HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-05-28 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: May 28, 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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Chair Akin: Good evening, everyone. I call to order this May 28, 2025 meeting of the Planning and 9
Transportation Commission. The traditional first item on the agenda is public comment for any 10
items that are not on the agenda. Ms. Dao, do we have any speakers? 11
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Administrative Assistant Veronica Dao: I believe roll call first. 13
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Chair Akin: Yes. 15
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ROLL CALL 17
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Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 19
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Chair Akin: Here, I think. 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.
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 1
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Vice-Chair Chang: Here. 3
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 5
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Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 7
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 9
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Commissioner James: Here. 11
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 13
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Commissioner Ji: Here. 15
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Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 17
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Commissioner Peterson: Here. 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.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Here. 3
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Veronica Dao: We have a quorum. 5
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Oral Communications 7
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 8
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Chair Akin: Thank you. Now do we have any comments on items not on the agenda? 10
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Veronica Dao: No, I have no requests to speak. 12
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Chair Akin: Very good 14
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Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 16
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 17
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Chair Akin: Assistant Director Armer, do we have any Agenda Changes, Additions or Deletions? 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: No, we don’t, though I will note that we did provide you today 1
with some responses to Planning Commission comments − or questions on the transportation 2
parking item today. 3
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Chair Akin: Did everyone have a chance to review those? I hope. Okay. All right. 5
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Vice-Chair Chang: I’m sorry. I’m having a technical difficulty where I can hear everything coming 7
through my iPad as well here and I don’t know how to turn it off. 8
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City Official Reports 10
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 11
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Chair Akin: Thank you. All right, Ms. Armer, City Official Reports. 13
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Jennifer Armer: Yes, thank you. All right. So first, it looks like we are going to be cancelling both 15
of the June meetings because at this point, we do not have any agenda items scheduled for either 16
of those dates. And when I prepared this PowerPoint, we didn’t have any agenda items yet set 17
for the July 9 meeting. Since then, I’ve actually heard from the team that’s working on the 18
Cubberley Community Center and they’d like to bring their 3 conceptual plans for discussion by 19
PTC on that July 9 meeting, so that is tentatively scheduled for that meeting at this time. We’ve 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.
had a lot going on with Council and have some additional items coming up in June. Last night, 1
City Council had a special meeting on Tuesday instead of Monday because of the holiday. They 2
considered the continuation of the 4075 El Camino Way Planned Community modifications. They 3
have actually decided to remand that item to PTC with a request for additional redesign. During 4
the meeting, there was discussion of the PTC recommendation and the applicant’s proposal. And 5
at one point during the meeting, the applicant suggested that they may be able to revise their 6
current proposal to remove the 3rd floor units to reduce the privacy and other height and bulk of 7
that building. And so Council chose to direct them to return to PTC for review of a revised plan, 8
removing those so that it would be between 11 and 13 units instead of the 16 that was previously 9
proposed. 10
11
And so we will do staff review and then bring it back to you when it is ready. The other item that 12
was on the agenda last night is the El Camino Real Focus Area. That was approved with some 13
additional modifications. They did add 3 additional parcels and directed staff to do some 14
additional work on that as well. And then upcoming next week, City Council has a number of 15
different items that weren’t reviewed – or two of which were reviewed by PTC; the Bike and Ped 16
Transportation Plan, there’s going to be a study session and then Safe Streets For All Plan is on 17
their consent calendar. And we will also be bringing an urgency ordinance in accordance with 18
Senate Bill 1123, which is similar in some ways to what we know of SB9, which is a 2-unit 19
subdivision expedited review – administerial review. This would actually be for a 10-unit 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.
subdivision but it’s pretty narrow, the types of properties that it would apply to. And then note 1
that City Council will be on summer break. Their final meeting of June will either be June 16 or if 2
they have additional items after that meeting, they could potentially continue to the 17. 3
4
And then they will be closed until their first meeting on August 4. And then I wanted to share 5
the news which was shared via email with all of you that Veronica is going to be leaving the City 6
of Palo Alto after 9 years of service. A huge loss to all of us. I wanted to wish her well. She’s going 7
to be the new town clerk for the Town of Portola Valley. So very excited for this new opportunity. 8
And that concludes my report. Oh, that concludes my report but I do have a couple of other things 9
I did want to check in on. One being the printed zoning maps that were discussed at the previous 10
meeting. Wondering if by a show of hands we could see how many people are interested in 11
receiving them. All right. I see 5. Great. Thank you. 12
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Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer. Is Mr. Baird with us tonight? 14
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Transportation Parking Manager Nathan Baird: Good evening, PTC. Can you all hear me well? 16
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Chair Akin: Yes, we can. 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.
Nathan Baird: Great. So I brought a fairly short item and this has kind of been – this is sort of the 1
kickoff of an important work item in the Office of Transportation for some time now. Are we – is 2
this regarding – are we ready for the item now, Jennifer, or are we… 3
4
Chair Akin: I was looking for a report from the Office of Transportation in general. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: So if you have any items to report as Rafael Rius usually does. 7
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Nathan Baird: Yes, I checked in with Rafael; we did not have any particular items to report in. We 9
did have a quick update that we are in conversation with Caltrans still about the El Camino Real 10
project. I know there were some questions about the parking removal there and the Office of 11
Transportation continues to be kind of in conversation with both businesses and residences in 12
that area. The no parking signs are going up and so there will be a change in enforcement soon 13
as no parking signs go up along the corridor. It’s been in a lot of flux the last about half a year or 14
so. 15
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Jennifer Armer: And in addition in terms of transportation news, I also believe we wanted to 17
share that next week our new Director for the Office of Transportation will be starting with the 18
City. 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: Very good. That’s excellent. 1
2
Nathan Baird: Yeah, so that announcement has been public. Yeah, I’m very excited about our 3
new director. I previously worked with Ria Hutabarat Lo at City of Mountain View. And so very 4
excited to be working with her again. So she should be on board very soon. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Baird. Does that conclude the City Official Reports? I believe… 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Yes, thank you. 9
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Chair Akin: …it does. All right. Then we are ready for Agenda Item #2. No. Pardon me. We have 11
questions. Commissioner Templeton, then Vice-Chair Chang. 12
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Commissioner Templeton: I did not press any button for questions. 14
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Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang. 16
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Vice-Chair Chang: My question is for Mr. Baird. Do you – or maybe Assistant Director Armer. Do 18
we know if the new director of transportation will be the one able to give us the updates now 19
that we have one? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Jennifer Armer: I am going to defer to her as to who will be giving those updates moving forward 2
but we will definitely invite her to join our next Planning and Transportation meeting. I’m sure 3
she will want to be here, at least for that meeting, then as needed. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. As one commissioner, I would love it if we could have like that 6
continuous representation, just at least at the beginning of the meetings. I think it might – it 7
would facilitate communication. 8
9
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 10
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Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Plus one to that. I really appreciate having an opportunity 12
to meet her. So perhaps we can start off on the right foot. Thank you. 13
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Chair Akin: Any further questions? All right. 15
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Study Session 17
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 18 19
2. Study Session: Parking Data Report and Program Amendment Considerations 20
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Chair Akin: Let’s move on to Agenda Item #2. Mr. Baird. 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.
1
Nathan Baird: Good evening. So I’ll actually keep my remarks quite short. I don’t have a 2
presentation for you because I do want to refer to the staff report mostly. This is an attempt to 3
really kick start a more regular update to this group about our parking data and we thought we 4
would just kind of start off with some very basic University Avenue parking occupancy data that 5
we have in the garage’s lots. There is a number of questions related to what is the other types of 6
data that we have and we do look forward to also trying to get the sales data published more 7
regularly and the RPP permit sales data and some occupancy reporting in those areas too. It has 8
taken us a little bit longer to get more regular data reporting going than we had planned but we 9
are still working on that and we hope to have some movement soon. We are bringing on a new 10
permit management and citation vendor. We previously had two separate contracts in the City 11
with other departments; we now have a single contract with that permit and citation vendor. 12
We’ve – the Police Department, Administrative Services Department and Office of Transportation 13
have been very involved in kind of working together to get just kind of a – that contract really 14
helps us set the stage for the – many of the things that we want to do. 15
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The other kind of data – another piece on the data front is the new APGS systems that are coming 17
online by Public Works is − Public Works has been working on those since last summer. Those 18
will be coming online very soon. Those are in our 4 largest garages and will go a long way toward 19
advertising the really kind of abundant parking resources we have in the City, particularly at, as 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.
some of you mentioned, Cowper/Webster and also the upper levels of the Bryant Garage. The 1
other piece that I wanted to say was, yes, we were – we’ve – there’s – we previously – I previously 2
presented a long laundry list of things that we wanted to do. And we also had kind of a parking 3
action plan and one of those values was really kind of making more data-based decisions and 4
having more public engagement on that data. And so we will be working toward the two tables 5
that you have in front of you today and the map; we’ll have those into a dedicated parking data 6
portal on the website soon. And then we’ll continue to just kind of add to that. And what I would 7
like to suggest is that I would be happy to kind of come back to this group more regularly to 8
review that data to let you know what recent updates we’ve made, and so this is just sort of kind 9
of the start of us. 10
11
The real takeaways I wanted to point out from the data in front of you is that there really is been 12
a change but some of the basic trends in the University Avenue Garages and lots are still the 13
same. We still have a lot of availability in the upper levels and it still feels like there’s not enough 14
parking when you’re right at University Avenue or when you’re looking at some of the more 15
desirable lots. And there’s a question about what I meant by the most accessible lots, it really is 16
− we have our downtown – there’s just a lot more traffic centered right at University Avenue and 17
High Street over toward Hamilton. We have the two lots right – surface lots right there and then 18
the Alma/High Garage. That is where it really feels like it’s difficult to find parking. And then we 19
have more availability as you move away from High Street toward Middlefield and get toward 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.
the Bryant and Cowper/Webster garages. And so we really do hope the APGS project helps 1
advertise that availability but we also want to keep monitoring it. 2
3
We still believe there might some benefit to considering doing some curb pricing on University 4
Avenue or some other areas but we really want that conversation to be based on regular 5
automated data that we have, so we’re working toward that. Still don’t quite have the pieces in 6
place yet but we do expect to see a lot of movement this next fiscal year in particular. I’m happy 7
to take questions now. I know that sometimes we release this sort of data and it just kind of begs 8
the question like what other data do we have. So yeah, I’m very committed to bringing on more 9
data online and getting this – getting these sorts of tables on line and having more and more 10
good public discussion about how we can improve parking in the City. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Baird. Do we have clarifying questions from the Commission? Vice-13
Chair Chang. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: So I’m not so sure that this is clarifying but it’s a big-picture, kind of contextual 16
question, so I think it’s probably appropriate time. So I know that one of my first PTC meetings 17
about 4 years ago was – it was a parking workplan. And I think it would be really helpful, preceding 18
all of the comments, to understand sort of the major things in the parking world that have been 19
done since then. So – I remember us talking about wayfinding and automatic license plate 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
readers, and all sorts of things. Like it would be helpful for me to understand if those things – 1
what of those things are currently in progress already. Sort of like your big efforts. I know that 2
you had Gantt chart of like many, many items, so I’m not trying to get to that level of granularity. 3
But for example, are − is the automatic license plate reader system in place or to what extent it 4
is? Like we talked about some wayfinding and you mentioned some wayfinding but is there other 5
wayfinding things that are in the works, so that we don’t waste our time saying please do these 6
things that are already in the works. 7
8
Nathan Baird: Yeah, so I think there’s a lot there. I think one of the main things that happened 9
when we did – we moved forward some policy changes in 2021 and there was some real concerns 10
from some of our resident parking advocates about some apparent discrepancies in our pricing. 11
And so we talked about a lot of stuff back then but the real concern that we heard was that the 12
downtown RPP employee permits were more affordable than the garages and lot permits. And 13
so we did a policy change. The garage and lot permits are now more affordable than those 14
employee permits. We also only had low-income permits… 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: Can you share with us? 17
18
Nathan Baird: …[available 17:33]. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Just because you − we’re going to ask the question, I’m sure, later on. Can you 1
share with us… 2
3
Nathan Baird: Yeah. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: …what that differential is? 6
7
Nathan Baird: We ended up – we’ve gone with setting the garages and lots − I believe are at like 8
75 percent of the price of the garage – of the RPPs. And so – because we’ve continued to make 9
changes to the prices each year based on kind of rising costs and some other issues – but we will 10
continue to have kind of that relationship now between the garage and lot pricing and the nearby 11
district. And then we did the same thing for California Avenue and the surrounding Evergreen 12
Park-Mayfield permit prices and Southgate permit prices, so those two are set in that sort of 13
relationship where we are trying to encourage with the pricing, garage and lot preferability. And 14
then that way we do have some businesses both in downtown and California Avenue − or near 15
California Avenue where the residential permits are really the better option for them. But they 16
will continue to be just probably about 25 percent more expensive. Some other major things that 17
we’ve done, regarding license plate reading, we were able with our permit citation and 18
management to purchase some license plate reader enforcement in 2021 as well. And so we’ve 19
been enforcing with LPR and the resident – some of the resident districts since then. And so the 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.
Police Department continues to patrol in Crescent Park, which is a no- overnight program, College 1
Terrace, and then in our two commercial districts. And so those − because Police Department 2
and their CSOs, their customer service officers, do the enforcement, we don’t do LPR yet with 3
them. 4
5
We are continuing – we’ve been continuing to have that conversation. We do believe there may 6
be room to – that − maybe change in the near future but it’s a conversation that we will be having 7
with ASD, the Police Department, and City Clerk as we figure out with our new citation and permit 8
management vendor what their capabilities are and how they could work with the whole city 9
family in terms of making changes to that. We’ve also threw in some difficult [inaudible 20:03]. 10
From the beginning we thought that the LPR systems – they certainly have saved us on 11
enforcement costs but they have not – it’s been not as easy for us to at the same time get the 12
parking occupancy data out of those regular patrols that we were hoping to get. There are better 13
and better tools each year. And so I’m hopeful with our new vendor, that we’ll be able to figure 14
out that piece in particular because that regular occupancy counting really will help us have many 15
of the conversations that we need to have to go back – circle back to the laundry list – the long 16
laundry list of action items that we wanted to talk about and kind of have good public disc-, 17
robust public discussion and opinions about. But have all that discussion kind of based in good 18
understanding of what’s happening in the neighborhoods where these programs exist. Finally − 19
I’m trying to think one other piece of this. Yeah, the data – we’re also – the APGS project really 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.
will give us more regular data. I’m trying to think if there is some other major movement that we 1
had. 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: So there was a hypothesis in pre-meeting that perhaps the wayfinding signs, 4
like not just the APGS, but – so APGS helps you once you get to the garage or to the entrance of 5
the garage to know if there’s going to be capacity inside as well as where those spots actually 6
are. But I remember a lot of discussion 4 years ago about wayfinding in general. So people − 7
about directing people who are circling to those garages. Is there – has there been movement on 8
that? 9
10
Nathan Baird: Before I arrived, there was kind of the wayfinding work done where we kind of 11
established some parking branding for signage. But that project didn’t go much farther than being 12
utilized, I believe, for the most recent garage − the Cowper/Webster and the Bryant Garage, both 13
have some of that updated kind of parking branding that we’ve been utilizing. The new APGS 14
screen signs that we’ll have will make use of the same branding with blue signs. There are a lot 15
of parking signs up around University Avenue and the downtown generally, the little green “P” 16
signs. That legibility is sometimes not great unless you’re like really looking for it, so sometimes 17
there’s a sea of those green signs with the Ps on them and they – you don’t really see them. 18
We’ve updated in the California Avenue District to use the new High Biz California MUTCD 19
standards, so those ones a little bit more visible. They’re a green on white and they do kind of 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.
pop out a little bit more, so that is something that we could potentially look at but that hasn’t 1
been developed yet as like a CIP. It hasn’t kind of risen to the top yet in terms of a wayfinding 2
project. But there are – we do have a great many of the standard green parking signs in 3
downtown. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. 6
7
Nathan Baird: Oh, the other thing that we keep talking about in terms of wayfinding – related to 8
wayfinding is the potential – if we did do some curb pricing, we might also do mobile payment 9
and with – if we were to do mobile payment, there’s certain sort of data points that could be 10
shared on an API, so that you could pay by app or find a space by app and use potentially some 11
like real-time parking availability data for folks coming in who use those types of apps or release 12
it publicly so that you could – your wayfinding app could help you find a space. But we’re quite 13
far from that possibility even and it’s something – we’ll have some discussion with the new 14
vendor about it to see what the capabilities are, what the price would be. There’s a lot of work 15
to be done to figure out whether that makes sense for us or not. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thanks. I did – because you mentioned it, it did remind me of one other 18
big discussion topic. I can’t remember if it was 4 years ago or maybe 3 years ago, but there was 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.
a lot of discussion that we had with you at one point about demand – what’s the terminology? 1
Well charging for parking… 2
3
Nathan Baird: [Probably 24:32] dynamic pricing. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Dynamic pricing. 6
7
Nathan Baird: Yeah. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. And so… 10
11
Nathan Baird: Yeah. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: …I don’t know if the pandemic and current utilization changed the priority of 14
moving to paid pricing – paid parking as well as dynamic pricing but it would be helpful if you just 15
provided some context for all of us on that as well. 16
17
Nathan Baird: Yeah, so I would say right now, we really thought – I was curious about dynamic 18
pricing. You’ll see it where parking is difficult. It really does help when you have different types 19
of parking demand at different times of day. It’s been more utilized in some of the bigger cities. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I don’t think − our current usage is a little bit – I don’t know if we need it yet. I think what we – a 1
more kind of important first conversation to have is just about pay parking in general − curb 2
pricing in general. And the way that we’ve been talking about it and thinking about it lately is just 3
how undifferentiated much of our parking is. And so if you want to park right at University Avenue 4
and High Street on the street, you can circle around and circle around until you find that same 5
price. The 2 – the only price you pay is the 2-hour limit. And so the only differentiation we have 6
is that some of our garages at the upper levels have the farthest away parking − does have some 7
3-hour spaces. So if you want to stay a little bit longer, you can find a spot that’s a little bit more 8
removed and get another extra hour free. 9
10
But right now, most of the garage and lot spaces are a couple hours and that’s not any different 11
than any of the curb locations. And so that does kind of encourage people to kind of float around 12
just to drive in circles. A lot of the congestion that we see probably is folks just looking for a spot 13
right next to where they want to be. And so – and there’s – any sort of pricing to differentiate 14
that, just a little bit more expensive, might help folks – encourage folks to use that garage 15
availability. But in the meantime again, the APGS system hopefully will also help that happen. 16
17
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the 1
methodology behind the counting. So I’m looking at Packet Page 10 and let’s just take noon. If 2
the count is 496, does it mean like somebody went at noon on the dot and just counted the 3
number of cars there. Can you talk a little bit more about this? 4
5
Nathan Baird: Yeah. So these are fairly expensive counts to be done. We’ve been using contract 6
vendors to do these sorts of counts. It is at those times. In previous years, kind of pre-2020, when 7
we had a lot more employee permit sales, we were really utilizing those counts to kind of gauge 8
how much – how many more permits than actual spaces we could provide because there’s a 9
particular kind of show rate that we were really analyzing previously. Since then, permits sales 10
are really down and we have not needed that fine-grained detail in terms of that show rate as 11
much. The show rate’s probably dramatically changed and so now you have a little bit more of a 12
summary level. So even in 2019, we did like a 9 a.m. count as well but if you look at the 2017 to 13
2019 data, which we will publish to the website soon, I hope, the 9 a.m. was always just not that 14
busy. And even now if you walk around downtown, 8, 9 a.m. is not as busy as 11 or noon. 15
16
And so we’ve kind of ended up kind of streamlining the count in 2024 to save costs a little bit. It 17
is expensive; we do it in the spring or fall, usually at least once a year, try to do it regularly around 18
the same time, not before schools out. We try to do it like at a non-descript time where it’s like 19
not summer break, not any particular break, just kind of – we want to get kind of a most typical 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
day possible. So we try to pick like a midday in the fall or a midday in the – or a midweek in the 1
spring or fall for these counts. And yes, it is a contracted firm – transportation firm that does 2
these sorts of things and someone goes around at each of those timepoints to get – it’s kind of a 3
point-in-time count. Other questions about that? Does that make sense? 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. So specifically, we never expect the occupancy to be over 100 percent 6
because this should be a point-in-time count? Just to clarify that. 7
8
Nathan Baird: Yeah, so your question you sent was a good question. I think there is some issue 9
with the data. I have not had a chance yet to kind of problem solve that data but I will hopefully 10
try to correct that data point soon before we publish it to the website. And this is why I haven’t 11
released a lot more data because once we do kind of get into it, there are – these are point-in-12
time counts. Sometimes things have happened. My guess is that the 2019 count − maybe 13
artificially, there is fewer spaces available that day because of some construction project or 14
something. Some of those spaces were offline, and so that’s why there was 36 spaces that time. 15
And then maybe in 2024, there was just more spaces available. I will go out physically and count 16
myself at some point and then do a little homework to figure out what may have been happening 17
at both of those count dates. But yeah, there’s definitely an issue with that particular count data 18
on that row. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: My follow-up question was just like can you – like talking about what’s making 1
it difficult to release the previous data. It sounds like it’s mostly just data discrepancies that we 2
don’t want to confuse people. Is that generally why the previous data hasn’t been released yet? 3
4
Nathan Baird: Generally, yes. And then also we’ve – there’s not – I wanted to give you a couple 5
different counts in time that could be kind of comparable that have − that were done very 6
similarly. So many of the 2017 through 2019 counts have a lot more of the dat-, different data – 7
the different stall types and so there’s a little bit of granularity that’s available there but we didn’t 8
have – we don’t have that same granularity with the 2014 counts. And so some of the granularity 9
when you start comparing them back and forth, it – you can’t compare some of the data points. 10
And so I wanted to share data points that we could compare reasonably. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. And then I just have a couple quick data quality questions, which is like in 13
Table 2, on Packet Page 10, it shows that Ramona/Lytton is just blanked out. Does this mean 14
there’s no data available? 15
16
Nathan Baird: Yes, there’s some… 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Nathan Baird: …issue with that data. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. And then my last follow-up question here is on Packet Page 10 in both 3
Table 1 and Table 2, four of the garages are asterisks at the top but is there any – I didn’t see any 4
explanation. Could you point me to why they’re like that? 5
6
Nathan Baird: Yeah, that was just a typo on my part. I meant to provide a caption that pointed 7
out that those are our 4 most – our 4 largest garages and the 4 garages that are receiving our – 8
the APGS project. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: Okay, thank you. 11
12
Chair Akin: Last call for clarifying questions. All right. 13
14
PUBLIC COMMENTS 15
16
Chair Akin: I think we can move on to public comment now. Ms. Dao, do we have speakers? 17
18
Veronica Dao: Yes, just one from Neilson. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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Neilson Buchanan: I’m in the go position? 1
2
Chair Akin: Yes. 3
4
Neilson Buchanan: Okay. I brought some handouts that reflect the email attachments I have sent 5
to you. I don’t want you to get distracted during my 3-minute presentation because I obviously 6
have my golden words saved up for you. First of all, I would like to thank Nathan and the Office 7
of Transportation for advancing the management of parking lightyears in the last 2 or 3 years as 8
a lot has been accomplished and we’ve got professionals working on things that when I started 9
with this 13, 14 years ago, we couldn’t get on first base in terms of data − the collection on data 10
management. So what I want to do tonight is to ask you all to be thinking about what’s the follow-11
up to this meeting and trying to get more stakeholders here talking to you about the 12
administrative practices, what’s going well, what’s not as – that Nathan just went through. But 13
also what I think is the failure of good policies. And that’s what I want to talk about briefly tonight 14
is that we can chase all the administrative details and capture of data that we want to and it’s an 15
essential part of the traffic and parking management. But you’ve got – we have got to have much 16
better policies, so that we’re not chasing our tails as much as we are. A lot’s been accomplished 17
but the fact of the matter is we’re still chasing our tails. And I’d like to illustrate that by talking 18
about 4 policy improvements from my perspective. 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.
I’m sure the downtown merchants, I’m sure the landlords, and other people have also comments 1
about what they think of the policy improvements that should be done. So let me just enumerate 2
the 4 that I’ve sent to you by email. First of all, you can’t solve the problem without equally taking 3
the parking capacity − the commercial parking capacity in the neighborhoods that is in the 4
downtown core, the public parking, and the private parking that’s in the buildings. That needs 5
to be integrated a whole lot more. I happen to spend a lot of time on both inventories. At one 6
time, I could almost recite the occupancy and demand by the hour of the day during the 7
workweek. So that inventory and depiction of that inventory is really important. Data collection’s 8
important. Policies is important. But if you can’t graphically present the data to people, nobody’s 9
ever gonna really understand it. I ask you to really investigate what are the powers of the parking 10
assessment district. I think every policy is elusive until we can better understand how much are 11
the – of the parking is under control − the parking assessment district. How much of it is under 12
control by Nathan and the Office of Transportation? That’s probably in litigation or probably can’t 13
chase it down but it’s been a lightning in a bottle for 13 years. I’ve done every discovery I can to 14
find out where the powers are and how long they will last in perpetuity or not. 15
16
I think you need to get involved with that policy. Number 3: The [inaudible 35:22] Comprehensive 17
Plan has a very important sentence in it. It says, “It’s a policy and desire of the Council and the 18
City to promote commerce but not at the expense of the residential neighborhoods.” That ought 19
to be a header on the conversation that Nathan just presented. I see he done a − he and Philip 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
did a whole lot of improvement; I can’t compliment them enough. But at times, we lose sight of 1
some really big policy issues − not in the policy issues; the statement of values. “Promote 2
commerce but not at the expense of the residential neighborhoods.” That’s an anchor point for 3
me and I hope it would be for you too. Number 4: The design of the RPP Zones. That gets to be a 4
bit complicated but how those zones are laid out and how they relate to the commercial core is 5
really important. I would like to think that you would follow up with the new director and Nathan 6
and the neighborhoods and have a conversation about how the zones operate, and how they 7
operate well and how they don’t operate well. 8
9
And additionally, don’t ever forget that the neighborhoods are also – have a heavy load of 2-hour 10
parking. That’s going to end my time almost and I did my very best effort to keep it simple. I had 11
a number of administrative-type things I would like to talk about but I don’t think they’re terribly 12
productive until we have a follow-up and particularly I have a chance to talk with the new director 13
of Transporta-, of Parking and Transportation. 14
15
Chair Akin: And we are… 16
17
Neilson Buchanan: The Office of Transportation is terribly important and the director is too. 18
19
Chair Akin: And we are out of time for tonight. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Neilson Buchanan: Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: But thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buchanan. 4
5
Neilson Buchanan: [Inaudible 37:07]. 6
7
Chair Akin: Yes, I think we have to move on. But don’t forget your mic was off there too. So we 8
might not have recorded everything that you said. Ms. Dao, do we have any other speakers? 9
10
Veronica Dao: No, just the one. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Buchanan, that was very helpful. Commissioner Templeton, did you 13
have a… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I just wanted to check and see if we still wanted to keep the 3-16
minute time frame because we should be consistent about that. But we can talk about that later. 17
Thank you. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: Okay. All right. Before we open it up for general discussion, I know we’ll be analyzing 1
the data that are before us tonight. I would also like us to get on the record about what additional 2
data we would like to see and just as importantly, why. Because I think that will inform all of our 3
future policy discussions, not just the data but the rationale. So I hope in your comments that 4
you’ll be addressing both of those issues. All right, we’re ready to go. No discussion? 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: [Go ahead 38:54]. 7
8
Chair Akin: There we go. Commissioner Hechtman, followed by Vice-Chair Chang. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: So yeah, I wasn’t intending to lead off but I will. I think my focus on 11
this item was more big picture than data driven, and it really relates to the wayfinding that Vice-12
Chair Chang referred to. If we can get people who want to be downtown to a parking space more 13
simply, so that they don’t have to go to a second space or circle, then we’re getting those people 14
parked sooner, we’re taking that traffic off the road. And so really I was thinking conceptually 15
what are some of the ways that that could be done. And so I wrote down some ideas and I’m 16
curious to hear from Mr. Baird whether these are done anywhere. I’ll go from what I think is, I 17
guess, the least likely to the most likely. So least likely, when I’m driving up to Tahoe, I think 18
there’s a sign on the side of the road that says, “Dial 511 for Traffic and Weather.” Right? And it’s 19
localized, right? Because I’ve been in other states where you dial 511 and you’re not getting 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.
Tahoe conditions when you’re in Boise. So it’s some sort of localized system and I was wondering 1
if something like that could be localized in Palo Alto, so that you could, as you’re approaching 2
downtown, you could get a report on what lots are full, what lots are available. 3
4
For me the downside of that is now we’re encouraging people to be on their phone while they’re 5
driving. So I didn’t love that. So that was one idea. A second idea that may be a little more 6
practical but maybe not totally realistic either was a website that, “I’m getting ready to leave my 7
house in some part of Palo Alto or nearby and I’m going to be in downtown in 15 minutes, is 8
there a website I can look at that will show me the garages and the availability?” And so I can sort 9
of pick a garage before I go and not have to waste time circling. We’re planning to pack a lot of 10
things onto our website and I don’t know if that is a functional possibility. And then the third 11
thought I had – and I might have seen some version of this in some other local communities, 12
signage as you’re coming into town from peak gateways: I’m thinking both ends of University. 13
You can talk about both ends of Hamilton and Lytton. But basically a sign that had all 6 of our 14
garages and maybe some number of our lots, at least the biggest ones, with arrows left or right, 15
and then a red, green, or yellow light to tell people this one’s full, there’s a lot of capacity here. 16
17
And so again, immediately as I’m driving to the place I was thinking I was going to park, that’s a 18
red light, there’s not going to be parking there, I’m not going to go to that lot; I’ll try a different 19
one. And I follow the the arrows. So for me the drawback there is it’s more sign clutter. I mean 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
these are actually large enough so you could see them and if they’re going to have even 6 garages 1
plus 2 or 3 lots, then that’s a lot of information. It has to be big enough for people to read as 2
they’re driving by. So again, I don’t know whether any of those are practical but really that was 3
kind of the level of thinking whatever the data is, it’s going to lead us to try to distribute parkers 4
to where the parking is. And with some preferences to put that parking in the lots, in the garages 5
off the residential streets to the extent we can. And so I was thinking the data should be driving 6
us in that direction but how do we communicate that information to people to get them more 7
efficiently into a parking space downtown. So those are my initial thoughts. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Vice-Chair Chang. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: Commissioner Hechtman said much of what I would have said anyway. But the 12
biggest thing is that I have lived in Palo Alto for like almost 45 years and as I was looking at this 13
list of parking garages − like I forget. I don’t think I’ve been in some of them and I forget that 14
some of them exist because they look like – some of the garages look like they are just private 15
parking garages. And so – but if I contrast that to my experience, say in Redwood City or 16
Burlingame − are the two that I can think of. I feel like there I had – there was like very big blue 17
signs with Ps telling me to where go. And so I think that we could benefit from that type of 18
infrastructure now. I – my gut tells me that that should be kind of like low-hanging fruit and 19
relatively inexpensive compared to some of the more technological solutions but I may be very 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
wrong there. So I love the idea of the guided parking assistance once I get to the garage but I 1
worry that people aren’t going to get to those garages. So that’s where I – that’s the biggest piece 2
of feedback that I would have. And then the second is that given how underutilized the garages 3
are – and I realize that we need more data. 4
5
I just wonder − like if neighbors in the RPPs are still saying that there’s not enough parking spaces 6
there, I wonder if we should potentially increase the parking differential – the price differential 7
between the two because – or maybe even just say that the employee parking has to be in the 8
garages or something like that. So – or maybe a set number that per employee that are – or 9
percentage per employee that are allowed to be on the street. But maybe we – I think we could 10
do more there. But it’s hard to know without seeing the data, so it’s just kind of a – just an idea. 11
Thanks. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice-Chair. Commissioner Templeton. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I will agree with Vice-Chair Chang’s assessment of 16
the ease of parking in public garages in Redwood City. I had a couple of other experiences that 17
came to mind; one was trying to park at Stanford for an event. That was interesting because it 18
has changed since I went there. They now have a – they book a section of a garage and you can 19
reserve it in advance until there’s – lots fill up. And then you know you can’t go or you can’t park 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 go. So that’s an interesting thing. I also went to see my son at the Giants game, so I had to 1
park up there and now they don’t let you – Lot C is not a thing. You reserve a spot in some random 2
garage, your preferred distance or cost from the thing. It sounds a little bit like what the 3
automated parking guidance system could theoretically be one day. I’m not entirely sure. And 4
we had something similar to that in San Jose when I went to see something at the Performing 5
Arts Center down there. 6
7
So it does sound like the idea of getting a little bit more automation and having the ability to plan 8
in advance, like Commissioner Hechtman mentioned, would be useful. What I’m not really clear 9
on is to the extent that that’s feasible for us, right? Like how – what’s our distance to get there 10
and – Mr. Baird, if you want to chime in about that, you can. I don’t know if that’s like a long-11
term vision or something you’d like to talk about sooner. Do you have anything to share there or 12
just what we’ve said is enough? 13
14
Nathan Baird: So I think what I’m hearing is that we could have some refreshment with our 15
signage. The way that we do our CIP process is – it’s a very [public 48:40] process but this is kind 16
of how actually the CIP process starts where we have a discussion about what types of 17
improvements we want in the city. What I can commit to doing over the next year with the new 18
director is like just starting to think about what sort of cost might be involved. I think as a parking 19
– someone who’s been paying attention to parking a lot more the last 5 years and someone 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
whose mentors really talked about the key part of – people don’t want to think about parking 1
too much. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, right. 4
5
Nathan Baird: And so pricing can really help us think about parking kind of as – right when we 6
come across it. And so the industry standard in parking now is – in commercial areas in particular, 7
you want to have a space or two available wherever there is parking. And so the more – the 8
places – if you are monitoring the occupancy, then you can kind of over time set the price 9
accordingly. So if the occupancy is showing you that it’s already at 85, 95%, those are places 10
where it’d be likely helpful to charge a little bit more or to make – charge a little bit more in terms 11
of the hourly price or charge a little bit more in that like maybe we have − some of those zones 12
could be 2 or 3 hours, maybe some of those zones could go down to 1 hour. Maybe we need 13
some more short-term parking in some spots… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, so if I’m going… 16
17
Nathan Baird: …[just to help 50:07]… 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: …to summarize your… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Nathan Baird: …differentiate things. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: If I’m going to summarize what you said is you’d like to think more 4
about occupancy and pricing and duration and less about the user experience. [Inaudible 50:22]. 5
6
Nathan Baird: No, I think the user experience is important. These… 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I mean… 9
10
Nathan Baird: …[inaudible 50:25]… 11
12
Commissoner Templeton: Of course, it is. 13
14
Nathan Baird: These all work together. And the treatments that we would want to do or could 15
do need to be based in what our user experience is. So certainly – like part of my prioritization – 16
part of my goal with presenting this parking data is that I think the parking data does help me 17
ground the various different stakeholder user groups and kind of the conversation about what 18
reality is to get people on kind of the same page of what we’re looking at. Where is it difficult to 19
park? Who is it difficult to park for? One of the things I didn’t mention previously is we do know 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 it is difficult for part-time employees to find parking that’s appropriate. Our current 1
employee programs are quarterly and annual permits. So if you’re someone who just comes in a 2
few times a week, you can kind of shuffle your car around with our current policies and kind of 3
be okay. And that’s not ideal. We’d rather we find the right kind of permit for them, so there’s – 4
so we’re not kind of encouraging them with a pri-, permit that feels too large for them. So there’s 5
– again, the laundry list of things that we could do is really long. What we want to do is kind of 6
get to the same page on what can most move the needle for everybody at the same time. 7
8
So far, wayfinding has been something that everybody can agree on that is helpful. So the APGS 9
project is going to be a really huge improvement. That simple advertisement of the parking 10
available at every level at those garages that are largest will go really far. And we can certainly 11
continue to have a conversation about what to layer on top of that as next additional measures. 12
And you are right about the new APGS systems. There’s a lot of capability there. There’s the 13
capability to potentially publish that data regularly. There’s the potential to have – people do use 14
these systems for dynamic pricing where the price changes at different times of day. I don’t think 15
we’re quite there yet. We need to kind of take incremental – not necessarily incremental but take 16
steps that are really going to feel like wins for us in this realm since our policies have been kind 17
of basically the same for some time. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Nathan Baird: We want to move forward… 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, good. So… 4
5
Nathan Baird: …with what feels good. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for that. I think what we’ll do then is we’ll be able to talk 8
about maybe some long-term hopes and goals but with some maybe shorter-term specific 9
feedback for you tonight. On that note, the thing that Vice-Chair Chang mentioned that deserves 10
some extra attention is that employee parking in our garages instead of on RPPs is a high priority. 11
Thank you. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. I have no other lights here. Is anyone else ready 14
to go? Commissioner Ji. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I also just want to start by saying that I have a pretty extensive 17
background looking at transportation data, so that’s why I apologize for my questions during 18
clarifying questions, just nit-picking some of the data there. I want to talk a − kind of take a little 19
bit of a step back in terms of the discussion that we’ve had here in that in my almost 25 years 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.
living in Palo Alto, I’ve actually never had a problem parking in downtown. And I think it's because 1
I’ve learned which garages are almost always empty, right? So for example, I’m a huge utilizer of 2
the Ramona/University Garage, which according to our data, is at like the mid-30s in terms of 3
utilization; therefore, when I show up at that garage, I can find a spot, right? And so I think that I 4
want to echo Vice-Chair Chang’s comment about kind of low-hanging fruit, right? Instead of – 5
like it’d be great to have all this kind of data, right? But I really think that the sign that says like, 6
“Parking Here,” is like maybe less than a foot large. That’s like – and it’s a little bit brown too, I 7
believe. And so it’s a little bit hard to see. I think that if we just simply pointed people at the 8
garages, that we would get a much better occupancy. 9
10
So – and just another general feedback, I would have loved to see this in a heap map form, but I 11
basically drew out my own heap map based on the data. So I wrote all the data points from the 12
table on Packet Page 10, geographically onto the map on Packet Page 9. And so I want to talk 13
specifically about – for example, the High/Alma North Garage, which according to the table on 14
Packet Page 10, has a 36 percent or 38 percent occupancy but its neighboring adjacent garages, 15
which is the Alma/High South Garage and the one literally touching it is – has 99 percent and 95 16
percent, right? So what that tells me isn’t that we don’t – like we don’t have enough space; we 17
clearly have enough space if the garage is only at 36 percent occupancy. I literally did not know 18
that garage existed. I walk to every single one of the garages and I’d never seen that, as someone 19
who already uses a pretty obscure garage, right? So like I’d say like very basic signage for 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.
garage would be helpful. In addition, specifically about the Ramona/University Garage, with the 1
fact that Ramona is now closed since COVID, I do think additional signage at that garage could be 2
pretty easy, especially because we know that that’s a pretty high-traffic area. People love to go 3
there. And wouldn’t it be nice – probably for my own sake, maybe will no longer be able to find 4
parking there. But I think generally it would be much easier. 5
6
Going back to the Chair’s original comment about what kinds of data we’d like to see, I think that 7
some of the – a breakdown between, for example, permit and non-permit spaces would be 8
extremely helpful, right? So for example, some of – like the Civic Center Garage, I believe based 9
on my personal experience, certain floors are permit-only for certain parts of the day and certain 10
parts are non-permit, right? And that makes the occupancy really hard to calculate, right? Does 11
this mean that, “Oh, we’re not “ – like the permit portion is super empty, right? But the non-12
permit portion is super full. In that case, maybe we should be reducing the amount of permit 13
parking that we have or play with other levers, such as ones mentioned by Commissioner 14
Templeton or Vice-Chair Chang about encouraging more of the employees to be parking in those 15
garages and using those permits. In addition, I’m not sure if we have any, but if there’s spots that 16
are reserved just for EVs, again would make the occupancy a little bit confusing, right? We’d say, 17
“Oh, it’s 96 percent occupancy but all the occupancy that’s available is EV-charging only.” And 18
then that would like – it’s actually suggesting the real occupancy is 100 percent, and then the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
same for ADA as well. So I’d like to see a split of this information in the form of a heap map. I 1
think that would make it a lot easier to make comments on on that as well. 2
3
And then because of that, I do think that in terms of charging, I really think that taking a step back 4
from that discussion, the reality is that there's a lot of availability, and so I think that just adding 5
these basic signs pointing to the garages would help solve a lot of the problems with the circling. 6
And then one other point, I’d also like to maybe see data on weekday versus weekend, right? I 7
know that you provided two different weekday snapshots, and I think that’s really helpful to talk 8
about, let’s say like employee or commuter traffic, but I’d say that, for example, residents care a 9
lot about – or people who are coming from out of town may care about weekends. Like what is 10
it like to find parking there? So I think that would also be an area that I’d like to see more data 11
on. And then I also want to comment specifically on my personal experience going to the 12
Webster/Cowper Garage. There is already what I believe is like some form of APGS. 13
14
There’s like a sign that says like how many parking spaces are available in each level. On every 15
single of the levels that I went to, they’re – and all said that there was zero parking spaces, even 16
the like top 4 floors that are completely empty. So I think that that could use some looking into. 17
And then there’s also just − some of the spaces that I saw in some of these larger garages, for 18
example, the Webster/Cowper Garage, there’s a bunch of trash blocking over like quite a few 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.
the spots on the top floor, but that’s just a general comment. Those are all my comments for 1
now. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. I have no other lights. Anyone else? If not, I’ll speak to a 4
few things. 5
6
Nathan Baird: Oh, can I just suggest a couple of – the APGS project that you saw, that is the 7
project. So those just are not online yet. So they’re – it’s a work – those are being unrolled right 8
now. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I just thought that was… 11
12
Nathan Baird: And then… 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Just confused. 15
16
Nathan Baird: Yeah. And then that same system will help us get more regular automated counts 17
of the various different types of spaces we have. 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: Thank you. That’s both good news and very interesting to hear. So I’m going to 1
concentrate a little bit more on information that I’d like to see in the future. But I also want to 2
try and provide some context to help back up why I think it’s important and how it affects some 3
of the other suggestions that have already been made here tonight. For – we often make the 4
assumption based on anecdotal evidence that there is plenty of parking available and that 5
informs other policy decisions that we make and perhaps in justifiable ways and perhaps in ways 6
that are not so justified. So just for historical context, when the downtown RPP started back in 7
2016, parking was believed to be so tight that council authorized issuing 2,000 permits. So the 8
assumption was that triple the size of our largest garages was going into the neighborhoods 9
because we needed that space. Now granted some things have changed but the stability of those 10
changes is a little hard to predict right now. So we may find, particularly as we increase density 11
downtown, that we get back to that situation. We don’t want to make decisions that depend on 12
an assumption of huge parking availability. So the information that I’d like to see in the future 13
that goes along with that are what are the maximum number of permits that could currently be 14
sold because they have gone down over the years, how many employee permits are in use in the 15
neighborhood zones today, and how did that compare to 2019, so we can see where the trends 16
are moving. 17
18
We have a controversy at the moment. Thankfully, not as much as in Menlo Park over the use of 19
surface parking lots to create housing. And one of the arguments that’s being advanced against 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 is that not all parking spaces are equal, that you can’t just casually substitute a parking space 1
in a lot that’s close to people’s uses or accessibility, which is why I asked the accessibility question. 2
Because they’re not equally useful for those in a – compared to those in a garage far away. So if 3
we believe that parking spaces are all interchangeable, then I would like to see some data that 4
support either that contention or the contention that parking places are special in some way. 5
And a good quantitative example there is tonight’s data shows that the occupancy for garages 6
has gone down but over the same time, the occupancy for surface lots has gone up. So what I’d 7
like to know is what is the cause of that behavior because it may be suggesting that there really 8
is a difference between parking places. So before I wrap up with the more minor stuff, Mr. Baird, 9
if you had any insight into why you think the behavior for garages and surface lots has differed, 10
I’d be interested to hear that. 11
12
Nathan Baird: Well, I think certainly the work from home trend has changed things significantly, 13
so it was very typical of office workers needing to go in 5 days a week. If you only need to go in 2 14
– 3 days a week, the employee permit probably feels − at a quarterly or annual basis, probably 15
feels more expensive than you want to pay. And I would think that with our color zone system, 16
you can kind of float between available locations fairly easily. And some of our lots are a lot 17
greater or lesser known. So I would imagine potentially our lots are being just utilized more by 18
visitors and employees both who are just kind of opting out of our employee permit program 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.
that puts you – our employee permit program currently mostly puts you in the garages. There 1
are some set-aside lot spaces but that’s kind of conjecture until we get – at this point. 2
3
Chair Akin: Right. Okay. That does sort of lead into my next big question, which is for the lots and 4
garages that offer permit parking, I think we really need to know how many classes of permit 5
parking exist and who’s eligible for them. And as we’ve mentioned a couple of times, how many 6
spaces are reserved in each class. And I’m asking that because we are making assumptions about 7
parking for new residents based on what’s available downtown and some of those spaces that 8
are currently unoccupied might still be unavailable even though they’re unoccupied. So we need 9
to understand just how the permit spaces are carved out, which leads me to a few questions that 10
I’d like to see discussed in future presentations. So are the residents of the downtown 11
commercial district who are not in the RPP Zones – there’s quite a bit of area for which that’s the 12
case and we’re planning on putting a lot more people into it. Are those people eligible for RPP 13
permits? 14
15
And if so, is there differential pricing between the people who are in the residential zones and 16
the people who are in the commercial districts? And the flip side of that is are residents of the 17
commercial district eligible for permits in the garages or lots? And again, if so, is there a pricing 18
differential? That affects both our assessment of whether we have enough parking in a given 19
project and what conditions of approval might actually make things better or worse as part of 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the approval process. I don’t know – pardon me. Vice-Chair Chang asked if we knew the answers 1
to those questions and I wasn’t going to put you on the spot to answer them tonight but if you 2
choose – if you’re free to do so, please do so. 3
4
Nathan Baird: I think I can address some kind generally. I think at a high level, we have permit-5
only spaces – University Avenue permit-only spaces in the garages and lots. Those are marked as 6
permit-only. You can use – you can buy an employee permit to use those spaces. You also can 7
buy a daily permit from Revenue Collections or from several of our – we have a few pay stations 8
in the downtown. And when you buy a daily permit from one of those pay stations, then you can 9
utilize one of those permit-only spaces. Some of the lots have very specifically set aside building 10
property permit spaces; these are very few. I believe like lot – if you go walk at Lot K at some 11
point, you’ll see in the space itself, it has an address in it or a tenant at a particular building. Those 12
are very specific. Those are – fewer of those. The other thing I want to note about our permit-13
only spaces, they are all only – permit-only spaces from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and they are 2-hour. 14
They are basically – yeah, permit-only spaces are only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. So at the end of the 15
day, those are available to anybody. And during some storm emergencies, we have actually 16
encouraged residents to make use of parking downtown overnight because we don’t have any 17
restrictions on parking past 5 p.m. in the downtown in any of those spaces. So – and historically, 18
that was a way of encouraging both kind of a shared-use agreement basically to try out different 19
types of uses downtown. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 so folks who run restaurants or have businesses that operate into the evenings, they can 2
basically advertise any of our garage and lot spaces as available to their customers. And then 3
office workers make use of the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for their employees. And then the second 4
question I heard there was about the RPP, you do need to live in a downtown RPP District to 5
purchase a permit in there. We do have a process where you verify that you live on a block that 6
is participating. So if you live in the downtown core but you’re not in the downtown RPP, then 7
no, you may not buy a downtown RPP permit. And it’s the same thing with a University Avenue 8
District. If you want to purchase a garage or lot permit, you need to actually have a business 9
address – you need to work at a business address in that district. And so we do have an evalua-, 10
verification process for those employees as well. You need to show some documentation that 11
you work in the University Avenue District. 12
13
Chair Akin: All right, thank you. That’s very helpful. And I’ll just observe that since the RPP spots 14
in the neighborhoods are also time limited, that if there is an issue with overflow for overnight 15
parking, then that becomes an enforcement budget issue that would have to be talked about 16
separately in the future. Finally, I will wrap up. Just because we mentioned pricing differentials 17
in dynamic pricing, I’ll throw my opinion into the ring too. Increasing the pricing differentials does 18
seem attractive to me. Dynamic pricing, not so much, because as you said you don’t want to think 19
about parking too much. And if you’re having to optimize your parking decisions based on pricing 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 varies during the day, that may not be the most user-friendly solution. All right. That’s it for 1
me. I believe I have Commissioner Templeton, Commissioner Ji, then Vice-Chair Chang. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I appreciated your comments and I have a couple of 4
questions for Mr. Baird, just trying to dig in a little bit deeper. And then just a response – opinion 5
to share against your opinion. So the statement that the Chair made about like he was assessing 6
types and so I’m looking at like summarizing lots versus garages. Do you have that – is that – I 7
didn’t see it and I’m trying to manually do it and it’s a little bit difficult to do from up here. Do 8
you have the overall – like are lots going up in occupancy and garages going down in occupancy? 9
10
Chair Akin: I have those if Mr. Baird doesn’t. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, because I’m just looking at the numbers and it’s not bearing out 13
quite as black and white. 14
15
Nathan Baird: Yeah, I wouldn’t summarize it as garages versus lots. I actually… 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Okay. 18
19
Nathan Baird: Yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. I think it’s an interesting way to look at it. I do agree that maybe 2
understanding it in terms of office workers versus patrons is a very interesting suggestion that 3
I’ve heard made up here tonight. So – and then in regards of how lots that are currently surface 4
lots could be before us in the future. Just responding to that, is there any reason that the City 5
would not be looking at ensuring that parking that would be built over would then still be 6
available? For example, if a lot were turned over to be housing, is there an understanding that 7
we would protect the 20 spaces or whatever on that lot for future public parking or is there any 8
discussion of that? If not, I think it could be useful. Mr. Baird? Are you participating… 9
10
Nathan Baird: I’m not… 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: …[inaudible 1:13:50]? 13
14
Nathan Baird: Yeah. I’m not familiar with any particular policy about that. We’ve been responsive 15
to questions about the usage. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So… 18
19
Nathan Baird: We don’t… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: …if someone… 2
3
Nathan Baird: I’m not familiar with any set policy. Maybe Jennifer was gonna weigh – can weigh 4
in. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Go ahead. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: I can share some additional information based on the discussions that we’ve had 9
for the redevelopment of Lot T. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: That was one of the key questions that was asked of the 2 firms who responded 14
to the RFP, looking at potential designs for redevelopment of that parking for affordable housing. 15
And they looked at 3 scenarios. One where there was no parking provided. Another was they 16
were only providing parking for the new residential units that would be built. And the third was 17
providing parking for them and replacing the existing public parking. And the direction that was 18
received from Council on that particular project, which is not to say that this was what we would 19
see in other locations, was that because of the current discussions about building a new parking 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
garage, the general sense was that those parking spaces did not need to be replaced on that − as 1
part of that 100 percent affordable housing project. This is the direction that Council gave. 2
Because those spaces would be provided in the future parking garage and that it was too much 3
of a burden on that affordable housing developer. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: That’s really good context. Maybe I misunderstood but can you 6
explain the nature of the controversy of using parking lots for housing if it doesn’t deny parking? 7
Is it the accessibility of the parking? I think that was the angle the Chair was going for. Like how 8
close the park-, like if the parking garage is going to replace that parking, is distant − for example, 9
is that the – is that an issue that’s coming up? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: I think one of the values of having the data that was shared today is that we can 12
have a better understanding of how much parking is available. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: That’s great. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Because there are definitely times in certain locations where there’s the 17
impression that there is no parking available and maybe some of this wayfinding or other ideas 18
help with that. And that’s part of why we’re having this discussion. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’m glad to hear that because I do think it’s 1
important for us to protect access to parking for our patrons, our employees, our residents but 2
also to not stoke any flames about pitting parking against housing. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Akin: If I may jump in to elaborate there. That – the comment that I made was prompted 5
by legal action, which is already underway. And that’s outside the scope of what we can talk 6
about tonight. But that was the motivation. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I understand. I just wanted to give the staff a chance to respond. 9
Thank you. 10
11
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Mr. Baird, I was just wondering if you happen to know the approximate costs 14
of like the quarterly and/or yearly employee permit versus the daily? Because you were talking 15
about kind of being able to price it appropriately, so I was just wondering if you had those 16
numbers? 17
18
Nathan Baird: Sure, so the daily permit has been through some fluctuation. We previously had 19
that at $25; we changed it in the Municipal Fee Schedule to give us sort of a range between 0 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.
25 following some of the fluctuation in the usage following 2020. So we – it went down to 0 for 1
a little while, then it was $8, then we put it back up to $15. I think we’re back up to $20 shortly 2
in July. And then the quarterly and annual permits in University Avenue – I can look up real quick. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yeah, no worries. This is just – I’m just going to make a comment while you’re 5
looking that up. It’s just that − again, I want to echo my fellow Commissioners, which is I’d like to 6
see encouragement of employees utilizing a lot of these different tools that we have whether it 7
be the daily permit or other mechanisms to reduce the burden on the neighbors as well. 8
9
Nathan Baird: Okay. So the University Avenue permits are $900 a year. And then the downtown 10
RPP employee permits are slightly more than that. Let me find that one. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Wait. Just to clarify, the number you provide, the $900 a year, that is for which 13
permit? 14
15
Nathan Baird: For University Avenue garages and lots. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Okay. And then I think you said – I’m just going to use a number that you threw 18
out earlier, which was like there’s about a 25 percent differential. And that’s good enough for 19
now. The other last comment I just want to make is that I would love to just see this data come 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
back more regularly, which I know is something you brought up at the beginning. But I just want 1
to echo that again because I would love to see trends in progression as we continue to work 2
forward on these really exciting projects. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Vice-Chair Chang. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: So I just had a follow-up question based on your description of the permitted 7
spaces. Are those permitted – and maybe this is me also not understanding exactly how the 8
parking assessment district works from a – like what we’re legally bound to provide. So are those 9
permitted spaces legally required or is that just the City deciding to label certain spaces as 10
permitted? 11
12
Nathan Baird: So they – they’re the result of a number of agreements and programs over the 13
years. And so we – the University Avenue District was basically set up to build some parking – 14
some of our parking garages. But – so there’s some agreements in place about how many permit 15
spaces are set aside in each of those. But it’s kind of a mixed picture. I have a planning map that’s 16
kind of confusing even to me; I’m still kind of working through it. But every new development 17
kind of has – used to have a real responsibility to think about its parking demand and usage and 18
what that would be and then there was agreements made about where they would either pay 19
into the district some X amount – it was basically sort of a negotiating tool for the mobility 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
conversations that were had for each development over the years. And so in some cases, we are 1
still as a City paying – the bonds are still being paid for some of the garages. And so those garages 2
in particular we don’t really want to change the permit spaces at all. The other of the lots, 3
particularly the lots in the City, are sort of free and clear. 4
5
The payment – the capital purchases are complete and so there’s a little bit more flexibility there 6
potentially. All of this – we have a University Avenue – the way the University Avenue program 7
works is you need to have – you need to work in a University Avenue building or at an employer 8
that is – has an address in the district and then you purchase them based on what lot or garage 9
that you want to utilize. And some of our lots and garages do – are more popular than others but 10
they all have the same price. And when you buy a permit, you get access to a particular lot and 11
garage. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So it sounds like it’s actually really complex. That some of the permits 14
are actually – some of the permitted spaces are spoken for and not really available for all. Are 15
any of them like earmarked for a specific business? Or… 16
17
Nathan Baird: So some of them are earmarked for a particular property. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah, that’s what you had mentioned. But if it’s not labeled as such, then it – 1
then they are not? 2
3
Nathan Baird: No, they are labeled. Yeah, they are all clearly labeled as you walk… 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 6
7
Nathan Baird: …around downtown. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: So if it’s not labeled, then it’s just a general permit of some sort. 10
11
Nathan Baird: It’s the colors – so we have the color-zoned permits. So you’ll see the color-zoned 12
signs that give you 2 hours free parking in the downtown. So like if you park at the City Hall 13
downstairs, you’re – in the immediate visitor spaces, you’ll see the color-zoned signage and that’s 14
− kind of drives that. As you go deeper into the City Hall Garage, you’ll see a permit-only sign and 15
then the spaces themselves say permit-only. But those are public spaces where you need to have 16
either the employee permit or a daily permit to park there from 8 to 5. Past 5 p.m., anybody can 17
park there. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: And the reason we have those is just to make sure that if somebody purchases 1
a permit, they actually have a space, is that correct? 2
3
Nathan Baird: The way that I’ve been thinking about our garage and lot program and our RPP 4
program is that we have basically as a City, we want to protect parking availability for these key 5
stakeholder groups; employees and residents. And visitors can buy a daily permit. So basically, 6
we kind of have – we’ve been thinking about parking as – we want to make it as free as possible 7
2 and 3 hours but then we also want to provide – make sure that we’re providing parking to these 8
key stakeholder groups. And that’s the way all our programs have been kind of set up. What 9
we’re talking about when we start talking about pricing differentiation is trying to use pricing to 10
help preserve availability and we have potentially lots of availability but it kind of – it does depend 11
on where you want to park, right? So that’s kind of the change that we’ve been thinking about 12
and talking about for a while. But we also probably still want to continue to serve those 13
stakeholder groups that we’ve talked about who – we don’t want to just have – we don’t want 14
residents to be unable to park. We don’t want employees to be unable to park. 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So if I’m to summarize correctly – I just want to make sure that I am 17
correctly understanding what these permitted spaces are. That there’s − the permitted spaces 18
are a combination of spots where the City has discretion to make them no longer permitted 19
spaces if we would like. As well as some spaces for which they’re – those spaces are earmarked 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 the City does not have flexibility to remove the permitted status. And finally, that the exact 1
numbers of these in each category is still kind of up in the air because you’ve been trying to 2
disentangle all of that, is that correct? 3
4
Nathan Baird: Well it’s just very different in each of the locations and has been – yes, we’ve – and 5
when it comes – when a particular lot comes up for discussion sometimes, we’ll do some research 6
and try to track down previous staff reports from years back about particular developments and 7
just to kind to see what the conversation was about why a certain percentage was sent aside or 8
not for these particular types of cases. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, it just sounds like on a macro level, if I were to think about capacity 11
management, I will need to know how many permitted spaces I have, how many I don’t have, 12
and as the City, I’d want some control over the ability to change that number. So if there’s a 13
whole bunch of permitted spaces that are vacant all the time, we should remove the permitted 14
sign but do we know how many we’re allowed to remove that from? That’s kind of what I’m 15
trying to get at. 16
17
Nathan Baird: Yeah, I totally agree. So some of the cases are more obvious; some of them we 18
haven’t figured out yet. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 1
2
Nathan Baird: Yeah. 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: It’s a big puzzle. Okay. Thanks. And then final question – sorry to take us down 5
this rathole. So you had men-, so I just – you had mentioned that there’s some verification 6
required for employees to buy a permit and I think there was a public comment saying that 7
there’s rampant rumors that – kind of anecdotal stories about people who have ended 8
employment years ago but are still able to buy a permit. Do you know like – is there any grounds 9
for those rumors or what type of verification do we require and how frequent – like how – what’s 10
the word? How current does that documentation need to be? 11
12
Nathan Baird: I’m not too familiar with that – with – it kind of depends. So in some cases with 13
RPP employees, we do have them regularly upload documents when they want to purchase their 14
permits. I’m not too clear how often that happens in other locations but there’s always – there’s 15
definitely a verification process. Usually, I think we use a pay stub or a letter from your employer 16
saying that you work at such and such address. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: And that is done by our vendor? The verification? 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.
Nathan Baird: Our vendor and then also the Administrative Services Department who sells 1
permits on the – at the lobby level to employees. 2
3
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Well so this might be a problem that doesn’t actually exist but if it’s a 4
matter of changing a few words on a website saying that like the employment – whatever the 5
document, needs to be like current within 6 months or something like that. That might solve the 6
problem. Thanks. 7
8
Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Let me start with a couple of minor points. Packet Page 10, Mr. Baird, 11
in Table 2, the 2019 data, the evening counts, you got a couple of the parking lots at over 90 12
percent but they’re black, not red. I’m not sure if this table is ever going to make it to the website. 13
I know you’re going to look at the over 100 percent stuff at Gilman/Bryant, but you probably 14
could clean that up too, so that it’s the right color for those of us who rely on the colors to make 15
the points that you’re trying to make by showing those colors. Another thing – and again, this is 16
very tangential but a number of us planning commissioners worked on the housing element – 17
the new housing element. And one of the things that we talked about was the City surface parking 18
lots as opportunity housing sites. And my memory when we had those discussions was that, at 19
least at the Planning Commission, our recommendation was yes, with these lots we should do 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that but it should be done in a way that preserves the parking on that site. And so I just don’t 1
know if I misremembered that or if it did go to the Council that way and the Council watered it 2
down or said, “Yeah, we’re going to make these opportunity sites but we’re not going to commit 3
to retaining parking.” But it’s my impression based on what we just heard from the Assistant 4
Director that it’s not in the Housing Element as a must do. 5
6
So I just thought that was interesting and it makes me want to go back and look at the final 7
version of the Housing Element to see if it’s there. But the Vice-Chair is nodding her head, making 8
me think that I didn’t totally imagine that discussion. Okay. A couple sort of bigger-picture items. 9
So I think that the Chair talked about the parking demand is going to change, right? We are a little 10
lucky in a sense that we’re in this lull, right? We had more parking demand downtown before the 11
pandemic, now we’re in this lull. But it’s going to pick up, right? The future of downtown Palo 12
Alto is more housing, more people, more people looking and needing to park. And so we have an 13
opportunity now before we get there to get this set and to sort of be ready when we get to those 14
higher-parking times that we don’t have chaos. And so I just want to say I think this process is 15
moving in the right direction but I think we have to keep our foot on the gas pedal and not have 16
a situation where we get a report that we haven’t done anything for 6 months because the 17
budget didn’t allow it. And it doesn’t seem like that’s happening but it seems like we want to be 18
ready for that day, so that we never have a parking crisis. And then I’ve got a related point but I 19
see Mr. Yang, and so maybe I’ll – did you want to… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Oh, I was just going to address your comment on the Housing 2
Element but I can wait for you to finish your… 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Let me – yeah, I’ll just clean this up. So I’ve been listening to the 5
commissioners talk about various additional data that they’d like. And I don’t disagree that any 6
of that and all of it would be useful but what has occurred to me in listening to that conversation 7
is that the data is fungible; it is going to change over time. And really what’s critical here is that 8
we develop the mechanism that will Number 1, identify the data that we need and number 2, 9
have a way to collect it and synthesize it in, not real time because that’s not realistic, but in 10
something approaching real time, so that we’re not looking back at what parking was 2 years ago 11
and trying to decide what parking should be today. And so with that ability to synthesize, then to 12
flex and change pretty rapidly. And so I think that’s really – to me, that’s the focus − is making 13
sure we have that mechanism, so that we can move quickly and then the data that has been 14
requested from up here, that is fed in as initial data points or current data points, recognizing 15
they’re going to change. And it may be that the parking lots that are the busiest right now may 16
well not be the parking lots that are busiest in 10 years because of what might happen around 17
different parking lots. So I just want us to be ready to adapt. All right, thank you for letting me 18
finish that, Mr. Yang. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Albert Yang: Okay, so just to answer the question about how this is addressed in the Housing 1
Element. The Housing Element does say when the City is looking to redevelop its surface lots for 2
housing, that replacement parking should be provided. But it’s not specific to that parking should 3
be provided on the same site. So that’s how it went through our process and how it’s stated. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Akin: So I don’t have a light but I see Commissioner Peterson’s mic is on. Did you have a 8
question? 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: Oh, sorry. Where’s the button for the light? Oh, we’re still on that one 11
with them. Okay. I’m learning. Thank you. So the question I have for Mr. Baird is have you done 12
– hired a simulation consultant to look at the parking as a system? 13
14
Nathan Baird: There’s been a lot of parking planning work done over the years. There’s a previous 15
2017 report with a company called Dixon, that we actually still work with that really kind of gave 16
a pretty comprehensive look at the downtown and what sort of options were available at that 17
time. Yeah, so we did try to look at it systematically but kind of first things first. We’ll have a new 18
vendor soon. We want to really develop with that ven-, with our new vendor what their 19
capabilities are and kind of really ground the possibilities and options that we develop 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
conceptually with them. So that can – have a real conversation with the public about what the 1
options are for what our next steps are. 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: Because it seems like the parking garage utilization is a function of 4
walking distance. I would imagine the further you have to walk, the less likely you’ll use that 5
garage and eventually you’ll use another garage. And then the reason to use each garage is 6
because you’re going to walk to some location nearby. And being able to calculate how many 7
locations there are to walk to doesn’t seem to be completely impossible because we know where 8
the employers are, we know where the shops are, we know where the restaurants are. So if we 9
know the capacity, we can kind of estimate how much demand there should be for each parking 10
garage. It’s not a completely unknown question. And then the Caltrain – this is where I’m kind of 11
building up from a system standpoint. The Caltrain is a huge success. Everybody’s on the Caltrain. 12
And I think ridership up, I heard, is − what? Three hundred percent, something like that. So the 13
Palo Alto Station is probably getting a lot more walking traffic than before. 14
15
And then, of course, we have Lyft. I’m sure the 2019 and 2024 shift is – Lyfts aren’t parking. So 16
there’s a lot of demographic shifts that are in the data set. And then this is my last comment here 17
is just wondering how much are we in the business of forecasting quantity supply and quantity 18
demand of parking spaces and trying to put a price point on that? I guess that comes back to how 19
much effort there is into trying to forecast and predict what’s the demand for each parking 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
garage. Is there any approach like that to it or just at this point, you’re baselining what the actual 1
usage of the parking garage is? 2
3
Nathan Baird: So I think there was a lot of previous planning study about kind of parking demand 4
and supply as if it were really kind of tied to a particular use. I think where the parking industry 5
now is is that parking demand really kind of follows the economy and follows some other 6
different trends. And so we really do want to be moving toward a world where we can be more 7
adaptive and kind of – my – the ideal now is to really right price the space based on its location 8
and demand, which could fluctuate over time. I don’t think we need like a Seattle model where 9
it changes by time of day but that is something that we do want to look back at maybe every year 10
or 2 or every 3 years, and say, “Okay, this lot or garage is not as popular anymore. We could 11
differentiate the price a little bit up or down.” We do – we now are doing that with the daily 12
permits, so that’s where we have made some – previously, the daily permit was just $25 for many, 13
many, many years. And so that is a place where we have been experimenting with changing that 14
daily current price. That’s why it’s in the Municipal Fee Schedule now − is between 0 and 25. And 15
every year, we take a look back and say, “Okay, how many did we sell?” 16
17
We − it seemed kind of price insensitive for a little bit that when we had it at $8, we put it up to 18
$15 and we sold more when we sold it − the year that it was $15, we sold more than the year 19
that it was $8. But again, that’s probably because the demand just changed. So folks were just 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
kind of price insensitive. But right now, the daily permit is where we will continue to experiment 1
that − each year, we make – we tell Finance Committee what we want to do with it, and I think 2
right now, we’re – we propose that it go up to $20 July 1. And it is something we’d like to continue 3
to do to kind of get to that world where we are changing the price based on the demand that we 4
see and the prior years kind of usage. But again right now, the counts that we’ve had so far, these 5
are point-in-time counts 1 or 2 days a year. So it’s been – it’s a little fuzzier than that. I try to walk 6
around myself and look at the garages and lots and the street usage quite a bit myself just to 7
make sure it feels like those counts that we see is – actually matches up. And I think that’s the 8
case right now. But having more regular data like what the APGS program will give us is going to 9
be really useful for that. 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: One more question. While you were talking, it occurred to me that – are 12
we ever going to get to a point where we go with a – [inaudible 1:41:32] say almost like a fully-13
elastic pricing where when we have the last, say 5 spots in the garage, the price goes from $20 14
to now it’s $300 a spot? Because for somebody, they’re not going to care. They’re going to be 15
like, “I just want to park.” Or is there always some equality-ness to it where we’re not going to 16
say there’s lots for sale for an unlimited amount of money and they’re reserved? 17
18
Nathan Baird: Personally, I think we can let the private garages do that at some point maybe. Let 19
some private garages do that. I think the job of the Municipal Garages is to provide some 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
equitable, notable, publicly-discussed pricing that makes sense. I think there’s some wiggle room 1
for us. But I do believe the Municipal pricing really does set the floor. So a lot of the private 2
garages, you’ll see that they do charge $25. And so there is sort of a – we have – the City controls 3
a great amount of parking in the downtown. And so we really do kind of set the context. And so 4
any changes we make will have a ripple effect out. So I don’t see that $300-space coming on line 5
any time soon. And it will definitely, I think, come from somewhere else than us at this point. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Appreciate your time. 8
9
Chair Akin: I see no other lights. Mr. Baird, do you have any last questions of us? 10
11
Nathan Baird: No, I just wanted to thank you for your engagement in this topic. It is really 12
meaningful to me. I really do try to listen to each of you and to the public as well. I’ve been in 13
many conversations with Neilson over the years and I do look forward to continuing this 14
conversation over time. 15
16
Chair Akin: Thank you very much. If there are no other questions, I think we can bring this item 17
to a close. All right. And I would like to schedule a brief break here. It is by my watch 7:43. Let’s 18
try and be back here at 7:50, so 7 minutes. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Action Items 1
Don’t is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. All others: 2
Three (3) minutes per speaker. 3
4
3. Recommendation on a Resolution Amending the El Camino Real Retail Node Map for 5
Purposes of Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.40.180: Retail Preservation. CEQA 6
Status: Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR), 7
adopted November 17, 2023 (SCH #2014052101) 8
9
Chair Akin: Welcome back, everyone. We’re now addressing Item #3: Recommendation on a 10
Resolution Amending the El Camino Real Retail Node Map. And I believe we have a presentation. 11
Ms. Armer. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: Yes, thank you. So this will be a brief presentation. This is the second time we’ve 14
talked on this discussion – or this item. This is one of the Housing – connected with one of the 15
Housing Element implementation programs. El Camino Real Retail Preservation Nodes Program 16
3.4C discussed changes to the Retail Preservation Ordinance as well as creating strategic 17
locations generally depicted on the draft South El Camino Design Guidelines to have a – that 18
would be protecting retail, reducing the amount in other locations. So based on the April 30 19
meeting, the PTC provided direction to remove the California Node from the previous maps, 20
remove the Focus Area Node, create a number of different – I’ve combined them here into a 21
single Central Node but they are shown on your maps in 3 different parts that were discussed 22
separately in that meeting, on the southwest and northeast sides. Extend the Triangle Node to a 23
few additional parcels. Extend the Auto Dealership Node, and the suggestion was made to name 24
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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.
that the Bike to School Node. And exclude the remainder of the interim node that was not 1
otherwise discussed. And then a request for more information about the North Ventura 2
Coordinated Area Plan Node to consider removal of that area as well. And so we have provided 3
you with a series of maps. This one overall map showing those revised node locations. A series 4
of close-up maps similar to what was provided before with the existing land uses noted. 5
6
And then a series of the same maps but in this case showing the existing, underlying zoning 7
designations for those areas that was a specific request from the previous meeting. And so staff’s 8
recommendation tonight is that PTC recommend to Council that Council adopt a resolution to 9
modify the existing Retail Node Map that is shown in Attachment A, that overall map. With using 10
Attachment A but with potential specific direction. I would recommend that we work through 11
starting with the Bike to School Node, then the Triangle Node, both of which, it seemed we had 12
pretty strong consensus at the last meeting. Discussion of the NVCAP Node, now that you have 13
that additional information about the existing regulations for NVCAP. And then finally, a 14
discussion of the 3-part Central node and which of those the PTC would like to recommend 15
including or not. That concludes staff’s presentation. But we look forward to this discussion. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer. Do we have any clarifying questions from the Commission? 18
Vice-Chair Chang. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: This is not a clarifying question but I just wanted to let my fellow commissioners 1
know that I did wa-, I wasn’t able to be there at the last meeting but I did watch the video, so I 2
am up to date on what was discussed. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you. I had one clarifying question. Since Council expanded the El Camino Real 5
Focus Area the other night, I presume this has no effect on our discussion tonight but I just 6
wanted to confirm that that’s the case. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: That is correct. They did adopt the expansion that was recommended by PTC plus 9
3 additional parcels that are in the NVCAP area for another potential development there. I also 10
will share that there was public comment during that discussion item that was requesting that 11
the retail nodes include the parcels that you did include in the Bike to School Node, so supporting 12
that recommendation to include the Walgreens and those other commercial parcels there with 13
the auto dealerships. 14
15
Chair Akin: Thank you, that’s very helpful. Any other clarifying questions? Vice-Chair Chang. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Not a clarifying question again. But I just wanted to provide – because I 18
just watched our meeting, I did – and then an issue was raised – again, I just wanted to share 19
with the rest of the Commission, there was some discussion in the last meeting about wanting 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.
have an escape valve for retail that fails. And so I reread the Retail Protection Ordinance and 1
wanted to just let everybody know that the Retail Preservation Ordinance already includes a 2
section where owners, like property land owners, can request an exemption either by showing 3
economic hardship or demonstrating that the retail or retail-like use is not viable. And it actually 4
provides several ways in which – as examples. So it’s not a definitive list but it provides examples 5
for how that can be demonstrated, so – just so that we all know that that escape valve is already 6
encoded in our code. So that – yeah, I just wanted to share that since I learned it. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you. No other lights. I presume since we’re not Quasi-Judicial here that we 9
don’t need disclosures, although if anyone had any comments they wanted to make about their 10
research on this, I would be open to that. Okay. Vice-Chair Chang. 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: Just to share research he’s saying. Okay. So I was researching about the – I 13
actually had a back-and-forth with Counselor Yang about this, so he can correct me if this is – if 14
my understanding is incorrect. But I was trying to understand the interaction between the 15
Housing Element sites and the Retail Preservation Ordinance because, at least at my recollection 16
of some of the discussions I was involved in during the creation of the Housing Element, the sites 17
– like neighbors and public commentors who had expressed concern about the inclusion of 18
certain sites on El Camino as Housing Element opportunity sites was because they wanted to 19
make sure that things like Happy Donuts were preserved, which – and you might note that Happy 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Donuts is actually one of the Housing Element opportunity sites. And at the time, those – 1
everybody was told, “Well, the Retail Preservation Ordinance exists, so that those ho-, even if 2
this is a Housing Element opportunity site, the retail will be preserved.” Not the specific retail 3
use but the square footage − the ground floor square footage. And then I was trying to 4
understand how it happens that now those opportunity sites are not – are exempt from the RPO, 5
the Retail Preservation Ordinance. And my understanding is – and again, Mr. Yang, you can 6
correct me if I’m wrong. That there is a new California State Law that said that if an opportunity 7
site is designated as appropriate for lower-income housing, that it has to be allowed to build 100 8
percent housing on that site. 9
10
And then as a result – and then on April 7, our City Council followed the staff recommendation 11
to – that to ease the administrative burden of managing Housing Element opportunity sites that 12
we group all of our opportunity sites together as one whether or not they were deemed 13
appropriate for lower-income housing. And as you guys might remember, sites were only allowed 14
to be deemed appropriate for lower-income housing if they were larger sites. I can’t remember 15
what the threshold was but I do remember Tim Wong telling us about that. So in effect because 16
for – it’s because of Palo Alto’s implementation of the Housing Element that all the Housing 17
Element’s opportunity sites are not eligible through the Retail Preservation Ordinance. However, 18
then I asked Mr. Yang, “Could we change that? Could we say that within the retail nodes, if this 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.
is a site that hasn’t – is not for lower-income housing, can we actually make the Retail 1
Preservation Ordinance apply for those sites?” 2
3
And he said, “Yes, it is possible.” So I just wanted to share all of that background with everybody, 4
so that we are all on the same page. And then finally the last thing I did − because I went into a 5
deep rathole on this, was I went through every single – I made a spreadsheet of every single 6
Housing Element opportunity site that is within any of the nodes that you all drew at the last 7
meeting and tallied up – I looked it up according to the most recent version of the Housing 8
Element, how many units were expected on that site in the Housing Element and whether or not 9
they were – and the affordability level. So if you have questions, I can answer them. 10
11
Chair Akin: All right. And I guess in some sense that qualifies as a clarifying question. 12
Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Does this mute button thing work or not? I don’t know. 15
Which cue am I in? Anyway, thank you. I really appreciate that you had those questions and that 16
you got some answers. But I would add we have the opportunity for staff to directly answer and 17
share back with us, so I’m going to interpret the Vice-Chair’s comments as a question to staff to 18
clarify and confirm those questions that she had, if you wouldn’t mind doing that here, so we can 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.
hear directly from staff. Because I think there’s some nuance that I would love to understand 1
from you guys. Thank you. 2
3
Albert Yang: Yeah, so the Vice-Chair summarized her questions and my responses correctly. If 4
you have additional follow-ups, I’d be happy to answer those. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. So I’m going to ask you, are we applying retail preservation 7
to these things or not? 8
9
Albert Yang: So if you have a site that isn’t – sorry − in our Housing Element inventory, then we 10
have a local ordinance saying that those types can develop at 100 percent residential and retail 11
preservation does not apply. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Is there a threshold? I mean I think that was the sense of what Vice-14
Chair was getting at is that possibly sites of certain size potential qualify but certain others don’t 15
or really the Council had threw everything together in that bucket. 16
17
Albert Yang: So yeah, the Council threw everything together. There’s a State Law that says if your 18
inventory says, “Okay, this site is projected to have 45 units, half of them will be market rate and 19
25 percent of them will be lower income and 25 percent will be extremely low income.” If we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
make that kind of projection where you have – we have lower-income units on a site, then the 1
State Law requires that we allow it to be 100 percent residential. And if you look through our 2
inventory, I’d say two-thirds to three-quarters of inventory sites have some lower-income units 3
projected on them. So the staff recommendation last year and the one that the Council accepted 4
was rather than sort of have to look at the inventory each time, see which types of units were 5
projected on each site, we’ll treat them all the same and allow 100 percent residential. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So let me get to the bottom line here because I think I heard a 8
suggestion here that possibly, given this room is empty, could have an implication that the public 9
doesn’t understand. Are you saying that we’re doing any decision making tonight that would 10
affect whether or not Happy Donuts stays? 11
12
Albert Yang: No. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: I just want to make sure we understand because if that’s the case, 15
then work needs to be done. So… 16
17
Albert Yang: So I’ll have to go and look at what is projected on the Happy Donuts site and perhaps 18
Vice-Chair Chang has gone down that rabbit hole. 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: You guys – I know it sounds a little silly but that’s an item of 1
community interest that I would think would probably − we’d want to have people weigh in if it’s 2
on us. If that decision – if you’re saying the decision would have already been made by Council, 3
that’s a different issue. 4
5
Albert Yang: Right. So if the Happy Donuts site is projected to have lower-income units – if we’ve 6
said, “Yes, this is going to – in our arena, it’s going to accommodate some of our lower-income 7
units.” There’s nothing we can do to preserve retail – to require retail rather. It has to be allowed 8
to develop at 100 percent residential. If it is only projected to have market rate or moderate 9
units, then the Commission could recommend that the City Council change course from the 10
position it made last year and continue to require retail on that site. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: All right. Thank you for clarifying. Ms. Armer, anything to add? 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Nothing to add. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Do we know what’s currently allocated for that site? That’s what I’m 17
asking for. 18
19
Jennifer Armer: I can look that up. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: Just judging from the map, I don’t think it is an opportunity site. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton : That’s why I wanted to clarify because there was a little ambiguity in 6
the speculation we were going – exercise we were doing with the Vice-Chair. So I just want to 7
make sure because none of us wants to step in that. 8
9
PUBLIC COMMENTS 10
11
Chair Akin: Very good. If there are no other clarifying questions, I think that might be an 12
appropriate point to ask if there’s public comment. 13
14
Veronica Dao: No, I have no public comments. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Quick, I’m going to call my kids. 17
18
Chair Akin: All right. As we open up the discussion, I would like to sec-, Ms. Armer. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jennifer Armer: So I took a quick search of Appendix D, the sites inventory for the Housing 1
Element, and for the proper-, for the Number 3916, which is the address on El Camino Real where 2
Happy Donuts is located based on my quick Google search, and it did not come up with that 3
number. So that’s my quick check; it is not as far as I can tell with this [inaudible 2:12:23]… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Then I will not… 6
7
Jennifer Armer: …site. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: …make a motion to do this at another time. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Akin: All right. Good. That’s consistent with the map, so that’s encouraging too. All right. 12
Before opening up to general discussion, I’d just like to second Ms. Armer’s suggestion that we 13
take care of some of the easier cases first and reserve our time for conversation about the Central 14
Node. I think that’s the most challenging one. Is that suggestion acceptable to everyone? Go 15
ahead and weigh in if you like. 16
17
Commissioner James: I just wonder if I could make some sort of general comments, whatever the 18
appropriate time is. I didn’t do a spreadsheet but I kind of – I did some sort of on-the-ground kind 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.
of assessment and did a few things that I’d just like to share since our last meeting. But they’re 1
much more general in context. 2
3
Chair Akin: We’re not there yet but we will be very shortly. 4
5
Commissioner James: Okay. 6
7
Chair Akin: All right. So hearing no objections, I suggest we follow Ms. Armer’s outline and deal 8
with the nodes one at a time and perhaps we could make a motion on the nodes individually, so 9
that we can get the easy ones out of the way first. Commissoner Hechtman, you look concerned. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Well I may have misunderstood Commissioner James but I thought he 12
had some higher-level comments before we get to the individual nodes. And so I was afraid if we 13
do the individual nodes first, he will lose some of the impact of those bigger comments. Did I 14
misunderstand? 15
16
Commissioner James: That was my intent, yeah. 17
18
Chair Akin: Oh, okay. Go ahead. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner James: And they may be too general to be helpful but I just nevertheless would 1
like to share them for others to consider. 2
3
Chair Akin: All right. Then let’s begin with comments that apply to all to the process that affects 4
all of the nodes. 5
6
Commissioner James: Right. So I guess – I just did a couple things to kind of refine my thinking on 7
this. And one of the things I did is I went back and read the South El Camino Real Design 8
Guidelines from 2002, which you – which the Chair sort of kindly shared with me. And he 9
referenced that they showed a little bit of age but I also think they showed some foresight as 10
well. And I thought there were some principles there that were intended to be − create a vision 11
for how South El Camino Real would be developed as a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly community, 12
that I think they still resonated with me. So – and I think where I felt it applied most − and is 13
frankly, the node that we took off at Cal. Avenue. And so that – it may not be a welcome general 14
overview but I’m going to make it anyway. That there are several principles about how you create 15
a streetscape that encourages pedestrian-friendly, vibrant streetscape basically, along the 16
ground floor. And one of those principles is that corners are particularly important. And it seems 17
to me that we – coming out of Cal. Avenue and in our effort to make El Camino Real vibrant, that 18
we might be missing an opportunity there to do that. And I don’t think we’re sacrificing a lot 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.
if we added that back, I don’t think we are sacrificing a lot of housing opportunities there. So I 1
just wanted to share that. I can sort of be more specific about that. 2
3
The other thing is that I – following the last meeting, I was very impressed by Commissioner 4
Hechtman’s detail, observations about some of the smaller sites and the parking challenges there 5
and I just – I didn’t have those insights, so I went back to try and get them and walk this section. 6
And I certainly see what he’s talking about. Some of those sites are only about 100 feet deep and 7
they’re small sites. And I guess I see what he’s talking about but I have to say I think my sense is 8
that the appropriate response may be to preserve those locations rather than to eliminate that 9
because they don’t seem to me to be that suitable for housing development. So I guess I want to 10
– I feel like we need some placeholders for the future and just to make sure that we’re not just 11
stacking bedrooms on top of bedrooms for 4 and 5 stories along El Camino Real. That we are like 12
– we are seating community. And to get a grasp of that, I just looked back at the Housing Element 13
just to get some – just nice definitional idea. And as they are explaining the trend toward mixed-14
development, they distill it down as being driven by several factors, including the desire for more 15
walkable, livable communities, and the need for more affordable housing, and the desire for 16
more sustainable development. 17
18
And I guess I would be – I feel like that area of South El Camino Real – if we want people to get 19
out of their cars, we need to create places for them to go. And so I would tend to advocate for 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
keeping some of those as sort of placeholders for future ground-level retail. So I guess my sense 1
is that – I also had a sense that when you start to pull all of the exceptions out, you really don’t 2
lose if you take those smaller sites that are retail now and try and do what you can to preserve 3
them for potential retail in the future. You’re really not losing a lot of Housing Element. So those 4
were just my general observations. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner James. Any other observations on the generality at the 7
general level? Okay. I believe you started with the Bike to School Node, if that’s correct. Shall we 8
begin there? Comments on the Bike to School Node? And then if we reach consensus, we’ll make 9
a motion. Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So I’m supportive of the portion of the Bike to School Node 12
on the south side. And just wanted a reminder of the rationale that one or more commissioners 13
brought up to include two parcels on the north side. One of which is the Jiffy Lube housing 14
opportunity site. So I know I’m supportive of the south side; I just need a reminder of why a 15
number of commissioners I think thought we should add those 2 parcels on the north side. 16
17
Chair Akin: Vice-Chair, were you going to respond to that or… 18
19
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah, [my light’s already on 2:20:29]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Right. Commissioner Ji, would you like to respond? 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Yes, thank you, Chair. I want to echo Commissioner James’ sentiment about 4
corners and how corners are useful. And so I think that’s the main rationale is to just provide 5
inviting kind of area for retail and because – I mean I would have included the four corners except 6
the last corner is moot. So that’s my rationale for that. And then I just had a quick question to 7
staff about did we say that hotels were not considered retail? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: That is my understanding but Mr. Yang may have something else to add. 10
11
Albert Yang: I’m sorry, can you repeat the question? 12
13
Commissioner Ji: I wanted to ask about hotels because our discussion last meeting was about 14
how hotels do not qualify as retail for the RPO. Can you just comment on that quickly? 15
16
Albert Yang: Yes. Sorry. Let me just pull up again our definitions of retail and retail-like. So retail-17
like does include hotel, and so that is covered by the Retail Preservation Ordinance. 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: Okay, thank you. I’ll keep my co-, I’ll wait in line for my comments. I know there’s 1
some other people in line. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Vice-Chair Chang. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Is Commissioner Hechtman done? 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Again, I’m supportive of the one side; I’m open to supporting the 8
north side. I just was hoping some of you would remind me what you liked about including north 9
side. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So I’ll just – I’m supportive of the node as drawn. I do think corners are 12
important. Also because Charleston – we think of where retail’s most likely to succeed and I think 13
the corners of major streets is a likely location. And Charleston is a thoroughfare, not just for the 14
bicyclists, but unfortunately also for all the many commuters that may get a hazard for the 15
bicyclists. But given that, I do think that the retail is more likely to succeed there. I will also add 16
that this site is slated for 11 units of housing, none of which are lower income according to my 17
research at least. I could have read off a line. So in the event that this were not redeveloped, this 18
cycle or in the event that Council decided to try and make nodes, like really – so let me just hit 19
pause for a second. As I was going through this exercise, we were talking about retail 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
preservation. But when I think about it from a planning perspective, what I really want to do is 1
say this is where I want retail. Now that train has left the station to some extent because of how 2
we have drawn Housing Element sites and also because of State Law and our implementation of 3
it. However, kind of looking at this really big picture, I was really worried and listened to 4
Commissioner Hechtman’s comment about solitary retail dangling there by itself is not likely to 5
succeed. 6
7
And I think that frankly, the entire corridor may be at some risk for that if every single Housing 8
Element site were to be redeveloped without retail. Now there’s nothing saying that that is 9
definitely going to happen. A property owner could certainly decide to add back retail. They’re 10
not prohibited from doing that. With that being said, this corner here is one where I would really 11
like to have been able to say, “I want retail here.” And so that’s why I want to include it, simply 12
because there is a site there that may not be redeveloped. And I am hoping that for future 13
Housing Elements, we open up the Stanford Research Park and have these other sites – large 14
sites that might be much better for housing because as we’ve all identified many of these little 15
parcels on El Camino aren’t really great for anything. They’re not ideal for housing. I mean who 16
wants to live on El Camino? Like on El Camino, right? Because it’s a big trafficky street. So I just 17
kind of want to plan for the future. That’s why I’m supportive of it. 18
19
Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice-Chair. Commissioner Ji, then Commissioner Templeton. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Ji: I’ll let Commissioner Templeton go first because I already talked a little bit. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, thank you very much, Commissioner Ji, and Chair. So I guess what 4
− I’m trying to be open to this discussion and understand that – is there a potential – what’s the 5
implication if we don’t include that Jiffy Lube corner in this node? When it’s developed as a house 6
– or housing, then we don’t have a Jiffy Lube anymore? 7
8
Jennifer Armer: So when we had the discussion of the changes to the HIP – AHIP program, we 9
also were looking at modifications to the Retail Preservation Regulations − that ordinance. And 10
one of those was a differentiation between different sites on El Camino Real, those that are in 11
the nodes versus those that aren’t and there was less retail required, like there were different 12
thresholds depending on if it was a Housing Element site, if it wasn’t, whether it was in a retail 13
preservation node or not. And so there were some reductions if you – in terms of the retail 14
preservation of the retail that was required if you weren’t in one of the nodes. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I mean – the reason that this is difficult is 17
because what we have now is really blocking a vision. And I think I’m restating what the Vice-18
Chair’s point was, “Blocking a vision of what this space could be.” Right now, I look at it as very 19
industrial on an extremely one of our busiest intersections in the City. It’s frightening how many 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of our kids bike that to school. And here we are saying, “It’s the Bike to School node.” So let’s 1
imagine if the current retail wasn’t there, are there ideas of retail we’d want to attract, any kinds 2
of users, students or otherwise, to that busy intersection? And is that kind of the nature of your 3
question, Commissioner Hechtman, are we trying to attract people to that side of the street? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: I guess I was looking at it more simply that we’re creating what to me 6
seemed like a little, 2-parcel island across the street with one of those maybe going to housing. 7
But as I said, I’m not really adverse; I just didn’t remember – I know it wasn’t initially my thought 8
it should be included. I wanted to hear a little bit more. I frankly think I have and I’m… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: …supportive. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Well in the interest int that and in the interest of this being the easy 15
one… 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 Templeton: …let’s go with it. I think honestly having some understanding of how 1
to use that space and a little bit more direction is needed, so I think it’s fine for us to include that. 2
And I’m interested to see what it will look like 30 years from now. So, thank you. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioners. Commissioner Ji. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I know Commissioner Templeton just said this was the easy 7
one. But I am going – okay. We have collectively − under the impression this is the easy one. But 8
given Mr. Yang’s comment about hotel being retail-like, I’m wondering if maybe – and also in the 9
spirit of including corners, The Zen Hotel at the corner of Maybell and El Camino could potentially 10
either live in this node. It seems to match exactly kind of the discussion that we discussed last 11
time, which is kids bike through this area, we want to revitalize this corner, kids already go to 12
what is currently the Walgreens. I don’t – I feel like The Zen Hotel falls under the same criteria as 13
many of the other sites here. I just want to get other commissioner’s thoughts. 14
15
Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang. 16
17
Vice-Chair Chang: I’d be fine adding it. I mean like if we’re really thinking about where would 18
retail most likely succeed, that’s probably a spot. Like we’re talking about – it doesn’t – it might 19
not remain a hotel and it’s a large enough site where you could actually have like a little decent 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
boba shop and whatever it is that people love about it underneath housing with parking and 1
everything that would actually make it successful. So I’d be okay including it. It’s – yeah. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair, I do want to point out if you look between the different maps 4
that were shared with you and we do have printed-out versions as well – if you look at the one 5
that has the zoning, you will note that that property is a Planned Community Zone, which we 6
talked about last time. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: See, I knew there was a reason why that wasn’t included. But… 9
10
Jennifer Armer: That the retail preservation doesn’t apply to PC Zones. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: And also these maps this week are great. Thank you for printing them 13
out large and in color. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes, thank you. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Great. Thank you, Ms. Armer, for that comment. May I comment on a separate 18
one then, which is maybe the Hilton Garden Inn on the other side of the Bike to School Node? 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.
Maybe – I don’t actually see a label on the Attachment C, the zoning map, so I was just wondering, 1
Ms. Armer, if you could help me understand if that’s a PC? 2
3
Jennifer Armer: So that is not a PC; that’s within the CS Zone. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. It’s the same zoning designation as those blue-striped parcels a little 8
farther down because there’s no red line between them. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: I see. Thank you. So I then suggest maybe is there any interest in including that 11
because again, it’s a large piece of land that la-, in my – in our last discussion, I thought that hotels 12
were not qualified for RPO but given Mr. Yang’s comments, I’d – just want to hear commissioners 13
thoughts on that instead. 14
15
Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. I guess my initial thought is I’m not inclined to expand the node 18
in that direction; it’s a big parcel. I don’t know that the Hilton’s going away anytime soon. We 19
have a lot of reasons for people to want to come stay in Palo Alto and so I’m not seeing our hotel 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
base shrinking. Right now, it’s zoned for commercial use and that gives us – as we were looking 1
up at the California Node, for example, that Commissioner James mentioned, I remember the 2
Chair when we were talking about it, talking about all of the existing zoning protections that were 3
already there that sort of served those functions of making sure we had an appropriate retail 4
atmosphere in that node, which is why I think a number of us were comfortable directing staff to 5
take it off. Here, I think we got sort of the same situation. It’s off the corner because we’ve 6
included the corner with the American Tire. I guess then the question is where you draw the line. 7
Well, why not take one more step and go Hobee’s and start to hit those other housing 8
opportunity sites. So I’m pretty comfortable with the expansion that we’re looking at now. 9
10
Chair Akin: Sorry, I didn’t see which of you clocked in first but Commissioner Templeton, then 11
Vice-Chair Chang. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’m ready to move on. Yeah, I don’t have any more 14
comments on this. 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: So I just wanted to remind us all that in El Camino outside of retail nodes, non-17
opportunity sites with sufficient density can reduce the retail to 1500 square feet. So if it has 18
sufficient density, then that’s where it can get reduced to 1500 square feet; otherwise, I think it’s 19
still protected, is that correct, Mr. Yang? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Albert Yang: Yes, that’s right. So if it’s not an opportunity site and it’s lower density, then the 2
retail has to be replaced at the same amount of square footage as whatever was on the ground 3
floor. If it’s on a higher density, then it can reduce any replacements to just 1500 square feet. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: And how – what – how is high density defined? 6
7
Albert Yang: I believe it’s 30 units per acre. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So I think we want to incentivize the higher density and since we’ve 10
already protected the corner, I think I’d be okay leaving it out in this case. It is protected but if 11
they build enough housing, then it could be reduced to 1500, which would then require an 12
additional storefront there, which might be exactly what we want. But I’m not sure we – it’s such 13
a big frontage that I’m not sure we need a whole strip of it. So that’s kind of where I come out on 14
this one. 15
16
Chair Akin: All right. I’m seeing no other lights. So I’m pondering the process we take from this 17
point. So the – I guess the central question is whether we adopt the node as currently drawn and 18
then should we entertain additions as separate items? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jennifer Armer: So yeah, through the Chair – I mean I’m hearing general consensus for the node 1
as currently drawn. And so if somebody wished to make a motion to that, then we can do a 2
motion for each of these. If – even in the middle of discussion on others, somebody wants to 3
make a motion, we can consider that and – or suggest modifications to it. There are variety of 4
ways we can handle each of these. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: So in the interest of speeding this along then – because I think I heard 7
consensus. I’ll just move that we accept the node – the Bike to School Node as currently drawn. 8
9
Chair Akin: Do I hear a second? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Sorry. I’m trying to get my light on. I’ll second. My understanding of 12
your motion is that this is our recommendation to Council. 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: [Yes 2:37:07]. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, as to the Bike to School Node as currently drawn. Yeah, I second 17
that. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Is shape really the only part of what we need to include tonight? The 1
shape of the… 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Is that all you need from us? 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: So there will be a resolution prepared with the revised map attached for 12
consideration by Council based on your recommendation. 13
14
Chair Akin: Very good. I think we need a vote. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 1
2
Commissioner James: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 9
10
Chair Akin: Yes. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 7-0. 5
6
Chair Akin: Very good. Thank you all. Now that the easy one is done, we can move on to the 7
harder ones. All right. Let’s proceed to the Triangle Node then next. Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: I think that was a ghost light but I am supportive of this as drawn. 10
11
Chair Akin: Thank you. Any other comments? Well I have a comment but I wanted to give 12
everybody else the opportunity to go first. So the only question I have about this one is whether 13
the Goodwill site should be included or not. It’s isolated on that corner. There may be uses for 14
that other than either retail or housing given its proximity to Palo Alto Commons. So I wondered 15
if we want to enforce retail protection on that particular site. Any thoughts? Commissioner – let’s 16
see. Vice-Chair Chang. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: So given that it is a Housing Element opportunity site, again I did the research, 19
this one is – has lower-income housing planned for it. So even though it’s in the node, assuming 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 gets redeveloped in this cycle and it’s a larger site − so my suspicion is that it would be added 1
to future cycles as well unless at that time, the Housing Element finds much better sites 2
elsewhere. So I don’t see any downside per se to including it because as currently – as the current 3
plans for it, there’s not much that we can do about it to preserve the retail anyway. Are you 4
suggesting though that if it were not redeveloped, that maybe it would be a site that would be 5
appropriate for something else entirely, neither housing nor retail? 6
7
Chair Akin: Yeah, the – specifically, the question is whether Palo Alto Commons would choose to 8
expand there as a way of getting more space with less impact on neighbors. 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: In which case, they would do it via PC is my suspicion. They would have to 11
actually, I think, based on the uses there. And so the re-, any retail requirement that we had or 12
know would be irrelevant. 13
14
Chair Akin: Irrelevant. Commissioner Templeton. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I appreciate your creativity. I think it’s a really interesting idea 17
and I think that fortunately the regulations would permit that under some level of discretion that 18
we might exert. Are there any concerns that the staff has about it as drawn? The shape of this 19
area as drawn specifically related to the kinds of things we just talked about. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Jennifer Armer: So from my perspective, I do not. I will check in with Mr. Yang just to make sure 2
he doesn’t have any concerns either. 3
4
Albert Yang: I do not. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, I’m comfortable with it as written and will support someone’s 7
motion for it. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: I’ll make a motion to move the Triangle Node as drawn. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Second. 14
15
Chair Akin: May we have a vote? 16
17
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 4
5
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 8
9
Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 10
11
Chair Akin: Yes. 12
13
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 16
17
Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 18
19
Commissioner James: Yes. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 4
5
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 7-0. 6
7
Chair Akin: All right. And the next of the easy ones is North Ventura. Vice-Chair Chang. 8
9
Vice-Chair Chang: So I agree with staff’s recommendation as well as Commissioner Akin’s 10
comments at the last time – last PTC meeting that because this area is – already has plans created 11
for it, that there’s no need to add an additional layer of administration, so we could dispense 12
entirely with this node. 13
14
Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Ditto. 17
18
Chair Akin: All right. Let’s move. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Just in the interest of moving this along, then I’m going to move that we 1
dispense with the North Ventura Cap Node in our recommended resolution to Council. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Second. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Can I ask a question of staff, Chair? 6
7
Chair Akin: Yes, please go ahead. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Are there any implications that are not in the packet of doing this? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: Not that I’m aware of. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Just checking. We have done a lot of work on the NVCAP, so I 14
understand the sentiment. I can’t recall why we wanted to do this. 15
16
Vice-Chair Chang: Should we ask Mr. Yang? Because the NVCAP – the current language talks 17
about areas on El Camino that are in nodes and not in nodes and does the NVCAP – do the NVCAP 18
rules supersede all of that? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Albert Yang: Yes, so the NVCAP – any rules that are specific to the NVCAP will be enforceable 1
regardless of what the general RPO says. But again, I don’t believe that there are retail 2
preservation rules in the NVCAP itself. It’s just that plan has a very high level of detail of what is 3
permitted or not. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I think what we’re trying to understand is is this exercise moot 6
because NVCAP would overrule anything? And what I’m hearing from you is probably not on the 7
RPO side, if it would even be relevant at all. 8
9
Albert Yang: That’s – I guess − that’s right. So the NVCAP, like most zoning, just tells you what is 10
permitted − what is conditionally permitted, and what are the rules for how you can develop 11
those uses. It doesn’t speak to do you have to retain a use that’s in place. And so the general RPO 12
does apply within the NVCAP. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Okay, thank you. Yeah, I mean my sense is that area is another very 15
busy intersection and I’m not sure how much we want to continue drawing foot traffic there. I’m 16
always amazed at the amount of foot traffic they do get on the El Camino and Page Mill corner 17
there. I’m inclined to agree with the Vice-Chair’s suggestion. I was trying to think through any 18
outlying reasons we might have thought this was a good idea but I think if the NVCAP mostly has 19
addressed that, then we don’t need to worry about 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
Chair Akin: I think it may be a holdover from the South El Camino Design Guidelines. But yeah, I 2
believe the concrete issues have been addressed by NVCAP. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s probably why. Okay, thank you. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: And just to add to that from the previous meeting, since this entire length of El 7
Camino was in the interim node, a lot of the work that the discussion did was, “Here are the ones 8
we definitely want to keep, here are the areas that can be removed.” And this was an area where 9
the Planning Commission requested additional information. There was a thought that there 10
might be sufficient protections within the NVCAP, but you held that decision off until you 11
received that additional information, which you now have. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much. I appreciate that. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: So I believe we could have a motion and a second. Yeah. 16
17
Chair Akin: So just confirming do we have the motion and the second? Okay. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Yes. Chair Akin? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Akin: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 10
11
Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 12
13
Commissioner James: Yes. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 7-0. 8
9
Chair Akin: Very good. Thank you, everyone. All right, let’s proceed to the Central Nodes. 10
Comments? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Do you want to take all three together or one at a time, Chair? 13
14
Chair Akin: Good question. My inclination is that there’s just some room for general comments 15
here. So I wouldn’t want to restrict the discussion just to single nodes at least at this point; 16
otherwise, I suspect it will narrow down to that fairly quickly. Commissioner Hechtman. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So I am supportive of B; we talked about that last time. It’s 19
got a little more depth to the lots; I like that. There’s some good opportunity for housing with 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
retail underneath there. I’m supportive of C. I think I was convinced of that at the last meeting 1
initially. I don’t love the shallowness of those lots but there was enough dialogue here that I got 2
comfortable with that, so I’m supportive of that one. And the one I don’t think we should include 3
is A and for reasons I expressed last time but after others make their general comments, I’ll come 4
back. But that’s really the only one that I have more comments on is A. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you. Anyone else? Vice-Chair Chang. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: So I’m supportive of all three nodes, mainly because when you look at the – so 9
I’ll speak to A specifically because I concur completely with what Commissioner Hechtman said 10
regarding B and C. Regarding A, this is where there’s little that we can do because as currently 11
implemented, the 2 sites there that would have retail protected would be TaeKwon Tigers and 12
Shell. But that would be lovely if they did have some retail there. Because as we look at all the 13
housing that’s coming in – so again, I just walked the section and I was shocked how many times 14
– because I would stop with my giant pieces of paper – I kept having to dodge pedestrians. Like 15
many, many, many pedestrians there. So – on both sides of the street. So it’s all being really 16
heavily used. I don’t see much of a downside to including it; those 2 sites. Let me see. I can look 17
up what I – so yeah, the r-, they’re all Housing Element sites. So as it is, it’s quite possible that 18
this retail gets decimated and then in that case, we can go back and adjust. And we also – I 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
checked to make sure there is this escape, like release valve. And there’s the release valve and it 1
didn’t seem overly onerous. 2
3
It’s at the director’s – I think staff – sorry. The process is that a business owner would have to 4
write to the director – the planning director, so Director Lait, and then within 45 days, it’d have 5
to be placed on Council’s consent calendar. So if we are protecting some retail that ultimately is 6
doomed, it’s okay. There’s an escape valve. And so I think my – I’m just sort of thinking like, 7
“Gosh, this stuff is so heavily used, so – and with the Housing Element in place, it doesn’t – we’re 8
not really losing anything.” If somebody wants to develop it without retail, they can. 9
10
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I agree. I’m not really seeing the downside to including Central 13
Node A and clearly I support Nodes B and C. This area of Central Node A is very walkable and 14
used somewhat right now by the Ventura neighborhood and if we were to be able to encourage 15
developers who work − who wanted to build there to think about that, I think that’s a good thing. 16
I understand we can’t require them; but if we can say this is an area that the City believes should 17
have something that could serve the neighborhood, I think it’s a good thing. And it doesn’t seem 18
too big of a risk to have it. And I would love to hear from Commissioner Hechtman what he is 19
concerned about with removing that node. 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: Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Commissioner Hechtman, would you like to comment on that first? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m now flummoxed between the two buttons that I have. Let me ask 6
actually a couple of questions first. One – and I’m going to ask Mr. Yang only because of his 7
longevity with the City. This RPO escape valve, how frequently, in your experience, has it been 8
used? 9
10
Albert Yang: So I can think of two occasions when it was used. Once on Alma and I am not recalling 11
the other time. But both of those were, I believe, pre-pandemic. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 14
15
Albert Yang: We have not had an application recently. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: I did it again. Okay. Next question, looking at the zoning – again, these 18
diagrams you provided for this meeting are great. So it looks to me like the zoning behind Central 19
Node A is all RM30 except for the corner of Fernando. Am I looking at that right? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Jennifer Armer: No, I believe that whole area is CN because there’s a red line that runs right along 2
Lane 66. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: The zone behind is what he’s asking about. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: Oh. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m talking about the area behind – directly behind… 9
10
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: …the green strip. It looks like it… 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Is RM30. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: RM30. Like there’s a big bulk of it… 17
18
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: …to the south and then this… 1
2
Jennifer Armer: Except a single parcel. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: That’s R1. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: So with RM30 behind, can staff remind me what kind of allowable 9
building height we could have in Central Node A? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: So there are a couple different things. There was the discussion of the increased 12
heights when we are looking at the focus area – El Camino Real Focus Area. And so which sites 13
are included in that, I’d have to switch back to that map as we were discussing at Council last 14
night. But it’s only select parcels that incre-, be allowed the increased height. And then I can take 15
a quick look at what the CN regulations are otherwise. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: When we were last on this, I don’t think I knew that this RM-30 Zoning 18
stretched behind. And I was thinking it was R1 because the neighborhood is part – predominantly. 19
And so my concern was as R1 − I’m just kind of trying to reconstruct and then I'll go forward. 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.
was to me kind of the perfect storm of a potential restraint on housing because we are going to 1
have no parking on El Camino for whatever stores are here, which means they’d have to provide 2
parking on site but with R1 behind, they can only be 35 feet tall. And so they have to provide, not 3
only parking for the residents of that building, but also for the retail. But that is going to take the 4
ground floor. So how do those things coexist? And if they don’t provide the parking for the retail, 5
then you’ve got all of these convenient neighborhood streets that where people who want to 6
use the retail and aren’t walking are going to park. And so there’s so many bad things there. But 7
depending upon the allowable height along that row with RM30, that could make a difference. 8
That could potentially accommodate housing with parking and so that’s why I’m asking the 9
question now. I know if it’s R1 behind, I think we got a 35 foot, right? Because you got the daylight 10
plane. I’m just not sure about the RM30. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: So the general height limit for that zone is – it looks like it’s 25 feet. 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: This is for CN for El Camino or for RM30? 15
16
Jennifer Armer: For CN. And I’ll go back and check that for a moment. And it looks like – I’m 17
switching between maps. It looks like none of that area is included in the retail – El Camino Focus 18
Area. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: CN may have certain height but there’s a special provision except when 1
you’re next to R1, then you have this lower height – a height limitation. And maybe there is no 2
similar provision regarding adjacency to RM30. But that was really my concern last time and what 3
was carried over. But it may be that the RM30 running most of the way behind it addresses that. 4
I mean there are 8 parcels here; 5 of them are housing opportunity sites, so we don’t want to 5
restrain those. One is a Shell site which, some people believe gas stations are going away in a 6
decade; I don’t. But – and they’re not the best sites to redevelop, although it happens every day. 7
So I’m expecting that Shell site – that’s a money maker. It’s a great mid-town location. I don’t 8
think they’re going away as long as people are still pumping petrol. So again, my only concern is 9
that RM30 behind creates some sort of limitation on the height that the CS Zoning could 10
otherwise enjoy. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: It does not appear to… 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: …based on our current code. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. So that being – so it seems like I’m hearing support generally 19
for the Central Node A and it does provide a nice sort of multiblock symmetry; A, B, and C, which 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I appreciate. And there’s always opportunities in the future to go fine tune things if they turn out 1
to not work. So I’m supportive of A. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: I’ll make my comments brief about Node A since it sounds like we have 6
consensus. But I just want to comment on a couple things that I think make Node A pretty 7
exciting. So one is that that area of El Camino has those pedestrian crossings that make it very 8
easy. And I see people use those every day to go across and I think that means that I really support 9
the symmetry aspect. They’re exact – like of the 3 crossings in that section, 2 of them go across 10
Node A. So I think that makes the symmetry good. Number 2 is hoping driftwood will stay there. 11
It could just bring additional traffic. Since we have it on the bottom, they can just cross the street 12
using one of those headlights, go across. Number 3, it is a pretty big bike to – like school, school 13
transit, safe route to school area. For those of us who live in Ventura, there is like a crossing guard 14
there. This is a pretty big place where kids go. I’ll echo my comments from the Triangle Node and 15
other areas. I won’t dilly-dally on that. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: I do not know why that light is still there. I have made my comments. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Oh, I actually have one more. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, so… 4
5
Commissioner Ji: I actually want to just comment on a previous thing that Commissioner 6
Templeton mentioned last time, which is about some of the businesses that we may – would like 7
to see develop. I’m happy to report that during my walk, I determined that those aren’t Housing 8
Element sites, so we may see some exciting development in the area. 9
10
Chair Akin: Thank you. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: I’ll – I mean – oh yeah, go ahead. 13
14
Chair Akin: You still have more? Please go ahead. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: No, I was go-, I don’t know. I wanted to let you, Chair, give a chance to have 17
comments but otherwise, I was going to make a motion. So, go ahead. 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: No, in fact, I was heading down the same path as Commissioner Hechtman. So I was 1
interested in determining what the effect of the RM30 behind Node A would be. And I was 2
prepared to give up Node A if we were in a non-viable situation there. But as it is, it seems like 3
we’re proceeding towards including it. And interestingly, that is what was recommended in the 4
original design guidelines. So it’s kind of interesting to see some consensus there. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: I’ll move to – move forward with Nodes A, B, and C as drawn. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Seconded. 9
10
Chair Akin: May we have a vote? 11
12
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 1
2
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 3
4
Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 5
6
Commissioner James: Yes. 7
8
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 11
12
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 15
16
Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 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.
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 7-0. 1
2
Jennifer Armer: And through the Chair, just to get a general consensus and confirmation, we 3
would remove the A, B, and C [labels 3:04:28] and just show it as a single Central Node. 4
5
Male: Yeah. 6
7
Chair Akin: I think it’s – that’s… 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 10
11
Chair Akin: …a good decision. I don’t think we need to discuss that. All right. Very good. So with 12
the conclusion of that item, we’re ready to move on to… 13
14
Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 3:04:48]. 15
16
Chair Akin: Oh. So you do. Vice-Chair Chang has a couple more comments before we wrap that. 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.
Jennifer Armer: And I’d like to also check in with Mr. Yang to confirm whether we need any 1
additional motion beyond these individual ones about the individual nodes in talking about 2
recommending them to Council. 3
4
Albert Yang: No, unless there is something else that the Commission wants to add or modify, 5
that’s sufficient direction for us to redraw the map. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So I wanted to ask about Commissioner James’ comment at the very 8
beginning about resurrecting the California Node. I think some of what he has said makes sense 9
to me, especially because again in my like ideal wo-, in my ideal world, I would love to sort of 10
indicate this is where we want retail. I also think that that corner there or going around the corner 11
sort of – it’s – if you imagine that it was just housing, now it could be very well designed housing 12
with some public spaces and stuff that would look great, but we need a gateway to Cal. Ave. 13
That’s the gateway to Cal. Ave. And to me it seems pretty important to ha-, even if there’s not 14
much we can do because of some of the ways that we have chosen to implement the Housing 15
Element, that would make sense. It’s also a very heavily-trafficked area, much more so actually 16
than any of the other nodes that we have just voted on, I believe. I mean it’s filled with 17
pedestrians there. And so there’s – I don’t think that there is much downside and I think there’s 18
important signaling there. So it’s just something that I wanted to raise since it was something 19
that Commissioner James mentioned at the beginning. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 Templeton. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I’m just wondering if maybe staff can remind us why we took it 4
off. I think it was another one that was kind of moot at the time we removed it. And just 5
wondering what might have changed in – since then. I don’t know if staff’s prepared to respond 6
to that. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. My memory is the same as that that it just – it felt 9
like it was moot at the time. I am looking back at the previous reports just to confirm which sites 10
those were as I am filling a few moments to give you a full answer. So that did just include the 4 11
parcels on the corner of El Camino Real and California Avenue; 3 of which are Housing Element 12
sites. The 4th one, the kind of northwest as the map is shown here, corner lot is not. And so it felt 13
like commercial’s already an active – California is already an active commercial corridor; there’s 14
the closing of California Avenue and all the signage and other things that are associated with that. 15
And so maintaining this as a node, especially given that 3 of the 4 were Housing Elements sites 16
seemed less important when discussed last time. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t be added back in 17
if there was consensus. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I really appreciate that response. And I will share that just 1
based on that discussion that we had, nothing about that has changed and we have done 2
something similar tonight already with similar sites. I don’t think that in any way our decision not 3
to include that node was meant to discourage any retail in Cal. Ave. I don’t think that’s what you 4
meant but just to clarify. So I don’t think there’s a lot of risk in leaving it the way it is. And that’s 5
what I’m inclined to do. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: I definitely understand where our discussion was last time and I think I also 10
want to bring up another comment, which is, I believe Chair Akin had also said that zoning 11
protection also protects the retail as is on Cal. Ave. So I just want to like bring that up as an 12
additional comment for one of the reasons why we got – wait. Ms. Armer, do you have a 13
comment there? 14
15
Jennifer Armer: I was going to confirm that the ground floor retail overlay is applicable to that 4th 16
corner; that is not a Housing Element site. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Ms. Armer. So I do understand, I think, where we’re going with it 19
being moot. Though, I do have to say that Vice-Chair Chang’s comment about signaling, I think is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
intriguing. One of the reasons why I say that is because both Chair Akin and Commissioner James 1
referred to the previous report on neighborhoods on El Camino as a basis for what we did in our 2
exercise today. So I think it could be really interesting to draw that back in for a future PTC 10 3
years from now to say, “Hey, this is a node that we had said is an area that we want retail.” Just 4
a thought. 5
6
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I think a future PTC is perfectly capable of bringing that up if they 9
need to. I mean I don’t think we need to do work and that work is unnecessary now. And I think 10
that’s what I’m – like we’re − in my opinion, I think this is our 3rd time discussing this and we’re 11
almost done. And I think rehashing something like that – it’s important to hear Commissioner 12
Chang’s words because she wasn’t here that day and it’s really important to keep that in the 13
record, so I’m glad you did. But I don’t personally want to rehash it. But if other people do, feel 14
free to speak up. But that’s just – I don’t think marking a retail node as a bookmark for the future 15
is necessary. Everybody will know if the time comes up or if it becomes necessary. That’s perfectly 16
within our capacity to bring back up or the future PTC members to bring that back up. 17
18
Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: There’s one additional comment here. As I understand it, the Commission’s 1
rationale was that it was moot, at least for, I believe, the Citi Bank site, correct? Because that’s 2
CC too, and therefore, the retail there is protected. Let me see if I can find this. But in the event 3
– again, I remain – so we are going to have a lot of additional units of housing coming in. Like Palo 4
Alto Square may eventually be redeveloped, right? Decently, within walking distance of Cal. Ave., 5
McDonald’s is going to have 350 – I can’t remember how many units coming in. Tons of people 6
are coming in and like if there’s a spot for retail, this is it. So in the event that these sites aren’t 7
redeveloped this cycle and in the event that we find better sites for housing, by drawing a node 8
right now, we protect that retail for the future. I think that’s where I’m coming from. I’m – it’s 9
kind of idealistic, so I understand if it’s not where the Commission wants to head. But then before 10
I sign off for this topic, there is one additional thing that I would be interested in exploring 11
regarding the big resolution to Council, which is I would really like to encourage them to think 12
about – so to consider whether within retail nodes, Housing Element opportunity sites that are 13
not designated for lower-income housing, should actually be eligible for retail protection. 14
15
And so that’s why I had went down that huge rathole and spreadsheet because as I looked at it 16
– like the good sites for housing – the really good sites for housing, they are already slated for 17
affordable housing. But the other sites – there’s many retail sites, little ones, but they don’t 18
generate a lot of housing and because it’s difficult to build housing on them, they are not 19
designated appropriate for affordable housing. So the total number of units that we would lose 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 we would potentially lose – right? So this is assuming that no housing were built on it or 1
as a result of the Retail Protection Ordinance, we – the owner decided not to redevelop. It’s 100 2
units of housing for – across all the nodes. And if we’re not including the California Node, I think 3
it becomes something like 80-ish units of housing. Because most of these sites, I looked at what 4
was projected and it was like 4, 5, or 6 units at a time. And so I don’t think Counc-, because of the 5
nature in which – the way that we’ve been approaching this problem of housing and then 6
separately retail, what happens is that these decisions are made without kind of understanding 7
the impact. And so I really think that if we wanted to ensure the success of these nodes, then 8
Council should consider what pulling those Housing Element sites that are within nodes and not 9
for affordable housing, so the small sites − back into a world where the retail is protected. 10
11
And we’re letting go of a lot of the bigger ones. But I’m just trying to – as I looked at this map, I 12
mean everything has hashmarks there if you look at the Central Node. And if we really lost all of 13
that, there wouldn’t be a lot left over. And so that’s just – and so I was like, “Well, what’s the 14
housing – how much housing are we actually getting out of this?” The housing – the total number 15
of Housing Element units planned within the current nodes is 405. But for those little sites that 16
don’t include affordable housing, it’s only 100 units. So there’s a cost benefit there. And I’m not 17
sure that that’s something that Council was aware of at the time that they rolled all the sites 18
together, right? Because we weren’t looking – we weren’t discussing this node concept. We 19
weren’t discussing the other accommodations that we were going to make on El Camino. Because 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
this is done in conjunction with raising heights a ton in some of the Focus Area sites and so now 1
the – given the new influx of housing, we’ve seen a lot of construction on El Camino, a lot of 2
entitlements coming down the line. Now there might actually be even more pedestrians and it 3
could make these areas a lot more attractive for retail. So it’s just I would like to kind of give City 4
Council a nudge, so my motion would be something like, “ I would like City Council to consider 5
these smaller housing – making these smaller Housing Element sites eligible for the RPO again 6
within a node.” 7
8
Chair Akin: All right. Commissioner Hechtman, then Commissioner Templeton. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, I can’t think of a better place for housing than the four corners 11
of California and El Camino. You’ve got all of that retail stretching down California and when you 12
get to the end of it, you can get on your train or you can step out your door and catch one of the 13
buses that’s going up and down El Camino. I think that those corner locations are also great for 14
retail. And I suspect there are far fewer places in Palo Alto where that’s true. It’s great for housing 15
and great for retail. And I believe when those corner parcels redevelop, I think the economic 16
factors for the developer will lead them to say, “I can make money with retail on the ground floor 17
under housing.” And so it will happen organically. It’s tied to the zoning of the property, which is 18
something that I was thinking about. And so I don’t want to restrain the housing by forcing the 19
retail if the market doesn’t want it there. But I believe the market will. I do think there was 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.
point that Commissioner − I think it was Ji made − and I do think it’s important that the messaging 1
here can’t be that the areas of town which we don’t include as a node or along El Camino, that’s 2
because we don’t want retail there. I think that’s not the message that we want to send. 3
4
I think we all agree on that. That that’s not what we’re trying to say and so I’m hoping in the staff 5
report to Council, that flavor can be there. That we’ve selected nodes that we’ve identified as 6
sort of best utilization of the RPO. We looked at a lot of other sites and some of those already 7
have good commercial or retail force through our zoning or possibly PCs and others we just 8
thought for one reason or another weren’t great sites to emphasize retail. But it was really that 9
rather than we were saying this is the only place we want retail is in these nodes. So I hope that 10
message comes through in the staff report to Council. I didn’t bring my full staff report from the 11
last time we saw this. And so, for example, I wasn’t remembering when we got this from Council, 12
there were a series of nodes and then there was this giant interim node, right? And so we have 13
through our motions tonight picked out some parts of the interim node and not included other 14
parts. 15
16
And so in this staff report, it says one of the things − Number 7: “Exclude the remainder of the 17
interim node not discussed in the points above.” And so this really ties into, I think, maybe a 18
question that you had of Mr. Yang, is it enough that we just recommend the parts we’re 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.
recommending or do we need an affirmative vote to say, “And that’s it.” Or do we need to 1
expressly remove the California Node or the Focus Area Node to make that clear for Council? 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yeah, and I believe the direction that we’ve – that Mr. Yang has supported is 4
really what we’re looking for. Here is a recommendation to… 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: …send this back to Council, which we have heard and direction about what 9
should or shouldn’t be included. Going as a starting point with the map that was provided to you 10
in Attachment A and the 4 motions that we have received today about removing NVCAP but 11
retaining the others as shown on the map and consolidating A, B, and C of the Central Node into 12
a single node. That provides us enough direction that we can take it to Council. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. But on the California Node… 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Was removed last time, so it’s not shown on Attachment A. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, got it. 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: Commissioner Templeton, then Commissioner Peterson. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’m – I love it when we [inaudible 3:22:43]. I love all of the 3
energy that you have brought tonight. I don’t know if everything that you’re thinking about has 4
been agendized and I don’t know even if it were, we’d want to have a motion on it yet. What I 5
would recommend – something to consider is could we have a study session on that where we 6
could get staff’s input and a little bit more analysis for our discussion because it’s interesting. And 7
I think it’s something that Council needs to consider but the – possibly more fruitful path might 8
be to ask them to come back with a study session. What do you think about that, Vice-Chair? 9
10
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. But I want – as to whether it’s agendized or not, the direction from Council 11
was to refer the node to the… 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Oh. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: …Planning and Transportation Commission for further discussion and 16
recommendation. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: We can ask staff whether it’s okay. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: I mean that’s okay. If it is, then… 3
4
Vice-Chair Chang: So… 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: …we can debate it but I’m not… 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Well I don’t – I’m also not sure that it’s the time but I did make – I mean I have 9
a motion and if people – I have a motion that we could consider if staff says it’s okay for us to. 10
It’s sort of like – it would be like an addendum to this. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. Then I would set – then my comment would be I would not 13
support having a motion for that at this time but I would encourage the Vice-Chair to work with 14
the Chair and staff to have that discussion at a more appropriate time. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: I will… 17
18
Chair Akin: Commissioner… 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jennifer Armer: …defer to Mr. Yang as to whether it is a topic that’s appropriate to have 1
discussion and recommendation on this evening. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Do you want to be specific? And this is about whether telling… 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: …Council to rethink how… 8
9
Jennifer Armer: So… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: …the… 12
13
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: …retail nodes are treated when it’s a Housing Element site, right? 16
17
Jennifer Armer: Right. So my understanding from what the Vice-Chair has said is that her interest 18
would be to propose a motion to recommend to Council that they consider allowing the Retail 19
Preservation Ordinance to apply to Housing Element sites when they are in one of these nodes 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 when the Housing Element does not specifically allocate affordable housing or below-market 1
rate housing to those sites. And so, Mr. Yang, do you have thoughts on whether this is an 2
acceptable thing to have as part of this agendized item? 3
4
Albert Yang: I do think it is acceptable as a recommendation for the Council to consider. We don’t 5
have agendized – we wouldn’t be able to make recommendation that the Retail Preservation 6
Ordinance be amended itself. 7
8
Chair Akin: All right. We have a couple of comments backed up here. So I want to rotate through 9
those and then maybe we can come back. Commissioner Peterson, was your comment about this 10
subject or was it – okay, then you’re up next. And then Commissioner Hechtman. 11
12
Commissioner Peterson: So on this one, I’m inclined to just leave it the way it is and continue 13
with what we are doing. I think we talked about this last time and I think that was adequate. But 14
what my comment is is that this addresses what I think is Stanford lands and the map doesn’t 15
show who the ownership is. But just from my understanding in the region is that land owned by 16
Stanford gets used and has just a different thought process; it’s not a normal commercial 17
property here. I think it ends up being leased out. Some of these aren’t leased out. And I think 18
the only [carve-out 3:26:52] is the McDonald’s on that entire street. I’m not sure where the 19
Stanford land ends but it’s not – it’s part of Palo Alto but it’s owned by Stanford. I mean it’s just 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
a massive area. [The campus 3:27:06] continues into Palo Alto. I don’t know if we could pull up a 1
map of who owns that side of the street. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: If you could clarify… 4
5
Chair Akin: [Inaudible 3:27:14]. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: …which – what area you’re talking about. 8
9
Commissioner Peterson: Starting with Wells Fargo − and I’m not sure if it goes across Providian 10
and then you have Vista Center, WilmerHale, the soccer field, for sure, because I think they 11
donated the soccer field, at least paying for it in the lease – for the land use. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: So my understanding is we had moved on from the California Node, and so then 14
the recent discussion about Housing Element sites in general. But if you’ve got a question or 15
comment about… 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 3:27:47]… 18
19
Jennifer Armer: …California node. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Peterson: …a little bit. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yeah. To the city in terms of our regulations, we do apply them regardless of who 4
the property owner is. There are certain areas like the Research Park that have specific zoning, 5
which is related to the land use that Stanford has in that area but when looking at what 6
regulations apply, we do not check to see who the property owner is. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: And is that considered part of the Research Park? Is that the furthest 9
extent? Is it from Foothill to El Camino? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: No, those are commercial zones, not Research Park. Farther along at the 12
intersection with Hansen Way, that corner is a Research Park designation for zone-, if you look at 13
the zoning map along that further down. 14
15
Chair Akin: Did that cover it? Okay. Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Pass. 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 the issue at hand is whether to recommend to Council that some of the 1
provisions of RPO be applied differently in the Retail Protection nodes. And I believe you have a 2
more formal statement of the motion. I see no reason not to offer the motion and see if there’s 3
a second and see how things proceed. So if you have a motion ready, please do. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. So I would move that the Council consider making the Retail Protection 6
Ordinance apply for housing opportunity sites within the nodes that are not designated as 7
appropriate for lower-income housing. [Inaudible 3:29:59]. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: I’ll second. 10
11
Chair Akin: Any further discussion? 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: So I’d just like to reiterate that the way I’m looking at it, having done the 14
analysis – and again, there might be some small errors in the analysis – is that the reason why I 15
want Council to think about this is because the amount of housing generated from those sites is 16
relatively small and what I think could be the benefit of having retail for all the other Housing 17
Element sites and all the other new housing there could be great. And it also would be great for 18
the existing residents. 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: Great. I’m going to – yeah, I was just wondering whether the appropriate etiquette is 1
to have – to ask for speaking to the second or not before taking comments. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: I’ll let Commissioner Templeton go first. 4
5
Chair Akin: All right. Commissioner Templeton, please. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I will say again that I do want to study this and I think 8
relying on making a motion to Council based on analysis done by one person alone as something 9
– on something that wasn’t explicitly agendized is further than I’m willing to go tonight. I would 10
love to have it come back and talk about it in depth and make sure that we have thought it 11
through more deeply because sometimes a second set of eyes will help make the discussion 12
better. So that’s the reason I would oppose it tonight but I do think it’s a interesting idea and 13
worth further discussion. I think it’s just premature tonight, and so I will not be supporting. Thank 14
you. 15
16
Chair Akin: Further comments? 17
18
Commissioner Ji: May I speak on my second? 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: Yes, please. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: I think the reason why I’m seconding this motion is because we’re not 3
recommending that Council do this per se; we’re just su-, nudging Council that they should think 4
about this as an idea. And I think this idea is interesting enough to have Council at least be given 5
a motion to think about this. 6
7
Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 10
11
Chair Akin: Are you… 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 14
15
Chair Akin: …finished, Commissioner Ji? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, sorry. 18
19
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Akin: Okay. Commissioner Hechtman. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Question to staff. The item on our agenda tonight, is there any 4
particular time constraint to get it to Council? 5
6
Jennifer Armer: At this point, the entire interim node, as you first saw at the previous meeting, is 7
in force until we bring back these revisions. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: So that… 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: That’s the timing context. There’s no requirement that it be brought back to them 16
at a particular time. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And they’re off, I think, June 20 – no, July 20 through August? 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jennifer Armer: They will not be considering this until at least mid-August. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh, okay. So I’d love staff’s informed take on this motion. And so really 3
I’m thinking along the lines that Commissioner Templeton has made. We’re having a meeting on 4
July 9, right? It looks like both of June are off but July 9, we’ll be back. And it seems like one 5
possibility would be to continue this item to July 9. Staff comes back with a report, looking at the 6
pros and cons, maybe things that we aren’t thinking of or that Vice-Chair Chang didn’t discover. 7
We can get a staff report. We can have a discussion and make a motion. And it seems like we 8
won’t hold up Council in any way, since it’s the status quo until we send it to them and they’re 9
not going to hear it until they come back toward the end of the summer anyway. So I’d be 10
supportive of that. I I don’t feel like I have enough information to support the motion but I’d like 11
to get more information, so that maybe I could. And so that’s a route maybe we could do it. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I have a couple of options here. I don’t know that a motion is 16
necessary to get our comments in front of the Council, so that is also an option. You have said 17
your peace and that would be – could be included in the report. And the other is I’m not sure it’s 18
going to be hit the same if we’re not coming in more [ossiferous 3:34:59] about this, right? If we 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
have not yet come to a conclusion and we have to end up with a split vote for something that we 1
might otherwise get a stronger vote for, that might not be suiting the goal. 2
3
Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang. 4
5
Vice-Chair Chang: I’d like to ask staff whether staff has the time to do this within sort of the time 6
frame that it – so if this is going to come back to the Commission and staff has to prepare a report 7
− of course, I’ll give you my analysis as a starting point. But whether that that time frame – 8
because it pushed – given like the lead time needed, right, for staff to prepare a report, for us to 9
make a decision, and then for it to be included in the Council report. My urgency is that I would 10
like this to be considered at the same time the Council is thinking about the nodes, right? That’s 11
why but if there’s no urgency to think about the nodes, right – or to make that change from 12
interim node to these – that these nodes that we’ve identified, then I think it’s fine to – yeah. So 13
that’s my question to staff. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: So – thank you for that question. And what it leads me to is to a – to responding 16
with a question is to what additional information you would be looking for in that report. There 17
has been information provided from the City Attorney about what the feasibility is and so there 18
is some question as to what additional information or context might be needed for that deeper 19
conversation. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Chang: I defer to the – my fellow commissioners. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: And Mr. Yang, if you want to add to that? 4
5
Albert Yang: Yeah, I guess I just had two comments. In terms of the urgency of bringing this 6
resolution to the Council, it is simply to have some more final direction on the nodes because the 7
impetus for this work is that the Housing Element identified retail preservation as a constraint on 8
housing. And so our job was to reduce the – or – yeah, reduce the amount of parcels that retail 9
preservation apply to. And so the Council adopted the interim node as a placeholder but we’d 10
really like to accomplish that goal of having retail preservation apply less broadly. On the second, 11
the other comment I had was that when this map and the resolution goes to the Council, it will 12
be a consent item. And so unless it’s pulled, there isn’t going to be discussion or consideration 13
on [inaudible 3:38:39]. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Well – does that change anything that you – for Commissioners Hechtman and 16
Tempelton? 17
18
Chair Akin: 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: Thank you. Yes, my concern here is that sending this as a motion 1
instead of as your opinion, which I think is valid to send it as Commissioners discussed this and 2
whatever we normally include with our discussion notes. Sending it has stronger implications. I 3
think that’s why you wanted to make it a motion, right, to send it even more loudly. However, 4
this is happening after we did all of our other motions and it has implications on all the discussion 5
that we had. And I think it’s unfortunately inadvertently going to blur the lines because we made 6
those motions based on the current understanding. You brought up the current understanding, 7
right? That was the very first thing we discussed. So now if we’re saying we did all that and here’s 8
our new understanding, it changes the landscape before any thing is settled. So that’s why I think 9
from the way that you need to silo when making these kind of recommendations, you don’t want 10
to shift all the variables at once. You need to have something decided and stable and then this 11
other thing, which I think is separate, I think it’s a recommendation. 12
13
And think it’s a strong feeling and I think a lot of us would support it. But if you ship it over there 14
tonight with this as a motion, you’re attaching the understanding of all the motions we’ve made 15
tonight as sort of attached to the recommendation that – and we think all of this should change. 16
But I’m not sure that our discussion would have gone the same way if we had been with the 17
understanding at the beginning of our conversations and our voting that we were also going to 18
recommend this change. Does that make sense? It wasn’t really on the table until after all the 19
votes were made. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Chang: I see what you’re saying but it’s also not a – again – I want Council to think 2
about this. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: Because they asked PTC to think about what should be done with the nodes, 7
right? 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Well I explicitly asked the staff today, “Are we just deciding about the 10
outlines or is there anything else?” No one at staff said anything about it and no one on this dais 11
said anything about it until after the votes were taken. 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Well regardless of the – I mean I understand your perspective but all I want is 14
to flag that this is for Council. And the reason I’m – you are absolutely correct. The reason I want 15
it to be a motion is because most times Council members don’t read our minutes and we’ve seen 16
repeatedly where the discussion gets lost, right? 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Chang: Like we’ve seen that for other projects. And so I think that this is something 1
that is important to make Council understand the impact. Now they may decide no. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: It’s going to be on consent; they’re not going to change their behavior 4
at all. No reading will happen. Nothing will happen except we will have made some motion that 5
they’ll automatically adopt on consent because they will think we have vetted it and thought it 6
through thoroughly. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: But the motion is to consider this. The motion is for Council to consider it. If 9
we can – I mean if it helps, I can separate it out as a separate motion. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Well that’s why I was… 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: But… 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: …suggesting having as a study session because then we can consider 16
it ourselves before asking them to consider it. I’m only trying to… 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Templeton: Listen. I’m… 1
2
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. No, I… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: …99 percent sure I’m going to agree with you. But I want to have a 5
chance to think about. You’ve been studying it all day. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: So then I come back… 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: None of us had it our Pa-, let me finish. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: Right. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: None of us had it in our Packet. We haven’t had a chance to study it. 14
We can’t get aboard here except for you did the study. We’ve had no other people looking at the 15
study. We’ve had no chance to review it ourselves in the same way. And we really re-, I personally 16
very respect your analysis. I want to see it. I want to dig in. 17
18
Vice-Chair Chang: No, I understand. That’s why my question to staff still remains sort of − so if 19
even we were to make a study session and then make this recommendation to Council, how 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
would that arrive with respect to this – it’s – it needs to kind of be done in the same conversation, 1
right? So I think that’s my – so my question is to Mr. Yang then. 2
3
Albert Yang: So what you’re talking about is an amendment to the Retail Preservation Ordinance 4
or an amendment to the… 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: Definition of a node or the… 7
8
Albert Yang: No, the 1814, which is the place – 1814 is the place where we’ve said, “Here are the 9
standards for Housing Element opportunity sites and if you’re an opportunity site, you can do 10
100 percent residential. “ Right? 11
12
Vice-Chair Chang: Then − so in that sense, it’s not agendized, is it? 13
14
Albert Yang: Right. So that’s why we couldn’t make a recommendation that the change 15
happened. This is sort of the approach that Council often takes with their agenda items is – if 16
there’s something that is kind of tangentially related, the Council will often make a motion to 17
have staff return at a later date but not actually try to make the change. So… 18
19
Vice-Chair Chang: So what would you suggest that we do here in this situation? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Albert Yang: So I think your earlier motion would have been acceptable from a Brown Act 2
respective because it was just sort of suggesting additional work rather than actually making a 3
change. I think you could also make a motion asking staff to bring this back as a ordinance 4
amending 1814 or the Retail Preservation Ordinance. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: And then how does it make its way to Council? 7
8
Albert Yang: Then once – if that item comes forward as amendments to the zoning code, the PTC 9
could take action, make a recommendation on that zoning code amendment and then the 10
Council would consider that ordinance. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: And this is the sort of thing where when there are additional tasks that come out 13
of a discussion with PTC, sometimes those are things that are relatively light lifts and staff can 14
just move that forward based on your request and then see if Council is interested. Sometimes 15
with workloads, it’s not something that we’re able to move forward on unless we do get direction 16
from Council to do that work. So I think that’s why this is a little bit confusing. It may be that the 17
motion might be clearer for the other members of PTC to have it be worded that, “Recommend 18
that Council consider directing staff to look into making RPO apply to Housing Element sites.” 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’m much more comfortable with that because… 1
2
Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 3:46:21]. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: …gives us a chance to study it. 5
6
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji, you have a comment waiting? Is this… 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Yeah. 9
10
Chair Akin: …[inaudible 3:46:32]. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: I think it might be moot now. But I was just going to echo staff’s original 13
question, which is for Commissioners Templeton and Hechtman, like what specifically you might 14
be interested in looking at the report? Just to make sure that staff has some of the commentary 15
where – if they were to look into it, they would know what you might be interested in. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I’m – I think that Mr. Yang identified the underlying issue. Was 18
that there’s an implicit change to the Retail Ordinance that we need Council direction in order to 19
do and the shift in direction that was suggested by staff, instead of telling Council this is what we 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think you should do, we can ask them, “Can we look into this more deeply?” And that’s much 1
more appropriate and gives us a chance to study it thoroughly. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Commissioner Hechtman, any additional comment to that? 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. So what was sent to us tonight was the Council blanketed El 6
Camino with these interim nodes because they didn’t want to take the first shot at fine-tuning 7
what the nodes should be. They wanted us to do that. So they sent it to us asking for us to fix it. 8
Make recommendations. But what this is talking about is they purposefully adopted the RPO. 9
They purposefully adopted the other Section 14 that Mr. Yang referenced. What this is saying is, 10
more delicately, “Council, you may not have thought this through. These other laws that you 11
made, you may not have thought this through. And look at this perspective. Look at the 12
quantitative benefit to housing versus the quantitative potential detriment to retail.” Right? So – 13
and that’s a very different thing. And so what I would want in a staff report is I would like the 14
staff to tell me about the background of the RPO, not in great detail; I’m not talking about pages. 15
But walk through the steps − the exercise you went through, I would like staff to do that. The 16
restraint on housing, concerns of the HCD that were reflected in staff’s recommendation of the 17
ordinance that the Council adopted. And then I’d like staff’s recommendation on whether we 18
should make this recommendation or not based on that. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
That’s really what I would like if we were going to have a staff report. And again, your concern 1
was that you would really like this to go with the nodes. And so the suggestion I had is if we just 2
continue this to July 9, which I’m hoping staff had time because we don’t have the June meetings 3
and it stays with the nodes. And so they don’t get the nodes before they get this, right? So that’s 4
why I was thinking the timing would work for you. 5
6
Vice-Chair Chang: Right. So that – I was very thankful for your question and that’s why I asked 7
staff. So… 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 10
11
Vice-Chair Chang: …that question, “Does it work?” 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Right? Is there pressure to get the – and can staff come back with that 16
additional information such that we can do this. Otherwise, I mean I think that your suggestion 17
that we’re – with the m-, I can’t remember the additional – the change in wording that you 18
suggested. But that would also work if the timing doesn’t work in terms of staff resources to do 19
the – I’m just trying to avoid sort of like – even though like legally, it’s a different ordinance 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.
needs to be changed, when I was talking to some Council members about this to try and get color, 1
I’m like, “What is it that you want form us?” Or what was like – without – I was being lazy; I didn’t 2
want to rewatch the entire Council meeting. And they said, “Well, like do these nodes make 3
sense?” And so in that spirit, I was trying to think kind of holistically about like what is it that we 4
actually want here? What is it that we’re trying to do here? And this is an issue that like displayed 5
itself very clearly as I was thinking about the – thinking about this. So I can see multiple ways 6
forward here. And it kind of depends on what staff thinks is the most practical given whatever 7
your time constraints are as well as the desire to refine the giant node. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: It’s the kind of thing that I’d like to be able to say we can do. But just thinking 10
about all of the other work that we have that – while this is important and valuable in this 11
moment in this discussion, when we look at all of the priorities that our department has, that the 12
City Attorney’s Department has that I’m responsible for at this time, unfortunately, I think we 13
would not be able to commit to bringing that back to you in July. 14
15
Vice-Chair Chang: Then in that case, because I am very cognizant of the concerns that 16
Commissioner Templeton raised, then I’d like to modify my motion to read as you read. 17
18
Jennifer Armer: I can restate it for you if you would 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.
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes, I’d like to restate it that way, please, Ms. Armer. 1
2
Jennifer Armer: So I will reread this and you can confirm that the motion is to recommend that 3
Council consider directing staff to study making the Retail Protection Ordinance apply to Housing 4
Element sites that are within nodes that are not designated as appropriate for low-income 5
housing. 6
7
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: And for the seconder? 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Yeah, I’d like to confirm I’m seconding that still. 12
13
Chair Akin: All right. If there’s no other discussion, then let’s vote. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Hechtman? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Commissioner James? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 James: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Ji? 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 6
7
Veronica Dao: Chair Akin? 8
9
Chair Akin: Yes. 10
11
Veronica Dao: Vice-Chair Chang? 12
13
Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 14
15
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Peterson? 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 18
19
Veronica Dao: Commissioner Templeton? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 2
3
Veronica Dao: Motion carries, 7-0. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I thank everybody for a very good discussion. I think we came at a 6
good outcome. 7
8
Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 9
10
Chair Akin: And Ms. Armer, thank you very much for that clarification. That turned the tide, I 11
think. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: I always like helping us get to conclusion. 14
15
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 16
17
Chair Akin: All right. I think that concludes that item. So we’re now onto Commissioner Questions, 18
Comments, and Announcements. Well I see no one’s going to mention the most important and 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
obvious one. Our gratitude for the service of Ms. Dao over all these many years. Thank you for 1
keeping us sane and for – yes, and for helping us along in difficult circumstances in many ways at 2
many times. Would anyone else like to comment? Ms. Templeton – Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I am just so happy for you. I’m happy for us to have had the 5
chance to work with you. You have been so responsive to all of us and taking good care of us as 6
well and just brought a very positive energy to the beginning of every meeting. So thank you for 7
all of that and I wish you the absolute best in your place in Portola Valley as the clerk; that’s 8
amazing. Great job. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: I have a quick question. 11
12
Chair Akin: And we do have a small token of esteem. 13
14
Veronica Dao: Thank you for all the kind words. I’ll definitely miss serving with you guys on these 15
Wednesday nights. 16
17
Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the
time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided
that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Peterson: Oh, I was just going to ask Ms. Dao, what is the city clerk? What’s your 1
new job? 2
3
Veronica Dao: Basically – yeah, like the city clerk does for Palo Alto; therefore, Portola Valley. It’s 4
a much smaller town though. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: So it involves the work that she does here for Planning Commission but for their 7
Council as well, as well as responsibilities for elections and other related areas. 8
9
Chair Akin: Well congratulations again. And with that, I believe we are adjourned. 10
11
Adjournment 12
9:56 PM 13
14
15