HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-06-29 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL
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Special Meeting
June 29, 2015
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council
Chambers at 6:05 P.M.
Present: Berman, Burt, Filseth, Holman, Kniss arrived at 6:17 P.M.,
Scharff, Schmid, Wolbach
Absent: DuBois
Special Orders of the Day
1. Recognition of Fire Explorer Madison Valentine and Her Honor of Being
Selected the Explorer of the Year by the Santa Clara / San Mateo
Region.
Eric Nickel, Fire Chief: Good evening, Mayor Holman and Honorable
Members of the Council. My name is Eric Nickel, and I'm your Fire Chief.
I'm here to kick off the meeting this evening with some great news and
share a City success story with you and all of our community members
about our community youth. I want to introduce you to our adult and youth
leaders of the Palo Alto Fire Department's Exploring Program and to
recognize Madison Valentine as the Pacific Skyline Peninsula Area Explorer of
the Year. I'd like to have Madison and Adam join me up here for my
comments. First a little bit about our Explorer Post. Our Exploring Program
is open to young men and women from the sixth grade to 20 years old who have an interest in learning more about a career in fire fighting and
emergency services. We provide a hands-on program that exposes our
participants to many career opportunities, experiences, leadership
opportunities and community service activities. The primary goals of the
program are to help young adults choose a career path within fire and
emergency services and to challenge them to become better community
citizens. As a Fire Explorer they get first-hand experience about what it's
like to be a firefighter, paramedic, EMT in Palo Alto. Nationally, there's over
22,500 Explorer participants and about 1,800 service posts. Some of the
opportunities they get. They get to meet Explorers across the United States.
They get to network with firefighters and also our cadets. The goal of
Exploring is to improve self-confidence, leadership experience. They get fun
and exciting hands-on career opportunities and community service
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opportunities. Just an example, in the past year, of what our Explorers have
done. All of the community firehouse movie nights they've had a hand in.
They participated with the Racing Hearts AED program. If you learned
hands only CPR, chances are you were taught by one of our youth Explorers
that are all sitting over here. They were part of the 40th anniversary of our
EMS Program. They participated with Stanford and Stanford Hospital in a
mock EMS drill where they were transported. The payoff for that was they
got a tour of the hospital. They participate with Project Safety Net in the
Gatekeeper Training Program. If you've been to any community events
where there's been a first aid booth, chances are our youth have been
staffing that first aid booth. Under the category of only in Palo Alto, we have
a couple of Explorers who have developed their own website and
smartphone apps to keep track of their meeting schedule and other
Explorers. First of its kind. What does that mean to the Fire Department? It's part of our overall recruitment and retention strategy. As I've shared
with you before, we're literally trying to grow our own future firefighters,
EMTs and paramedics. They're all here from the community. We try to get
our hands on them early, and we have a mantra that we're not always
hiring, but we're always recruiting. All this would not be possible without
the leadership of our Explorer youth leaders currently Firefighter/Paramedic
Adam Poarch. I would like to proudly introduce Adam. He will introduce
Madison and have a few words about her honor.
Adam Poarch, Firefighter/Paramedic, Explorer Lead Advisor: Thank you,
Chief. As the Chief mentioned, I'm the Lead Advisor for the Explorer
Program. I've known Madison for the last four years. She's been an
Explorer for five years. She's currently our captain. As of this year, it'll be
her last year as Fire Explorer. She'll be transitioning into the advisor role
next year. She wants to continue staying engaged with the Explorer
Program, which we're all very excited about. Madison first got a taste for
EMS when she was 12 years old. She was taking care of her brother, and
she had recently learned the Heimlich maneuver. When he began to choke,
she was there with quick response and dislodged what he had in his throat
and saved her brother's life. This is her second time before City Council being recognized for being amazing. Madison really is quite amazing. She
sets the bar high for our program. She's put in a lot of hard work and effort.
Very proud to watch her grow. I'm excited to see what she does in the
future. Give her a round of applause, Madison Valentine, Explorer of the
Year.
Madison Valentine: Thank you so much. This has really been an honor.
The Explorers has been something that means a lot to me. I'm just so
happy to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Adam, for being an amazing
instructor.
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Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Mayor Holman: We have none until we get to Consent Calendar.
City Manager Comments
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council. A number of items to report partly because this will be your last
meeting before the Council recess. This has to do with Caltrain rail safety
update. This evening's Consent Calendar Item Number 16 is a contract
extension for our Track Watch Program. I did want to point out some
parallel actions related to Caltrain safety that we have been working on.
Some of this work will continue to unfold while the Council is on recess. As
you know, we've been taking a comprehensive approach to address Caltrain
Corridor safety in our community that involves both means restriction, which
is limiting access to the tracks, and restructuring Project Safety Net, the
community collaborative that was formed in 2009 to focus on suicide prevention and youth well-being. We are actively seeking to limit access to
the tracks on an accelerated schedule. I'm pleased to report some positive
progress with Caltrain in several ongoing efforts. First of all, related to fence
upgrades. Caltrain has indicated that it can proceed with upgrading old,
substandard and missing fencing along the east side of the Caltrain Corridor
and install 8-foot welded wire mesh fencing with an additional 18 inch anti-
climb winglet on the east side of the road. That will be the 2-mile stretch up
Corridor extending from Oregon Expressway to San Francisquito Creek to
the north, where there is substandard fencing now and some gaps. Caltrain
will handle the installation, and the City will be picking up the incremental
cost for the winglet extensions making for a higher and more difficult to
climb fence and vegetation removal needed for the installation work. We're
currently getting the details on a three-cable winglet on the top. Installation
along the entire east side of the Corridor includes the southern section of the
Caltrain Corridor from Oregon Expressway down to San Antonio which
already has the 8-foot fencing, but we're going to put these extension on the
top. All of those will cost approximately $100,000, and vegetation removal
is estimated to be $168,000. Secondly, on the west side of the Corridor
since our last walk through with City Staff, Caltrain is currently laying out priority locations for fence installation particularly focusing on areas that
don't currently have residential fences. We expect to discuss options with
Caltrain in the next few weeks. The timing and sequencing of any
vegetation removal work and installation of fencing is very important both to
minimize gaps and to complete as much of the work as possible before the middle of August. In order to initiate this work and complete as much as
possible this summer, we'll begin community outreach while the Council is
out of session. I want to stress that we understand the importance of
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minimizing the vegetation removal, which will ultimately grow back. We're
not talking about tree removal, but the weedy shrubs along the existing
fencing. Our Staff will be putting together graphics and pictures to show the
planned work throughout the Corridor, so that when we meet with the public
they're well informed about the changes. Finally, work is also progressing
on the automated intrusion detection camera system that we'll be piloting at
the Meadow crossing. Our Staff is reviewing the proposed equipment
installation and arranging onsite coordination with Caltrain. It is possible
installation work could also begin during your recess. In addition to these
means restriction measures, work continues on restructuring Project Safety
Net. In August, the Council will consider the Policy and Services
Committee's recommendations for what is referred to as the collective
impact model to ensure sustainable and ongoing success, which would
include new recommendations relating to a Project Safety Net Director, Executive Board, enhanced data collection resources and an elevated and
engaged role for youth in our community. Caltrans is continuing
construction of the Highway 101/San Francisquito Creek Bridge Replacement
Project. Staff is aware that the project has caused traffic backups on the
freeway and local streets leading to the freeway, and has been in contact
with Staff from East Palo Alto and Caltrans on ways to lessen the project
impacts. We are talking with East Palo Alto and Caltrans Staff about
adjusting the timing of those traffic signals near the Highway 101/University
Avenue interchange to improve traffic flow. Our communications folks will
continue to post project information to the City's website,
cityofpaloalto.org/US101 and to affected neighborhoods via NextDoor and
neighborhood association emails that we have. Late last week we did reach
an agreement with Caltrans to postpone any work on East Bayshore Road
until at least 2016. The original plan was to narrow East Bayshore Road to
one lane with two–way traffic controlled by a temporary traffic signal during
the summers of 2015 and '17. That work has now been postponed until at
least 2016. Caltrans is exploring an improved option whereby the
replacement of the bridge could be accomplished in a single summer.
Professorville Design Guidelines. The State Office of Historic Preservation has agreed to provide a $37,000 grant to the City as part of our 2015-2016
Certified Local Government Grant Program. The funds are being made
available to prepare architectural design guidelines for the Professorville
Historic District and will support Staff's work to bring this long-running
project to conclusion. I want to thank all of the folks who submitted applications for appointment to the new Comprehensive Plan Citizens
Advisory Committee. The Committee will have 17 voting members and 3
nonvoting members representing the School District, the Planning and
Transportation Commission and Stanford University as determined by the
Council. We received over 50 applications for the 17 slots that will be
appointed by the City Manager. We expect to make our final decision and
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inform applicants this week. It will be very difficult to select just 17 people
from the high caliber pool of applicants. We will certainly have a group that
represents a broad range of Palo Alto neighborhoods and include people who
are informed and interested in this wide breadth of issues. Once
established, the first organizing meeting of the new group is scheduled for
the evening of July 14 at the Mitchell Park Library. These meetings will be
open to the public. We encourage folks who are interested to watch our
website for the agenda and other information during the break. The City of
Palo Alto's Public Art Program is holding a community outreach meeting to
gather input for the upcoming Public Art Master Plan. That will be on
Tuesday, July 14th from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 at the Mitchell Park
Community Center in the Matadero Room. The Public Art Master Plan will be
a guiding document for the future of public art in Palo Alto over the next five
to ten years. Come learn more about the planning process and give your input at this fun and engaging meeting. For additional information, our
Public Art Program Staff can be contacted by phone at 650-329-2227. This
week the City launches a new home utilities efficiency audit program. The
Home Efficiency Genie Program provides homeowners with customized
advice and comprehensive in-home assessments for energy and water
efficiency improvements. Concurrent with the program released this past
Saturday, the City hosted a free Net Zero energy home workshop to educate
residents about ways we can green our houses. Approximately 40 people
learned tips from experts in green building design and renovation. I wanted
to share another award for the Mitchell Park Library and our libraries. The
City of Palo Alto Library has been notified that we've been selected as the
2015 recipient in the municipal libraries in the $5-$10 million budget range
category of the Event or Campaign PR Excellence Award for the grand
opening of the Mitchell Park Library and Community Center. The PR
Excellence Awards honor the highest quality efforts of California libraries in
promoting and communicating their message of value of libraries to their
citizens and customers. The four PR Excellence Award entry categories each
year are print, electronic, event or campaign. We were honored to be
recognized for our work as it related to the event or campaign for the opening of the library.
Oral Communications
Ken Horowitz: Good evening. My name's Ken Horowitz. I live on Homer
Avenue. I'm here to give my update on what's going on with the Page Mill
YMCA. There is something happening, but it's not good. I have copies of the letter that I sent to the City Council a year ago regarding that particular
site. As you're aware, there are two parcels on the southwest corner of
Page Mill and El Camino. One has the theater, the other one has the
Morrison and Foerster law office and in the basement was the Page Mill
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YMCA. In the '70s those two parcels were granted a PC, Planned
Community. They were given certain things that they would comply with.
As of June 19, the landlord has filed an improvement for the property, the
basement, to convert the basement facility into three suites. I've been
asking the Planning Department to look into that. I've been working with
Amy French and Jodie Gerhardt. It is my opinion that the landlord at that
particular site, Mr. Wheatley, is in non-conformance with the PC that was
granted back in the '70s. The parcel that belonged to Morrison and Foerster
had the basement facility for recreational, and the other property has a
theater on its site. Equity Properties, which owned that parcel, has been
sold, as Council Member Burt told me, to Hudson Pacific. That theater might
be in jeopardy as well. You may remember back in 1997 or so, Landmark
Theaters almost pulled out because of the agreement with Equity Properties.
I'm asking the City Council to look into the PC that was granted to Mr. Wheatley, and ask Mr. Wheatley to try to work with us to try to keep
that site, that 15,000 square feet basement site, a recreational facility. I
don't know if it's also in violation of your moratorium on converting retail to
office, but it's my understanding Mr. Wheatley's plan is to have that space
saved for Morrison and Foerster which will then be more offices. Right now,
Mr. Wheatley has moved his office, it used to be on Ash Street, into that
facility. You can go down there to 755 Page Mill Road and you will see
Mr. Wheatley's office there. Thank you for your time.
Herb Borock: Mayor Holman and Council Members. Last month I attended
the public meeting of the Postal Service on the relocation of their facilities.
They had two possibilities: one in the basement of the current facility at 380
Hamilton, and the other at 999 Alma Street. I'll have my comments in a
letter I'll give to the Clerk and also tomorrow to the key Staff people. There
are two Executive Orders issued by Presidents Carter and Clinton that are
pertinent. The first, Executive Order 12072, on federal space management
on August 16, 1978, gives preference in urban areas to selecting a site in a
central community business area and requires consideration of the
availability of adequate public transportation and parking and accessibility to
the public. Those criteria are met by the current site; they are not by the Alma Street site. Executive Order No. 13006, locating federal facilities on
historical properties in our nation's central cities, issued on May 21, 1996,
requires the Federal Government to utilize and maintain historic properties,
especially those located in central business areas. The site at 380 Hamilton
meets that criteria. The other site on Alma Street does not. Although the identified alternative on the current building is a better site than the one on
Alma Street, locating the Postal Service's functions in the basement is not
the optimal location. The public part of that facility should stay where it is,
the lobby, the window services areas. If you did that, it has certain
advantages. One, you could place a wall separating, for example, the City's
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property just on this side of the entry door that's closest to Gilman Street
and place a door in that. You'd have the same entrance and the same lobby
to the City's functions. Except for the small area needed for the window
service behind the windows, you can concentrate the Post Office services
and consolidate them on the Waverley Street side. The City would have the
remainder of the first floor and all of the basement and all of the mezzanine.
Keeping the Postal Service in essentially the same location would enable
them to operate there without having a temporary relocation. All the tenant
improvement construction activities could occur during the time that the
Postal Service window service is not taking place. Those are advantages.
The lobby area is probably larger than the area that the Post Office would
say it would need for a minimum area. You have to take that into
consideration. Thank you.
Leland Alton: Good evening. Two nights ago at around 8:00, I left my room at the Opportunity Center, which I have lived at for quite some time now. I
noticed that the street and the sidewalk across the street from there, along
Encina Avenue, was filling up with water. That's unusual these days. That
property belongs to Town and Country, the shopping center. There is
legitimate reason to water the place; there's plants there. I didn't think that
much of it at the time; I have a bunch of problems of my own. The next
day, 24 hours later, a woman I was sitting with at the designated smoking
area commented that this had been going on for hours. It still was. That
was 24 hours later. First I went to the office, the management office at
Town and Country, which I happened to remember where it was, and found
out that the place was called Crosspoint. I could have found this out on the
'net, which I later did. I did everything I could to try to contact them on my
computer at home. Their answering service, which I think belongs to them,
that's one of the many things that they have instructed not to inform
anybody of. It was characterized as an emergency number at one of these
two web pages, crosspoint.com/pages/about/portfolio.htm with a "contact
us" button. The other page where their properties are listed is
crosspoint/pages/contact/contact_sf.htm. This happened several years ago
as well when the drought first started, the exact same thing. During a weekday I managed to get in touch with one of their executives who
explained that the reason—they don't have an emergency number. They
don't list their properties.
Lois Salo: I'm Lois Salo. I'm with Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom, a 100-year-old peace group. I want Palo Alto to enact a $15 wage. Los Angeles has it, and Palo Alto can well afford that. Secondly, we
need rent control in this town. People are being evicted because they can't
afford the rising rents. I noted that the grand jury has said that Palo Alto
needs to do more on global warming. I call that to your attention. Divest
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our portfolio from war industries. That takes 60 percent of our budget, and
this money should be going to all of our needs and not to drones and
missiles and other terrible things.
Roberta Alquist: Greetings. I have four points and an announcement.
Those of us who are supporters of low-income housing hope that Palo Alto
will lead as a role model for other cities for addressing the low-income
housing crisis. The step forward on Buena Vista is a step in that direction.
Rents are skyrocketing. There is no recourse for people who are told their
rent is going to double or triple. They are pushed out of the City. East Palo
Alto has rent control, and there are problems there because there isn't
enough housing. People are working, and there are five and six people
living in garages. If you want more details, I have concrete, specific details
of that. The same thing is going to happen here. In fact, it's happening.
We also need housing for the workers who live here. Not only blue collar, but white collar workers can't afford to live in Palo Alto. Those workers need
at least a minimum of $15 per hour. We also need to ask corporations who
have benefited from working in Palo Alto, from existing in Palo Alto, and in
turn get kudos and sometimes ways of getting around parking such that we
have a housing/parking crunch in the Downtown area. Google needs to step
up and help us build low-income housing and more parking spaces. Google
and other corporations who are benefiting from being part of Palo Alto. In
Great Falls, Montana, they have enacted a $25 fee for residents. Again this
is happening all around the country. Those residents get a sticker that lasts
for two or even three years. I heard somebody saying they were talking
about charging residents something like $200 for a yearly sticker when it's
not the residents' fault that there isn't any parking in the Downtown area.
The final point is July 6th the AME Church in the 3400 block of Middlefield is
having a workshop addressing how can we unlearn our racism in relation to
what happened in Charleston, South Carolina. I would urge everyone who
has the time that evening to come and to address these concerns in that
racism isn't going away. It's just getting more subtle and insidious. Thank
you.
Consent Calendar
Mayor Holman: Staff has recommended that Item Number 10 be pulled.
Zachary Rubin regarding Agenda Item Number 10: Thanks for having me. I
sent an email this morning. I'm not sure if any of you guys had a chance to
read that. Assuming you may have not read it, this is in regards to the Palo
Alto solar project for the carport canopies. It's come to my attention that Pristine Solar has been removed from that deal. We have been patiently
waiting for an opportunity to make the case that we would be the right
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developer for that project. The feed in tariff program that was set is
possible for us to finance that project but, given some of the terms of that
deal that I believe Pristine had on the table, it became unfinanceable. That
was our position from the beginning. We've been in Palo Alto for five years.
We've built a few of the largest projects here. I'm very much in support of
renewables for this City. The biggest thing that we need to recognize is that
the feed in tariff, which is part of that program, expires in 2016. I'm going
into this assuming you guys are aware of some of the details and what goes
into making a power purchase work. If that ITC expires in the time that it's
set to expire, then the economics of that deal won't work at the given feed
in tariff rate which is 16.5 cents. I encourage you to give consent for us
being the alternate to that original RFP to step in if that deal was to not go
through. That's what I'm asking all of you today, to recognize that we've
put in the work and we put a deal together that was economically viable. I'm still prepared to match that deal and do what's necessary to bring those
structures online. I'm happy to meet with any of you privately. I'm happy
to share the renderings that we put together. Whatever you guys would
like, I'm happy to do it. I live in Downtown Palo Alto, and this is an
important project to me. I want to stress that the timing of it is necessary.
If we go back out to an RFP process, that ITC will expire and that project will
never get built at the numbers that were proposed. Given the time that I
have tonight, that's the case that I wanted to make to all of you. I would be
happy to answer any questions that you guys have or be available to talk
further. We invited Nancy, the previous Mayor, to some of our ribbon-
cutting ceremonies. She was a big supporter of what we were doing. I
encourage you to visit some of our sites as well.
James Keene, City Manager: We mentioned it. This was pulled; not pulled
for discussion but removed from the agenda. In the memorandum we put
forward to the Council, we indicated it looks like we would directly go back
out and reissue a new RFP. That being said, we're taking a look at this
today. I'm going to work with the City Attorney to see whether or not the
terms of the original Request for Proposal would allow us to explore any
discussions with any of the other respondents to the RFP who were not originally in the first position. This would be a matter that the Staff would
work through with any of the affected parties. I did want to acknowledge
that. Before the week is out, I'll be able to update the Council with a
memorandum on the status of our next steps.
Mayor Holman: We look for a motion regarding the Consent Calendar.
Council Member Scharff: So moved.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Second.
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Mayor Holman: Motion by Council Member Scharff, second by Vice Mayor
Schmid to approve the Consent Calendar with Item Number 10 pulled.
MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Schmid
to approve Agenda Item Numbers 2-9, 11-16, and remove Agenda Item
Number 10- Authorize the City Manager or His Designee to Enter Into a 20-
Year Lease Agreement with Pristine Sun to Install and Maintain Photovoltaic
Systems at Five City-Owned Parking Structures from the Agenda as
requested by Staff.
2. Approval and Authorization of the City Manager to Execute a Contract
With Electronic Innovations, Inc. in the Amount of $272,914 for Phase
4 of the Video Surveillance and Intrusion Detection System Project
(EL-04012) and 10 Percent Contingency of $27,000 for Related, but
Unforeseen, Work for a Total Authorized Amount of $299,914.
3. Approval of Contract Amendment No. 2 to S15155476 with AECOM for Consulting Services in the Amount of $133,000 for Technical Services
and Studies to Develop Zoning Regulations to Address Hazardous
Materials Limitations and Compliance in Industrial Areas.
4. Approval of a Three-Year Contract No. C15159248 With Geodesy for
Maintenance, Support and Professional Services for the City’s
Geographic Information System (GIS) in the Amount of $195,000 Per
Year.
5. Approval of a One–Year Extension of the Option to Lease Agreement
Between the City of Palo Alto and the Palo Alto History Museum for the
Roth Building Located at 300 Homer Avenue and Approval of a Budget
Amendment Ordinance 5333 Entitled, “Budget Amendment Ordinance
of the Council of the City of Palo Alto in the Capital Improvement Fund
to Establish a Roth Building Historical Rehabilitation Reserve in the
Amount of 3.88 Million Dollars.”
6. Approval of Amendment One to Contract No. C14152025 With SP Plus
to Add $637,652 for Expansion of the Downtown Valet Parking
Program to Additional Garages and a Total Not to Exceed Amount of
$997,652 Over a Three Year Period.
7. Approval and Authorization of the City Manager to Execute a Contract With Anderson Pacific Engineering Construction, Inc., in the Amount of
$4,679,100, for the Seismic Upgrade of Four Steel Tanks and Three
Receiving Stations Project, WS-07000, WS-08001 and WS-09000 and
Budget Amendment Ordinance 5334 Entitled, “Budget Amendment
Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Increasing the Water
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Regulation System Improvements Project Budget (WS-08000) in the
Amount of $786,375.”
8. Approval of Contract No. C15159142 With Saviano Company in the
Amount of $372,550 With a 10 Percent Contingency for Unforeseen
Expenses for Tennis Court Improvements at Hoover Park, Terman Park
and Weisshaar Park (Capital Improvement Project PG-06001).
9. Approval of an Agreement With Palo Alto Unified School District
(PAUSD) for PAUSD Athletic Field Brokering and Maintenance.
10. Authorize the City Manager or His Designee to Enter Into a 20-Year
Lease Agreement (Attachment A) with Pristine Sun to Install and
Maintain Photovoltaic Systems at Five City-Owned Parking Structures.
11. Resolution 9532 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Determining the Proposed Calculation of the Appropriations Limit
for Fiscal Year 2016.”
12. Approval of Contract Amendment No. 3 With Van Scoyoc Associates
Inc. for a One-Year Extension in an Amount Not to Exceed a Total of
$101,000 for Federal Legislative Representation.
13. Resolution 9533 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Authorizing the City Manager to Execute Future Grant Agreements
Offered to the City by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and/or
the California Department of Transportation (DOT) for the Preparation
of Planning Documents and the Study, Design and Construction of
Safety, Security and Maintenance Improvements at the Palo Alto
Airport and Authorizing the City Manager to Execute Supporting
Documents Associated with the Application and Acceptance of Said
Grant Funds.”
14. Staff Recommendation to Initiate a Special Recruitment to Fill One
Unscheduled Vacancy on the Utilities Advisory Commission, Ending on
April 30, 2018.
15. Approval of a Contract With Global Learning Solution Inc. in the
Amount of $250,000 for the Support of Human Resources SAP Modules
and Business Processes Improvements.
16. Approval of Amendment No. 5 to Add the Amount of $250,000 to Contract No. S12141479 With Val Security, Inc. and Extend Term of
Agreement by Six Months to December 31, 2015.
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Mayor Holman: Vote on the board please. That item passes unanimously
with Council Member DuBois absent.
MOTION FOR AGENDA ITEM NUMBERS 2-9, 11-16 PASSED: 8-0
DuBois absent
Action Items
17. Buena Vista Mobile Home Park: Update and Possible Direction
Regarding Affordable Housing Funds.
James Keene, City Manager: I hope that the Staff Report that we put
together was self-explanatory. A couple of points I would make as far as an
introduction. Now that the Council has dispensed with your adjudicatory role
in the decision relating to the potential closure of the park, the Council, who
had been previously restricted from engaging on other matters related to
Buena Vista, is not constrained now. The $8 million in funding that, as City
Manager, I announced to the Council we were reserving pending your own
interest in participating or contributing to solutions that could potentially
preserve the park would have been appropriate to come to the Council. At
the same time, the County, as you know, last week added additional funding
to its proposal to reach a total of $14.5 million with conditions of a
concomitant match from the City. This Staff Report has been presented to
identify that we have enough funds available to provide the Council with the
opportunity to set aside $14.5 million for this purpose, if you are interested
in it. These are not General Fund dollars, not dollars that can be used for
other purposes in the City. They're specifically generated by developer
impact fees related to provision of affordable housing. Those are the funds
that we have identified for the Council. The Staff Report makes it clear that
there are some restrictions related to the pools of money that we would be
drawing from, if the Council took this direction. Those restrictions, though,
are set by the Council, and it's completely in your ability to modify to allow
their use in this instance, if you are interested. The thought would be that
you will have your discussion, you'll potentially issue some direction tonight.
If need be, there could be follow-up action that we would be bringing back
related to the policies related to those funds at your first meeting when you
return after your recess on August 17. The report does acknowledge that there's always the possibility, if there was some reason for a special
meeting, that one may need to be called during the Council recess. Our
assumption is that we would be back, if you are so inclined to take this
recommendation in this report, at your first meeting in August. The Council
may have alternative directions. We're here to answer any questions.
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Mary Kear: Hello, Council Members. Hello, Mayor Holman. I'm Mary Kear.
I'm the vice president of the Buena Vista Mobile Home Residents
Association. Thank you for your interest in taking the next step to preserve
Buena Vista. We are very grateful. I kindly request that you please match
the County's set aside of $14.5 million in funds for Buena Vista. The
residents of the park are ingrained in the Palo Alto community. Our kids
attend the schools. We work in the area businesses. Preserving the park for
its current residents and for affordable housing will forever keep Palo Alto a
place of inclusion and diversity and economic prosperity. It is not only the
children, but it is Palo Alto's blue collar work force. Hundreds and hundreds
of Palo Altans support preserving the park. They've written letters, attended
rallies and spoken to you before. You can rest assured you are doing this
with the community's backing. Will all those supporting the Council vote to
match the funds set aside by the County please rise? Thank you. Thank you for listening. We appreciate it.
Gail Price: Good evening. I'm Gail Price, and I'm a member of the
Community Working Group Board. Joining me are many members of the
Board. We are an organization behind the Opportunity Center, Alma
Gardens and 801 Alma, all offering affordable housing to families and
individuals in Palo Alto who would otherwise be at risk of homelessness. We
are community leaders, including former elected officials, professors,
community activists, business and nonprofit leaders, architects, community
planners and clergy. In Palo Alto and the region, there is a documented
shortage of low and very low income housing. Housing and services enable
community members to have safe, productive and meaningful lives with
dignity and hope. We urge you to adopt the Staff recommendation to direct
the City Manager to identify and set aside a total of $14.5 million in
affordable housing funds to match the County funds designated for the
preservation of affordable housing at Buena Vista. Help facilitate the
purchase and upgrade of the site. We believe that this action is the only
alternative to achieve this goal. Your actions will help assure that the Buena
Vista residents can remain in Palo Alto. You have been elected to make a
difference and to be responsible and thoughtful stewards of our community, stressing fairness, social and economic opportunity and inclusion. A
significant number of community members and over 40 current and former
Palo Alto elected officials and many organizations including but not limited to
Community Working Group, Palo Alto Forward, Palo Altans for Sensible
Zoning, the Palo Alto Weekly and the San Jose Mercury News have demonstrated their support. In all my years as a Palo Alto elected official, I
have never seen the kind of unanimity of support on any issue, the
protection and preservation of affordable housing and support for Buena
Vista residents. It is not only the right thing to do but it also has the least
political risk of any issue I can remember. It demonstrates that Palo Altans
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care. If we can't make it happen, if we don't make it happen, who are we?
Please help Supervisor Joe Simitian achieve his mission of saving Buena
Vista and affordable housing. Your critical leadership and action now will
help drive a needed and impactful resolution. We want Palo Alto to be part
of the solution.
Lynn Huidekoper: Good evening, I'm Lynn Huidekoper, a member of Stop
the Ban Coalition, who supports this effort. This is a fabulous turnout. It is
a prime example of grassroots organizing, which is all about what the
democratic process is about. You can see the supporters in this room. Palo
Alto apparently has eight billionaires, so I know the City Council is going to
do the right thing to maintain the diversity both economically, culturally, etc.
I know you're going to do the right thing tonight. I'm very honored to be
part of this grassroots effort. Thank you.
Herb Borock: Mayor Holman and Council Members. Like many other issues, if you're going to be doing what people are requesting you to do, you should
do it only if it's done right. I have provided you a letter that was sent
electronically, and it's at your places this evening. I have indicated seven
items that you need to get appropriate answers to before you commit funds
to Buena Vista. I'll add an eighth item. There were two typographical errors
in the letter that I noticed. At the top of the second page, Item No. 5 has
the word "home" in the second line which should be the word "how." On the
third page near the top, the first reference to the Commercial Housing In-
Lieu Fund says page 8 when it should be page 6. I hope those of you who
have accessed the links to those have been able to find them. In addition to
the seven items in my letter, the eighth item you should request is an
update to the annual report on development impact fees for the Commercial
and Residential Housing In-Lieu funds. The report that you received and
accepted on January 12th shows the net funds available at the end of last
fiscal year and the unspent balance at the next funding date, which is an
estimate based on expected transactions. I would suggest you get from
Staff an up-to-date amendment to that that shows transactions that have
occurred so far in this fiscal year, both increasing and decreasing, for those
two funds including any accrued interest and whether it's the same prediction for the unexpended balance at the end of the year or a different
one, that you get the line items of expected increases and decrease
identified by projects so that you can have something that is verifiable on
those numbers and you know where those numbers came from. The
proposal by Caritas is a development project like any other. Before the City Council is going to commit funds to a development project like this, it needs
to have all the information to enable you to make an appropriate decision.
I've tried to outline the information that I believe you need, and you may
need other information. I'm not suggesting in any of this request for
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information that you're asking for how much money on a sale price the bid
would be or what' the highest amount of money Caritas would spend. You
do need to know the extent to which the City's commitment would be limited
to what you have and whether or not the County would take the City's place
for any relocation expenses and what zoning implications there are. Thank
you.
Mila Zelkha: The three of us are going to say our name and a short
statement together. Mila Zelkha, Tara Nussbaum, Elaine Wong. On behalf
of Palo Alto Forward Steering Committee, we encourage the Council
Members and community to read the letter Palo Alto Forward submitted this
morning to the Council, and to seize the opportunity to use designated
affordable housing funds to deed restrict land that already provides
affordable housing to 400 people along the Central Transit Corridor. These
families are Palo Alto residents. They work here, vote here, pay taxes here and send their kids to school here. If Palo Alto has the means to match the
County funds and later to issue bonds, we can create a win-win situation
where the seller could receive fair market value, the existing density can be
preserved and 400 residents can remain Palo Altans. Thanks.
Alex Van Riesen: Good evening. My name is Alex Van Riesen. I'm a
resident of Palo Alto; I've lived here for 17 years. I live in Midtown, and I
serve as pastor of a local church, the Palo Alto Vineyard, and represent
hopefully tonight the faith community in Palo Alto. I'm also here with my
daughter, Hope. I wanted to address two points. One, as I've both been
online and listened to people talk, I've realized that one of the big issues
that I see the opponents talking about with regards to this issue is whether
the funds are being appropriately used, whether this is an efficient or good
way to use the funds. It struck me that there was the situation with Maybell
and the attempt to build affordable housing. There's lots of ideas around
and clearly have been expressed tonight the need for affordable housing.
Here we have a situation where there are actual people living in an
affordable housing situation for them and, rather than creating more of that,
we are considering taking it away. What we need to do is decide and not let
anything stand in the way from keeping this affordable housing and beginning to think in other ways to build more affordable housing in the days
ahead. It would be a travesty to the City and also an economically bad idea.
Obviously lots of us have talked about the numbers with regards to what is
the expense of this project. I suggest that this is a very efficient and
economically viable way to maintain affordable housing in Palo Alto. The second issue is more social or spiritual. I'm glad my daughter wanted to
come with me tonight. I know the days are coming where that may come to
an end. I was most excited about the opportunity to show her government
in work and to show her participation in one's community. You're seeing
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that tonight in Palo Alto. I'm proud to be a part of that. I want the next
generation to see that as well; not just the next generation of kids that can
live in Professorville or Midtown or Barron Park, but also the next generation
of kids living in Buena Vista Trailer Park being a part of that as well. Thank
you for letting me speak. I encourage you to match the funds.
Nancy Krop: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Nancy
Krop. I am the Director of Legislation for the Sixth District PTA. I am here
again tonight on behalf of all 225 PTAs throughout Santa Clara County that
have passed a resolution in support of preserving the Buena Vista Mobile
Home Park. I'm also here tonight on behalf of the Palo Alto PTA Council
where all 17 schools have also passed a resolution in support of our students
remaining in our community. I am here on a personal note; I am a neighbor
of the mobile home park and thrilled to live in the same neighborhood with
this mobile home park. I'm here asking two things tonight. The first one is to please match the County $4.5 million. My second ask on behalf of these
organizations is to continue to work with Caritas until this deal is complete to
the satisfaction of all parties. I'm finishing my term as Director of
Legislation, and I'm thrilled to dedicate tonight to the children of Buena Vista
Mobile Home Park. You have inspired me every year. You are a gift, every
child in these photos is a gift to our community that we should cherish. Our
PTA community absolutely cherishes each and every one of you. I'm
confident that you Council Members cherish these children as well and will
do what's right and keep them in our community.
Robert Moss: Thank you, Mayor Holman and Council Members. I'm not
going to repeat the importance of retaining low-income housing at Buena
Vista. You've heard plenty of that tonight already. I want to talk about a
little different subject: money. The County has dedicated $14.5 million to
buying the site. The City's dedicated $8 million so far, so you're $6.5 million
behind. We have $8 million in an impact account which is currently reserved
for new housing. That's by Council policy, and you can change that policy
any time. There's more than enough money in that account to match the
County's funding. That gets you up to $29 million. The Jissers were ready
to accept a $30 million offer on the property from someone who only offered that on the assumption that the density of housing allowed would be more
than doubled. The City Council hasn't made any statements about what
they intend to do with the zoning on that site, if anything. It's quite clear to
everybody you're not going to increase the density of zoning so that some
developer can throw out the people who live in the trailer park and build high-cost housing. That's not City policy. Can you put money in for existing
housing? We've done it a number of times before. You've put anywhere
from $0.5 million to $4 or $5 million to buy existing multifamily housing and
retain it for low-income affordable rents. You can do it for Buena Vista. The
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value of the property, just the raw land, because there's only one building
that's owned by the Jissers and that's a very small, rather crummy building.
When we talk about land value, it would be somewhere between $20 and
$25 million. Supposedly Buena Vista has some facilities problems, and you'd
have to spend perhaps $5-$10 million upgrading the quality of the utilities
and other facilities on the site. That could be a justification for reducing the
offer to the Jissers. I would suggest that you approve up to an additional
$6.5 million from the existing funding that you have for affordable housing,
transfer it from new construction only to preserving existing affordable
housing, and start negotiating with the Jissers, looking at a price range of
between $20 and $25 million. If you can negotiate and get an agreement in
that range, especially at the low end, there'd be enough additional money to
do the upgrades on the equipment and facilities needed for the location.
Please move fast on this.
Larry Klein: Good evening, Madam Mayor and Members of the City Council.
Three weeks ago you received a letter signed by nearly all of the former
living City Council Members. None of them oppose it. All of us that joined in
signing that strongly support the preservation of Buena Vista. I think I can
speak for them since I either spoke or emailed to virtually half of the signers
of that letter. We respectfully urge you to approve the Staff's
recommendation and make available $14.5 million for the purchase of Buena
Vista. Let me quickly list three reasons why you should. One, it's strange to
say in this high real estate value City but Buena Vista would be a bargain.
801 Alma is the last affordable housing project created in Palo Alto. The
units there ended up a combination of construction costs and land
acquisition at $600,000 per unit. Some of that land was acquired nearly ten
years ago. Construction contracts were entered into, let's say, five or six
years ago. It's fair to say that as the economy's come back there's been a
significant increase, in that $600,000 per unit probably today would be at
least $700,000 per unit; I'm being conservative. If you take 117 units, the
number of units presently at Buena Vista, and multiply by $700,000, you
come out just shy of $82 million. Any of the numbers that we've been
talking about in terms of acquisition of Buena Vista plus needed upgrades in the infrastructure would come out way less than $82 million. This is, in my
view and my colleagues who are former Council Members, a bargain for the
City and its use of the affordable housing funds we have. That leads me to
the second one, which is the funds we're talking about. Both the City's
funds and the County's are earmarked only for the use of affordable housing. That's been mentioned already, but I want to reemphasize that.
This money could not be used for other purposes. Lastly, I want to talk
about the human element. I voted, and many of you have voted over the
years, for affordable housing projects. Those were abstract; we didn't know
who the people were going to be, because we were going to be building
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something new. Who those beneficiaries would be we couldn't know, but we
do know the 400 people who are living there now, the 100 children in our
school district. These people are part of the community now. It would be a
very sad day if we don't do everything we can to keep these people as part
of our community. Please don't let them down. Thank you.
Melodie Cheney: Good evening. My name is Melodie Cheney. I am a
resident. I'm also the secretary for the Residents Association. First, I'd like
to take the opportunity to say thank you for hearing us and hearing our case
and taking the time to who we are and who our supporters are. I would like
to implore you to match the funds that the County and Supervisor Simitian
has already allocated to us. Not just for us, but for future generations. To
keep it affordable housing for us, for future Palo Alto residents, for the
people who are the labor force of the City, your deli workers, your bus
drivers, your custodians. Keeping our park open would also mean the kids now and in the future get the great education that Palo Alto is known for.
We have a zero dropout rate, and we plan to continue that as long as we're
there. That also means the people there and the people in the future can
continue to be productive members of Palo Alto as a community and society
as a whole. It means that you have people who want to stay there. We
have three generations there. Buena Vista has been important to me for a
few reasons. It's my first home. No matter where I go, I'm not going to
have the same feeling. I'm considered physically challenged. Living on El
Camino, right in front of a major bus line, the 22, which runs 24/7/365, I
can do my shopping; I can take my cat, Cleo, to the vet; I can get to work
at De Anza College, where I work for 17 years. If I have to move, which
with your generosity I won't have to, that's going to either have me pay rent
or food or vet bills. My home, which I bought 15 years ago, will be paid off
October 1st. I'd like to make sure I can live in that when it's paid off.
Thank you.
Sea Reddy: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and the City Council and the
listeners of the citizens of Palo Alto and neighboring communities. I'd like to
express my gratitude to Jim Keene for coming up with $14 million as a plan
from the City, as well as Joe for County funds. It takes a lot of courage and a lot of time to get these funds assigned. It's just a matter of us deciding
that we want to. This would be a testimonial for the care and good things
we do in Palo Alto. The nation is watching. Everybody knows about these
things. I would like to also ask the leaders of these communities, the
wealthy including John Arrillaga, Mark Anderson, the Packard family, Platt family, Mark Zuckerberg, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Mark Hurd, including
all the other leaders that have benefited from working in Palo Alto and have
a lot of funds available to see if they can participate in making this happen.
There is nothing wrong with this. It's wonderful. This is the way America is
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going to look in the future. We're going to set a good example, and the
funds will follow. We'll find funds. It's a great thing and it'll be good karma
all in all. Thank you.
Job Lopez: Good evening to each one of you Members of the City Council.
My name is Job Lopez. I'm a 41-year resident of Mountain View. I do have
many friends who are residents of Buena Vista. I am here tonight to show
my appreciation for all you have been doing, all the effort you have been
putting to make possible to save the Buena Vista Park. We have seen that
Mr. Simitian and Mr. Cortes have done what they can and Caritas is doing
the same thing. Tonight each one of you, I don't have to tell you that, have
a wonderful opportunity to make social justice shine like the sun we have
seen now and we will see tomorrow on a very warm day. It is very exciting
to see all those posters with those faces of children, boys and girls, mothers
and parents, who are hoping that you will save them, that you will keep them in their homes. I want to remind you, even though I don't have to,
that each one of us, each one of you, whatever the position is within society
that we are living in, each one has also the moral obligation to do what we
need to do for our fellow human beings. Tonight we are sure that you will
listen to that, and you will make all these people of Buena Vista Park happier
than they have ever been. If necessary to match the $14.5 million, you can
ask the high tech companies in our valley, like Facebook, Google, Apple,
Yahoo. I am happy the (inaudible) published my letter today where I say
what I am saying now. The San Jose Mercury News did the same thing.
Thank you for listening. I am sure that tomorrow all these people will wake
up happier than they have ever woken in many months. Thank you.
Winter Dellenbach: Winter Dellenbach, Friends of Buena Vista. You have an
opportunity tonight. Your chains have been thrown off. For the first time in
a really long time, you can act tonight. We need you to act tonight. What
we don't need is delay. The residents of Buena Vista are intending to stay.
Nobody's moving. The children intend to start our schools again in mid-
August, in fact August 17th, which you may decide to wrap up Buena Vista
August 17th, if I put credence in the Staff Report. We need you to act. The
amount of insecurity and unknowingness that they are living with is obviously very high. As you discuss this tonight and as you make your
decisions and as you wrap things up on this item, please make it clear as to
what you're doing, what you're doing, what you're deciding, why you're
doing it, and the timeframe in which it will be worked out, assuming that
something will happen. People need to understand this; people need to understand their near future and how that fits into their present plans and
lives. There is no other scenario than this scenario. We have looked at
every scenario. We've been doing this nearly three years. Every scenario.
This is the good one. This is the one that will keep residents there. It will
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preserve the site in perpetuity for affordable housing, if this all works out.
You have a big role to play in this. This is very much your decision, your
responsibility to step up and participate. We need you to do that. We don't
need delay; we need action. Good luck in your deliberations. A lot is
depending on this. I have known these folks for a long time now, an awful
lot of them. These are fine people. These are the people we want in Palo
Alto. To lose them would be a tremendous loss and a loss of a part of our
heart and a part of what we're about. Make a good decision and do it now.
Council Member Wolbach: I'd like to make a motion.
Council Member Berman: I'll go ahead and second it.
Council Member Wolbach: Thank you, Council Member Berman. I'd like to
move that we direct the City Manager to identify and set aside $8 million
plus an additional $6.5 million in affordable housing funds for the purpose of
preserving affordable housing at Buena Vista Mobile Home Park and that Staff shall return to Council with draft amended guidelines to permit use of
commercial housing funds for this purpose.
Mayor Holman: We already have a predetermined second to that.
MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member
Berman to identify and set aside $8 million plus $6.5 million in affordable
housing funds to match Santa Clara County funds made available for the
purpose of preserving affordable housing at Buena Vista Mobilehome Park
and that Staff will return to Council with draft guidelines to allow for the use
of Commercial Housing Funds for this purpose.
Council Member Wolbach: We've already heard that the funds at hand must
be used for this purpose or some other affordable housing purpose. We've
already heard that this is a very good deal for the City. We can discuss
more about the numbers, if there's any debate about that. Families are the
focus here. There are a number of families with a stake. One is the owner's
family, who's often forgotten. Another group of families we see many of
tonight are the families of the residents of Buena Vista Mobile Home Park.
The third family that I'd like to mention briefly is the larger Palo Alto family.
By setting aside $14.5 million for use in a potential purchase of Buena Vista
at market rate, we demonstrate how we value all of the families involved. Our objective is to play a role in helping find a win-win-win, so that each
family with a stake in Buena Vista has an opportunity for a bright future.
We would be thrilled to have resolution quickly, but we also want to make
clear, particularly to the owners, that they should not feel rushed. It is our
intention to work with you to find a positive solution.
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Council Member Berman: The last 2 1/2 years, which is the term that I've
been on Council, have been incredibly frustrating. It's been frustrating for
the City Council who has had its hands tied due to the quasi judicial role that
we played throughout this process. It's been frustrating for our community
who has rallied around some of its most at-risk residents. Let me say how
proud I am of our community for the reaction, the efforts and the advocacy
by Palo Altans to protect their neighbors. It's been inspiring for me to
watch. All of that pales in comparison to the frustration of the residents of
Buena Vista who have had to go through this entire ordeal over the last 2
1/2 years without knowing when it would end or what the resolution would
be. Up until now, the Council has fulfilled the legal duties we were required
to, but that none of us wanted to. We run for City Council because we want
to roll up our sleeves and be part of the solution and, until now, we have
been legally prohibited from doing that. Today we get to be part of the solution. Better yet, Supervisor Simitian and Winter Dellenbach and others
have already put in hundreds of hours of work to create the framework for a
possible solution. I'm a big fan of Supervisor Simitian, and I imagine
everyone here is. Quite a few times over the years, I've heard Joe tell
someone, "It's a lot more helpful when you come to me with a potential
solution, not just with problems." Here we have a prospective solution, a
comprehensive and creative public-private nonprofit partnership that has the
potential to preserve 116 units of affordable housing and avoid the eviction
of 400 Palo Altans from their homes. One thing I do want to note is that this
isn't just an issue that's affecting the residents of Buena Vista. Every day all
across Palo Alto, our residents are being priced out of their homes. 45
percent of Palo Alto's housing units are renter occupied, many of them
seniors on fixed income, and they are being priced out of the homes they've
lived in for a long time, some of them for decades. Throughout this process
and again tonight, I've heard advocates reference the fact that we have
eight billionaires and many more multimillionaires that live in Palo Alto, and
that they should write checks to solve our problems. I don't know any of
those billionaires, but I do know people who help those billionaires decide
how to spend their philanthropic dollars. I've spoken with them about the situation in Palo Alto. What I've heard is that folks are open to pitching in;
they're open to helping out and being part of the solution, but not until they
see that the City is serious about addressing our affordable housing shortfall,
and not until they see that the Palo Alto community at large is serious about
addressing our affordable housing shortfall. Just a few years ago, some folks were debating whether or not there was even a need for more
affordable housing in Palo Alto. We've come a long way since then, and
tonight is a good first step, but we've a long way to go to truly address the
housing challenges that exist for a lot of Palo Alto residents. I'm more than
happy to support Council Member Wolbach's motion, but I hope this is the
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first step in a more serious conversation about the high cost of housing in
Palo Alto.
Council Member Kniss: Welcome everyone. So many of you have come
here once, twice, three times, four times. How many of you have come here
four times? Five, six, seven, eight? You've come a number of times. I like
the pictures you're holding up. These kids are so cute. I wish you could see
it from here. This is an extremely warm and, as somebody said, a
community-oriented night. This is a fascinating evening, because what
we're talking about tonight is literally taking our checkbook and pretty much
emptying it. We're going to empty it into what we hope will be a finale for
the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park. We can't guarantee that. I'm going to
leave that to people like Joe and Larry Klein who have been working in a
difficult situation; Gail Price as well, to call out some of you who have put
your heart and soul into this. What I'd like to leave you with is this demonstrates the core values of this City: diversity, take a look, no
question about diversity; economic justice, would you agree that that's part
of this; to make a contribution to affordable housing. That sums up some of
the core values for those of us who live in Palo Alto. You have come out
tonight to hopefully defend your homes. On top of that, you're also
supporting each other. What you're saying is, "We want to all come
together. We're looking to you, the City, to help us make this happen." In
closing, this ain't easy. This is a hard road that you're on. As we send you
out of here with a team of Simitian and Klein and Price and others, please
jump in. If you know somebody that you think would like to contribute to
this, approach them. Ask them if they would like to join that with you. It's
our great pleasure tonight to be able to set these funds aside and hope that
this continues on the positive road it's been going on so far.
Vice Mayor Schmid: I enthusiastically support the motion on the table.
Buena Vista has already been endorsed as part of our Housing Element
recently approved. We recognize that this is the beginning of a process to
identify the fair market value for the property. We move ahead with
confidence that there is nowhere else in Palo Alto where we can provide so
much affordable housing at a very reasonable price. This is a bargain. I'd like to encourage Staff to agendize any further discussions whenever
necessary on this to make sure we move ahead promptly. Give a word of
thanks to those who initiated the process and who have been so active over
time in making sure that all of us keep focused on what is a key part of a
healthy city.
Council Member Burt: I also will be supporting the motion. I'm very glad
that we've been able to get to this point, to make this action. These funds,
first of all, are dedicated for purposes of affordable housing. That's
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important for us to emphasize to the community, that that is the purpose of
these funds and this is an outstanding use of those funds. This is, as some
of the speakers pointed out, a question of community values and moral
values. For many decades, Palo Alto has had a strong commitment to
affordable housing programs throughout our community. This is the latest
and a very important part of that progression. This is not outside of those
values of schools and our community; it's fully within it and within the great
tradition that we have had of being committed to struggling to have diversity
in our community. That challenge, unfortunately, is not getting easier; it's
getting more difficult each year. That's the reason why we must take
advantage of this opportunity to help this great site become a long-term
reality for our community. I look forward to supporting the motion.
Council Member Scharff: I want to thank all of you for coming out. So
much time and effort. You guys have done a great job. As Council Member Kniss said, the pictures are amazing; they're fantastic. Thanks so much for
all of you coming out. I also enthusiastically support this. I can't think of a
better use of our affordable housing funds than to protect the people that
already live and work in our community and send their kids to school here. I
enthusiastically support this. I have a couple of questions for the City
Manager. We have about $1 1/2 million left in the commercial housing
fund?
Mr. Keene: That's correct, approximately.
Council Member Scharff: Do we have a sense of how much more money in
the next, say, two years we would expect to come into, either of the two
funds?
Mr. Keene: The import of the questions, for the audience, is we continue to
collect these fees as we have different development-related projects and
that sort of thing. Hillary, do you have any sense of how much in a typical
year we might bring in? I don't know.
Council Member Scharff: We don't know what's in the pipeline or anything
like that?
Mr. Keene: Right.
Council Member Scharff: I'd like us to figure that out. One of my concerns is that this won't be enough money. We should start thinking about what
other money is available to do this, in terms of affordable housing funds.
When I look at the numbers, it seems to me that we may need a little bit
more money than this. If so, how are we going to fund that, how are we
going to get that done? That might be something we want to take a look at.
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Just so I understand it, do we have an ordinance on how the commercial
housing funds are used? Is it just a guideline?
Mr. Keene: It's a guideline established by the Council, a policy. It would
take a noticed action of the Council. As we indicated in the report, that
could easily be done at your meeting on the 17th of August.
Council Member Scharff: I want to make sure there's none of this "it has to
come back 30 days later for a second reading" or any of that. We just do it
and then we can give the money and there's no delay.
Mr. Keene: He didn't put a specific date in the motion, but our plan would
be to come at the meeting on the 17th. The Council could make the policy
change and it would be effective immediately.
Council Member Scharff: Supervisor Simitian, I want to make sure the
timing on all this works for you, since we're going on break. I assume you'll
be negotiating some sort of agreement, and then the notion is to come back and see where we are. If it comes earlier than August, I assume we'd
somehow make that work. Any thoughts on that?
Joe Simitian, County Supervisor: The timing that the Manager has laid out
and that a majority of Council Members have indicated they support works
just fine in terms of where we are in the process. If the Council takes
favorable action tonight, the $14.5 plus $14.5 will be $29. There is the
potential to do $10 million from a tax-exempt revenue bond that Caritas
would float. That makes it very clear to the current owners that there is
serious money and this is a serious conversation. Like any negotiation, it's
an iterative process. There's some back and some forth and some back and
forth. An important part of the back and forth is being able to sit down with
some resources that make you a credible part of the conversation. If you
take the action tonight as the Board has and as Caritas has stepped up and
indicated it's willing to do a bond, we will be there. What the timeline looks
like remains to be seen. The timeline that the Manager has laid out works
just fine for us now. If there's an acceleration of the timeline, I've been
encouraged by the Manager to let him know at the earliest opportunity. You
heard him say earlier that there's the potential for a Special Meeting if
necessary. Right now, I have no reason to anticipate that that would be necessary. The Council is aware, but some members of the community may
not be aware, that there is a letter that has essentially given 90 days to the
current owners in order for them to pursue negotiations. That's taken a little
of the pressure off. I would say thank you again to the City for that gesture
which has created a better climate for a conversation. That's a long-winded
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public official's way of saying the timeline seems to work for now. Thank
you very much, Madam Mayor.
Council Member Filseth: These are affordable housing funds. These folks
are residents. It's a no brainer.
Mayor Holman: I want to thank my colleagues for your support for this;
Council Member Wolbach, for putting forth a eloquent statement to begin
and to get us kicked off. I want to make sure the media catches this,
because there's been a lot written online about this. It's been stated before,
but please note that these are affordable housing funds that can be used for
nothing else. They have to be used for affordable housing purposes. To the
question, Council Member Scharff, about timing, we hope the timing of this
is adequate but, as you're aware, we also had the City Clerk poll Council
Members. Just in case we need to meet over our Council break, we are
prepared to do that and have those present accounted for. There is a fair amount written about how Council Members have not done anything to
support Buena Vista. Again, for media purposes, especially because
colleagues certainly know this, Buena Vista residents certainly know this, we
have not been able to participate. At this point, I hope to see my colleagues
also out there helping in any way we can. With our support and gratitude to
Supervisor Simitian, Winter Dellenbach, Larry Klein, the residents certainly
and many others to come to a happy conclusion on this. My person goal, my
personal hope, is that this December there will be a posada at Buena Vista
to end all posadas. Council Members, vote on the board please. That does
pass on a unanimous vote, 8-0, with Council Member DuBois absent.
MOTION PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
Council took a break from 7:41 P.M. to 7:52 P.M.
18. PUBLIC HEARING: to Hear Objections to the Levy of Proposed
Assessments on the Palo Alto Downtown Business Improvement
District and Adoption of a Resolution 9534 Entitled, “Resolution of the
Council of the City of Palo Alto Confirming the Report of the Advisory
Board and Levying Assessment for Fiscal Year 2016 on the Downtown
Palo Alto Business Improvement District” and Approve a Fiscal Year
2016 Budget Amendment Ordinance 5335 Entitled, “Budget Amendment Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto in the
Business Improvement District Fund.”
Thomas Fehrenbach, Economic Development Manager: My name is Tom
Fehrenbach; I’m the Economic Development Manager. Given your agenda
tonight, I'll be brief. I did want to introduce Mr. Russ Cohen who is the Executive Director of the Palo Alto Downtown Business and Professional
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Association. I want to underscore that the action before you tonight
represents a significant improvement to the continuum of the billing,
invoicing, collections and budgeting process for the BID. With that, Russ
and I are here to entertain any questions that you might have after you
open the public hearing.
Mayor Holman: This is the time and place for the public hearing on the levy
of an assessment on businesses in the Palo Alto Downtown Business
Improvement District for Fiscal Year 2016. In February 2004, the City
established the Palo Alto Downtown Business Improvement District.
Annually, the City Council must hold a public hearing to authorize the levy of
an assessment in the next fiscal year. On May 18, 2015, the Council set
aside this time and day as the time and date of the public hearing on the
proposed levy of an assessment for this fiscal year of 2016. The Council
appointed the Board of Directors of the Palo Alto Downtown Business and Professional Association as the Advisory Board for the BID. The Advisory
Board has prepared its Annual Report for the 2016 Fiscal Year and submitted
it to the Council. The City published the required noticed in a local
newspaper of record regarding reauthorization of the BID for 2016 as
required by bid law. All interested persons have an opportunity to provide
testimony this evening. I have no cards at this point in time. At the
conclusion of the public hearing, the Council will determine whether a
majority protest exists. A majority protest will exist if the owners of
businesses that will pay 50 percent or more of the proposed levy of an
assessment have filed and not withdrawn a written protest.
Public Hearing opened and closed without public comment at 7:55 P.M.
Mayor Holman: Determination of the existence of a majority protest.
Mr. Fehrenbach: No majority protest exists, Madam Mayor.
Mayor Holman: in the absence of a majority protest, motion to approve?
Vice Mayor Schmid: I move that we approve a resolution confirming the
report of the Advisory Board and levying an assessment for Fiscal Year 2016
on the Downtown Palo Alto Business Improvement District; that we also
approve a Budget Amendment Ordinance for Fiscal Year 2016 reducing the
revenue estimate by $40,000 from $140,000 to $100,000, and reducing the Expenditure Budget by $11,800 from $148,000 to $136,000 for the Business
Improvement District offset with a reduction of the projected ending fund
balance of $28,200.
Council Member Filseth: Second.
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Mayor Holman: Second by Council Member Filseth.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Schmid moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth
to:
a. Adopt a Resolution confirming the report of the Advisory Board and
levying an assessment for Fiscal Year 2016 on the Downtown Palo Alto
Business Improvement District; and
b. Adopt a Budget Amendment Ordinance for Fiscal Year 2016 reducing
the revenue estimate by $40,000 from $140,000 to $100,000 and
reducing the expenditure budget by $11,800 from $148,000 to
$136,200 for the Business Improvement District offset with a
reduction of the projected ending fund balance by $28,200.
Vice Mayor Schmid: A lot of work has gone into preparing this. We look
forward to moving ahead with a dynamic Business Improvement District.
Mayor Holman: Vote on the board please. That passes on a majority vote with Council Member DuBois absent.
MOTION PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
19. Adoption of an Ordinance Deleting Section 18.42.110 of Chapter 18.42
of Title 18 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code and Adding a New Section
18.42.110 Pertaining to the Siting and Permitting of Wireless
Communications Facilities; Exempt from California Environmental
Quality Act Under CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b) and 15301,
15302 and 15305.
Cara Silver, Senior Assistant City Attorney: Cara Silver, Senior Assistant
City Attorney. I also have our special telecommunications counsel, Tim Lay
of Spiegel and McDiarmid, here. He will be available to answer any technical
questions. He's assisted us with telecommunications law for the past 20
years as this is a specialized field. By way of background, Palo Alto is
continuing to experience requests for wireless communication facilities.
Most of these requests are not fill-in gap coverage, but to respond to the
need for faster and more data. Given that we have multiple requests, there
is a body of Federal and State law that unfortunately limits the City's ability
to regulate in this area. We've discussed this in different contexts, primarily
in connection with Housing Element law, but it is also very common in telecommunications law where both Federal and State laws preempt the
City's ability to regulate. There are a series of Federal regulations. We have
the Telecommunications Act of 1996. We have the 2009 FCC shot clock
regulation. We have the Spectrum Act and the 2015 FCC Spectrum Act
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regulations. We'll be talking more in detail about those latter two Federal
laws. With respect to State laws with respect to access to right-of-ways, we
have restrictions on ability to regulate carriers' ability to locate on a right-of-
way. We also have restrictions on our ability to allow access to utility poles;
although, we do have some ability to limit access to light poles under State
law. Today we want to focus on the regulations that were promulgated in
connection with the Spectrum Act. The Spectrum Act was adopted in 2012.
It was a rider to the Middle Class Tax Relief Act. It had one sentence in the
rider which said that cities must approve a telecommunications request to
modify an existing wireless communications facility that does not
substantially alter the existing facility. However, there was no definition of
what an "existing facility" was and what "substantially alter" meant. There
was also no timelines for processing these types of applications. In 2014,
the FCC began its rulemaking process and published some regulations that clarified the definitions that were contained in the Spectrum Act and also
contained some timelines for processing these requests. Those regulations
went into effect on April 19, 2015. Cities are now scrambling to put in place
ordinances that will be consistent with these regulations. The regulations
also imposed a strict 60-day period for a certain category of applications
which we will talk about. With respect to that category, the regulations
stated that if the cities do not process applications within that time period of
60 days, that the application will be deemed approved, which is a significant
departure from current law. What we have done is presented you with a
Municipal Code Ordinance that repeals the old wireless communications
facility that we have in our existing ordinance. It establishes a tiered
approach to these types of permits and facilities. It codifies the shot clock
rules for processing these types of applications, so that both Staff and the
public know the time periods that apply. I'll take you through the three
tiers. The first tier is what we've called the Spectrum Act permits. This is
the type of installation that the Spectrum Act wanted to facilitate and
encourage. It involves an existing facility that can be either a standalone
tower that houses a facility or it can be a building-mounted facility. If there
is a co-location which meets the definition of an "eligible facility," which is defined in the Spectrum Act to accommodate a co-location which does not
substantially alter the existing facility. "Substantially altered" now is defined
in the regulations to mean more than 10 feet in height if it applies to a pole
in the right-of-way or 20 feet in height if the facility is located on private
property. If the co-location request is under that threshold, then we're proposing that a Tier 1 permit apply and that that be handled through a
Director's review. This is the type of permit that, for the most part, is
encouraged by the City with our existing regulations. We like to have co-
locations. The location has already been vetted with the community, so
these are the types of things we think will be relatively ministerial in nature.
We're recommending a Director-level streamlined review. The next category
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of facilities are what we call Tier 2 wireless facilities. They would go through
a more rigorous process. They would apply to co-locations that don't meet
that definition of substantially alter. In other words, for private property it
would be an installation that would go more than 20 feet than the existing
installation; for right-of-ways it would be a facility that's greater than 10 feet
above existing. The review that we're proposing for that is an Architectural
Review, and any Architectural Review would be appealable to the Council.
Finally, we have our Tier 3 permits. These are for any new facility. With
this, we're proposing the most rigorous review. We would apply both
Architectural Review, and we would also require a Conditional Use Permit.
We would also require that the applicant provide simulations that will show
the level of additional height that the facility would be entitled to under the
Spectrum Act, so that the community can see potential for growth. Those
are the three levels of permits. The ordinance also contains some additional features. We've updated the definition of wireless communication facility. It
mainly tracks now the Federal law in this area, and it contains a state of the
art definition. We have included some concrete development standards and
some concrete conditions of approval. Again, these development standards
and conditions of approval were incorporated into the ordinance in large part
if we were to get a Tier 1 facility that was not acted on in the 60 days and
we're facing a "deemed approved" situation, these conditions of approval
would attach regardless of whether there was formal action. It's an
additional safeguard for the City. With respect to our recommendation, we
are recommending adoption of the ordinance. We also are recommending
that there is an existing work plan item that involves the siting of a
standalone wireless tower. I believe that was in connection with some
thought that carriers would like to locate on a large standalone tower and
that would alleviate the need for multiple sites within the City. Our
assessment at this point is that that would not alleviate those multiple
requests. There is such an insatiable demand right now for data that just
one standalone tower is probably not going to satisfy that. There was also
some concern about the siting of that particular tower and the height it
needed to be to accommodate all of that capacity. At this point, Staff recommends that that effort be put on hold, and it can be revisited at a later
time. We also have Commissioner Gardias from the Planning Transportation
Commission, who would like to make a few comments about their review.
Przmek Gardias, Planning and Transportation Commissioner: Silver, Madam
Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, Przmek Gardias, Planning and Transportation Commission. With a few words, I would like to support this
ordinance as it was prepared for your review and approval today. It was
supported and approved by my colleagues unanimously. We reviewed it and
we found the reasons that it should be a subject of your approval as well.
There were a couple of comments that we make during the review process
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that were accepted by the Staff and inserted into the verbiage of this
ordinance. One was the approval of the projects that would be the subject
of the appealing process. You saw on the slides that this was inserted into
the verbiage. Also, there was a request from our Commission to make sure
that facilities are subject of the Independent Review and emissions report on
radio frequency by independent engineer. That was also verbiage that was
inserted into the comments. There was one item that we didn't include in
our review which was the reference to the height limit, how far above 50
feet the height of the antenna may go. We would like to entrust it to your
review to make sure that we appropriately captured this language in the
ordinance and that this reference to the Spectrum Act was captured
correctly. If there are any other questions, I'm here, happy to answer.
Otherwise, recommend on behalf of my colleagues to approve this
ordinance.
Council Member Kniss: I don't know how you want to go about this, Mayor
Holman, but I'd be glad to move the recommendation. I also have a
comment or two. I move the recommendation.
Council Member Scharff: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member
Scharff to:
A. Adopt an Ordinance Deleting Section 18.42.110 of Chapter 18.42 of
Title 18 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code and Adopt a New Section
18.42.110 Pertaining to the Siting and Permitting of Wireless
Communications Facilities, as recommended by the Planning and
Transportation Commission; and
B. Direct the City Manager or designee to suspend the Anthem Telecomm
contract to study construction of a large standalone tower in light of
the changed legal and technological landscape.
Council Member Kniss: I don't think there's any question that among the
most frustrating things that we go through are where we lose calls, where
people are frustrated. I understand that even our Emergency Services has
difficulty with this as well, even though we don't air that particularly. One of
the questions I had looking at these is that frequently they're disguised. You don't show any that are disguised. Is that just for illustrative purposes?
Often they look like a tree or a flag pole.
Ms. Silver: That's a very good point; I should have raised that. Especially
the Tier 2 and the Tier 3 photos are not camouflaged so that we could better
illustrate the differences between the infrastructure. The photo on the cover
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page is a disguised flag pole installation. We do have some of those in town.
Our existing practice and the practice that will be carried forward in the
ordinance is to camouflage the antennas.
Council Member Kniss: I didn't recognize the one on the front. That would
be the only comment I would make. This was very helpful to hear about
this. It must be reassuring for the public to know that we are working
toward providing better coverage in our City. One of the most frustrating
things is over on 280 or out North California and the minute you get started,
you've lost your connection. This is reassuring.
Council Member Scharff: In taking a look at this, it seems to strike a good
balance between aesthetics and approving these applications. That seems
to be the goal. Am I correct?
Ms. Silver: (inaudible)
Council Member Scharff: I have some questions. How is this different than our existing ordinance in terms of the practical effects of what it's going to
look like? I think I understand, but I want to hear it from you guys.
Ms. Silver: In terms of the aesthetic review that will be done, I don't think
there's going to be much of a difference in the look and feel of the
installations. The camouflaging and the stealth design requirements are still
there. There might be one difference, and that is the height. Commissioner
Gardias touched on that in his comments. The existing ordinance allows a
maximum height up to 65 feet, and then 15 feet above the existing building
height, if it's a building-mounted installation. We've carried that forward in
this ordinance. Under the Spectrum Act, you can then receive an additional
height allocation, the 10 or 20 feet that I referred to. We will see some
taller towers. If the Council decided that they would like to see shorter
towers, then they could decrease the overall base height. However, the
concern with that is that might then result in more installations because the
coverage capacity would not be as broad.
Council Member Scharff: The more height, you get better coverage and you
have to have less installations. Right?
Ms. Silver: That's correct based on the existing technology.
Council Member Scharff: The only thing that gave me pause is that we got an email today from AT&T saying, "Don't approve this. It could dramatically
harm coverage in Palo Alto. Please delay until we have time to look at it."
The way I read it is they hadn't had time to look at it, as opposed to that
they had any substantive concerns. Do you have any comments or thoughts
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on that? No one is here from AT&T, and no one's here from Verizon, so I'm
assuming that they're not panicked about this.
Ms. Silver: I did have a conversation with the ATT representative today who
made the same request that it be continued to me. He did say that he had
reviewed the ordinance and that he didn't think there were any significant
problems; they needed more time to vet it internally. I did mention to him
that there will be a second reading on this ordinance and that he could
supply comments, but we haven't received any as of yet.
Vice Mayor Schmid: I don't have any questions on the aesthetics and the
motion that was made. I do have a problem with the disconnect. Every
time we have a public hearing around a new tower going in, the chamber
gets filled with people. Half of them say, "I want better service." The other
half says, "I'm worried. What are the health effects of this?" The law is
based on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, that local communities cannot regulate on health effects of RF emissions providing the facility is
complying with FCC emission standards. You look in the data, and those
emission standards were based on studies done in the early 1990s, 25 years
ago. We're living in a different world. The intensity, the number, the power,
the strength of RF emissions have changed. Everyone knows that. When
we have a public hearing, people come to hear that, and we have to say,
"No. That's not our job." Since this is the public hearing, individually as
people we have to make a response. What is the latest research? If you
start looking at the research, there's questions out there. In March 2013,
the FCC opened a new docket. They said, "We are not a health and safety
agency. We defer to others to interpret biological research." They tell us
that we can't ask health questions, because they've taken care of it. Then
they say, "We're not a health agency either." They opened a docket two,
almost 2 1/2 years ago, for public comment and also research on this.
There's not a word of what they've gotten, where they are. Are they
learning anything? Are they hearing anything? You go to the literature, and
there's lots of people who write articles and say this is dangerous, and
others say that's nonsense. If you look a little further at the FCC, the group
that knows better than us is the World Health Organization. They have a group called the Interagency for Research on Cancer. A 13 country study.
They have ongoing, long-term research. First they reached the stage a little
more skeptical than the FCC, saying, "There are signs that something could
be going on." They're doing an intensive 13 country longevity study. They
say they will have the results in early 2016. That's an important statement. Why doesn't the FCC share with us, if we're the front men for them? We
have the public hearings. We've got to respond to people and their
concerns. Why don't they give us the latest information? Why do they
make us go and spend hours looking through health data, trying to say, "Is
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it okay? What's going on here?" A question for legal Staff. Is there
something we can do to get the FCC to accept their 60-day, 90-day, 150-day
limits if they provide us with the latest information on health concerns? Is
that a fair mandate for them?
Ms. Silver: I will defer to Mr. Lay on that. He comes fresh from
Washington, DC. Hopefully he can give us some guidance on that issue.
Tim Lay, Spiegel & McDiarmid: Mr. Vice Mayor, that would be a perfectly
fair and reasonable demand of the FCC. There is the slight problem of,
because they are the FCC, whether they behave in fair ways or reasonable
ways all the time is not necessarily within anyone else's control. The docket
you mention, the FCC docket, is still open. The FCC has not acted in it yet.
All the comments that have been filed are retrievable online.
Vice Mayor Schmid: I couldn't find them.
Mr. Lay: The FCC's website, this is another oddity considering they're the Federal Communications Commission, they probably have the most
unfriendly website of any federal agency, which is a separate issue. The
fundamental problem that you're talking about, the safety of RF emissions,
is an ongoing one subject to debate. The FCC has not changed its standards
for 20 years. A lot of people disagree with that. As far as responsibility,
under Federal law responsibility for determining that—there's some logic to
it—is if there is a safety standard, it should be the same safety standard in
Palo Alto as in Dubuque or in Miami or Atlanta or anywhere else. If they
endanger somebody above a certain threshold, that should be true
everywhere. The problem is with the substance of the standards. It can be
very frustrating at the local government level to have to tell your
constituents, "I hear you, but I am prohibited from basing a decision on
that." There are two avenues. One is the FCC itself. That docket is open,
and anyone can visit the Commissioners and visit staff and submit on that.
I'll be happy to pass on the links to do that. Obviously the makers of the
Federal law that created this circumstance are members of Congress.
Members of Congress and Senators as well are the ones that passed the law
that said the FCC standards control, and you can't base your decisions on
that.
Vice Mayor Schmid: That is very helpful. I wonder if the maker of the
motion would accept a friendly amendment that we request the FCC provide
an annual update on the status of health studies that they and the World
Health Organization are working on.
Council Member Kniss: I have no objections.
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Council Member Scharff: That's fine. Vice Mayor Schmid, maybe you'd like
to go to Washington and talk directly with the FCC. That'd be great.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “request that the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission provide an annual update on the
status of health studies that they and the World Health Organization
conduct.”
Council Member Burt: Last week we had our legislative agenda. It seems
like that's the place that this should be directed. I don't know what is the
point of doing it through this motion other than as a way to direct that this
be included in our legislative agenda.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid, did you want to add anything having to
do with our legislative advocates as part of this amendment?
Vice Mayor Schmid: Yes. That's a good idea, to send it to them. It would be helpful, since the FCC has directed us how to run our meetings without
information, to let them know that information is a critical part of a public
hearing. They're asking us to conduct public hearings, so they have some
responsibility.
Council Member Burt: How would this be done? How are you envisioning
that this would be done?
Vice Mayor Schmid: I would assume that if there are a number of
communities that are concerned with health issues like us and the FCC gets
a number of requests, they would appoint some deputy manager to write an
annual update.
Council Member Burt: Is this intended that the City would write a letter
signed by the Mayor? That's what I'm trying to understand.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Yes. To the FCC in response to their request for us to
adapt our local laws.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid, is the additional information that you
want to have included here to perhaps have this copied to our legislative
advocates and direct them to follow up?
Vice Mayor Schmid: Yes.
Mayor Holman: Is that agreeable to maker and seconder?
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Council Member Kniss: Whatever way we can get the most accurate
information and that we track it is fine with me. Putting it in committee
where it can be put on the agenda and also followed by the group that is
doing this. What is the name of our group in Washington?
Mayor Holman: Steve and Thane.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Van Scoyoc.
Council Member Kniss: That group, yes.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss accepted that. Council Member
Scharff, do you accept this?
Council Member Scharff: Yes, absolutely.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “direct the City’s federal
legislative advocates to add this issue to their priorities.”
Mayor Holman: I'll be voting for this, but I also want to support Council Member Schmid. Not only are the studies old, but I don't know that there
was any anticipation of the proliferation at that time. Speaking to the
consultant, I absolutely agree with you that what should be true in one
community should be true in another. The proliferation is not the same in
one community to another. That also needs to be addressed. I don't know
how we arrived at four cabinets as a maximum. Cara, can you speak to t
hat?
Ms. Silver: That's under the Spectrum Act (crosstalk).
Mayor Holman: That is part of the Spectrum Act. I missed that. We'll vote
on the board. This is to update our City Code to be consistent with the
Spectrum Act, to direct the City Manager or designee to suspend the Anthem
Telecomm contract to study construction of a larger standalone tower in light
of the changed legal and technological landscape, and request that the U.S.
Federal Communications Commission provide an annual update on the
status of health studies that they and the World Health Organization
conduct, and (d) direct the City's federal legislative advocates to add this
issue to their priorities. Vote on the board please. That also passes on an
8-0 vote, Council Member DuBois absent.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
20. Approval of a Record of Land Use Action for a Site and Design Permit
and a Conditional Use Permit to Implement a Public Bicycle/Pedestrian
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Path Connecting Wilkie Way to the Redwood Gate Neighborhood, with
Associated Site Improvements, on a 5,000 Square-Foot Site Fronting
Wilkie Way, Zoned CS-L-D (Service Commercial with Landscape and
Site and Design Combining Districts) located at 4261 El Camino Real.
Environmental Assessment: Exempt from CEQA Pursuant to Sections
15303 and 15304 (New Construction of Small Structures and Minor
Alterations to Land).
Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director:
Good evening, Council. Our Contract Planner, Sheldon Ah Sing, will be
making the presentation.
Sheldon Ah Sing, Contract Planner: I have a brief presentation for you that
summarizes the packet. The project is located along Wilkie Way, which is
proposed to be a bicycle corridor. The path would connect the Charleston
Meadows to the Redwood Gate neighborhood where there are small open spaces as well as the neighborhoods adjacent to the El Camino Real
Commercial Corridor. The project site is a vacant, unimproved 5,000 square
foot portion of a 3.2 acre site that has a Dinah Hotel. The underlying zoning
and proposed use requires public hearings. Before the application was
submitted by the City, the City conducted two community meetings. In
addition, the Planning Commission and the ARB recommended approval of
the project. The Bicycle Advisory Commission also provided their
endorsement. All these meetings led to maximum public input and
opportunities leading to the site plan before you. The plan includes an
approximate 100-foot pathway that begins 10 feet wide at Wilkie Way and
tapers to 5 feet as it enters the Redwood Gate neighborhood. The site will
include trees and drought-tolerant landscaping along with sitting boulders
and benches. The path will be lit with bollard lighting. All of these are City
standard elements. The topics worth discussing are aesthetics and parking.
Regarding aesthetics and compatibility, at present the site is unimproved.
It's a very small site. Given its surroundings, it's a bit out of place. The
project proposes to frame the site in a way that creates transitions between
densities and connects to neighborhoods. The project will also improve the
aesthetics of the site with, as I mentioned, drought-tolerant plantings consistent with its surroundings. A lighted pathway will not be intrusive.
Regarding parking, during the first community meeting, residents believed
that the Summer Hill development did not have sufficient parking. If this
path were to be constructed, it would create additional parking on Wilkie
Way. At the second community meeting, the parking occupancy study was conducted and the report concluded that there was heavy bicycle and
pedestrian use along Wilkie Way and that there was sufficient parking within
the Redwood Gate neighborhood. Therefore, construction of the path would
not change any existing parking conditions. Over the course of the project,
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we received positive public feedback. Everybody was wondering when the
project would be approved. Please approve it. We did receive one comment
regarding an existing storm drain on the site. That is a condition with the
property owner that that would be improved prior to the construction of the
City project. That plan is in the City's hands for review at this point. We do
have a Planning Commissioner present to address any questions regarding
their evaluation of the project. The recommendation is for approval of the
project subject to the findings and conditions contained in the Record of
Land Use Action. That concludes my presentation. I'll be happy for any
questions you may have.
Council Member Burt: I would like to move the Staff recommendation which
is approval of a Site and Design Review and Conditional Use Permit to allow
the construction of the proposed pedestrian and bicycle pathway and the
associated site improvements based upon the findings and conditions of approval contained in the Record of Land Use Action.
Council Member Scharff: Second
Council Member Kniss: Second.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt, seconded by sounded like Council
Member Scharff.
MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Council Member
Scharff to approve the Site and Design Review and Conditional Use Permit to
allow the construction of the proposed pedestrian and bicycle pathway, and
associated site improvements based upon the findings and the conditions of
approval contained in the Record of Land Use Action.
Council Member Burt: This is something that we made the first steps on as
a Council in 2008. It's good to see this is coming about. We don't often get
opportunities to create new pedestrian ways in the City, connecting what are
otherwise areas that are isolated from one another. I'm glad to hear, what
appears to be the case, that we don't have a parking deficit in the adjacent
higher density neighborhood, and we don't anticipate spillover parking. I
look forward to seeing the community use this.
Council Member Scharff: It's fantastic that we're creating more of these
pedestrian and bicycle ways and we're connecting an area that is a little isolated. Really glad to see this come forward. It's been a long time coming
forward, since 2008. I'm glad we're finally getting this done.
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Vice Mayor Schmid: It's a small site. The property to the south, it looks like
they have a parking lot or parking places. Will that remain as is? This site,
which is a bicycle thing, will remain at the side of a parking lot?
Mr. Sing: There's no proposed change to that condition.
Vice Mayor Schmid: It doesn't show it in any of the pictures. It looks so
nice and park-like and rural, but it will be next to an active driveway.
Mr. Sing: Yes.
Mayor Holman: As Council Member Burt said, this has been a long time
coming. It looks to be a great project. It's nice to have pedestrian access
off the street. It's a project that looks to be easy to support. The motion on
the board is to approve the Site and Design Review and Conditional Use
Permit to allow the construction of the proposed pedestrian and bicycle
pathway and associated site improvements based on the findings and
conditions of approval contained in the Record of Land Use Action. I do wonder if the motion should include the address of 4261 El Camino Real-
Wilkie Way path. Council Member Burt, I presume you'd be okay with that
addition.
Council Member Burt: Sure.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the end of the Motion, “for the property
located at 4261 El Camino Real along the Wilkie Way Path.”
Mayor Holman: With that, we'll vote on the board. That passes on an 8-0
vote, Council Member DuBois absent.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
21. Consideration of Impasse and Factfinding Recommendation Regarding
RPP Enforcement Staffing, Approval of Three-Year Contract to Serco,
Inc. for $1,509,630 for Contract Enforcement for the Downtown
Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program, Approval of a Budget
Amendment Ordinance 5336 Entitled, “Budget Amendment Ordinance
of the Council of the City of Palo Alto in the Amount of $378,000 To
Appropriate Funds for the First Year of the Contract,” and Adoption of
Resolution 9535 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Amending the Administrative Penalty Schedule for Violation of the RPP Program.”
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Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Hillary
Gitelman, the Planning Director. I'm joined by Suzanne Mason, the
Assistant City Manager. This item, as the Mayor indicated, regards
enforcement for the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking Program
which is one of the Council's priorities. You adopted a resolution back in
December 2014 directing us to get this program in place with all due haste.
It's been a long process to select a vendor for this enforcement action and a
long process of meeting with our employees on the issues surrounding this
contract. We are recommending that you conduct a public hearing and take
the requested action. Suzanne and I are here to answer any questions you
have. There's also a representative from the vendor and other Staff
available for questions.
Council Member Kniss: This is not meant to be flip. We have had few items
that were more in contention than talking about Downtown parking and our RPP. There's not a soul here tonight speaking to it. Did we announce the
meeting? It's almost as though this is a mystery meeting. I'm surprised. Is
it that you've done such a fabulous job that no one needs to appear again
and they trust our outcome?
James Keene, City Manager: The point of this is that the recommendation is
guided for the most part to be in support of the pilot design of the RPP
Program. It is advancing the ball, so to speak, for RPP. I would think that's
pretty well known by folks in the neighborhoods.
Council Member Kniss: Unless you want comments from everyone else,
Mayor Holman, I would be delighted to move this motion, which has been
underway three years perhaps, for those of you who have been sitting here
longer, longer than that. It's terrific to see that we're passing it, going to
implement it. I'm going to presume that by the time we come back from
break, they'll be well underway. Correct? Is that a yes?
Ms. Gitelman: The current schedule is to begin selling permits in August, so
that we can start enforcing the program in early September.
Council Member Scharff: I'll second it.
Council Member Kniss: It's terrific to be moving in that direction. Would
you like me to read the motion?
Mayor Holman: Please. Thank you.
Council Member Kniss: I'm delighted we're here. The summary title of this
is the fact finding recommendation and so forth. It reads consideration of
impasse and fact finding recommendation regarding RPP enforcement
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staffing, approval of a three-year contract to Serco, Inc. for $1,509,630 for
contract enforcement for the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking,
RPP, Program, approval of a Budget Amendment Ordinance in the amount of
$378,000 to appropriate funds for the first year of the contract and adoption
of a resolution amending the administrative penalty schedule for violation of
the RPP Program. There was a second, correct?
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff seconded. You've covered it all.
It's worded slightly differently from what's on the screen.
Council Member Kniss: It is. I read the title, but if you want to do the rest
of it, we can do that as well. That should be included in the
recommendation.
Mayor Holman: Adopting the resolution amending the administrative
penalty. Do you care to read that part please? It's on your screen.
Council Member Kniss: I can read under 2, do you want me to read that part? Implement.
Mayor Holman: Item 3 that's on the screen.
Council Member Kniss: Adopt the attached resolution amending the
administrative penalty schedule to include a penalty amount for violation of
the RPP Program.
MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member
Scharff to:
A. Implement the City’s last, best, and final offer to Service Employees
International Union, Local 521 (SEIU) and:
1. Authorize the City Manager or designee to award a three-year
contract in the amount of $1,509,630 to Serco, Inc. for
enforcement of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking
(RPP) program; and
2. Approve a Budget Amendment Ordinance (BAO) in the amount
of $378,000 to cover contract costs for the first year,
transferring funds from the General Fund to the Residential
Parking Permit Fund offset with a reduction in the Budget
Stabilization Reserve; and
B. Adopt a Resolution amending the administrative penalty schedule to include a penalty amount for violation of the Residential Preferential
Parking (RPP) program.
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Council Member Kniss: The only part I would mention is that I was pleased
to see that in choosing which company you were going to use, which is on
packet page 376, you went into considerable detail about why you didn't
choose Data Ticket or SP Plus, but chose Serco. They're very much aligned
with what you had chosen. I would certainly support that. Additionally, this
is going to be a phenomenal program. I have high hopes for it. The general
public has been waiting for this, especially slightly north, slightly south, for a
long time. We're all going to be interested in finding out what the results
are, who is parking where. I imagine we're going to get lots of feedback
from a whole variety of sources. It's a pleasure to be moving on with the
RPP.
Council Member Scharff: I'm pleased we're finally moving forward with the
RPP. I know this is something the community has wanted. It's taken
forever. It's embarrassing how long it's taken. It's not a fault of Staff. It's unfortunate. I'm disappointed in our friends at SEIU for delaying this for six
months when they know that the community wanted it, put the City towards
thousands and thousands of dollars in terms of having to do a hearing,
having to cause us to have to go to PER on this whole issue, when this isn't
in the purview of PER, and then to take the time of the fact finders who then
wrote a long opinion. How long was the hearing?
Suzanne Mason, Assistant City Manager: It was all day on the 29th of May.
Council Member Scharff: To put the City through all of that, to put the
public through all of that, and then there's not a single person here from
SEIU. That's shocking. I'm very disappointed that that kind of thing would
happen. I'm glad the RPP is moving forward and look forward to its timely
and quick implementation.
Council Member Berman: I agree that it's vital that we roll out the RPP as
quickly as possible. We're already quite over the time that we said we'd
start the pilot. It's about time we get started with that. I received an email
a couple of weeks ago with a proposal from SEIU that heavily emphasized
the use of—what's the technical term? The license plate recognition
programs. I noticed that in the Staff Report we talk about, not in a ton of
detail, why those aren't appropriate for the Downtown RPP. Could you guys expand a little bit on why Staff doesn't think the license plate recognition
programs are the appropriate technology?
Ms. Mason: Hillary is the expert on this, but having been on the panel for
fact finding I have some background in it now. The discussion with SEIU
was that they suggested the use of this technology in the RPP. While Staff acknowledged we were willing to explore the use of new technology, it was
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questionable whether it would work in the RPP, because in the employee
component of the permits, they will be assigned by street block face. It was
questionable for two reasons. One, the closeness of the cars as they park
near each other, whether we could get to the license place. Secondly, it was
questionable whether the GPS technology could place it on that small of an
area as a block face.
Mr. Keene: We had this discussion a couple of years ago with the Council at
one point. This being Palo Alto, a question about deploying license plate
readers and the implications of those and that use ...
Council Member Berman: For privacy concerns.
Mr. Keene: ... and how do you collect the data and privacy. That engenders
what would typically be a longer conversation. We have a time schedule and
a sense of urgency to kick the pilot off. The idea of getting sidetracked, at
least at this time, with a conversation in which we'd be dependent upon the technology to implement the program didn't make sense. That's why we've
indicated all along we're always interested in exploring new technologies.
There's nothing at all that keeps us from doing that with our existing parking
management work in other areas of the City. To deploy it at this point with
all of the uncertainties and variables that play in the pilot just didn't make
sense.
Council Member Berman: Do we know how license plate recognition
programs work? It seemed like it would be an easier technology for
diagonal parking, where you've got easy access to the license plates. Has it
been used in other communities in non-diagonal parking areas?
Ron Watson, Police Captain: I can answer that, Council Member Berman.
Ron Watson, Police Captain. Back to the original question about the LPRs.
One of the difficulties I envisioned going forward in talking to the
transportation folks is you may deploy hang tags for guests. In that case,
we would not have license plates to match them up, so it would be
completely useless. If hand tags are used anywhere, LPR would not be
functional for that. Some places do use the LPR for parallel parking, but it is
not as efficient as the diagonal parking. Hang tags are probably one of the
big reasons too.
Council Member Wolbach: Thank you, Staff, for the report and everybody
from the community to Staff, Council colleagues who have put so much work
into this for so long. It's been a long time coming. It's important, as
everybody said. We're not talking about a cheap contract here. I definitely
understand why this vendor was picked over the others, because of all the reasons explained by Staff. Looks like the length of the contract is about
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three years, to expire at the end of May 2018. I was wondering if you could
give us short thoughts about whether it needs to be that long a contract,
whether we might want to revisit it before that. We might decide to switch
to something else before that or in 2018. I'd mention that there is also the
reverse possibility. You might decide that we appreciate this partnership
and want to expand it. Thoughts about timeline for any modifications.
Ms. Gitelman: We envisioned this pilot RPP Program for Downtown initially
as a six-month Phase 1, and then probably a year-long Phase 2. That's our
estimate based on the Council's direction last December. We wanted a
contract of sufficient length to make sure that we could handle that period.
Obviously at the end of that pilot as we design any changes to the program,
we'd also like the ability to keep using the contractor through a transition to
whatever permanent program we put in place. This contract is of sufficient
length to give us the ability to get through the pilot and make some decisions going forward after that.
Vice Mayor Schmid: The Council committed itself to the RPP Program and
making it work in December 2014. This is a critical step to make sure that it
starts on time. We absolutely need the information from this to get an idea
of how many cars are out there and how they split and what to do about it.
I am struck though that we are using General Fund money to foster this. I
note that earlier this evening we approved a $2.9 million TDR, which is a
Transfer of Development Rights, from elsewhere into the Downtown. Our
Downtown development cap evaluation pointed out that over the last 15
years we've added 140,000 square feet of commercial space above zoning
through TDRs. That has included 532 exempt parking places. There has
been a sizable private benefit engendered in the Downtown, and part of it
has resulted in parking issues. I don't think we can grapple with the
problem without knowing the data. We need to start this program to get the
data. I am supporting the request for funding. It is important that we have
a discussion about fair share of funding. I do note that the Planning Director
has identified a date in September where the Council will have a discussion
of fiscal impacts, that I assume is the appropriate place to talk about
parking, General Funds, other sources of revenues. Is that a correct interpretation?
Ms. Gitelman: We've talked about having a discussion of fiscal impacts in
the context of the Comprehensive Plan Update. We do hope to schedule
that sometime this fall. I think September is a little optimistic. We have
consultants working on that study right now. I should clarify that the action before you does use General Fund support, but it's anticipated to be largely
supported by permit revenues. Until we have practice ...
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Vice Mayor Schmid: In the future.
Ms. Gitelman: ... with these revenues, we don't know how much they'll
cover. It's our hope that the General Fund support will be quite a bit less
than we're showing you this evening.
Council Member Filseth: I want to second what the Vice Mayor just said
about looking at this. I agree it shouldn't derail this for the first year,
because this has been a long time coming. Residents want it. There's been
a lot of delays already. Council Member Scharff just pointed out a fairly
significant, silly one that we've had to deal with. Staff has done a thorough
job on this. We ought to move forward.
Council Member Burt: I support moving forward. I want to correct for the
record something that is important for the community to understand. The
Transfer of Development Rights that we did earlier this evening must be fully
parked at their new location Downtown. They're being transferred from a location that is in want of the parking overflow areas to the Downtown.
They're not being transferred from elsewhere in the City into our impacted
neighborhoods. In fact, they'd be getting moved from the outskirts of
Downtown at Homer and Bryant to somewhere closer to transit Downtown.
We hear claims that now these TDRs are necessarily compounding our
problems. In this case, that's not the case.
Mayor Holman: I'll most assuredly be supporting the motion. It has been a
long time coming. Thank you to Staff for your diligence on pursuing this
over the long course, longer than any of us wished it had been. I want to
also support the comments or reiterate the comments of Vice Mayor Schmid
when it comes to where the funding source for this program is coming from
and what we might look at in the future in a longer-term fashion. The
motion in front of us is to implement the City's last, best and final offer to
Service Employees International Union Local 521, SEIU, by (1) authorizing
the City Manager or designee to award a three-year contract in the amount
of $1,509,630 to Serco, Inc., for enforcement of the Downtown Residential
Preferential Parking, RPP, Program, and approving a Budget Amendment
Ordinance, BAO, in the amount of $378,000 to cover contract costs for the
first year, transferring funds from the General Fund to the Residential Parking Permit Fund, offset with a reduction in the Budget Stabilization
Reserve and (3) adopt a resolution amending the administrative penalty
schedule to include a penalty amount for violation of the RPP Program. Vote
on the board please. That passes unanimously, on an 8-0 vote with Council
Member DuBois absent.
MOTION PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
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22. Consideration of Capping the Fee for Establishment of Single Story
Overlay Districts and Referral of a Policy Discussion Regarding Single
Story Overlay Districts and Alternative Neighborhood Protections.
Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Hillary
Gitelman, the Planning Director. Briefly ...
Mayor Holman: I do apologize. We have two Council Members who need to
recuse themselves. We will be breaking this item into two parts. The
recusal of Council Member Wolbach and Vice Mayor Schmid will refer to the
first part, which has to do with the single-story overlay fees.
Council Member Wolbach: I'll be recusing myself for the first portion of the
discussion. I will be back for the second part. I live in a potentially affected
neighborhood.
Vice Mayor Schmid: I live in an impacted neighborhood and will recuse
myself from the first part.
Mayor Holman: Director Gitelman, we'll be discussing at this point in time
and hearing a presentation on the single-story overlay fees.
Ms. Gitelman: I don't have a lot to add. This is a continued discussion, as
you know, that was first begun at the Finance Committee and continued at
the Council during the budget hearings regarding the fee that should be
charged for establishment of single-story overlay districts. The Staff Report
is clear. It appears that in the past, even though these districts are initiated
by application from members of the community, they've been treated as
rezonings initiated by the City, and a fee has not been charged. The
recommendation before you this evening on the fee is to either continue that
practice and not charge a fee or to set a flat fee that's less than the
Municipal Fee Schedule that's currently charged for other types of rezoning.
Be happy to answer any questions.
Council Member Scharff: This was interesting that that's what we've been
doing. I'm fine with continuing it the way it is. My only concern is that the
public didn't know this was our practice, and I don't think Staff knew this
was our practice. If we move to continue this practice, how are we going to
let people know? I assume Staff will now be cognizant of it, but Staff moves
on and that kind of stuff. Are we going to make it clear somewhere that this is the way the process works?
Ms. Gitelman: There's a section in the fee schedule that says a fee will be
charged. I'm sorry, in the Municipal Code that says a fee will be charged.
We'll have to clean that up in our Code cleanup ordinance. It'll be a change
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to strike or modify Subsection 2(d) in 18.12.100, which says a fee is
charged.
Council Member Scharff: When we make a motion tonight, if we were going
to say "direct Staff to continue the practice of treating the single-story
overlay district," should we put in there that you will also bring back an
amendment to amend the Municipal Code to codify that practice?
Ms. Gitelman: That would be perfectly acceptable. I'm referring to a section
on packet page 450, if you want to look at it. We should either take the
step of amending this section of the Municipal Code or put a note on the fee
schedule that says even though it says charge a fee, the fee is nothing. You
could do either one of those things.
Robert Moss: I found the whole question of the fee rather puzzling. I listed
the various Staff Reports for the first ten single-story overlays which were
adopted. In none of those reports was a fee mentioned. That doesn't mean a fee wasn't charged; it just wasn't in the basic report that went to the
Council. I was curious. I looked at the City budgets from 2005, '06, '07,
and '08 and there was a table and there were fees. A single-story overlay is
not listed in any of those budget fees in the tables. I suppose it would be
possible to go back and look at the Council minutes of the meeting when the
actual overlays were adopted and see if the minutes discuss fees. I found
the whole thing rather puzzling. The other thing I want to mention is a third
of the single-story overlays are small, 16-27 units. The higher the fee and
the small areas, the more it's going to cost each property owner. In fact,
there was only one single-story overlay which was large; it was 256 or 259
units. The others tend to be between, in round numbers, 55-95. If you
decide you do want to maintain a fee, that it be minimized, $500, $1,000,
something like that. You might want to put in two levels of fees. If it's
under 150 units that are asking for the single-story overlay, then you have a
lower level fee. If you have over that number, then you can have a little
higher fee because it would still average out to a lower payment per
property. The whole question of the fee charge, what came in and how it
was assessed, was puzzling. I had some trouble digging out any data on it.
I suppose it would be possible to do it, but I don't know if it's worth the effort.
Leah McGarrigle: My name is Leah McGarrigle. I live in Los Arboles addition
of Eichler homes built in the early 1970s. Our addition is notable for being
one of the last Eichler subdivisions built and one of the few containing some
rare Eichler homes designed with an integrated second story. We are committed to protecting this important legacy and our neighborhood quality
of life. I have here the Los Arboles edition application to create an R-1 as
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single-story overlay combining district for the 113 contiguously located
properties in our neighborhood. We intend to submit this application
tomorrow morning and eagerly await tonight's decision. I am also speaking
on behalf of the other neighborhoods working towards single-story overlay
protection from intense development pressures. They are here tonight.
Nice to see everybody. The work we are doing is very important to us and
to Palo Alto. We are here to ensure applications for a single-story overlay or
SSOs are not assessed a zone change fee. We believe the fee in question is
intended for a single development project attempting to alter a zone for
developmental purposes in which they would realize a significant financial
gain. We believe the fee was never intended for assessment on an entire
neighborhood, and we understand none of the prior 12 SSO applications in
Palo Alto were assessed this fee. Tonight we are urging you to do the right
thing for Palo Alto and eliminate this fee. Should this decision follow the Staff recommendation that applications be submitted via the Planning and
Transportation Committee with no fee, we would ask for the timely
consideration and processing of these applications by the Planning and
Transportation Commission. We are also urging you to act tonight on the
Staff recommendation to appoint resources toward other forms of
neighborhood conservation in the near future. We are here to help. Eichler
neighborhoods are a significant part of the architectural heritage of Palo Alto
and California. Hence, it would be in the City's interest to facilitate their
protection by these actions. We are asking you to please do this tonight, so
that we may submit our application tomorrow morning.
Richard Willits: I want to enforce that we would like it if you could eliminate
the fee and help us to protect Eichler neighborhoods. Both Leah's tract and
several other tracts which are developing their SSO applications are going to
be ready to go. No more than five.
Robert Hinden: I'm Robert Hinden; I live in an Eichler on Murray Way, Palo
Alto. I also support the Staff recommendation to waive the fees as has been
stated earlier.
Dorianne Moss: My name is Dorianne Moss. I am a resident in one of the
developments that is seeking an SSO. I've been very active recently gathering signatures for such an effort. I wanted to speak to the fact that
gathering signatures is a democratic action. I don't think a fee should be
charged for exercising our democratic actions. We are not seeking to
benefit. We are a group of citizens coming to act together, not a single
developer seeking to benefit monetarily from such a change.
David Hammond: Name is David Hammond. I apologize for the delay. Just
wanted to reiterate in the letter that I sent to the Council is that it is urgent.
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I stated before I've lived here since 1963 in the house on Metro Circle and
have never seen the push of real estate people be as great. In the last two
weeks, there have been two very well dressed young men doing their job.
They've come door-to-door in our neighborhood trying to list the houses.
For our house, I've received in writing an offer of $1.5 million for my house,
which is in the deepest part of the floodplain, 1,550 square feet. We love it,
and it's an award-winning house from years ago when the Architectural
Review Board gave out some awards. It is urgent that it gets done now with
all the pressure from the real estate industry.
Renata Tong: Hi, my name is Renata Tong. I live in one of the Eichler
neighborhoods, Torreya Court. I wanted to voice my vote to support
waiving the fee for the single-story overlay.
Council Member Scharff: After that rousing support, obviously we should
waive the fee. I'll move that we direct Staff to continue the past practice of treating single-story overlay district requests as rezonings initiated by the
Planning and Transportation Commission so that no fee would be required
and that Staff bring back an amendment to the Municipal Code reflecting
that.
Council Member Kniss: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member
Kniss to:
A. Direct Staff to continue the past practice of treating Single Story
Overlay District (SSO) requests as re-zonings initiated by the Planning
& Transportation Commission so that no fee would be required; and
B. To return with an Ordinance updating the Municipal Code to reflect this
change.
Council Member Scharff: This is absolutely the right thing to do. Since we
haven't charged a fee, it clearly doesn't make sense to start charging the
fee. On reflection, it clearly makes sense that we don't have large
neighborhoods having to go ahead and get the money to put this together
and do it. This is a zoning-type function, and as such we should move it
forward as such.
Council Member Kniss: We approached this the last time. I know Council Member DuBois is gone, but we both suggested probably consistency would
be the best path for us to follow with this. My thanks to Bob Moss who went
back through his records. From what he could tell and, I guess, from what
we can tell, this fee hasn't been charged previously. In making the second,
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I want to look at Hillary. If you have the single-story overlay, then the
appeals process changes, because now there isn't the appeal process that
we have seen for Individual Review. Instead this will be the burden of the
City to maintain the single-story overlay. Am I correct? I'm pretty sure
that's correct from reading about—is it Oak Grove, Bob, where this started?
Oak Grove. I think that was why they began, because the homeowners
sued the city. The point of this was to protect the homeowners and the
homeowners association in this situation.
Ms. Gitelman: I can't speak to that particular set of circumstances. The
concept of a single-story overlay is to preclude the construction of a two-
story home which would be considered discretionary under our Individual
Review program. It essentially eliminates the need for or the opportunity for
appeals in the IR program.
Council Member Kniss: Probably saving us money. Whenever there's an appeal, it is going to be a cost to Staff and a cost of everyone else who gets
involved in it at the same time. Given that this has been our practice in the
past, let's continue our practice in the future. I don't know how many
homes will be involved. I think you said there are now roughly 846 lots that
are currently involved. I imagine we'll probably add another—I don't know.
I'm guessing 300, 400. Several of the groups tonight that have talked are in
different parts of town. It would seem that this consistent practice is going
to be workable. Let's move it forward.
Council Member Filseth: Council Member Kniss covered some of it. I have
the impression that the past practice of rezoning was a work-around to avoid
the fee. If we want to get rid of the fee, what's the right way to do it? Is it
to rezone or is it to do it some other way? If we're going to do this, what's
the proper way to do it?
Ms. Gitelman: The motion is perfectly acceptable. We could amend the
Code to state that such applications, if they meet these criteria that are
provided in the Code, shall be considered initiated by the Planning
Commission, and start there. That's an acceptable way to change the Code
and reflect the past practice.
Council Member Burt: When we put an overlay in, it's still an R-1 zone. Is this really a rezone?
Ms. Gitelman: It is a rezone in the sense that we're applying a combination
district which shows on the zoning map, so it is considered a rezoning.
Council Member Burt: Logistically, we have these single-story overlay
applications that the soonest one may be arriving tomorrow, but we won't
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have amended the Municipal Code at that time. What was your plan on how
to contend with the way the Code is currently written? Should we as an
interim measure put a nominal fee in there and then we've abided by the
current Code until we get it corrected in a month and a half or something?
Ms. Gitelman: Staff's feeling is that if the Council has been comfortable in
the past with interpreting this section of the Code as not applying, if the
applications are brought to the PTC for initiation, shortly after receipt we
would be happy to continue that practice until this cleanup amendment of
the Code could be adopted.
Council Member Burt: I get that. This may be a question for the City
Attorney. We could potentially get a legal challenge from property owners
who want to build a second story. If we didn't follow our Code, are we
jeopardizing our position?
Molly Stump, City Attorney: It's very difficult to imagine that that subsection of the Code that includes the fee would be interpreted by any
court as establishing a substantive right of that nature. As you were starting
this discussion, I was going the same place in my mind. It's always the best
practice, of course, to interpret the Code according to its plain meaning.
There's some tension in the historical practice and the proposed way of
proceeding with that approach, which the Council has been urging City Staff
towards that as a general matter. It is a good idea at the earliest possible
time to clean up the Code and remove the reference to the fee or provide
explicitly that the fee would be zero.
Council Member Burt: In the interim, if we charged $100, I don't think
that's going to be a big problem with any of the neighborhoods who are
applying. If it puts us in a stronger position, I don't have a problem doing
that. If you don't think it's necessary, I don't have a problem going that
way either.
Ms. Stump: It would be fine to do that, but I don't think it's an appreciable
different in terms of the legal situation. There is not much of a risk here, if
any, of a challenge. Appreciate the question.
Mayor Holman: We have an interim period here where single-story overlays
have not been created yet, but applications may be in process. What will happen to applications that come forward for two-story homes? How will
those be processed and considered?
Ms. Gitelman: Our obligation will be to consider any applications that come
in in the context of the Municipal Code as it currently exists. Obviously we
would give applicants an awareness and understanding that there are
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pending revisions to the zoning map in that area. We can't use a pending
action to evaluate an application. It would only be if the pending application
were acted upon before the application processing had been complete. I
hope I made myself clear.
Mayor Holman: You did. If there's an application that is being processed
and the overlay takes effect while that application is being processed, then
that would apply to any pending application for a two-story home. I want to
be clear on that. Because there's no vested right yet.
Ms. Gitelman: There would be no vesting until the application was actually
approved and acted upon. Any rezoning would apply to an application that's
in process. That's my understanding.
Mayor Holman: Is it appropriate for Staff to suggest to anyone in that
circumstance to consider that they could build a single-story home to greater
lot coverage than otherwise allowed? I think Council Member Burt was still on the Commission when we did that at Planning Commission. Can Staff feel
comfortable encouraging applicants to say this is an avenue you might want
to pursue? We aren't changing that part of the Code, because that'll happen
when the overlay gets put in place. Does that make sense?
Ms. Gitelman: You're making a good observation. The Code in its current
iteration offers an incentive around lot coverage for single-story homes in
addition to the incentive that single-story homes are not subject to
discretionary review. They're ministerial and aren't subject to the appeal
procedure. They're already incentives built in for single-story homes. Your
observation that maybe applications that walk in the door where there's a
pending zoning action to apply the single-story overlay may think twice
about going in that direction is a good observation.
Mayor Holman: The IR guidelines do talk about compatibility, and they are
guidelines. I know it's on your radar to make some changes to the IR
guidelines. Is there anything that we can do in the interim to promote
compatibility to a greater extent than we seem to have been doing in the
last while? Even with the single-story overlay, it doesn't dictate
compatibility.
Council Member Burt: (inaudible)
Mayor Holman: It could be, but I'm talking about in the interim. We have
Individual Review guidelines right now. I appreciate the question, Council
Member Burt. Is there something we can do now with our existing IR
guidelines, when reviewing new proposals, to promote and better adhere to
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that guideline of compatibility than we have been of late it seems? That's
one of the reasons why we've been getting so many appeals.
Ms. Gitelman: Let met talk to that issue for a minute. We've been receiving
pretty consistently the last few years about 70 applications a year for IRs, so
about 70-two-story homes. Of those, again consistently on an annual basis,
we see less than a handful, so three or four, of them get very contentious
and result in appeals to the City Council. You are right that there are many
instances in which we get into discussions with applicants and neighbors
about how to interpret the guidelines and what is meant by compatibility.
We're always trying to do better and apply these guidelines consistently.
Open to all of the input we get from neighbors. We try and work through as
many of these as we can. The ones we can't work through, they end up
before you to adjudicate that issue.
Mayor Holman: Understanding that Staff has a lot of work on its plate and we heard from Leah McGarrigle that they have an application ready to go
tomorrow morning, Council Member DuBois and I in particular have been
meeting with some of the neighborhood groups by invitation. It seems like
they've been organized and thorough. Is there some opportunity or some
possibility rather than addressing these, again looking for efficiency for the
part of Staff as well as the neighbors, to do some kind of bulk processing of
these? If things come in and they're very orderly, could three applications
be considered at once? By that, I mean could those neighborhoods meet all
at the same time together? If it gets contentious, it gets contentious. If
there's good agreement on wanting to move forward, would that be efficient
for Staff and the neighborhoods? Could it be?
Ms. Gitelman: Obviously we'll look for any opportunity to process these as
efficiently as possible. We do have a lot on our plate right now. We'll look
at that idea. I did talk to one of the Staff members who processed one of
the last single-story overlays that went through our department. Where the
controversy and the time is really involved is dealing with the folks within
the neighborhood who are not onboard. There's this 60 or 70 percent
agreement requirement for an application. That still leaves some members
of the community who are not in support. They inevitably have questions and concerns that require some Staff time to respond to. We're happy to do
that, but that's where the time and energy come into play. We'll have to see
how much is involved and what the timing is to process this applications
when they come in.
Mayor Holman: If they could be at least initiated in that way, the ones who are not in agreement will make themselves known. The motion on the board
is by Council Member Scharff, seconded by Council Member Kniss, to direct
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Staff to continue the past practice of treating single-story overlay district,
SSO, requests as rezonings initiated by the Planning and Transportation
Commission so that no fee would be required, and (b) to return with an
ordinance updating the Municipal Code to reflect this change. Vote on the
board please. That passes unanimously on a 6-0-2 vote, Council Member
DuBois absent. Council Member Wolbach and Vice Mayor Schmid recusing
themselves.
MOTION PASSED: 6-0 Schmid, Wolbach not participating, DuBois absent
Mayor Holman: We turn now to consider Part 2 of this, which is to consider
referring policy matters that relate to single-story overlays and other
neighborhood overlays that could provide neighborhood protections to the
Policy and Services Committee or PTC for discussion at a later date.
Ms. Gitelman: Hillary Gitelman again. The next part of this item was placed
on the agenda at the Council's request. You asked us to place an item on the agenda so that you could consider referring policy matters that related
to single-story overlays and other neighborhood overlays that could provide
neighborhood protections to the Policy and Services Committee or the
Planning and Transportation Commission to discuss at a later date.
Obviously from a Staff perspective, we have this single-story overlay process
which has worked to protect, in the Staff Report we identify as Council
Member Kniss indicated, 850 lots have been included in these overlay zones
as a way to protect the character of the neighborhoods involved. If the
Council wanted to explore modification to this process or consider alternates,
we would be happy to support that as a Staff; although, it would take some
effort. Our hope was that you would identify this as something to be
undertaken in the Comprehensive Plan Update that we're doing currently as
a priority item when that endeavor is completed. It's just as a way for us to
have the time and the energy to do the research that you would want from
Staff in terms of investigating best practices, ways that these have been
dealt with in other communities. As Council Member Burt indicated at our
last meeting, we'd want to get back with the folks that helped us design the
IR program to begin with, talk about what's worked, what hasn't, and how
that could be adjusted or amended, if that's a course of action that the Council would like to pursue. The City Manager and I are happy to answer
questions about this, but we're interested in your thoughts.
Council Member Kniss: I'd be glad to move this on to the Policy Committee.
I have a question. It's one that Tom brought up to me. I don't remember
too many of the details. He indicated that there is a tract in Sunnyvale where they have guidelines for Eichlers going up. Does this ring a bell with
anyone? If not, is it something that we could take a look at? Sunnyvale has
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a lot of Eichlers. Apparently it came to their Council or to their Planning and
Transportation Commission. There was a discussion about how this could be
done in such a way that it was compatible with the other Eichlers. Maybe
that muddies the water at this point. I don't know. It was very interesting.
The way people add second stories certainly varies enormously, especially if
you ride around town now and look in some of the areas where they have
added the second stories where they're primarily single stories. They have
been added in a whole variety of ways. Some are certainly very intrusive;
others are not at all. If that's something we could look at in the future, that
would be interesting. Other than that, Mayor Holman, I'd be glad to move
this to the Policy Committee, if you're ready for that. If not, glad to wait.
Mayor Holman: Why don't I come back to you?
Council Member Burt: I'd like to follow up on Council Member Kniss'
question about whether we should in the future explore a second alternative to offer neighborhoods, which would be a design compatibility for Eichler-
style neighborhoods if they want to elect to allow second stories, but those
would be under certain design and compatibility guidelines. I don't know
whether neighborhoods would be interested in that. There may be
neighborhoods that are predominantly Eichler but already have a lot of
second stories and they're not candidates for single-story overlay. It may be
that some neighborhoods would say they're interested in that as an
alternative. We also may not get any takers, and the neighborhoods who
want more protection may just want to go the single-story overlay route. It
would be helpful to the Staff and the Policy and Services Committee to hear
whether this is a subissue that we should be pursuing if this is referred to
us. As far as returning to the original IR review committee co-chairs or
other committee members, an additional question for them would be how
implementation of the IR review process seems to have occurred over the
years compared to its original intent and the early years implementation,
and whether that has drifted. That's an important question.
Council Member Scharff: What I heard from Staff is that they don't have the
bandwidth to have this go to Policy and Services and work it up. I like
Council Member Burt's suggestion of alternative design guidelines in Eichler neighborhoods. That's a much more targeted and shorter discussion than
saying other neighborhood overlays. There might be others. If you target
it, it's much better. That's a targeted approach that would work. If we're
going to do that, if we're going to make it narrow like that, we should refer it
to Planning and Transportation to look at it. I'm not sure why we would need to go to Policy and Services, but I'm open to hear why we would want
to do that. I might be missing something. That's where I would probably go
on this. Let's target it. If there are other neighborhood protections besides
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additional design guidelines for Eichlers, I'm open to hearing them. I
thought that was a good one, and we should move forward on that, and we
should refer it to the Planning and Transportation Commission.
Council Member Wolbach: I'd concur with the direction that it sounds like
this is going. Council Member Scharff, the PTC sounds like a better place
next to go, but I'd also be open to an idea I heard from Staff earlier.
Perhaps this would be worked through as part of the Comprehensive Plan.
I'd be open to thoughts on that. I'm not convinced that Policy and Services
is the right place to refer this. I'm supportive of the concept of enabling
neighborhoods to be the leading voice in crafting their own aesthetic future.
I do like the greater clarity of direction that Council Member Burt was
pushing us. Originally it sounded very vague and open-ended. That
narrows it and helps the discussion.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Director Gitelman made the case that maybe the Comprehensive Plan is a nice place to look at this in a wider purview. If you
look at our current Comp Plan, there's a number of programs and policies
that seem relevant. Program L-54 says review and update the City's
inventory of historic resources. I note that our historic review depends upon
the 1980 consultant report, which has not been updated since then. Of
course, there have been dramatic changes. It focuses on architectural
things. Some of the key City properties—the Fairchild building, the Federal
Telegraph building, tell the story of Palo Alto, where Palo Alto comes from—
don't get integrated in our historic review. An assessment of that might be
helpful. Policy L-57 says develop incentives for the retention and
rehabilitation of buildings with historic merit in all zones. A look at
something like that might be helpful. It could look at specific neighborhoods
or buildings or characteristics. We are now 35 years past the 1980 date,
and there might be a different perception of history and our historical value
that generations have gone through. I would encourage doing something at
the Comp Plan level following up on some of the policies and programs we
already have and asking the question what does it mean now.
Mayor Holman: The Comprehensive Plan Update is a good place to
undertake this. To answer, at least partially, Council Member Kniss' question. Cupertino has an Eichler design handbook for the Fair Grove
neighborhood. Sunnyvale has Eichler design guidelines. To go broader than
that, which was the intention of Council Member DuBois—not to try to speak
for him, but I believe this was his intention—is that there are other kinds of
overlays too. We're not talking just Eichler neighborhoods. As the Comprehensive Plan talks about to recognize the unique characteristic of
Palo Alto's different neighborhoods. There's much written about what
conservation overlays are, conservation districts, preservation districts,
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preservation overlays. They're all kind of the same ilk, but applied in
different manners. Vice Mayor Schmid mentioned historic neighborhoods.
Clearly an Eichler consideration would not cover all of that. We don't have
even a conservation overlay in Professorville; everything's voluntary except
for demolition, which you've heard me speak about the loopholes in that.
The Comprehensive Plan is an appropriate way to address these concerns.
The Individual Review does have some failings that have been identified
according to a number of people. The three people who were—one doesn't
live here anymore—involved previously in the Individual Review
recommendations should be consulted at a minimum. Also recognizing that
what they were considering was a different program. It wasn't a
conservation or preservation overlay, so understanding that. Having to do
with incentives, again to Vice Mayor Schmid's comment, there are a number
of incentives for historic properties, but they're a little bit hard to find. I think Staff's looking to get those more organized and more findable, if you
will, in the City's website. It's probably time to return to Council Member
Kniss, who was ready to make a motion, wanting to make a motion.
James Keene, City Manager: I'd like to speak either before or when the
motion is placed.
Mayor Holman: Go for it.
Mr. Keene: I have a little bit of an objection with where we are. This is an
item that just came up last week or the week before. We haven't clarified
what we're trying to do, let alone what it will take to do it. We talked first of
all about other neighborhood preservation approaches. We've talked about
design guidelines. We've talked about Eichler-specific approaches. We've
talked about looking at the IR process. We've talked about four or five
different things without clarifying the underlying objective. To me it could
be broad, like neighborhood quality and how does that manifest in some
different ways. To me, that would be an integral part of the discussion
during the Comp Plan. What are the strategies and approaches that we
need to have to be sure that we do that? It's not very effective use of the
Staff resources. It assumes that we have Staff sitting around waiting for
something to do, and this is filling the gap. They're already behind schedule and over-programmed. In these planning areas, we need to have some
break and not commit and say, "We'll come back and tell you what it would
take to take this on," particularly when it's not defined. Even if we go to
Policy and Services, we could have a free-ranging discussion about all sorts
of things, and then have to come back to the Council and say, "We could do this. It would take this. We could do this. We could take that. We could do
this. We could take that." Even when we're done, it strikes me when we
get to the Comp Plan discussion, there will be other angles on that about
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neighborhood quality that will come up, whatever it is. You've talked really
big about the importance of having aesthetics and design in general as a
factor in our City. That ought to be part of the Comp Plan discussion, rather
than figuring out how to pick out a piece. Obviously, we're responsive.
We'll go along with whatever you want to propose, but I'd like to get in
practice of when something comes up as an add-on to the work plan, that
there's some process where we go, "If you want to do that, we want to come
back in three or four weeks and give you a better sense." We don't know
what you're going to vote. You're going to vote right now, and we're going
to say yes, and it's not going to be an honest yes. We're going to have to
go to the Committee and work it out. I'm partly saying it for this. I'm
worried. I said it this morning. We keep peeling parts off that are related to
the Comp Plan. I'm worried it will impact our ability to do the
Comprehensive Plan comprehensively and to do it in a timely manner.
Mayor Holman: Appreciate your comments. You heard at least a couple us
say that the Comprehensive Plan Update is the place and time to do this. I
would argue that the last Comprehensive Plan that was put in place, nothing
ever happened to follow up on some of the policies that are in that
Comprehensive Plan. I know Director Gitelman knows this, but so it's clear
for people who haven't had some experience with this. There's a lot written
online; there's a lot of material available for what overlays are. I won't read
ad nauseam here. A neighborhood conservation overlay district is a zoning
tool used to preserve, revitalize, protect and enhance significant older areas
within a community beyond what is specified in the standard code. The
conservation overlay regulations are applied in addition to standard zoning
regulations and will usually take precedence. Both a neighborhood
conservation overlay district and a historic district are overlay districts;
however, an NCOD will typically regulate fewer features and will focus more
on significant character-finder features such as lot size, building height,
setbacks, streetscapes and tree protection. Again, it's looking at what's
already identifiable and identified in many different sites on the web about
what the kinds of things are that we'd be looking at. Some question was
maybe alluded to about what other neighborhoods. I think of College Terrace, which has smaller lots, a lot of bungalow courts, that sort of thing.
That might be an area that—some people have mentioned to me that they
would like to have some kind of protection for their neighborhood as well. In
my opinion, we're not fishing; we're looking to implement what's already in
our Comprehensive Plan. I'm certainly willing to do that as part of our Comprehensive Plan Update as opposed to, as City Manager referred to,
peeling something else off that's going to interfere with doing the
Comprehensive Plan Update.
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Council Member Burt: I'm giving greater consideration to this process and
the comments the City Manager made. It's a little confusing, because the
second recommendation from Staff is quite different from what I understood
the City Manager to say. If we were to think that in the broader discussion
around neighborhood preservation would be part of the Comp Plan, would
that be an open-ended discussion or would that need any preliminary
framing by the Council or Policy and Services Committee or Planning and
Transportation Commission as input to the Comp Plan discussion or should it
simply be open-ended and allow it to percolate through the Comp Plan
process? Do either you or Director Gitelman have any notions of how that
would occur if it was folded into the Comp Plan?
Mr. Keene: I'll let Hillary jump in. It's hard to prescribe what the Comp Plan
process ought to be as it goes through its one, two, three-year cycle. To the
extent that components of it can come into place in an integrated way and be presented holistically, that seems to have an advantage. However, the
processes I've been in, things get clarified or the urgency of a particular item
gets clarified during the process. It could accelerate out. That seems more
methodical to me than what we're doing here. This came up without any
greater context. The real concern I have is we're not thinking through the
implications of what it takes to do an assignment like this when we look at it
like this. I can guarantee you, unless you prescribed it right now and said
something very narrowly, we could get in a discussion and the Policy and
Services Committee or somebody else is going to have to frame it or
reframe it or contain it. I don't even know what's on the Policy and Services
docket.
Council Member Burt: I'm hearing several different issues thrown in
together. One is needing to integrate whatever we may do within Staff
workload. That's entirely appropriate. In fact, the Council has emphasized
that at a high level to Staff repeatedly. I don't think you'd have any
problem if you'd remind us anytime that we have a new assignment, that
Staff needs to request to come back and frame the impact on the work plan
and where this would fit within a work plan. That's entirely appropriate.
There's another question on the workload of Policy and Services Committee if it went there or if it went to the Planning and Transportation Commission.
We have a workload, and we'd have to get a sense from the Council of the
relative priority of this. If we had questions, we'd return to Council and say,
"Here are choices." The primary thrust of my question is the best process.
If this is going to be part of a wider discussion in the Comp Plan, how that would occur. There is a real value of having brought it up under tonight's
discussion. Whichever of these directions we give, it has now had a greater
attention placed on it for within the Comp Plan discussion than it previously
had. That's a valuable usefulness at a minimum. I was trying to think
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through, and you've answered that a somewhat open-ended discussion
within the Comp Plan process may be the best way for this to begin to have
meat on the bone.
Mr. Keene: That's very helpful. The Council's had discussion as we've been
designing the Comp Plan process and the role of the citizens committee and
how that's going to relate to the Council and the latticework between the
committee's work and Council. The Council has to have a way to
communicate and inform the Comp Plan committee. Even a discussion like
this or if you had another one agendized, you've suddenly said, "Here's what
we're thinking," or "Here are areas of concern." Then it gives a boost to the
discussion and the direction. I'm seconding what you're saying about the
value of you saying this is important. It makes me feel a little more
comfortable that we haven't created an expectation that it's on a particularly
accelerated track until we can be more definitive. If we do send this right to Policy and Services, there will be people out there saying, "Geez, this is
going to Policy and Services. We're going to have discussion about it.
Wonder what's going to happen with it and when." Even if we had to say,
"We've got a bunch of things on Policy and Services. We're not going to get
to it until October." I'd rather us be able to tell the public that stuff more
methodically in advance than have to come back after the fact. It sounds
like we're making excuses on the Staff side.
Council Member Scharff: How do we bring this to a conclusion? Do you
need a motion that says that through the Comp Plan process we'll look at
neighborhood overlays that could provide neighborhood protection? Is that
what you're thinking? Are we going to do this anyway without a motion?
Mr. Keene: There's two things. Number one, I don't think it's clear what
the scope of what the Council wants to do on this subject is right now. What
you just said would be a concern of the Council. Going back to what Council
Member Burt said, if that were to be your direction, we would see that that
would happen anyway. However, there is value in the Council articulating
that even at this point. In one sense, it stresses the importance that you
see of this. When Hillary is working and doing orientation with folks, she's
able to say, "At the end of June, the Council was having this discussion about the importance of neighborhood preservation and overlays." That
helps. I would argue that a motion would be appropriate.
Council Member Scharff: I'll try and make a motion.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss had originally indicated she was
interested in making a motion. I'm going to defer to her.
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Council Member Kniss: I'm feeling generous tonight. Let me give Council
Member Scharff an opportunity.
Council Member Scharff: Through the Comprehensive Plan Update, we
explore giving neighborhoods the option to institute overlays that could
provide neighborhood protections.
Council Member Wolbach: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member
Wolbach that through the Comprehensive Plan Update we explore giving
neighborhoods the option to institute overlays that would provide protections
and/or alternative neighborhood protections.
Council Member Kniss: Council Member Scharff, you might want to include
the alternative protections. I don't want to get in the weeds on this.
Knowing that other cities have explored in particular the single-story overlay
options. How you're going to get that in, I don't know.
Council Member Scharff: Don't we already have single-story overlays?
Mayor Holman: We do.
Council Member Scharff: It's important that we do this through the Comp
Plan process, after listening to Staff. I'm in support of that. I want to make
sure that the motion captures two things. One, through the Comp Plan
process we have a broad discussion of this. Second, we then provide that
it's options for neighborhoods to implement similar to a single-story overlay.
We already have the single-story overlay option in there. I wanted to ask
Council Member Kniss a question. What part did you think I was missing on
that?
Council Member Kniss: Where I think you're missing it is whatever we
meant by alternative neighborhood protections. Maybe that's the broad ...
Council Member Scharff: Overlays and/or alternative neighborhood
protections. Let's put that in there.
Council Member Wolbach: This is very important. I'm not sure if we should
tweak it a little bit.
Council Member Scharff: Before we tweak it, that "and/or alternative
neighborhood protections" goes earlier. "Options to institute overlays and/or
alternative neighborhood protections that would provide." That doesn't make sense.
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Mayor Holman: The language "or alternative neighborhood protections,"
Director Gitelman, I don't know of any alternative neighborhood protections
other than overlays. Do you? I don't want to complicate things.
Ms. Gitelman: If it simply said "through the Comp Plan Update we explore
alternative neighborhood protections," that's broad and it would get to the
guidelines that were brought up earlier. It would get to refinements. It
would get to additional overlays, conservation districts. We understand
where you're heading with this.
Council Member Scharff: I like it the way it is.
Council Member Wolbach: What I'm looking for is a little tweak. I'm trying
to figure out how to word it in this new language. Through the
Comprehensive Plan we explore establishing a process for neighborhoods to
institute overlays or other protections.
Council Member Scharff: I'm good with that.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion, “giving neighborhoods
the option to institute overlays that would provide protections” with
“establishing a process for neighborhoods to institute design overlays.”
Council Member Wolbach: Parallel to our single-story overlay, there should
be a similar process by which any neighborhood can come to the City and
say, "This is an aesthetic design element which is integral to our
neighborhood." Maybe it's a single story; maybe it's not. Maybe it's an
Eichler. Maybe it's historical. Whatever it is, we want to establish a process
by which a neighborhood could initiate that conversation and get the ball
rolling. We don't want to prescribe that all from City Hall. We want to let
neighborhoods come to us and have a process on the books that says this is
how you can get the ball rolling as a neighborhood. That way we don't have
to get into listing everything. It's establishing a process like that, that we're
looking for. Basically expanding the single-story overlay process to cover
other aesthetic design elements or other protections which a neighborhood
feels is integral to their character. For neighborhoods to institute design
overlays and/or alternative neighborhood protections. Are you comfortable
with that?
Council Member Scharff: I am.
Council Member Burt: I'm not so sure that is the right direction. That limits
the discussion in the Comp Plan process to ones where neighborhoods would
take initiatives on this. For instance, the IR review is a Citywide process.
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We should keep it open in the discussion and see what combination of
mechanisms might come out of it, which might be ones that are
modifications to our current neighborhood initiated single-story overlays.
They might be Citywide things. Who knows? I don't support that language
which narrows the discussion. What we had before was good. I'm not
seeing it, so I'm trying to recall the language. It was broader and it allows
and even implies a process for neighborhoods to initiate overlays. That's
what we have on our single-story. It wouldn't limit the discussion to that. I
would encourage us to return to the original.
Council Member Scharff: The Comp Plan is a big process. By doing this,
would we limit the discussion as Council Member Burt suggested we would?
Do we need to go back to the other language? I figured we were going to
have that discussion anyway in the Comp Plan about things like the IR
process and all of that. I didn't think we were talking about the IR process here.
Ms. Gitelman: There's an opportunity in the Comp Plan Update to look at
your specific direction here and other things that accomplish the goals that
we're going to talk about as a group at the end of August when come back
with the next discussion of the Comp Plan.
Council Member Scharff: The Comp Plan discussion is going to be a large
discussion anyway or is it not? The Comp Plan is now not only going to be
the discussion of exploring a process for neighborhoods. The Comp Plan is a
broad discussion. This is one small element but putting it in this. I didn't
understand what Council Member Burt said about the IR process, because I
didn't think we were talking about the IR process. That's a separate
discussion that we would have. Or would we not have a discussion of the IR
process? I'm not sure the IR process is broken. In the Comp Plan, I
thought we reviewed all these current policies and looked at it. If not, are
we going to have to give direction on each individual one or are you going to
bring sections? I'm trying to understand how this works.
Mayor Holman: To Council Member Burt, this is essentially the original
motion. Were you trying to make that as a substitute motion or an
amendment? The only thing that was added to that was "and/or alternative neighborhood protections." What's your intention?
Council Member Burt: I'd encourage a retraction of the latest amendment
that was accepted as a friendly amendment. Let me offer my best
understanding of the response to Council Member Scharff's question. On the
one hand in theory, the Comp Plan is open to broad discussion. On the other hand, what we're doing tonight is having our discussion as an input to
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the Comp Plan process around certain areas that we want to assure are part
of that discussion. No, it doesn't preclude other things elsewhere, but this is
our opportunity to give some guidance.
Council Member Scharff: I'm fine with the original language, if Council
Member Wolbach is.
Council Member Wolbach: The modified language is better, but I'm open to
tacking something on, if there's something that needs to be added to make
it more broad. It was important after the comments we heard from Staff to
provide a little bit of clarity about what it is we're requesting. I'm open to
an amendment.
Mayor Holman: Let's see where we are. Council Member Scharff is okay
with the original motion. Do I have that correct?
Council Member Scharff: I'm okay with either to be honest.
Mayor Holman: Now we need either a second to that or for Council Member Wolbach to second it.
Council Member Kniss: That winds us back, right?
Mayor Holman: It winds us back. I'm going to give Council Member
Wolbach the opportunity to see if he would accept that, since he was
seconder on the motion.
Council Member Wolbach: I don't understand why the original language was
superior, so no I don't.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss has seconded that.
Council Member Kniss: Are you asking me?
Mayor Holman: Yes. Council Member Burt went back to Council Member
Scharff's original motion, which is now seconded by Council Member Kniss,
that through the Comprehensive Plan Update we explore giving
neighborhoods the option to institute overlays that would provide protections
and/or alternative neighborhood protections.
SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Council
Member Kniss that through the Comprehensive Plan Update we explore
giving neighborhoods the option to institute overlays that would provide
protections and/or alternative neighborhood protections.
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Council Member Burt: It's important to remember that in the first half of
this item we already gave some more specific guidance on one aspect of the
single-story overlays. Trying to be too prescriptive tonight toward the Comp
Plan discussion is a mistake.
Council Member Kniss: Council Member Burt just said it.
Council Member Wolbach: To Staff. Between these two, which provides or
do either provide the necessary level of clarity for you to move forward with
this as useful input to the Comp Plan discussion?
Mr. Keene: Whichever one gets the fastest majority vote.
Council Member Wolbach: All right. I'll retract my motion then. That's fine.
Mr. Keene: This is not the last conversation you're going to have on this
subject. You will be informing the Comp Plan process off and on over the
next 18 months.
Council Member Wolbach: Yeah, can pull my motion off.
Mayor Holman: We're addressing the substitute motion now. Council
Member Burt, one question for you as maker of this. Explore giving
neighborhoods the option to institute overlays. That's clear enough for
Staff, but you did make a comment earlier about this isn't just
neighborhoods. The City could do that as well. Did I understand your
comment earlier? I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Council Member Burt: Yeah. I would say "explore opportunities to institute
overlays." That would allow for neighborhood initiatives or City initiatives.
Mayor Holman: That's fair. Council Member Kniss as seconder, are you
okay with that?
Council Member Kniss: Unless we're going to get the thesaurus out, that's
fine.
Council Member Wolbach: I'm hesitantly going to be supporting this. I
would warn against, in the future for all of us to be careful about imposing
overlays on neighborhoods from City Hall rather than listening to
neighborhoods as the starting point.
Vice Mayor Schmid: A couple of people mentioned making sure that this is
broad. What we've done is define it in terms of overlays and protections.
The City Manager said earlier, "There's a more general question of neighborhood quality." Neighborhoods are interested not just in overlays,
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but in mixed use and biking paths. We had an issue earlier today about
putting in a little bike path, a mini park, things like that. I want to make
sure that we're not excluding the quality aspect when we look at it. Is that
right, Council Member Burt?
Council Member Burt: I was assuming that in the last portion of it,
"providing protections" is referring to quality issues. If there's a change that
would make it more clear, "provide means to ...
Council Member Kniss: (inaudible) get your vote.
Council Member Burt: I'm not doing vote trading. I'm trying to get a better
direction of intent. That's part of the intent. If you had specific language
that would clarify that, I'd be open (crosstalk).
Mr. Keene: What if you just said "we explore opportunities to institute
overlays or alternative neighborhood protections that promote neighborhood
quality."
Council Member Burt: That's fine with me. Liz, are you fine?
Council Member Kniss: I'm fine.
INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE
CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Substitute
Motion, “giving neighborhoods the option to institute overlays that would
provide protections” with “opportunities to institute overlays.”
Vice Mayor Schmid: One other thing about the beginning of it, "through the
Comp Plan Update." This April meeting we had where we were given a
planning process. It had specific dates of both the community work sessions
and the Council work sessions. Under that, we had Council work sessions in
December, February and March on land use and community design. I
assume what we're talking about today as part of that Comp Plan process
would be during those meetings we would discuss policies and programs that
had an impact on the things we're identifying. Is that a correct assumption?
Ms. Gitelman: Vice Mayor Schmid, I will have to get you a revised schedule.
Subsequent to the schedule you just showed us, the Council added the
citizens advisory committee, so there's been a change. We're going to have
to update that schedule to reflect meetings of the committee, meetings with
the Council, and when the two will come together. Please, if you could, put that schedule aside and I'll get you a new one just as soon as I can. You're
right. There will be opportunities when the City Council has an opportunity
to discuss goals as well as the policies and programs that come from the
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committee around the land use and community design element. That would
be the time that we would try and identify a place to put this kind of
program and the larger policy framework around neighborhood quality of
life.
Vice Mayor Schmid: As I said earlier, there are some policies and programs
already in the existing Comp Plan that seem very relevant and could lead to
the discussions we have here. Getting coordination with the other
committee and working through with them in a series of meetings is what
we're talking about in the Comprehensive Plan Update. That's great.
Mayor Holman: We have on the floor a motion by Council Member Burt,
seconded by Council Member Kniss that through the Comprehensive Plan
Update that we explore opportunities to institute overlays and/or alternative
neighborhood protections that promote neighborhood quality. Vote on the
board please. That passes unanimously on 8-0 vote with Council Member DuBois absent.
SUBSTITUTE MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent
Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs
None.
Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements
Council Member Kniss: City Manager Keene, this one is for you. I have my
wish list while we're on break. When I come back, the lights at Town and
Country Village will be miraculously fixed. Number 2, there will be no left
turns during high traffic hours on both Hawthorne and Everett, which is not
dissimilar from the direction on Alma where you're told not to turn onto
either Everett or Hawthorne, I think it's Everett, from 3:00 to 6:00.
Mayor Holman: You're talking about from Middlefield Road, correct?
Council Member Kniss: Off of Alma. You come off Alma, and it says don't
turn on, I think it's Everett, between 3:00 and 6:00.
Mayor Holman: Were you not asking for those to be added on Middlefield?
Was that what the intention was?
Council Member Kniss: I'm asking for the ones to be added on Middlefield.
They exist on Alma.
Mayor Holman: That's what I was trying to clarify.
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Council Member Kniss: Thank you for that clarification. The last is far more
pertinent to my neighborhood. Ever since Oregon got fixed, it has been
extremely hard to cross from north to south or south to north. The lights
are very peculiarly set up. I'm not quite sure how. I told Jim about this
before, so I'm going to presume that that will be a County/City issue.
James Keene, City Manager: We're already reaching out to the County. It's
their lead on that.
Council Member Kniss: I see near collisions there a lot where they've got
the awkward lighting. That's my wish list, just three little things.
Mayor Holman: I want to quickly report that Council Members Kniss, DuBois
and I were in Monterrey this last week for a conference there. I found
myself saying as yet another presenter was giving a nod to City Manager,
"Jim, is there anybody you don't know?" It was worthwhile I'm sure. The
three of us will be sending comments and information to you all as we catch up and catch our breaths after tonight about what all we learned there.
Prior to that I was the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco, and
same with that. It's been a remarkable last week with Supreme Court
decisions.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 10:18 P.M.