That's my understanding. Commissioner... 13
14
Commissioner Ji: As a fo-, oh. Sorry. [Inaudible 1:52:39]. 15
16
Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson's been waiting, so... 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Sorry. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. So I think that's a perfect discussion. We're back to where I 1
started off with my comment about there's a gas station there in the bottom righthand corner. 2
That RM-15 block, that's Yerba Buena and everything to the right from there, that's Los Robles. 3
Correct? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: No. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Where's Los Robles... 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: That's... 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: ...then? 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: ...Matadero. Los Robles is further down. 14
15
Chair Akin: It's... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: All [inaudible 1:53:11]. 18
19
Chair Akin: ...just visible on... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 2
3
Chair Akin: ...the right. 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: All the way to the right. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: That's the one I was talking about. Yep. And then that's – Yerba Buena 8
is right there on... 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Buena Vista. 11
12
Commissioner Peterson: Buena Vista is right there along Ro-, Los Robles and there's a gas 13
station there which is marked as a housing opportunity site. So I would propose for the 14
discussion that, since we all do like Happy Donut – that is a wonderful, wonderful gem of a 15
place that I think should remain and be protected forever – is if you cut the node off there and 16
say everything to the right of Happy Donut is opport-, is – even narrow the, what's it called? 17
The Interim Node through that section and leave that for housing on both sides of the street 18
and then pop it back out into the Interim Node to the right of the Montague Apartments. 19
'Cause I'm not really sure why the Montague Apartments is in the Interim 'cause I'm pretty sure 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that doesn't look like anything that's gonna be developed into commercial at any point in the 1
future. 2
3
Chair Akin: Yeah. I don't... 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:54:18]. 6
7
Chair Akin: ...know whether we proposed extending the – one of these hypothetical zones past 8
the Monta-, with the Montague – Montage. Excuse me. But perhaps we'll get to that point. So 9
could you... 10
11
Male: [Able 1:54:38] to draw on there. 12
13
Chair Akin: Could you – Commissioner Peterson, could... 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 16
17
Chair Akin: ...you describe once again what... 18
19
Commissioner Peterson: [Yeah 1:54:43]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: ...you have in mind? 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: So if we take the RM-15 block there, right where the cursor is now. 4
Right. So that's the last remaining – that's the Buena Vista... 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Uh-huh. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: ...Mobile Home Park, which is slated in various degrees of funding to 9
be redeveloped into an affordable housing location. And if you expand that out to El Camino 10
into a larger housing block by narrowing that Interim – that blue line out to the street, now 11
you've created a substantially large zone for affordable housing, which the Montague 12
Apartments – that whole intersection there becomes incredibly retai-, residential. And then if 13
you go from Happy Donut, which Happy Donut is about where that green circle is – where is 14
Happy Donut? We should identify this. It's – I know it's next... 15
16
Chair Akin: I believe... 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: ...to Papa... 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 Akin: ...it's... 1
2
Commissioner Peterson: ...John's, so I... 3
4
Chair Akin: I believe... 5
6
Commissioner Peterson: ...know... 7
8
Chair Akin: ...it's... 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: ...it's right in there. 11
12
Chair Akin: ...in between Papa John's and the s-, and Siam. 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. So you definitely wanna preserve Happy Donuts, so you're talking 15
about increasing the – drawing a node all the way down to Green Node? 16
17
Chair Akin: Well, things have gotten vastly more complicated than originally described but yeah. 18
So the general idea is if we were to start a fo-, a retail preservation node... 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: Mm-hm. 1
2
Chair Akin: ...approximately to Creekside and then move it to the right on this diagram... 3
4
Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 5
6
Chair Akin: ...how far would it go? 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: Happy Donuts. That'd be my – that's my comment. And I'll stop there. 9
And then I would say that the – Buena Vista is expanded out to the street as a – narrowing up 10
the Interim boundary 'cause there's no need to protect residential right there. You already.. 11
12
Chair Akin: Yeah. I assume.. 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: ...have... 15
16
Chair Akin: ...we'll... 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: ...residential. 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 Akin: I was assuming we were replacing the Interim Node altogether with these new... 1
2
Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 3
4
Chair Akin: ...Green Nodes. So that would just disappear if we were to end the new node where 5
you suggest. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 8
9
Chair Akin: I've got a light from Commissioner Ji. Can I get back to you? 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: I just wanted to clarify. Why do you wanna stop there and not go 12
down to Lose Robles? 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: To open that up to – for sole residential without [retail 1:57:16]. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: That is a retail area I use frequently and I would push back on that, 17
so that might be a slight area of discussion opportunity. Thank you. 18
19
Commissioner Peterson: Baja Fresh? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. And there's a ZombieRunner. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: I go to that ZombieRunner often. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:57:33]. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: I was about to go to – I think it's – I think Commissioner Templeton and I live 8
in this area, so I think you're getting to see a snippet of our daily life and where we're going. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: I'm just around the corner. I walk a lot, so I know this area well too. 11
12
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So I don't have any dramatically different comments from what's been 15
stated but my personal preference is to end at Los Robles and I think that I'm not as worried 16
about the restaurants being replaced by another restaurant. I am excited about just having 17
some kind of retail or retail-like preservation here. And I'm generally supportive of the idea of 18
just draw – for the ease of making a motion, just drawing the whole area as the node and then 19
whichever Housing Element sites, they just supersede whatever we've decided. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Sorry. I'm trying to look at Commissioner Hechtman's comments to see how they 2
interact with this. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Let me just clear it up a little bit and then, Commissioner Hechtman, you can 5
comment on whether – how accurate my drawing is. I have this and then this. Is that accurate 6
for your two areas? 7
8
Chair Akin: Those are the... 9
10
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 11
12
Chair Akin: ...areas... 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 15
16
Chair Akin: ...of which parking is an issue? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Parking and adjacency to R-1, which will limit height in those two 19
areas. Yeah. Call them Exclusion 1 and Exclusion 2 that I described earlier in the meeting. 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.
right. And so the discussion now is, at least on southerly side, is to not only retain what I'm 1
calling Exclusion 2 but extend it to Creekside to the north and I heard Los Robles to the south. 2
3
Chair Akin: Yeah. That's one of the two interpretations. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: One other thing that... 6
7
Chair Akin: Yeah. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: ...we had heard some support for. I guess a couple of comments I 10
have is eyeballing that area, 65, 70 percent of it are housing opportunity sites on that side of 11
the street, so we're really only talking about the other 30, 35 percent. But one of the things that 12
does concern me – and I do appreciate the neighborhood-serving places, the places that you 13
can walk to and the concept that we'd retain those but I think what we need to remember is 14
that the owners of those businesses rely today not only on that local clientele but to some 15
extent, they're relying on the drive-through people that are passing by and they pull over with 16
their dry cleaner or to grab a donut. Well, but they have a parking lot, so that's kind of a bad 17
example. But one of the things that concerns me is as we deprive some of these smaller places 18
of their street-side parking so that the best practical way is just the walking, we're removing a 19
segment of their customers and will they survive? And if they can't survive, are we sort of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
condemning these locations to just be blighted because our RPO applies so they can't just tear 1
it down and build housing. Now maybe we have to do this in steps and sort of save the ones we 2
want to try to save now and be receptive if the owners along that street two to three years 3
from now come to us and say, "This is what's happened. Now that the customers can't park on 4
El Camino, we need relief." And we could do it at that point and so maybe that's a more 5
graduated approach than I was thinking, which is I believe in the long run this won't work, so 6
let's not try it. 7
8
Chair Akin: Yeah. That's a fair observation. A couple things occur to me. One is that we've 9
already discussed the map amendment method of updating, so it seems like we have a 10
mechanism we can use. The other is that as I look at some of these places on the south side, 11
they do have off-street parking, a number of them, so there is parking Eden Spa to Papa John's. 12
There is parking at Happy Donuts. And I think there's parking at Siam. There's parking at State 13
of Mind. I can't remember about Celia's. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Celia's does have... 16
17
Chair Akin: Yeah. 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: ...parking. But I'll remind you that the future we're conceiving is one 1
where we are trying to encourage housing to be built on these properties in conjunction with a 2
retention of retail. So we're looking at a scraping of the site and building something new and so 3
today's parking isn't necessarily available in that future vision. 4
5
Chair Akin: Right. It's simply something that we have to use in the interim. That's all we have. 6
We don't have to wait for a large amount of new housing to be developed for foot traffic to 7
support the – to solely support some of these businesses. Yes, if they're redeveloped, all bets 8
are off. All right. So I'm not sure I hear a consensus here unless we adopt Commissioner 9
Hechtman's formulation that we do something tentatively with the understanding that it may 10
need to be changed in the near future. If we adopt that formulation, then we say there is a 11
zone running from Creekside Inn to Los Robles, with the understanding that we may need to 12
adjust that if something happens at Buena Vista. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I like that approach. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: So what does tentative actually mean, concretely? 17
18
Chair Akin: Pardon me? In – for which [inaudible 2:05:07]? 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: So I guess would that mean today we make a motion saying that this is the 1
node and we just in our motion leave a caveat that says we may want to amend it or do we just 2
say – do we push this discussion to a later date? I'm trying to understand what that means. 3
4
Chair Akin: Oh. 5
6
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair, my understanding i-, from what I heard, 7
was that we're going through to give more precise direction to staff to prepare a revised map 8
but that that would then be returning to PTC for an actual vote on a recommendation to 9
Council and so there would be an opportunity to discuss further at that point if needed and 10
further refine. But my understanding from what I had heard in terms of this being a temporary 11
node, I think it was a, "Let's try it and see what happens." 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Can I add some clarification here? I think it'll help, Chair. 14
15
Chair Akin: Yes, although I suspect you're going to say the same thing I was about to say. Please 16
go. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Well, aren't you kind to let me. So I think that because we have 19
clarified that the barrier to change is not very high, that's what temporary means in this case, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
so it will be the – if the Council passes it, it'll be the law of the land until it changes. But then the 1
important part here so that we can launch an iterate is that we can put an idea down that can 2
be the rules that we're operating with and should a developer come and say, "This is a problem. 3
We can't build housing because of that," then they at least have a known path to get a remedy 4
that is not gonna be too burdensome. 5
6
Chair Akin: Yes. In fact, that's precisely what I was going to say, so for the win. All right. So the 7
direction we're giving on tentatively is the – tentatively, using the word in the sense that 8
Commissioner Templeton has elaborated – is from Creekside to Los Robles on the south side. 9
Now on the north... 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: And to clarify, it does not include Creekside Inn? It's – or is it 12
including Creekside Inn? 13
14
Chair Akin: I think the intent is that it does. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 17
18
Chair Akin: ...because... 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: Thank you. 1
2
Chair Akin: ...our goal there is to hopefully convince them to do a compliant application and in 3
that case we would hope that Driftwood would be preserved. All right. So moving to the north 4
side, so the – I think the two options here are essentially from – a zone from Fernando to Los 5
Robles or a zone from... 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: On the north... 8
9
Chair Akin: ...approximately... 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: ...side of El Camino Way. 12
13
Chair Akin: Pardon me? I'm sorry? 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: On the north side, it's El Camino Way. Los Robles does not continue 16
across El Camino. 17
18
Chair Akin: Oh. I haven't gotten there yet. We're still on the – were you assuming that we were 19
talking about both sides of El Camino from Creekside to Los Robles? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 thought you had switched to the north side. 2
3
Chair Akin: I was just switching to the north side. So we could be – yeah. So we could consider 4
from Fernando to El Camino Way then. Now I understand the concern. Thank you. Or from 5
approximately Curtner to El Camino Way. So are those the two options at hand? Silence implies 6
consent. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Wait, sorry. I think for the Option 2 you said Curtner to El Camino Way. I'm 9
just trying to make sure I have the diagram correct. 10
11
Chair Akin: That was a guess. Yes, we could go from Wilton. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: I – it – based on what I have from Commission-, drawn here, looks like 14
Commissioner Hechtman is referring to Wilton to El Camino Way but I'll defer to him. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So actually, in this run from Fernando to El Camino Way, I had 17
suggested earlier two eliminations. One is shown here in pink and the other is really on the next 18
page, which it runs from Jacob Court, which is shown here, over to Goodwill. My exclusion does 19
not include the little tip. Again, these are shown on the next slide, but it sounds like there'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.
some discussion here of keeping as a node everything from Fernando all the way to El Camino 1
Way, which would include, for example, the Palo Alto Commons. 2
3
Chair Akin: That was not my intent. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 6
7
Chair Akin: It was to stop at Keys School. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 10
11
Chair Akin: ...essentially. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: There's two El... 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: ...Camino... 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: 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 Ji: ...Ways, so there – it's a little bit [inaudible 2:10:48]. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: We'll call it the North El Camino... 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: ...Way. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So... 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: And we can come back to the triangle next. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Good. Okay. All right. So my suggestion was to exclude the portion of 16
this that is from San Fernando through roughly Wilton Court and I really didn't have an 17
objection to keeping as a node everything from Wilton Court over through Keys School. 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: Okay. So just observing the segment from Fernando to Wilton, here it's mostly 1
opportunity sites again and the Shell Station, so there's not much that isn't already exempt. I 2
don't have a strong feeling about this. If there is sufficient gain to be had from eliminating that 3
section, then I have no objection. How does everyone else feel? Commissioner Templeton. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I'm not sure that – I feel strongly that this may not 6
be necessary on this whole section. I'm not sure why we're splitting it at Wilton Court. I think 7
the Barron Park side of the street has a few sites that would be beneficial if we were to retain. 8
Exactly as the Chair said, there's so few sites on the other side that are what we mean by retail 9
that I'm not sure what we would gain from it. We – for most of those, we do want to see 10
redevelopment happening and they do have the restriction that Commissioner Hechtman 11
brought up in height, due to the adjacencies of residential, so if we were to require retail and 12
require it to be low, we might not see the projects happen, if that makes sense. So if you feel 13
strongly that we should do the Retail Ordinance at all on that side, I would love to hear your 14
thoughts about how you would mitigate that. Thank you. 15
16
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I think that – I don't have a particularly strong opinion but 19
my opinion is that we should keep from Fernando to North El Camino Way, just because I think 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
if you think about it as a node, you want to keep it as – I feel like it makes sense to be 1
symmetrical. In addition, there are many of those pedestrian crossings that you can take across 2
El Camino right now and so maybe we don't want to necessarily maintain this specific business, 3
say the Shell, which I guess I feel like we keep talking about. But it could be redeveloped into 4
another retail-like that we would want to keep there. And again, as previously mentioned, I feel 5
like I'm open to the idea that if a developer says, "Hey," because we put the retail node all the 6
way up to Margarita or something – or I guess that's a bad example 'cause there's nothing next 7
to it but the site right on the south side of Fernando they [wouldn't 2:14:26] develop that site, 8
we can come back and do this cha-, exercise again. So I'm op-, I'm – my preference is to mark 9
larger sections of it as retail preservation and if we get pushback, we can then make decisions 10
and changes. 11
12
Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson. 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: As you were talking about that, I just realized, this retail section 15
struggles. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: [Yeah 2:14:56]. 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: I think it just kind of is obvious just looking at that area. And I know 1
we're talking about preserving it but also, I just realized we can't will them to have good 2
business in that area. 3
4
Chair Akin: Commissioner – oh. Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: And I will also just relay that I've heard a significant amount of 7
customer feedback that the retail in these areas are – some of them are struggling to be 8
legitimate businesses and if we're going to require that to be there, we may require blight and 9
crime in a way if – what I'm trying to say is we have to think about planning it thoughtfully and 10
not just because it's the way it is now because sometimes some of the way it is now is a 11
struggle. And I'm not saying anything that's listed on here is included in those concerning 12
businesses but that is something I've heard from the community members frequently for years. 13
So I would suggest that we be very intentional and it not be a reflection only of what's there 14
now but as a planning exercise of how do we make sure that services are where they need to 15
be, where they can thrive. So I'm a little skeptical because given that how many of these are 16
housing opportunity sites, it's gonna appear to be spot zoning in essence if we pass it on the 17
north side. There's just very few businesses that we'd be retaining by passing that. Now to say 18
yes, we could change it, that's absolutely true. It is – my preference is it's not a very compelling 19
case for – I'm sorry. Not the north side. The east side. 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 Akin: Commissioner Ji. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Actually, Commissioner Templeton, I agree with you 4
about this being a planning exercise in that if we were to potentially redevelop it and retain the 5
retail, I think it would be extremely beneficial for people to be able to go right downstairs and 6
do some kind of retail. I don't think that – actually, interestingly enough, just like you, I don't 7
necessarily say we want to keep what's there because of the things that you've mentioned 8
previously. I think I'm just more excited about the fact that if we were to redevelop something 9
there that it become a flourishing business, such as, for example, right acro-, it's not like the 10
location is potentially the problem, right? Driftwood is right there. And it's not necessarily 11
about – it – since we know that Driftwood Deli has a very large fan base, I totally could imagine 12
that they just pop across the street using one of those crosswalks to do some kind of retail or 13
retail-like activity across the street. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: You know what retail's right across the street, right, from the 16
Driftwood? I used the live on that street. It's the Smokes & Vapes, right? We have to think 17
about what are we retaining. And that's a business and it has a right to exist but we have to 18
think about planning where it needs to be. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I guess I'm not necessarily saying we have to replace the Smokes & 1
Vapes for Smokes & Vapes. I'm just saying that the Retail Preservation Ordinance allows us to 2
potentially have another deli across the street, if that's what the redevelopment encourages. 3
Again, right, I'm not saying it's exactly a carbon copy of what's there when it potentially gets 4
redeveloped. 5
6
Chair Akin: All right. I may have to exercise a little more guidance as chair, since I'm not sure 7
we're converging here. Let me hear a comment from Commissioner Hechtman and then I'll 8
think on next steps. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. I feel like we can talk about this a little bit longer, so maybe this 11
is an appropriate time for a break, if the audience will indulge us. So let me just start with that. 12
13
Chair Akin: Very well. It is 8:20. Let's take a – how much time do we need? Ten minutes? All 14
right. Resume at 8:30. Welcome back, everyone. Let us resume. So Commissioner Hechtman. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So the other observation I wanna make is that we should 17
be careful to not equate not having these properties in a node equaling no retail will occur 18
there. We have some built-in protections. I'll suggest that staff consider when they come back 19
to us with the mapping, it would be great to see the underlying zoning along El Camino, 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.
properties we're talking about 'cause I suspect many of them, if not most of them, are 1
commercially zoned and so now under a lot of our rules, that'll allow mixed use and perhaps 2
there are situations which would allow pure residential. I'm not sure that there are outside of 3
the Housing Opportunity zones but my point is that not designating this as having the RPO 4
apply, we may still get retail. But if we do designate it as RPO applies, we may not get housing 5
because that property is stuck with retail when the market really won't support it as new 6
construction above some form of retail. 7
8
Chair Akin: All right. So a suggestion was made to proceed by making an optional – by making 9
the recommendation optional, one of two choices. So I think in the interest of making progress, 10
perhaps that's what we should do at this segment. And this is, I suspect, the most difficult 11
segment. We'll be able to make more progress more rapidly. So the two options here are for 12
the east/north side of El Camino to have a zone from Wilton Avenue to North El Camino Way or 13
a zone from Fernando Avenue to North El Camino Way. So I believe those are the two that we 14
are likely to entertain next time around. Is that correct? No objections? 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: No objections. 17
18
Chair Akin: All right. Let us proceed, then, to the next sheet. All right. Now what I heard here 19
was that the Triangle Node should be extended to – oh, I get to use an interesting word – 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.
both apices on the left and the right of the triangle proper. I don't see in my notes whether we 1
made any changes on the other side of El Camino Way. Commissioner Ji. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: I don't believe we've discussed it so far but I would like to hear from the 4
Commission maybe if we'd be interested in adding The Hamlet Retail and Medical Offices. I'm 5
just curious what people are thinking about that. 6
7
Chair Akin: Ji, I thought really explicitly we shouldn't because that's mostly new construction, so 8
I didn't wanna lock things in there. But I can certainly listen to reason if there's a good 9
argument against that. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Let me draw it from the diagram as well. Oh, wait. Let me clear the old 12
drawings. There's a lot of drawing occurring right now. Okay. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: While you're looking that up, may I clarify what I see on the map, 15
Chair? 16
17
Chair Akin: Yes, Commissioner Templeton. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: On the northern part of that triangle, it looks like nothing. It's just 1
land. So perhaps maybe that's – there might be more than one property included in that orange 2
segment. I'm not sure why but if it is just one segment, then the tip of the triangle is just land 3
with some vegetation, according to Google satellite images. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: I guess I'll comment from personal experience that my recollection of that 6
spot is the bus station and land but yeah. I think it's j-, there's – I don't believe there's any 7
buildings there right now. 8
9
Chair Akin: If there are no current retail uses, then there is no difference between including it or 10
not. I guess it's just a question of if there could be some lot consolidation in the future, would it 11
be preferable to have a single, contiguous zone or one that's cut off at one end? 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: If I may, though the Chair, are we talking about the darker 14
orange triangle? 15
16
Chair Akin: That's correct. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So I believe that is a mixed-use project. The very tip of the 1
triangle is a kind of open space but the building that is closest to that is a mixed-use building 2
that d-, that has maybe vision care for animals or something... 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Isn't that... 5
6
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...is what I'm... 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...wr-... 9
10
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...seeing on... 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Isn't that written there? Don't you have the animal... 13
14
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So... 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: ...hospital... 17
18
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: So the animal hospital is the next building down. 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: Oh. There's another. Okay. 1
2
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: If you look at the aerial view in relation to where the 3
Goodwill property ends, you can see that there is a structure on the end – the triangle and in 4
that orange [spot 2:37:29]. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So then it would be worth including if there is already 7
something there. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: My other comment I was just gonna say is that my personal preference is to 10
have the whole island portion be one zone, just for ease. 11
12
Chair Akin: Yes. That's my thinking as well. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Let's do it. 15
16
Chair Akin: All right. Now the question remains of the other side of El Camino Way. So we have 17
– we do have a couple of sites there that are not opportunity sites. I'm trying to remember 18
what's in the green one. I'm gonna have to look that up. Commissioner Ji, do you remember off 19
the top of your head what's in those areas? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 actually believe that the one that is currently – here, let me – sorry. It's hard 2
to talk and circle. This one right here is a field. It is an empty field that gets bulldozed every now 3
an th-, like it just – the dirt gets pounded by some machines... 4
5
Chair Akin: [Inaudible 2:38:36]. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: ...like once or twice a year. 8
9
Chair Akin: I was ambiguous. I meant the other side of El Camino Way. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Oh. 12
13
Chair Akin: Not of El Camino. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Apologies. Okay. Let me try to circ-, okay. So let me circle it and then you tell 16
me if I'm refere-, this one? 17
18
Chair Akin: That one you're pointing to now. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Oh. 1
2
Chair Akin: No. Yes. There. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yes. That right now is a building that I have never entered but I believe it looks 5
– it's probably some kind of office or medical office. There's a garage on the basement/first 6
floor but I don't actually know. Well, it's marked office but yeah. I've never been in there and 7
I'm pretty sure it's just an office building, to my knowledge. 8
9
Chair Akin: So Ms. Armer, do we know if there's any retail in that site or the one a couple of 10
sites to the left, the larger... 11
12
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. Looking at the Google street view, it does not appear 13
to have any retail on that corner site. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Ms. Armer, since we're looking... 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Mm-hm. 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: ...I'm going to draw another – sorry. I'm gonna – right here, if you kind of see 1
where I'm drawing... 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. The sliver. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: ...there's a little sliver that's between two Housing Element sites. Do we have 6
any commentary on that? 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I do not have any information about that. As we're looking at 9
some of these sites and as I said, I'm using Google street view to kind of supplement this 10
discussion here, after the office use that's a green dotted parcel, it looks like we do have a sushi 11
restaurant and maybe a tutoring... 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. There's... 14
15
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...center... 16
17
Commissioner Ji: ...an... 18
19
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...of 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 Ji: ...art studio... 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Fine arts... 4
5
Commissioner Ji: ...I believe... 6
7
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...studio. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: ...there. Yeah. 10
11
Chair Akin: I re-, yeah. I remember that one. Anima Arts, as... 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 14
15
Chair Akin: ...I recall. 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And so it is not clear if there is just – there's a separate parcel 18
that's between those two buildings, appears to be what that strip is. But I do not know the 19
history there. It doesn't – it looks like that may be the space between those buildings. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Okay. Thank you. 2
3
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Mm-hm. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: My recollection is just that whole area to me feels pretty commercial and 6
retail-like. I guess I just don't have any specific commentary beyond that. 7
8
Chair Akin: Believe – I believe there's a school as well in one of those buildings. Commissioner 9
Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Commissioner Ji had asked for feedback on the Hamlet Retail 12
and Medical Office. Particularly since we are picking up the triangle wedge on the other side of 13
El Camino Way, I think that could be included in this node. And I'll note that only a portion of it 14
backs up to R-1 but because of the size and depth of that lot, I think there are some 15
opportunities to have some substantial development that feathers down toward the R-1 side, 16
so I'm supportive of that inclusion. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: I just have a ques-, quick question for Ms. Armer again about the definitioning 1
here, right? Does the medical office actually count as retail or retail-like? If so, again, this might 2
be a moot point. 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Not the medical office. The label that we have is the Hamlet 5
Retail and Medical Office but I don't know exactly what that includes. Also, as stated, if that – I 6
don't know the exact date of that redevelopment. If it's been in the last 10 years, then it 7
wouldn't have been existing in 2015. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: I believe it actually existed before 2015. This was my bike route to school, so 10
I'll say definitely it existed before I went to high school, so... 11
12
Chair Akin: And there is retail in there. I remember noticing it as I walked by, although it's 13
dominated by the medical offices. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: So then I would agree with Commissioner Hechtman that I think just the size 16
of the site makes it pretty exciting for potential redevelopment uses for something interesting. 17
18
Chair Akin: All right. So the – oh. 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: Well, we might've been about to say the same thing. It's your turn to 1
go first. It's all right. I'll wait. 2
3
Chair Akin: No. That's okay. I was just going to ask for a summary of which of these properties 4
on the northeast side of El Camino Way are being included. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I was also gonna summarize. So here's what I heard and maybe 7
Commissioner Ji can and Commissioner Hechtman can reflect on that. But the entirety of the 8
triangle and everything that's currently outlined in green and the Hamlet thing. Is that right? 9
10
Chair Akin: All right. Going once. Going twice. Then... 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Wait. I have a quick ques-, are we only discussing the north/east/top side? 13
14
Chair Akin: At the moment. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 17
18
Chair Akin: 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 Ji: Okay. Oops. Sorry. Then yes, I agree with Commissioner Templeton's summary 1
so far. 2
3
Chair Akin: Okay. Then that's the direction we'll pass along and you would like to move to the 4
other side of El Camino. Commissioner Ji, did you have a proposal there? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: I think again, me and Commissioner Templeton are probably gonna say 7
something similar about the Walgreens I think is probably where we're going. I'll draw – again 8
draw the Walgreens for reference. It's right here. I actually believe that on that side in this area, 9
that's actually probably the only thing that is even retail or retail-like. The PC that's at the 10
corner here, this one, that is – I don't – well, PCs are exempt. And then as I previously 11
mentioned, this plot of land here is an empty lot which I don't think has any retail or retail-like 12
activities. 13
14
Chair Akin: Legal ones, anyway. Yes. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:45:14]. 17
18
Chair Akin: So I presume that the easiest way to deal with this is to extend the Auto Dealerships 19
Node to include Walgreens, although we may need to change its name as a result of 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.
1
Commissioner Templeton: I will propose some names for you, once we do prepare a map, for 2
your consideration. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: I support what we have just discussed. 7
8
Chair Akin: All right. I think that's a good outcome in that location. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Oh. Why are we not including the tires store as a retail and the Jiffy 11
Lube? I guess the Jiffy Lube's a housing site, so we're not doing it but why not the tires? 12
13
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Sorry. Let me get on that drawing. No. I guess I wasn't sure. I also want a 16
second discussion about the tires and I guess maybe the dentist. It looks like that is colored the 17
same way. So I personally think that I'd like to include those. Again, from my previous 18
comments about this being a pretty major student corridor, I think having something 19
interesting there that students could go visit would be quite interesting to me. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: I'm a little concerned about that because that really does seem like spot zoning, 2
whereas we're making a contiguous zone on the other side of the street. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Well, just continuing the Volvo across Arastradero is contiguous. 5
6
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: It could be seen as a node that includes most – three of the 7
corners of that intersection, viewing that as a node. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: You could also consider from a naming perspective talking about 10
bike to school corridors. That could be the name of this zone. I don't know. Just a thought. 11
12
Chair Akin: So we would just include the Jiffy Lube even though it's an opportunity site. All right. 13
That seems like a – oops. Pardon me. Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Again, I guess it's a little bit of splitting hairs but I guess you hypothetically 16
could draw more of the zone – you could technically attach it to the Triangle Node zone as one 17
zone but the sites that are in between there can't – don't even have any retail or retail-like, so if 18
that's ease of drawing, et cetera, that's my comment 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.
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. Thank you. 1
2
Chair Akin: So any preferences given Commissioner Ji's comments? If not, we may leave it to 3
your discretion. All right. And do we wish to extend zones any farther in this direction? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Not from my perspective. 6
7
Chair Akin: Nor mine. Unless someone would like to argue for another zone in this area, then 8
perhaps that's the end of our suggestions. Commissioner Hechtman. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. So I don't have any additional areas to suggest but in looking 11
through the direction to staff that you've led, I didn't at least note your direction regarding the 12
N.V. CAP Node. Of the existing nodes, I got the remove the California Node and the Focus Area 13
Node but I'm not sure we covered the N.V. CAP and it seemed like there might be consensus 14
there, so we want to include that in the list. 15
16
Chair Akin: If we missed that, we definitely need to correct that error. And my sense of the N.V. 17
CAP Node was that we believe we have already provided sufficient guidance through the N.V. 18
CAP and we don't need to enforce an additional zone as part of this project. 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: Chair? 1
2
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: May I propose asking that as a question to staff to report back on? 5
Because I don't recall the specific nature of what we're doing tonight being part of the 6
discussion with N.V. CAP, so – we talked about a lot of things but I don't think we talked about, 7
"Let's keep this, this and this." So just – it'd be worth asking them to double check, if you feel 8
comfortable with that. 9
10
Chair Akin: We certainly can. Was there anything specific you wanted to ask? The underlying 11
zoning or additional... 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: The... 14
15
Chair Akin: ...retail... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: I want... 18
19
Chair Akin: ...protection? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: You stated an assumption and I want them to confirm that that 2
assumption is valid, that all the protections that we could have included tonight already exist 3
for that particular stretch. I believe that's what you were saying, right? 4
5
Chair Akin: It's a little stronger than what I was saying. I was saying that a separate planning 6
effort had already instituted whatever protections it wanted for that area and therefore we 7
didn't need to override them. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I just don't recall this specific thing we're doing tonight being part of 10
that discussion, so I wanted to check from a planning perspective that we didn't leave 11
something out or overlook something. 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: That can be part of the discussion in the staff report for next 14
time. 15
16
Chair Akin: Very good. Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 17
18
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Sorry, staff. I just have another kind of generic question on the most bottom 1
of the maps that we've been looking at. I'm not in support of creating more nodes but I'm just 2
curious. This one labeled "vacant lot" is that technically retail or... 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: If it's vacant, then it generally means no building... 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...so no retail. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:52:09]. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: No. That – the other patch – this – that's this patch. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:52:14]. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: There's another patch. 17
18
Chair Akin: I think that one has a project sign on it. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. That's... 1
2
Chair Akin: So... 3
4
Commissioner Ji: ...why I was curious about it. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:52:25]. 7
8
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yeah. There was one parcel down in that area, though I'm 9
not sure if it's that one where a hotel was approved and the buildings were demolished. But I'm 10
not sure if it's that parcel. Just thinking about what might result in a vacant parcel down there. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. I'm not in support of extending the node, so I'll just leave it 13
at that. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:53:01]. You make a... 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: ...good point [inaudible 2:53:04]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: All right. I believe we've concluded all the feedback on this subject. Anything that 2
I've missed? 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Just to confirm, we don't need to make a motion since we'll be 5
seeing this again? 6
7
Chair Akin: D-... 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I don't know if we need [that 2:53:16]. 10
11
Chair Akin: A motion to continue? 12
13
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: We could do that. I think it's fine. I would just reschedule it 14
for another meeting. But it is an action item, so let's have a motion to continue, if you'd be 15
willing, to a date uncertain. 16
17
Chair Akin: May I have a motion? 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: So moved. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Second. 2
3
Chair Akin: So I believe we need a roll call for this one. 4
5
Administrative Associate Veronica Dao: Not necessarily since all are present in the chamber. 6
7
Chair Akin: We're missing one. 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: That can be noted. You can just do a voice vote. 10
11
Chair Akin: All right. May I have a voice vote, then? All in favor? 12
13
Group Vote: Aye. 14
15
Chair Akin: All opposed? 16
17
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: And that passes... 18
19
Chair Akin: 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
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: ...unanimously. 2
3
Chair Akin: ...carries. 4
5
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Six, zero. 6
7
Chair Akin: Very good. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 2:54:17]. 10
11
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 12
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 13
14
3. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary & Verbatim 15
Minutes of March 26, 2025 16
17
Chair Akin: That was good progress. Thank you, everyone. That was a refreshing exchange of 18
ideas on some potentially difficult subjects and I think we had a good outcome. All right. Let's 19
move on to Item 5, the Approval of Minutes for March 26, 2025. May I have a motion? 20
21
Commissioner Hechtman: Move approval as revised. 22
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.
Commissioner Ji: Second. 1
2
Chair Akin: All right. Once again, I believe a voice vote is sufficient here. So all in favor? 3
4
Group Vote: Aye. 5
6
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 7
8
Chair Akin: All opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And to wrap things up, commissioner 9
comments, questions, and announcements. Would anyone like to speak? Commissioner 10
Hechtman. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, Chair. Staff mentioned at the beginning of the meeting 13
that the project behind Town & Country was approved by the Council. I was the liaison that 14
night and I spent an hour and a half watching their deliberation. It was interesting. But that's all 15
I did was watch and I continue to believe that if they want a representative from the Planning 16
Commission, then they should structurally include an opportunity to use that representative, 17
since we're volunteers and it's another night of our week. So I mention this because we've been 18
bandying about a retreat at some point and I'd like to add this as something for us to discuss, 19
how we might approach the Council to have a more formal role if they want us to be available. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: That's good. In fact, I've spoken to Director Lait about some of the possibilities 2
already, so yes, we definitely should include that in the retreat. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I agree and that's what I was trying to get at with Ms. Armer, that if 5
there's some indication that I need to be available, then I will be available but I don't want to 6
invest many additional hours to attend something where we're not needed because you do 7
take copious notes, we have great minutes. So I would suggest if that's possible to – in the 8
meantime, before our retreat, an intermediate suggestion would be to talk to Director Lait and 9
find out if anybody would like to have a Planning Commissioner available to discuss that 10
evening. I think that would be handy. Of course, happy to be on call as well to jump on if that 11
request comes live. But if at all we can plan, that would be good to know. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Akin: Any other comments tonight? Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: My only other comment is Commissioner Templeton, when you meet with 16
Assistant Director Armer, I'd love to also just listen in as I'm the back-up, just so that I'm also 17
aware of any information that gets passed. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: I'm sure you just volunteered to do it. No? Is that not what just 1
happened? I'm just kidding. Of course. Of course I'd be ha-, that'd be fine. Make sure that she 2
has your number. 3
4
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: I will note, Commissioner Ji, that I think you would have to be 5
recused for participating on that item. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: [Inaudible 2:58:00]. 8
9
Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Yes. In the future. Okay. 10
11
Chair Akin: If there are no other comments, then I believe we're done. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Yay. 14
15
Chair Akin: We are adjourned. 16
17
Adjournment 18
8:58 PM 19
20
21
/es 22