HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-03-21 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL
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Regular Meeting
March 21, 2016
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council
Chambers at 6:10 P.M.
Present: Berman, Burt, DuBois arrived at 6:40 P.M., Filseth, Holman,
Kniss, Scharff, Schmid, Wolbach arrived at 6:35 P.M.
Absent:
Study Session
1. Presentation From Stanford University Representatives Regarding a
Project Filed With the County of Santa Clara to Reallocate and add
New Housing Units.
Mayor Burt: Our first item tonight is a Study Session which is a presentation
from Stanford University representatives regarding a project filed with the
County of Santa Clara to reallocate and add new housing units. Welcome.
Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Department Assistant Director:
Thank you, Mayor Burt, members of the City Council. I would like to
introduce Shirley Everett, who will come up and make a presentation before
the City Council. I wanted to let you know that Fire Chief Nickel is here to
answer any questions that you may have about fire services. Following the
Study Session discussion and some of your other items on the Agenda,
including the Consent Calendar, there will be an opportunity to have an
Action Item discussion on this particular topic. With that, I'd like to ask
Shirley to come up and make her presentation.
Shirley Everett, Stanford University, Senior Associate Vice Provost: Thank
you. Good evening. I am really pleased to have this opportunity to share
with you the importance of building 2,000 net new beds on the Stanford
campus in Escondido Village. I have a vested interest in this project,
because I oversee housing and dining on the Stanford University campus.
This housing project is one of the most critically important initiatives
undertaken on behalf of the University community in my 25 years as a
leader on the campus. What we want to do at Stanford is to provide on-
campus housing to a greater proportion of our graduate students. It clearly
is essential and a really high priority for the University. We met with
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students beginning last October to introduce this outstanding—I call it a
really exciting concept. As a result, in introducing it and listening to our
students, we made some changes. Catherine Palter, our next speaker, will
speak to those changes. We currently house 97 percent of our
undergraduate students, but we're only able to house 55 percent of our
9,000 graduate students. You can see there's a huge disparity. This new
housing project will be a great benefit to our graduate students, because then we'll be able to house 75 percent of our graduate students, which is
about a 40 percent increase in bed spaces on the campus. This project also
helps us solve our current housing project, which is really essential for us.
We also believe that this project is transformative. It will enhance the
quality of our graduate students' educational experience. It brings them in
close proximity to the abundance of essential resources that support their
academic disciplines. Many of our graduate students work late in the
evening to advance their research, but we want them to avoid those long
commutes going back to their apartments off campus. This also will help
them to relieve the distractions that many of them face and the burdens that
they have in living in off-campus housing. In summary, this project
addresses a critical need for our students. It also benefits our neighboring communities. It will help alleviate the profound housing shortages in the
neighboring communities and provide additional housing for 2,000 students.
It also provides a vibrant community in Escondido Village which is at the
heart of our students' social, recreational and overall well-being. Lastly, we
are proceeding carefully to ensure that the needs and concerns of both on-
and off-campus communities are addressed in the process. We thank you
for listening to this. Catherine Palter will be coming up next to share the
specifics of the project. Thank you.
Catherine Palter, Stanford University, Associate Vice President for Land Use:
Good evening. My name is Catherine Palter, and I'm Stanford's Associate
Vice President for Land Use and Environmental Planning. I wanted to give
you an overview of the project that we're talking about and the approval
process going forward. We'll start back with some background on the 2000
general use permit which was approved in 2000. That County approval
allowed Stanford to construct 3,018 housing units or, in the case of
students, beds. As of today, all but 581 of those housing units have been
constructed or are currently under construction. Interestingly, the County
approved a condition of approval which was F7, which stated that Stanford
could seek to build even more housing beyond that initial allocation with an
environmental assessment and approval by the Planning Commission. What
Stanford has requested to do is implement that condition of approval to
allow additional housing units to allow this Escondido Village graduate
housing project to go forward, specifically requesting 1,450 additional
housing units beyond the 3,000 that were originally allocated. We're talking
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about this 2,000 net increase. The project site in Escondido Village has low-
density housing in it right now with about 400 beds for the graduate
students. Those would be demolished and 2,400 new beds would come in,
which is the net increase of 2,000 housing units. On that site there are also
600 parking spaces. This project would build 1,300 underground parking
spaces below the buildings, which is a net increase of 700 parking spaces.
These beds would be available to single students and couples only. They are not intended to support the families. We have other units in Escondido
Village that support the families. To give you an idea of the location of this
project, the white boundary that you see is the current boundary of
Escondido Village. The wider road to the northeast is El Camino Real. The
boundary to the southeast is Stanford Avenue. You can see in purple the
future housing site is on the innermost boundary of Escondido Village toward
campus, along Serra Street, near the gas station and Campus Drive. That's
the housing location we're talking about. The project hasn't been designed
yet; it's anticipated to be four buildings with open space and courtyards in
between them, the underground parking. The heights of the buildings of the
different wings would range between six, eight and ten stories tall. It's
surrounded by the existing mid and high-rise buildings in Escondido Village. In order to support the environmental assessment that was required for this
additional housing, Stanford prepared several technical studies that it
submitted to the County for their review. The first is a General Use Permit
(GUP) intersection analysis, which was prepared by Fehr & Peers, and we'll
go into this in a little bit more detail. That study looks at whether there are
any impacts to the exterior intersections around campus as a result of
adding this housing, that would go above and beyond the significant impacts
that were identified in the GUP Environmental Impact Report (EIR). We also
wanted to do a parking analysis that was done by Stanford's Parking and
Transportation Department, that verified that we were providing sufficient
parking for this housing that was coming online. Additionally, there was a
checklist that went through every single environmental impact that was
identified in the GUP EIR and just methodically made sure this addition of
housing did not create any new significant impacts beyond what was already
disclosed in 2000. Lastly, we prepared some visual simulations from
viewpoints off campus based on some conceptual massing just to see how
visible it was. We'll walk through some of the details there. For the traffic
analysis, I'm going to ask Ellen Poling from Fehr & Peers to joins us.
Ellen Poling, Fehr & Peers: Thank you. Good evening, Council People and
Mayor. My name is Ellen Poling with Fehr & Peers. We've been doing the
studies that are required under the GUP as well as other planning studies for
Stanford for a number of years. This is one of several that I've done
personally since the GUP was completed in about 2002. Catherine stated
the purpose of the analysis, which is to reassess any external locations, not
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on-campus locations, but external, non-Stanford locations that were
analyzed in the GUP EIR that might have different impacts or more
significant impacts than the GUP EIR identified. We've been doing these
studies and generally have not had to look at external locations up to this
point, because the projects that are specified to be analyzed in the
conditions of approval have not required it. In this case, we're going beyond
the number of units that was really studied in the GUP EIR. We did do an assessment of the full project including the part that actually is covered
under the 581 units and did essentially a little, focused TIA, traffic impact
analysis, which starts with trip generation which is what you see on the first
slide here. The top chart shows that, using the trip rates that were
developed for the GUP EIR that looked at residential trip-making and
commuter trip-making based on actual surveys of those two groups back
when the GUP EIR was developed, residents do generate trips, but they
generate trips at a slightly lower level than commuters during the peak
hours. You see a drop; the blue bars at the top are the drop in commuter
trips, because we are bringing current commuters onto campus. The green
bar is the new residential trips generated. The red bar is kind of the net
change which is a slight decrease campus-wide in traffic during the peak hours coming to and from campus, in particular, in the peak directions which
is most important from the GUP perspective, inbound in the morning and
outbound in the evening. The second bar chart shows that near the project,
which is where most of these new residential trips will probably travel when
they go external to the campus, there will be a net increase because these
commuter trips that are currently coming into campus are coming from all
over the place, using all the many gateways to campus; whereas, these
residential trips are most likely going to use Serra Street as their main way
to come to and from the parking at the site. Some external trips may use
other gateways certainly but, to be conservative, we assigned all of the
traffic to the Serra gateway in the feeling that certainly most of them would
use that gateway. When we did that—I'll show a couple of slides that show
how we did that—we found that Level of Service C, which is what El Camino
Real and Serra Street operates at now during the peak hours, would be
maintained because the increase in trips, which is a little under 300 trips, is
still less than 10 percent, probably less than six or seven percent, of the
total traffic at that intersection. This is just a map showing, kind of
illustrating what I just described, where the large green arrow at Serra
Street represents the bulk of the residential trips using that gateway to get
to the project site. By the way, the parking access will be most likely from
Serra Street and possibly with a driveway on Escondido Road; that has not
been determined yet. Even if a second driveway were to be located on
Escondido Road, there are bollards that prevent traffic from using that road
to exit onto Stanford Avenue. We feel that Serra Street would still be the
primary way that those residential trips will want to leave campus. You can
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see the little red arrows that kind of demonstrate that the people that are
going to live here in the future are currently commuting and would be using
multiple gateways. This is my final slide, and it just illustrates the specific
assignment that we assumed. We took new counts as part of this study at
El Camino Real/Serra Street and El Camino Real/Stanford Avenue which
were the closest intersections to this primary gateway. Those are the two
we looked at. Based on those counts, which actually were lower than the 2010 projections in the GUP EIR, which is probably due to a number of
things, the economy that has changed and dipped and come back since that
EIR was prepared as well as the no net new trips goal that Stanford has
been pretty effective at meeting. Those counts led to this 33-5-62 percent
distribution to and from the north, east and south at El Camino Real/Serra
Street. That's directly from the counts. We usually like to use actual counts
to show us what the trip patterns are, and then assign the trips based on
that pattern. That essentially concludes my little description of our traffic
impact analysis. As I said, no new impacts were identified as part of this
analysis. I'll certainly take questions at any time. Thanks.
Ms. Palter: Thank you, Ellen. Moving to the parking analysis. When the
team got together to think about how many parking spaces were going to be appropriate to support this housing, they looked at the trends of parking
need for this particular demographic on campus. About 10 years ago, we
had a parking permit per bed ratio of 0.76, which means about three out of
every four graduate students wanted to buy a parking permit to store their
car. Through the time, that has decreased steadily as it has kind of
nationwide in terms of this generation of students and their need for owning
a car. It's now about 0.56 parking permit per bed. In other words, one out
of every two students wants to have a parking permit. The parking at
Stanford is done on a district basis, so it isn't assigned based on a building,
etc. This blue area that you see is the parking district that coincides with
Escondido Village. Within that district, when this project is over adding its
700 new spaces, the parking supply will be at a ratio of 0.61 spaces per bed.
The supply will be much higher than our current demand, which is 0.56
spaces per bed. That actually brings us to one of the most exciting aspects
of this project as far as we're concerned. We're seeking a way to decrease
for the entire Escondido Village and drive down even lower parking space per
bed, and that's through really ramping up a residential Transportation
Demand Management (TDM) Program. I know you're aware; we spoke last
week about our commuter TDM program. This is more about how do you
provide support so that a student doesn't need to have the expense of
bringing a car to campus. That's a combination of onsite amenities that they
don't need to go off campus anymore for it or, for those things that they
really do need to go off campus, can you provide Zipcars, can you provide
Enterprise rental car. These amenities, while centered in this new project,
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are very centrally located for all of Escondido Village and are meant to
support that population as well. This is a very exciting part of the project for
us. Brian Shaw is here from Parking and Transportation Services if you have
any questions when I'm done about that. Lastly as I mentioned, we did
some visual simulations based on sort of conceptual massing of what we're
talking about. These figures show in white the outlines of the existing mid
and high-rises at Escondido Village. The red indicate the conceptual massing of the proposed project. We've picked three sites. This one is actually in
College Terrace. You can see in the inset map it's sort of central College
Terrace, looking across Cameron Park, trying to get as much view as we
could of the site. You can see it's largely obscured by vegetation and other
structures. Probably the most visible view that would occur is at El Camino
Real/Serra Street if you're standing in that intersection, looking directly into
campus. You can see the red peaks out a little bit behind the existing trees.
That's probably the most visible as you'll get for the project. The third was
probably the more common view, heading south on El Camino Real, looking
across the athletic fields. There may be little pieces peeking out beyond the
vegetation, but it is largely obscured. Finally as I mentioned, we applied in
January for the ability to get allocation of an additional 1,450 housing units beyond the 3,000, and that has been processed and analyzed by the County.
They have it on their agenda for approval at the Planning Commission on
Thursday. We are continuing to work on the design of the project. That is
expected to go for architectural and site approval, which is the County's sort
of Architectural Review Board (ARB). That would happen this summer. The
goal is to move through that permitting and hopefully start construction in
the fall. With that, we're available to answer any questions you might have.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Colleagues, is there someone who would like to
start off with any questions? Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you for the presentation and for coming
and chatting with us about this. Even though we play no formal role in your
approval, it's always nice to have that open back-and-forth between the City
and the University. The one question I had. I know there was some back-
and-forth between some of our Staff and you guys on concerns about some
of the off-campus graduate students and what that would mean to the
studies and that kind of thing. I think you guys did a good job of answering.
My question is am I going to wake up six months from now and see that
Stanford has plans to increase its graduate student population by 2,000
students, which would thereby make null the gains that are made from
bringing 2,000 off campus onto campus. I know you guys can't predict what
will happen in the future, but I'm sure you'd be honest with us if there were
kind of plans under foot to do something like that. Is there somebody from
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Stanford that can mention kind of what those plans might be or if they don't
exist?
Jean McCown, Stanford University, Assistant Vice President: We don't have
those plans at this point. Just as you heard, this is absolutely about
addressing 4,000 of our students who live off campus today, are coming to
the campus today and trying to find an opportunity for them to live on the
campus. That's what this is about. It's not about plans for future graduate student growth.
Council Member Berman: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: I'll ask a—Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: Thank you. I just wanted to ask of the 14—
basically what's going to happen is this will presumably vacate 1,450 units in
the surrounding area as they move into the housing. Have you guys got any
idea—presumably an awful lot are in Palo Alto. Do you guys have any idea
how much is in Palo Alto versus how much is in Menlo Park or San Francisco
or anything like that? Have you guys looked at that?
Ms. McCown: First of all, it will be 2,000 people moving, not just 1,450.
Two thousand students who are living off campus today will come. We don't
have a specific address-based thing. Just based on the challenge of the affordability of where to live, I think it's probably pretty widely distributed
out to other communities. For example, there's a lot of graduate students
that have traditionally lived in East Palo Alto, in the apartment units over
there, Mountain View, Redwood City. I think it's probably pretty widely
distributed up and down from San Jose to San Francisco.
Council Member Filseth: Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you. A couple of questions. First of all, why
1,450? Why not house all of the students living off campus? Why did we
choose that number?
Ms. McCown: Again, let me clarify. It's actually going to house 2,000. The
581, we pull that apart from the 1,450 because that's an amount we already
had permission to build under the current GUP.
Vice Mayor Scharff: It's 2,000.
Ms. McCown: Those were originally actually designated for some medical
residents. Now we're saying we'd like to build those for graduate students,
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and then we're adding 1,450 to that. We'll have 2,000 more that can come
and live on the campus. I think candidly it's about how much can you really
challenge yourself to accomplish and fund. This is going to be a three year
construction process. I think doing something significantly larger than this—
I think we just felt this was sized for something that could be accomplished
in a relatively, reasonably, immediate period of time and make these units
available to the students that need them.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I don't remember where I saw it, but I saw questions
like Stanford owns housing outside of the campus that they have long-term
leases for and all of that. Will there be any vacation of that housing or is
Stanford going to keep that housing that they have under long-term—maybe
they don't have such housing. I read in the paper they did. I was curious as
to how that all looks.
Ms. McCown: Shirley may be the best person to answer that. To meet
some of this need for undergraduates and graduates, we have been renting
some units like at Oak Creek Apartments in the short term. That's not
owned by us; it's just rented for short-term needs that we have.
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's my question. Is this going to up housing
opportunities for people who aren't Stanford because you're bringing the people to campus basically? I assume it does some of that. I was curious
as to the answer to that question. Maybe Shirley can answer it. I have
another question while you're up there, since this is probably directed to
you. Last time we went through the Regional housing Needs Assessment
(RHNA) cycle, we wanted some credit for the housing built in our sphere of
influence. We ended up coming to a deal with Stanford on that, if I recall. I
guess I'd like to start the negotiations now. I'd like some credit for that.
What do you think about that?
Ms. McCown: Your recall is right. I believe the three parties, Palo Alto,
Santa Clara County and Stanford together, wound up doing some shifting of
the RHNA allocation to the County because we knew that Stanford was going
to be building units that would meet that requirement. These are obviously
well over and above, when they eventually come online, any RHNA
obligation that the County has, I believe.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I mean, dramatically.
Ms. McCown: I think they all qualify. Catherine can maybe correct me if I'm
wrong. A true student bed doesn't qualify, if it doesn't have a kitchen. I
think these would qualify under a RHNA analysis. I think we also believe
that the rent levels of these units will be in that lower affordability category
for RHNA. I think it's a worthy point to be discussing.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: I think this is a big deal to Palo Alto. I believe in the
next RHNA cycle—I'll go out on a limb—that our housing allocation will be
closer to like 4,000 units than the 2,000 we currently have. I actually do
think this is a big deal to us. I would encourage Stanford and Staff to start
thinking about that and working towards that as soon as possible. I just
wanted to get some commitment from Stanford that, if we're supportive of
this, Stanford will be supportive of us getting some credit for the RHNA allocation.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: I didn't see a nod of head or any response to Vice
Mayor Scharff's last question, last query.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I was waiting for a response. I appreciate that.
Council Member Holman: Jean, would you care to...
Ms. McCown: I think we're absolutely open-minded to it just as we were
before. This may not be exactly right. We may be a little bit agnostic as
between how Palo Alto and the County want to kind of share this. We're
obviously motivated; our self-interest is getting these units online for our
students. How that serves your RHNA needs and the County's RHNA needs,
we're open to talking about that, absolutely.
Council Member Holman: Based on that, we're open to saying yes to your
project. Anyway, Council Member Filseth and Vice Mayor Scharff have asked
a couple of my questions. The other questions that I have are a little more
fine-grained. If I could get some response to those, it would be really
helpful. The environmental analysis recognizes that Robert Royston was the
landscape architect for at least a good part of—a good amount of the
landscaping here. The screening that was shown from different angles of
the new development, what commitment is—we don't have the full plans
and all that sort of stuff—Stanford making in the plans to have a noteworthy
architect/landscape designer not only work on the plans but to help retain
and maintain the landscape screen that's shown in the plans, so that we
don't, 10 years down the road, have dead and dying trees? Stanford's very
good about trees, but I just want to know what the ongoing plan is to
maintain the screening of the development. Maybe along the line of
Royston.
Ms. Palter: As part of the Architectural and Site Approval (ASA) application
that we'll come forward with, we will be proposing the landscaping that's
within that project site. I'm not sure if you're talking about screening that is
outside the project site.
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Council Member Holman: I'm talking about the screening that was shown in
the presentation, that I saw once before how the project won't be visible
because it's going to be screened by trees and vegetation. I want to know
on a long-term basis that that screening is going to be preserved or, if
there's a deteriorating effect over time, it's going to be replenished.
Ms. Palter: I think that will be part of the ASA considerations, when they
see the proposed landscape plan and take into account what's around it as well. That's part of what will happen during the summer.
Council Member Holman: I understand that's the case. I'm just saying is
there any information that you can be forthcoming with about it now.
Ms. Palter: I don't know of any plans that would remove that. Stanford
does, as you mentioned, take very good care of all of its vegetation. There
isn't any plans to remove that screening.
Council Member Holman: I wouldn't imagine that it would be removed. I'm
talking about maintaining and replacing because trees to die over time.
Things happen; we have drought conditions that might return. I'm not
hearing much assurance here.
Ms. Palter: I mean, I will add that the—we have an entire grounds
department that does go out and monitor all the trees, see the ones that are stressed, and have a proactive approach to maintaining the vegetation and
canopy in our campus.
Council Member Holman: Another question is most of what was identified as
to noise in the environmental analysis had to do with construction noise,
especially around demolition. We have a situation in Palo Alto, as I think a
lot of places do, that noise-producing equipment—although, Heating,
Ventilating and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment has gotten much
quieter—is being placed on rooftops, so the ambient noise gets higher. Do
you have any notion—it is a fine-grained question—of where the HVAC
equipment is going to be? Is it going to be at ground level and enclosed?
What are you going to do to attenuate the ongoing noise impacts?
Ms. Palter: Again, that's something that would be addressed during the
design. We don't have any information on that today.
Council Member Holman: Note that it is a concern, if you would please.
Ms. Palter: Sure.
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Council Member Holman: The other thing having to do with trips, is there a
"what if" or a backup plan if the trips analysis ends up to be not accurate?
Is there a "what if" or a backup plan to help mitigate traffic impacts?
Ms. Palter: We do still ultimately have our no net trips goal that we have
been performing under.
Council Member Holman: Thank you very much.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: It's nice to not have to vote on the outcome of this,
believe me. A couple of questions about Escondido Village. How does that
change what is going on there? What's the impact on the Village versus
your new construction and so forth? Can one of you answer that?
Essentially, you're really changing things around a bit. You're not going to
have families in the high rises obviously. You are going to continue to have
Escondido Village pretty much as it is currently?
Ms. McCown: Yes. The 400 beds that are in the location where these new
units will go are, as Catherine said, the low-rise units. It's a mix today of
families and single students that live in those. In the remainder of
Escondido Village, it's not being touched by this. There's a large number of
those similar style of units. One of the things that Shirley's group is working on is providing the opportunity for the family-level setting to be located in
these other locations that are a similar style of unit, again that have a mix of
singles, families. The accommodation for that family-style unit will be
absolutely present in Escondido Village even with the addition of this
housing.
Council Member Kniss: Probably a sociology question, but given that there
are dramatic changes that are taking place, especially since you have
primarily millennials, I'm gathering, in this setting, is that changing the
number of families and kids dramatically from what it used to be?
Ms. McCown: I'm going to let Shirley, who's the expert of her graduate
student community over there ...
Council Member Kniss: My guess would have to be you have a lot more
single people than you did before.
Ms. Everett: You are absolutely correct. We will be adding 2,000 more
single students and couples. Currently, we have about 260 families that live
in Escondido Village that are guaranteed housing. What we're doing is
upgrading and refurbishing the family houses that we had, I would say,
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several years ago in hopes that if more families do come and want to live on
campus we have more than adequate housing for those students. We're
also adding amenities like either a store or a pub, fitness centers so that
students can enjoy the campus and not have to get into their cars, etc.
We're trying to build a vibrant community and have the amenities as a
gateway so that not only graduate students but the campus community can
come together as well.
Council Member Kniss: As we understand, the millennial generation has a
different focus on a number of different issues. That's very good to hear. I
think having Escondido Village there has made a big difference to lots of
families through the years. Knowing that that change must be coming or
has already happened, that's really going to be a big change on campus too,
isn't it?
Ms. Everett: Yes, absolutely.
Council Member Kniss: Thanks very much.
Ms. Everett: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: A couple of follow-up questions. In the Stanford
response letter on packet Page 13, it mentions that the trip generation numbers come from the 2,000 general use permit EIR. I know we have
troubles with the trip generation manual 2014. Is the 2,000 number
antiquated, outdated? How dependable is it to use a number like that?
Ms. Poling: Yes, it certainly is dated at this point. We have not done follow-
up surveys under the current GUP to document whether things are exactly
the same. Undoubtedly, any given day actually that you do surveys you're
going to find some kind of different behavior. I think the fact that the
University's been able to meet its no net new trips commitment in spite of
the really substantial growth both in people housed and commuters is a
good sign that we're doing something right. It is certainly true that things
may have changed. If anything, they're probably changing downward given
the kinds of demographic changes that we've been hearing about with less
interest in auto ownership, less purchasing of parking permits for residents.
Again, the commuting traffic entering the cordon that gets measured eight
weeks out of every year has been relatively constant over the last 10 years.
Those two things point to ...
Council Member Schmid: I guess there's a follow-up question then. The
City has problems sometimes doing monitoring of conditions. You say that
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once a year, several weeks over the year, you do a monitoring of the known
net new trips. How do you do that?
Ms. Poling: We don't do it; we review the results. The County does it with
their own consultant; although, Fehr & Peers set the standard when we were
doing the due diligence for the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) 14, 15 years
ago now. What we did and what they do now is—I think it's two weeks in
the fall and six weeks in the Spring, a total of eight weeks—they measure the traffic in and out during the peak periods at all the 16 campus gateways.
They then measure what kind of through-traffic there might be to extract
that. They measure what kind of hospital traffic might be caught in that,
and they extract that. They do a really quite scientific job of measuring
what traffic is entering and exiting the campus during the peak hours as
compared to what it was when the GUP was approved.
Council Member Schmid: Those are actual counts?
Ms. Poling: Yes.
Council Member Schmid: All of us have experience running into grad
students from Stanford who talk about their jobs of "I'm working with this
startup company, having a wonderful time." Have you taken that kind of
activity into account in your trips?
Ms. Poling: I think the trip rates actually kind of reflect some of that
activity, because you see residents that travel out in the morning and back
in, in the evening. Some of that is spouses, and there is a small, about 10
percent total—eight percent non-Stanford spouses in the mix at Escondido
Village. I think it's also reflecting some of that, people going out to do jobs
off campus during the typical commute hours. They're going off peak away
from campus in the morning and back in, in the evening. It's not a large
effect, but I think that explains some of the trip making that we see with the
residential rates. The residential rates for the GUP were developed by
counting all of Escondido Village for a number of days and just measuring
what was happening.
Council Member Schmid: I guess what I'm trying to count, though, is the
new trips you'd be generating from people who are currently in the
community doing job-to-home as well as job-to-school who now do that
from Escondido.
Ms. Poling: I think it all comes out in the rates, because we've got
commuter rates and we've got residential rates. Theoretically they're—
again, it's many years ago now, but it was capturing all the trip making by a
resident including job-related trips.
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Council Member Schmid: One other question I had. You had a very nice
graph showing that the share of students who want a permit has been going
down. Part of that is because of lifestyle, but I'm sure part of it is because
of cost. Can you give an idea of what you charge for a permit and has that
changed over the decade?
Ms. Poling: I think I'm going to let Brian Shaw answer that one.
Brian Shaw: Stanford University, Parking and Transportation Services Director: Good evening. Parking permit prices have gone up every year
since that graph was put into place. Percentages vary quite a bit. It's been
as low as, say, two or three percent, and it's been as high as up to 20
percent throughout that time. We can provide that data set if you're
interested under separate cover. We've got that information going back
years. Price does have an influence on the choice of whether someone
chooses to buy a permit. Certainly it does. We also believe there's changes
in the younger demographics. A proclivity to own and need to use
automobiles also plays into that declining rate of parking permit purchases in
addition to the increasing price that the permit does have. The C permit,
which is the cheapest permit that we have that residents are able to buy is
roughly $30 a month. Students can purchase that on a monthly basis; they can purchase it for the entire academic year or the entire 12-month calendar
year depending upon their residential period of time that they're on campus.
Council Member Schmid: That's very helpful. One last question on the Staff
Report, second page of the Staff Report. It says Stanford's housing proposal
comes at a time when the City is considering ways to address the impact of
its ratio of jobs to employed residents. This University's proposal is in
keeping with our ongoing discussions. I think one of the things that struck
me was your number of what? About 32 percent decline in trips by moving
people closer to where their activity center is. I would like to ask Staff
whether that is not a good and effective proposal for dealing with the
Stanford Research Park.
Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Good
evening, Mayor Burt, Council Members. Hillary Gitelman, the Planning
Director. I think I wrote the sentence that you're referring to in the Staff
Report. It was really meant to say that the City is having this larger
conversation about the ratio between jobs and employed residents. To the
extent that additional housing is proposed, whether it's in the City or in the
sphere of influence, which is the campus, it contributes to adjusting that
ratio. I'll let you infer what that means for other parts of the City, but that's
all that we meant by that sentence.
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Council Member Schmid: I guess I just note that in the Stanford materials,
they say very clearly that housing additions are important to deal with local
traffic issues. Certainly it would seem to imply that that would be true for
the Stanford Research Park as well.
Mayor Burt: My questions have to do principally with transportation. Can
you share how extensively Zipcars are currently used? I heard from one
local entity that they're so widely used on campus that there's difficulty in getting availability off. If that's true, that's a good thing. I'm just wanting
to have a better understanding of how pervasive are they, how much of the
mix of automobile trips is being pick up through shared vehicles.
Mr. Shaw: Stanford University has the largest Zipcar program in the
country. We've always had that. We have our 67 Zipcars on and around
campus. Our cars are some of the busiest cars in the Zipcar fleet across the
country. You're exactly right. We work very closely with Zipcar on an
annual basis to determine the right mix of vehicles, how many vehicles we
can accommodate on campus, where best to place them, so that we make
sure that that balance is there. Primarily, they're students using the
vehicles. It's mainly night and weekends. They have a vehicle where they
can get to one whenever that's necessary. We seem to be doing a pretty good job with that. As Catherine stated in her remarks to you earlier, this
location will have a significant number of Zipcars located within the parking
garage that we'll be putting into place for this project. The exact number
has yet to be determined. We'll be working with Zipcar very closely to figure
out what the right number should be for the size of project we're talking
about and the demographics that will be located within the project. It could
be, say, as much as 20, could be maybe 100 cars that are dedicated for the
Zipcar functionality. We'll also be looking at longer-term rentals. There is a
need for our graduate students to rent cars, perhaps for weekends or longer
periods of time. They'll be able to do that onsite. We have a similar
arrangement today on the west side of campus at our stock farm garage.
We'll be doing the same thing on this side of campus, so we're essentially
bookending campus with that functionality, giving one less reason for a
graduate student to need to bring and park a car on campus while they're on
campus at Stanford.
Mayor Burt: Do you have any approximate data of adding a Zipcar for a
shared use, how many individual cars are removed in that student
environment as a result?
Mr. Shaw: A rule of thumb probably can't apply universally. With
undergraduates, it's a little different because the freshmen are prohibited
from buying parking permits. It's artificial, arguably, for them. For
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graduate students, that ratio is probably a little lower than it will be for
undergrads. In general, it's probably in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 cars
are not needed to be parked on campus for every Zipcar that we have on
campus. That's in general. We haven't done the exact math on that, but
those are the numbers that we're told by Zipcar.
Mayor Burt: I'm not sure who will be the best to answer these next
questions. You spoke briefly about kind of a reverse commute to some degree historically on the campus in the morning and off in the evening. It
sounds like we'll have probably some set that will be going from campus to
jobs, either spouses or even grad students with jobs off campus. Do we
have any sense of what that volume will be? Right now, the Marguerite
fleet, which is very strong, is oriented toward moving people to campus in
the morning and off campus in the late peak hour. I assume that those
buses then are pretty empty when they leave campus in the morning and
pretty empty when they're coming onto campus in the afternoon. Have you
been thinking about serving that reverse commute need more deliberately
than in the past or is it just going to kind of hit an equilibrium that—are the
destinations different, if you're thinking about the reverse commute, than
what you've historically had?
Ms. Palter: What the trip rates tell us does show clearly that there's some
reverse commute, travel being made by residents, and some of them may
be spouses, and some of them are certainly the students doing various
things. Part of the project is going to include some sort of transit hub and
some really careful probably surveys of the folks that live in Escondido
Village now to get a sense for is there a need for that. I know that the
Marguerite service planning and adjustments goes on regularly. As soon as
there's a need observed, that service can be adjusted to provide more off-
campus travel in the peak times.
Mayor Burt: In this slide of the residential trip distribution, we have 62
percent going we'll call it south on El Camino Real, which presumably go to
that intersection of El Camino Real and Page Mill Road. I don't know if
you've done a distribution on what portion of those who go toward Highway
101 and what portion to Highway 280. I'm guessing majority toward
Highway 101, which is a—either direction is very congested right now. Do
you have tentative plans on how to reduce the impacts of those trips either
through additional Marguerite service or any other means?
Ms. Palter: I think the key is the additional amenities that were referred to
and this transit hub. The more that we can provide services and recreation
onsite, hopefully these trips that we're analyzing will be even lower because
these are new elements of Escondido Village that aren't there now. They're
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certainly not going to make the trips go away. Page Mill Road/El Camino
Real is a really big problem, congested intersection. The trips that make it
there are not really going to make a noticeable effect on what's already a
very bad situation. I think it's the amenities and the adjustment of transit
service to serve new demand that we see.
Mayor Burt: I appreciate that the onsite amenities of this little village that's
going to be created there reduces the trips, but I'm actually thinking about in addition to whatever reduction you have are there any intentions on
figuring out where those trips are going and whether they can be served
more effectively by a modification to the Marguerite destinations.
Ms. Palter: I think I may let Brian step up again and talk a little bit more
about how they monitor what the needs are for Marguerite and how they can
make adjustments hopefully as efficiently as possible.
Mayor Burt: Thanks.
Mr. Shaw: That's a great question. We need to find out the behavior of
these folks that'll be moving into these new units to really figure out how to
fine tune Marguerite. As we stated, we plan to do a transit hub at this
facility. It'll be the first of its kind on campus, where it's a dedicated location
for Marguerites to function, where folks can interface with multiple routes as well as access the Zipcars I mentioned earlier, perhaps also get access to
bike facilities that we'll be putting in. That'll help us figure out perhaps
where else we need to be moving Marguerite service. They'll be able to use
the Marguerite that's going to be brought to the site to get to the Palo Alto
Transit Center, Downtown Palo Alto, perhaps also make connections to the
San Antonio Shopping Center. Those are areas we already serve with
Marguerite. The question is are we providing enough service to meet the
needs of the folks living in these new units. Those are the types of data sets
we're going to be running right now as we're working on that to develop the
transit center to function at a high level for the people that'll be living on
that location. That's part of our planning work; we haven't done all the
math yet. Those are things we're definitely keeping in mind and considering
as we plan this project.
Mayor Burt: One mode that we heard a week ago on the Stanford Research
Park Transportation Management Analysis (TMA) is looking at that kind of
mid-distance where electric bikes may serve beyond what people would
typically use their pedal power and something less than—replacing what
they otherwise might go by car. Is there any plan to begin to roll out shared
electric bike use?
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Mr. Shaw: We did a pilot of that last summer and had some mixed results
from that. We continue to look at it. There's some others in the Valley that
are doing a similar sort of thing, so we're going to keep an eye on their
activities and how well it's working. There is potential there. It is possible
that perhaps some of the new residents in this project that are needing to
commute within a reasonable distance that an electric bike would work, that
that might be a mode for them to use. We will be supporting the use of bikes at the building with plenty of bike parking as well as bike maintenance
and perhaps bringing onsite periodically vendors to help repair and maintain
bikes as well. That's a plan we do have. E-bikes are a new phenomenon,
certainly to the United States. Whether they will pick up steam is really yet
to be seen, but we're monitoring it, and we have been testing it. Hopefully,
we do see it having an effect in the future.
Mayor Burt: Final question. I know that we have new bike routes along El
Camino Real and Stanford Avenue that are coming in, bike paths. One of
the things that we as a City and, I think, Stanford as a University have not
worked together on effectively enough is a more direct bike route in
between, I'll call it, El Camino Real and Junipero Serra. Essentially we have
all the way from Gunn High School. We have a path that spills out onto Hanover; it goes right through College Terrace. As it goes onto campus, it's
a less direct route all the way out to Sand Hill Road. Part of what brought
this to mind is a Stanford surgeon who was telling me about having to drive
his daughter to Gunn High School. I said, "It's not that far," but the more I
thought about it, we really have never established a real direct, efficient bike
route through campus, through College Terrace, all the way south, kind of
that third major bike boulevard in the City. Have you had consideration on
that? Is that part of the design of this project?
Mr. Shaw: I'm going to have Jean talk mostly about it. I'll just say that we
are looking at how the project facilitates bike use. There is a greenway
established already in Escondido Village that acts as its spine. This project
will have connections to that spine to facilitate use of bikes by all Village
residents accessing the campus at Serra Street and Campus Drive with that
connectivity. Using a bike with Escondido Village will be very well facilitated
by the design and the existing infrastructure that's already in place in the
area. I'll have Jean talk more about the (crosstalk).
Mayor Burt: I'll just add to clarify. Not only am I thinking of use of bikes
within campus, but it's really across campus from your properties on Sand
Hill and the hospitals, all the way south to southern parts of the City.
Ms. McCown: I think you are aware that the Research Park is very
interested in the Hanover Street, Bowl Park, that part of that route that
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you're talking about. Exactly how it makes its way through College Terrace
and then through the campus, I think that's a really important point. We
have definitely focused on bicycles in, for example, the new roundabouts on
campus, like at Escondido Road and Campus Drive. Whether Escondido
Road, there's some jog, you come through College Terrace and then
Escondido Road, coming through the residential area and then on through
the middle of campus, I think that's a really interesting point to think about, how to make that a much more navigable, easy path for people. It's an
important priority for us.
Mayor Burt: The only thing I'd want to do is make sure that the design of
this new development doesn't put a building in the middle of what would be
the most efficient route there. It sounds like that hasn't necessarily been a
deliberate part of this design. Maybe there's no conflict, but that would be
one area that I'd want to really encourage thoughtfulness on how that route
goes all the way through campus.
Ms. McCown: Just looking at the location, the route that I think is
interesting and most logical is Escondido Road. That's to the—whatever
direction it is—west edge of this. I think the concern you're raising, Mayor
Burt, about is there a building that's going to interfere with that, I don't think that's going to be the case. I think the most logical cross path is not in
the location of where this site's going to be. We'll keep it mind, absolutely.
Mayor Burt: I would suggest that going from—I think it currently shows
Escondido Road going all the way out to, I think, Campus Drive, and then
looping around. That's not a bad route, but it's not the most direct. I just
want to make sure that it's been thought through. Ultimately, I think that's
going to be an important bike boulevard, bike highway, whatever we want to
call it, in the long term. Thanks for all of your thoughtfulness on how to
make this a low trip-generating project. Council Member Kniss, did you
have a follow-up?
Council Member Kniss: Just one (inaudible) question, as we say. Regarding
the RHNA numbers that the Vice Mayor spoke of, you talk about 2,400 beds,
2,000 net increase. If we were counting these for RHNA numbers, what are
we actually counting? Is this apartments? We're discussing housing later
tonight. I want to know how to reference this number.
Ms. Palter: The best way to do it is to count kitchens. We don't know the
exact mix, but there's going to be some two-bedroom units in here, which
counts as two beds because it houses two students. That's one RHNA unit.
There are some studios that would count as a RHNA unit. If we say it's
2,400, it's going to be somewhere between—if they were all two bedrooms,
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it would be 1,200 RHNA units. It's going to be somewhere between 1,200
and 2,400. We don't know the exact mix yet.
Council Member Kniss: What number would you suggest we use? Would it
be 1,800, 1,900, 2,000?
Ms. Palter: You could split the difference and say 1,800. We just don't
know.
Council Member Kniss: Knowing we will be using that number somehow and perhaps in negotiations, that's really helpful. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. That concludes this Study Session. We'll see you
later this evening I assume. I'm sorry. We have one member—before we
begin the next item, I neglected. We have one member of the public who
wants to speak on the Study Session item, Sea Reddy. Welcome.
Sea Reddy: Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to ask and request a follow-up on
the Stanford planning. We did hear this at the College Terrace Residential
Association (CTRA), College Terrace Association, meeting about a week or
10 days ago. The thing is in campuses, including Berkeley, you try to go to
a grocery store, and you can't find anything that's reasonable. They're 10-
20 percent more expensive. I lived through that with my daughter going
there. I've seen it here. We as College Terrace residents don't have a reasonable grocery store to go to. We have to go all the way to Menlo Park
or go to Middlefield Road, and it's still not a full-blown service. Please
consider affordability. You were saying that affordability—(inaudible) looking
for affordable units. You have 2,000 people that are coming in there. I'm
sure they get hungry, and they all have to travel. Even if you have residents
halls and all that, we probably don't want a Bristol Farms or a Whole Foods
type service. I think it's the City and the Stanford, they could work amiably
for having affordable grocery stores in the area. We have a couple of things
coming up, 2100 El Camino Real. We'd greatly appreciate it. We want to
welcome you, but we want to take advantage of your power to bring an
affordable grocery store that we can all live happily. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Special Orders of the Day
2. Community Partner Presentation: Palo Alto Players at the Lucie Stern
Community Theatre.
Mayor Burt: We'll move on to our second order of business today which is a
Special Order. It's a community partner presentation of the Palo Alto
Players at the Lucie Stern Community Center.
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Rhyena Halpern, Community Services Assistant Director: Good evening,
Mayor and Council. I'm Rhyena Halpern, Assistant Director for Community
Services. It's my pleasure tonight to introduce to you the Palo Alto Players.
Tonight we have with us the Managing Director, Diana Berenstein. We have
Elizabeth Santana, the Development Director, and the Artistic Director,
Patrick Klein, who's going to speak to you. Because Council Member Kniss
was so disappointed last time we came with West Bay Opera that we didn't have live entertainment, we have some for you tonight. With that, I'm
going to turn this over to our partners and good friends at the Palo Alto
Players. Patrick.
Patrick Klein, Palo Alto Players: Thank you, Rhyena. Good evening, Mayor
Burt and Council Members. Thank you so much for having us here this
evening. Long before there was Silicon Valley, there was Palo Alto Players.
On the night of June 29, 1931, over 100 actors, directors and enthusiastic
community members gathered at the Palo Alto Community House, now
MacArthur Park Restaurant, to mount a theater revival. Within a month,
they had organized the Players, and within a year they were performing
plays, original works by local authors and the famous melodrama, Ten
Nights in a Bar-Room. The admission price was 25 cents. Sitting in the front row of that evening's performance was Lucie Stern. It was her love and
devotion for the Players that gave us our permanent home in 1933. Eighty-
five years and 472 productions later, Palo Alto Players now employs over
200 local artists each season, that live and work in this community. It's
proud to have its programming enjoyed by over 14,000 audience members
annually. Much has changed in the 85 years since Palo Alto Players began,
but the Players' commitment to theater born of the community and for the
community has not wavered. On Saturday, April 9th, we celebrate our 85th
anniversary with a gala benefit at the Lucie Stern ballroom. We invite you to
come and show your support for your local theater company, because this is
not just a celebration of our artistic achievements. It's a celebration of you
and our City leaders that help make the work we do possible. Our next
production is the modern classic, Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim and
James Lapine. Our innovative production will perform April 22nd through
May 8th. Following that, we have the Tony Award-winning Best Play Vanya
and Sonia and Masha and Spike by celebrated satirist Christopher Durang.
That performs in June. We also hope that you will join us starting in
September for our 2016-2017 season which is entitled "From Stage to
Screen and Back Again," celebrating plays that have seen enormous success
both on screen and on the stage. We're grateful to you all for having us
here this evening and for your continued support of the performing arts
through your patronage, advocacy and philanthropy. For a taste of what
you're going to see at the Lucie Stern next month and Into the Woods, here
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are Steven Ennis and Drew Reitz, that's Rapunzel's prince and Cinderella's
prince, performing "Agony" from Into the Woods. [Performance of "Agony."]
Ms. Halpern: That's it for tonight. Did we redeem ourselves, Council
Member Kniss? Thank you so much for having us.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Good luck to ...
Council Member Kniss: Could I ask, Pat?
Mayor Burt: Yes.
Council Member Kniss: I probably should know what it's from; I don't.
Mr. Klein: The song they just sung?
Council Member Kniss: Pardon?
Mr. Klein: Are you asking about the song they just sung?
Council Member Kniss: Yes.
Mr. Klein: It's from Into the Woods. It just was made into a movie recently.
It's by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. It came out in '87, 1987, and
it saw a Broadway revival in 2002. We're really excited to bring it. It's
basically a giant mash-up of all children's fairy tales, and then what happens
when happily ever after ends.
Council Member Kniss: A little dark.
Mr. Klein: Depends on what you're watching. The first act is very much a fairy tale, and the second act becomes a little dark. It's a very funny show.
Council Member Kniss: Thanks very much.
Mr. Klein: Thank you.
Ms. Halpern: I just wanted to close that each one of you has received this
about the players.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I just wanted to thank you guys. That was
awesome. My daughter loves Into the Woods, and I like it too. I was
looking ahead. I'm looking forward to Spamalot myself. It looks like a good
season.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you and congratulations on your 85th season, the
longest running community theater on the Peninsula. The founding
community theater of now Silicon Valley. Thank you very much.
3. Awarding of Certified Fire Chief Designation to Fire Chief Eric Nickel by
the California State Fire Marshall Tonya Hoover.
Mayor Burt: Welcome, Chief.
Eric Nickel, Fire Chief: I think we're in trouble. You never want to follow kids, pets or the Palo Alto Players.
Mayor Burt: We're now proceeding on to Agenda Item Number 3 which is
the award of a Certified Fire Chief designation to Fire Chief Eric Nickel by the
California State Fire Marshall, Tonya Hoover. Welcome.
Tonya Hoover, State Fire Marshall: Thank you. No, I'm not going to break
into song, but Into the Woods did have Chris Pine as the prince. I was
targeted on that.
Mayor Burt: May I just say that we are privileged to introduce the California
State Fire Marshall, Tonya Hoover, who will provide an overview of the Fire
Chief Certification program, the process to achieve certification, and then
award the designation of Certified Fire Chief to our Fire Chief, Eric Nickel.
Ms. Hoover: Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, members of Council. It's a privilege and an honor to be here before you this evening to honor your Fire
Chief. A little bit about the Certified Fire Chief. The Certified Fire Chief is
the final level in a fire officer track. This level utilizes the performance
assessment process that is built on all forms of education and experience
exposure. This level is only awarded after the performance assessment
competency has been conducted by a peer review assessment committee.
That peer review assessment committee is the State Fire Marshall, another
Certified Fire Chief and a member of local government. The committee
evaluates specific competencies and technical knowledge, management and
leadership. There are several steps to complete this level. Not only must
the person have completed all the Chief Officer certification classes—there
are many—and have both defined experienced level and time in the position,
but the person must also possess a minimum education level of a bachelor's
degree, have an advocate, develop a detailed portfolio of life experiences in
the fire service, provide letters from other fire chiefs and non-fire service
personnel as reference, make all the appropriate notifications and submit to
the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) the application. And then the
patient waiting begins. The individual waits patiently for notification of
acceptance and scheduling, and waits patiently for the scheduling, and waits
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patiently for the scheduling of the review committee, makes a verbal
presentation which, by the way, is about four hours long. The Chief sat
before his review panel for 3 hours, and I think it was 43 minutes, if I
remember correctly. And be interviewed by the committee. If the candidate
is successful, they are notified of their success and receive the Fire Chief
Certification. With almost 1,000 fire departments in the State of California,
if you consider each department has a fire chief or a fire executive officer, with the dedication required to complete the process for a Certified Fire
Chief, you can see why there are only 30 in the State of California. Tonight
it's with great pleasure that I have the opportunity to present to Chief Eric
Nickel the prestige of being the 31st Certified Fire Chief in the State of
California. Chief Nickel, I'd like to present you with your certification and
your Certified Fire Chief collar brass. Congratulations Chief.
Mr. Nickel: Thank you. I'll take a quick moment. Mr. Mayor, members of
the Council. First off, I'd like to thank Chief Hoover for taking the time out
of her busy schedule to come down from Sacramento. I also want to thank
all of you, the Council and the City Manager, for your shared investment in
professional development. Finally, I'd like to express my appreciation for my
wife, Mariana, and my daughter, Bella, who are sitting back here. This career capstone serves as my professional commitment to our community.
Education and professionalism are two key values of the Palo Alto Fire
Department. You will find dozens of these same commitments from the
100-plus members of the Fire Department. For example, Deputy Chief
Catherine Capriles just finished her second year in the Executive Fire Officer
program and wrote one of the first research papers on the importance of
good data collection and measurement in the fire service. Essentially, you
can't improve your performance if you can't measure it. Deputy Chief Geo
Blackshire will complete his Fire Service Executive Leadership Institute later
this year, and he's already being asked by other agencies across the country
to share our secrets of our diversity recruitment process. These two elite
programs are very competitive, reflect well upon the City of Palo Alto. We
can all appreciate the price; they're free. Finally, Battalion Chief Kevin
McNally was recognized this last week in Orlando, Florida, for his Fire Officer
designation by the Commission on Professional Credentialing. He joins a
small group of approximately 340 officers across the country who have
achieved this designation. What does all this mean to the community? In
an era where experienced fire officers are retiring, our community is gaining
better trained and more experienced fire officers who are dedicated to
continuously improving the Fire, Rescue and Emergency Medical Services
Department. This support better serves the evolving needs of our
community. We define excellence as making progress towards the worthy
goals of community risk reduction, superior community service and
enhanced operational efficiencies. We're passionate about continuous
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improvement. Thank you again for taking the time to recognize me and for
a little bit of good news from the Fire Department. Have a good evening.
Mayor Burt: We want to express our appreciation for both your
achievement, Chief. It's an exceptional achievement, and it reflects not only
on yourself but on the entire Department and the City. We're very
appreciative of the dedication and work that you've put into this and the
dedication and work of the other members of the Department who have been pursuing similar professional achievements.
Mr. Nickel: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Before you leave, Chief. You're getting a little
workout tonight. Last year I had the privilege of attending your promotions
event for Fire Staff. It became so clear, as if we didn't know that before,
that the Fire Department is a family. It's a family of Fire Staff and the
members of their family. I just wanted to say that I think we're very
fortunate to have you and your Staff and the kind of service that you instill
in others to be a part of our family in Palo Alto. Thank you so much.
Mr. Nickel: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you, Chief. We have one more. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I think, Eric, on a much lighter note, we should talk
a little about the Palo Alto Rotary Crab Feed where you offered a meal in the
firehouse. Do you know how much it went for?
Mr. Nickel: I'd love to hear.
Council Member Kniss: It went close to 2,000. Wow. That's really a
compliment either to the cooking or to the firefighters. I think it's a little of
each.
Mr. Nickel: That's where we're at our best. When you can sit down and
break bread with people and ride along a little bit and understand what we
do, that's—plus, we're pretty good chefs.
Council Member Kniss: I can't remember the exact amount, but I remember
it was a very generous amount that somebody donated both to the Rotary
Foundation, also certainly underscored the stature you have in the
community.
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Mr. Nickel: It's a joint project between labor and management. Labor puts
up all the money to pay for the goods. Basically the folks from IFF are doing
all the cooking at the fire stations. It's really a joint effort. Thank you.
Council Member Kniss: Thank you for doing that. That was a nice donation.
Chief Nickel: You're welcome. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Chief Nickel: Have a good evening.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Mayor Burt: Our next item is Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions. I
just want to clarify that we have—at your places you will see that we have
changed the sequence of the Action Items. Formerly Item 13 is the first
Action Item; 12 remains the second; and Item Number 11 is the final Action
Item. The Stanford housing units will be the first one. The Comp Plan
housing update, the second. A mitigated negative declaration on a sludge
handling facility at the wastewater treatment plant will be the final.
City Manager Comments
Mayor Burt: Our next item is the City Manager Comments. Mr. City
Manager.
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. I guess Chief Nickel has exited the building. I just would not only
acknowledge him, but just by the classiness of his comments here before the
Council. I think shifting the attention to his staff and his team is just
symbolic of the kind of culture he's working hard to cultivate in the
Department. I'd also just say if we could just sort of think over the course
of a year how many recognitions for various departmental accreditations or
excellent service the Council gets to see both from your City Staff, but also
from volunteers and other groups throughout our fine City. I have a couple
of things to report. A few of them are a little bit—they sound a little bit
longwinded, but I just wanted to be sure that we were sharing all of the
information relating to these items. First of all, one of our favorite topics in
town, leaf blowers. I did want to make clear that over the next month or so,
our public should start to see information in their utility bill and other
outreach materials, reminding our community not to use gas-powered leaf
blowers to clean up their yards. While this ordinance has been on the books
for more than a decade, we continue to receive complaints about the noise
and emissions associated with gas-powered leaf blowers. We are asking our
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residents and the gardeners who work in Palo Alto to stick to electric blowers
or rakes for landscaping and garden cleanups. If you see or hear somebody
using a gas-powered leaf blower, there are a couple of ways to report it.
You can submit a report using the City of Palo Alto's 311 mobile app with the
day of the work and time of violation or you can call the City's Police
Department non-emergency line at 650-329-2016. The City will send a
warning to the address provided when you make a report, and a citation may be given to property owners or their gardeners if a violation is
confirmed. We have on Staff a Code Enforcement Officer available, and we'll
be making efforts to be proactive in being sure we respond to complaints,
both with residents and gardeners as possible. Secondly, just a reminder
that the Downtown RPP Phase 2 permits are currently on sale. They're
available at the parking website cityofpaloalto.org/parking and by visiting
our customer service representative at the Utilities counter on the ground
floor of City Hall. Maps of the program boundary, employee parking zones
and a host of FAQs are also available on the parking website. Customer
service is also available by phone and email at paloaltopermits@spplus.com,
and by calling 650-440-8074. An informational session for Downtown
employers was held in the Community Room at City Hall on March 16th for those employers. It was attended by about 20 employers, employees and
concerned residents. An earlier informational session for residents was held
on March 8. Associated signage is scheduled for installation at the end of
March. I would just comment that I think the new website is improved and
enhanced. It was pretty simple for me to go on and both renew my permit
and buy and pay for online a second permit. El Camino Road at El Camino
Real improvement project. I know the Council gets almost daily questions
and comments and gripes about where we are on improvements in that
area. I just want to report where we're going in the nearer term.
Mayor Burt: Mr. City, did you mean Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real?
Mr. Keene: I'm sorry. Did I say something else? Embarcadero Road at El
Camino Real. Excuse me. Phase 1 of the Embarcadero Road at El Camino
Real improvement project was completed at the end of 2015. This included
the upgrade of the traffic signal equipment at the Town and Country
driveway and the pedestrian crossing in front of Trader Joe's. These two
signals now communicate, and the timing was adjusted to allow vehicles
exiting Town and Country to hold the green signal at the crosswalk.
Previously the crosswalk signal was back up traffic into the driveway
intersection. These signals still do not communicate with our new Citywide
traffic control system, because they're not linked by fiber optic cable to the
other 99 signals in the City. However, we will be installing a wireless
modem to connect those signals to the central traffic control system via the
cellular network in the next several weeks. The traffic signal at
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Embarcadero Road and El Camino Real is controlled by Caltrans, the State
Highway Department. We cannot communicate with it or modify the signal
timing certainly unilaterally. As would be expected Caltrans prioritizes travel
along El Camino Real which often causes delays for folks approaching on
Embarcadero Road. Once we link the two other signals into our Citywide
traffic control system, we plan to retime all of the City-owned signals along
Embarcadero Road from East Bayshore to the Town and Country driveway. That is scheduled for this year. Caltrans will provide their timing plan, and
we will then be able to make some effort to better sync our signals to theirs.
At the end of 2015, we also kicked off the planning and design of Phase 2 of
the project which will make additional bicycle, pedestrian and traffic
circulation improvements along Embarcadero Road between Bryant Street
and El Camino Real. We held a public meeting back in December to solicit
feedback on the most important issues and developed some alternative
concepts for review. Since then, we have conducted traffic counts,
performed some existing conditions analyses and refined three alternatives.
We presented these to the public at a meeting at Palo Alto Unified School
District headquarters on Tuesday, March 15th, and welcomed about 20
attendees. In the next several months, we will work to identify a locally preferred alternative and will bring it to the Council for adoption and move
into the final design phase. During the initial traffic study, we looked at
what specific elements of the roadway were causing delays for motorists.
We determined that the traffic signal to the crosswalk was not an issue;
however, we did identify the Trader Joe's driveway as a significant
contributing factor. Motorists existing the driveway were not yielding as
required, and they were causing gridlock in the curb lane for those waiting to
access the shopping center or northbound El Camino Real. In order to
address this issue, on March 16th we made signing and striping changes at
Trader's Joe driveway to encourage more motorists to yield as required, and
our initial observations during the mornings after and lunch-time peak hours
showed that the treatment is proving to be effective. More to come on that.
In relation to our comprehensive traffic safety program, we did want to
again advise the Council that throughout 2016 we hope to initiate a more
structured traffic safety program that will address a series of intersection
and roadway segment with a history of crashes and a potential for collisions
in the future. This program will utilize crash reporting software named
Crossroads, appropriately, which has been adopted by many other
jurisdictions throughout Santa Clara County to identify candidate locations.
Those locations could also be submitted through the Palo Alto 311 system
and through the various regular transportation stakeholder meetings which
include Payback, the City-School traffic safety committee and others. Goals
and performance measures for the program will be developed within the
next several months consistent with the already adopted plans and policies.
As a first step in the rollout of the comprehensive traffic safety program, our
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City Staff is moving forward with some experiments on two spot safety pilot
projects starting April and May. In each case, alternatives will be developed
in consultation with stakeholder groups. Mailers will be distributed to the
abutting properties, and signs will be installed to seek public input during the
trial. The first project involves the installation of a temporary traffic circle
with signage and striping at the intersection of Coleridge Avenue and
Cowper Street near Walter Hays Elementary. This pilot will be installed before April 10th, when Walter Hays Elementary returns from spring break,
and remain in place for 3 months at which point a permanent traffic circle
may be installed as part of a planned Public Works projects and informed by
the results of the pilot. If the public is not supportive of the traffic circle,
we'll look at other alternatives as a follow-up. This project was developed as
the result of a series of requests submitted through Palo Alto 311 and
concerns voiced directly to City Staff by PTAs. The second pilot project will
be located at the intersection of Embarcadero Road and High Street along
the route to Palo Alto High School. There are several alternatives under
consideration for this intersection with the primary goals being to reduce the
speeds of motor vehicles using the westbound ramp to Alma Street, increase
the number of vehicles yielding at the existing crosswalks across the ramp, and better facilitate bicycle and pedestrian traffic to and from Palo Alto High
School. This trial will begin in May after a preferred alternative is identified
and refined through consultation with our transportation stakeholder groups,
and the same public engagement strategy will be used for all pilot projects.
I would encourage the Council or any interested members of the public to
feel free to direct questions directly to Josh Mello, the City's Chief
Transportation Official. Moving on. The Palo Alto Human Relations
Commission invites the Council and the community to a community-wide
forum to raise awareness on the issues of implicit bias and to promote
diversity and inclusion. The event is titled "Being Different Together –
Experiencing Palo Alto, Perception and Reality," will be held on Wednesday,
March 30th from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Mitchell Park Community Center.
Through storytelling, listening and dialog, participants will be able to
examine our own implicit biases, encourage understanding and move the
conversation forward towards building a stronger, more compassionate and
inclusive community. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Joseph Brown,
Associate Director of Diversity and First Gen Office at Stanford University.
We will be having—thanking in advance Council Members Berman and
Wolbach for being able to be available for making some opening and closing
remarks at the event. Thank you. The City Clerk wanted me to again put
out a reminder that the City is looking for citizens who want to make a
difference in our community by serving on the Utility Advisory Commission.
The City is seeking applicants for the Utilities Advisory Commission, three
terms or positions. The deadline to submit an application for this
Commission has been extended to March 23rd, which is this Wednesday, at
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5:30 p.m. The application deadline for Boards and Commissions is extended
if an eligible incumbent does not reapply. Utilities Advisory Commissioner
Steve Eglash and Jonathan Foster did not reapply. For more information,
you can contact the City Clerk's Office at 650-329-2571 or contact David
Carnahan in the Clerk's Office at david.carnahan@cityofpaloalto.org. I did
want to also announce another upcoming community meeting on four
proposed bicycle boulevards. A lot is happening on our Bike and Pedestrian Plan this year. The final drafts of the concept plans for several bicycle
boulevard projects will be presented at a public meeting on Tuesday,
March 29th, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room of the Ohlone
Elementary School at 950 Amarillo Avenue. The following bicycle boulevard
projects will be presented at the meeting: Amarillo Avenue to Moreno
Avenue; the Bryant Street update; the Louis Road/Montrose Avenue bike
boulevard project; and the Ross Road bicycle boulevard. Approval of the
concept plans is the first step in the design process for each project to move
forward. Bike boulevards are local streets prioritized for travel by bicycle.
They typically include special signage and marking and traffic calming
measures that discourage automobile traffic. Lastly, Cubberley Day hosted
its second annual Cubberley Community Center Day this past Saturday, March 19th. It was a huge success. In the morning, about 60 volunteers
led by Canopy planted more than 41 plants, shrubs and trees and laid fresh
mulch in all planters around the campus. They even arranged for a visit
from Smokey Bear. At 11:00 a.m., the campus was filled with hundreds of
visitors enjoying art, music and kids activities, carnival games, face painting,
bouncy houses and dance performances and demonstrations by 12
Cubberley lessors and renters. That could come in handy. Additionally,
guests had an opportunity to visit an information desk hosted by 30
Cubberley groups to learn about their programs. New this year was an
opportunity to share memories of Cubberley of the past with photos and
yearbooks from the high school days—we did find Greg Betts' yearbook
picture at the event—and to share dreams for its future. The success of the
event was attributed to the hard work of our City Staff and Canopy and 20
Kiwanis Club volunteers along with 10 Key Club youth volunteers and the
Greenmeadow Community Association. Thanks to Rob de Geus and the
Community Services team and everybody else who helped out. Lon, thank
you. Lastly, I had one quick item. We got a very late question related to
the Consent Calendar. I'll just do it right now, since it's just before then. It
was related to Item Number 9, which is essentially a renewal for
maintenance and work performance on our emergency telecom gear. One
was a question of is this sort of ongoing operational support. The answer is
yes. Secondly, recently back in early February, the Council actually
approved the purchase of a whole series of replacement radios and consoles
related to our 911 system. There was a question as to whether or not these
were different system. They are. This item is an annual contract mostly
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related to maintenance related to our Mobile Emergency Operation Center
(MEOC), mobile command center, some of our other mobile commitment.
That's all I have to report. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Oral Communications
Mayor Burt: At this time, we will move on to Oral Communications. This is
an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not
otherwise on the Agenda. The Council cannot engage in dialog on those
items, because they are not agendized. Our first speaker is Kate Downing,
to be followed by Herb Borock. Each speaker will have up to 3 minutes.
Kate Downing: Good evening, Council Members. I'm Planning and
Transportation Commissioner (P&TC) Downing. The Council has asked the
P&TC to assist it in community outreach and engagement. I'm here to
communicate some concerns I've received from several members of the
community over the last few weeks. They have indicated that they have
been surprised that the Council has chosen to make comments to Staff
before allowing the public to speak, because they've seen previous Councils
allow the public to speak first. In particular, people have expressed their
desire for Council to take their comments into account before making up their mind. They've also felt like the process is discouraging because they're
forced to wait for several hours to make comment, and they simply can't
spend that sort of time here on a regular basis, though, they wished they
could. This is a particularly salient issues for people who work multiple jobs
or have kids to get back to. I think this is low-hanging fruit to encourage
more members of the public to participate. I hope the Council takes these
concerns to heart.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Herb Borock, to be followed by
our final speaker, Mike Francoise.
Herb Borock: Mayor Burt, and Council Members. There are two statewide
initiative petitions being circulated that are related to High Speed Rail, and
the proponents are the same proponents of both initiatives. One of them is
mainly about a bond measure and Constitutional amendment for water
storage projects which would change statewide policy and essentially
remove protecting the environment from the water project money. That
initiative would transfer $8 billion of remaining High Speed Rail bond funds
to the water storage projects. The second initiative is just to terminate High
Speed Rail. If there was some other measure passed that would allow that
money to be transferred to the other measure, that would happen but,
otherwise, it's possible for just the High Speed Rail measure to be
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terminated, and that money not to go someplace else. I was concerned that
only the first measure would actually be circulated, and that appears to be
what's happening. Last Thursday, the proponents notified the Secretary of
State that they had collected 25 percent of the signatures needed. That
initiates a process in the Legislature for a joint committee hearing on the
initiative. I would urge the Council, the Staff and lobbyist to pay attention to
when that hearing is happening, because the City may want to participate. It could happen as late as June 30th, which is the last day to qualify a
measure for the November ballot. On the timing, if the proponents want to
have time for an actual signature count of every signature, they'd have to
turn in their petitions next week, because there's a three-stage process.
First, counting how many signatures have been turned in, then doing a
random sample. If the random sample is not more than 110 percent of the
number needed, counting every signature. They cannot do that on their
present schedule. They've been asking people to turn signatures in by
April 26th, and that would meet the May 9th deadline of qualifying by
random sample. They would have to get more than 110 percent valid
signature of the 585,407 they would need for a Constitutional amendment.
The other thing that I would urge Council, to the extent that it can have any influence over these proponents, is to circulate the other initiative which is
just about High Speed Rail. It only requires 365,880 valid signatures
because it's only a statute and doesn't involve a Constitutional amendment.
Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Mike Francois. Welcome.
Mike Francois: Welcome, Mayor and Council Members. I'm just going to
share some information with you, because you're my neighbors. I did with
Menlo Park already. Roundup which is the pesticide which Monsanto uses,
we're going to try to get rid of it in East Palo Alto. Menlo Park already
banned it. I'm bring this information to you because Parilman Law Firm
down in San Diego, we have a—it's 800-908-5770, Parilman Law Firm.
What they're going do is go against Monsanto. The attorney down there is
named Joseph Eaton. He's representing all 50 states in the United States to
rid the United States of Roundup. One of his reasons are there's a girl in
Texas who got—Roundup was in their recycled water. Not the recycled
water, in their groundwater. That Roundup contained glyphosphate which
gave her cancer. Somehow it got into her ladies' garment, her tampon, and
it got down there. She's allegedly losing her leg behind this. She was an
athlete. I'm just passing the information on to you. If you are using
Roundup, maybe you want to study it or check your groundwater and see if
you have this glyphosphate, because it—this attorney, Joseph Eaton, wants
to know if anybody has symptoms of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. If they have
that, they need to call him because he's representing all 50 states, and he's
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representing people who could possibly have this disease that is
carcinogenic. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Consent Calendar
Mayor Burt: We will now move on to the Consent Calendar. I see we have
speaker cards. We have four speakers. If anyone else wishes to speak,
please fill out a card and bring it forward promptly. We'll be moving on from public speakers shortly. Our first speaker is Bruce Hodge to speak on
Agenda Item Number 5. You have up to five minutes to speak. Welcome.
Bruce Hodge, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 5: Thank you,
Mayor Burt. I'm Bruce Hodge from Carbon Free Palo Alto. A few days ago
while idly perusing the upcoming Agenda for tonight's meeting, I was very
surprised to see an item on the Consent Calendar that would largely reset
Palo Alto's plans for local solar. Being a close observer of Palo Alto's policy
on these matters, I was stunned. Why had I not heard of this before?
Guess what? No one else had heard of it either. I find this tactic to be
profoundly disturbing and undemocratic in nature. This is not what I expect
from Palo Alto's City government. Members of our community have worked
diligently over a few years, more than a few years, to ensure that the City has a reasonable for local solar. It would be almost criminal to see all that
undone with so little consideration. The Committee's recommendation would
essentially kill the Palo Alto CLEAN program as well as plans for a community
solar program. This flies in the face of both Staff and Utilities Advisory
Commission (UAC) recommendations and is incongruent with the direction
being set by the upcoming Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP).
Frankly, this is meddling in a complex area for the wrong reasons with very
negative consequences. The City had previously set a goal to obtain four
percent of its total energy from local solar. Terminating Palo Alto CLEAN
would blow a hole in those plans. There are ample opportunities for the City
to modify the Palo Alto CLEAN program in ways that serve the goals of the
program. There's absolutely no need to apply such a sledgehammer
approach. With net metering being phased out, Palo Alto CLEAN now
becomes the central mechanism for encouraging local solar in a cost-
effective way. For various reasons, Palo Alto has had a difficult time in
building out local solar. I thought we were on a pathway to exit our
doldrums. Let's not throw yet another monkey wrench into Palo Alto's local
solar future. Please enough of this undemocratic and unhelpful behavior.
Thank you.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jeb Eddy, also speaking to
Number 5, to be followed by Vanessa Warheit.
Jeb Eddy, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 5: Mayor Burt, thank
you for your bringing up the subject of electric bicycles. Some of you know
that I rode my electric bicycle into this room here several years ago. Larry
Klein was worried about dirtying the carpet. I am a co-chair green
sanctuary committee of our Unitarian Church here in Palo Alto. I'm on the Board. We just within the last 3 weeks or so signed a $1/3 million contract
to put solar panels on the parking lot of our church for distribution to the
City of Palo Alto. We are concerned that we would lose the possibility of the
CLEAN program. We would encourage you very much to—we're looking
forward to a discussion of it next Monday when you take it off the Agenda
tonight. Last item. I wonder how many people here have any experience
driving a sled dog team. I don't see any hands. I mention this because
many of you may have read the temperature in Fairbanks, Alaska, at the
start of this year's Iditarod was five degrees Fahrenheit above the long-term
average. They had to bring in snow by train to allow the dog sleds to start
the race. Let us not have that move south into our area here. Let's get the
Agenda up for public discussion where it deserves to be. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Vanessa Warheit on Item
Number 5, to be followed by Craig Lewis.
Vanessa Warheit, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 5: I'm another
voice encouraging you to pull the Palo Alto CLEAN item off the Consent
Calendar and to remind you that, as Bruce pointed out, that four percent is
actually a pretty small percentage. We are nowhere near getting to it. Palo
Alto CLEAN enables progress towards this goal. One of the intents of the
pilot is to—it's a pilot. It's only halfway there. If we kill it before it actually
has a chance to do what it's designed to do, we're not going to actually learn
much from it. I think we need to let the pilot do its job. We still, even once
it's done the way it should be done, have a long way to go. I'd also like to
point out like 44 percent of Palo Alto residents, I rent my house, which
means I can't put solar on my roof. Non-owner-occupied commercial
buildings are in a very similar position. They're totally disincentivized to put
solar on their roofs. Not only do I want you to not kill Palo Alto CLEAN, I
want you to seriously consider expanding to community solar using many of
the same mechanisms that you're going to learn from the pilot program, if
and when you allow it to actually do its thing. Again, Jeb mentioned the
Iditarod. I'd also like to put tonight's discussion in a little difference context.
Today the journal Nature Climate Change published a study about the actual
economic and social costs of rising CO2 emissions and the nearer term
possibility of passing tipping points in the Earth's climate system. The
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results of this study show—I'm just going to quote here—increases in the
present social cost of carbon are nearly eight fold. They're currently set at
$15 per ton, and they should be $116 per ton. If you're trying to save
money, maybe you should consider that fact as well. Their advice was that
the corresponding optimal policy should involve an immediate, massive
effort to control CO2 emissions. Getting us to four percent is just the
beginning. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Craig Lewis also speaking to
Item 5.
Craig Lewis, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 5: Thank you, Mayor,
Council Members. My name is Craig Lewis. I'm the Executive Director of the
Clean Coalition. The Clean Coalition has a long history with the Palo Alto
CLEAN program as well as several other Palo Alto initiatives. The Clean
Coalition helped to design the Palo Alto CLEAN program several years ago.
We also were hired to design the Request for Proposal (RFP) that resulted in
the five—at least four out of the five City-owned parking structures to get
solarized under the Palo Alto CLEAN program. That was an RFP that we
designed, and we helped administer that and get it to a solar owner-
operator that's going to lease those parking structures. Also, recently the Clean Coalition was hired by Palo Alto's Office of Emergency Services (OES)
to specify how to get a solar-driven, solar emergency micro grid, so that
solar power can indefinitely provide power backup to OES, Emergency
Services, here in Palo Alto. All of this leads me to requesting that the Palo
Alto CLEAN program be allowed to live its full course in its form so that it is
economically viable for people to pursue. It is only recently, after 3 years,
that the price got to a level—the price of solar has been coming down. The
price got a level just recently where the Palo Alto CLEAN program was
economically viable. Now we have several projects that have applied and
are going to be built out. At this point where the market meets—the
program becomes economically viable, that is the wrong time to drop the
floor on the price. That is the right time to allow this program to fulfill its
course. It is a pilot-scale program. We need more projects to come through
it. Very importantly, the Palo Alto CLEAN program was designed to get
projects in the commercial scale, the commercial market sector. The
commercial sector in Palo Alto is almost entirely non-owner occupied. This
means that the only way that the commercial market sector can participate
in local solar is to have the energy sold directly to the utility, which is what
Palo Alto CLEAN does. Net metering requires the tenant to be the benefit of
avoiding that retail purchase from the grid. Net metering is not applicable to
the vast majority of the commercial market sector in Palo Alto. If Palo Alto
is going to come anywhere close to achieving its four percent local solar
objective, it absolutely has to have the commercial market sector
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participating. That's what Palo Alto CLEAN is all about; it's getting the
commercial market sector. Also, I will add that there's been a false
comparison of local solar priced against—can I have another moment?
Mayor Burt: (inaudible) seconds.
Mr. Lewis: Priced against central generation solar, that is a terrible
comparison. Local solar provides the community with resilience. That is
something that remote generation can never provide to Palo Alto or any other local community. I've got a lot more to say. I'd like the item pulled.
Of course, I'll have plenty to say next week as well and throughout the
week.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll now return to the Consent Calendar and a
Motion. Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I'll move to pull Item Number 5.
Council Member Berman: Second.
Council Member Holman: Third.
MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member
Berman, third by Council Member Holman to pull Agenda Item Number 5-
Finance Committee Recommendation to Adopt a Resolution Continuing the
Palo Alto Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) … to be heard on March 28, 2016.
Mayor Burt: We have Council Members DuBois, Berman and Holman who
have moved to pull Item Number 5. Item Number 5 will be removed. Do
we have a date to reschedule that?
James Keene, City Manager: Yes, Mr. Mayor. I think that actually we have
some openings on next week's Agenda for your meeting. That would be the
meeting of the 28th. It would be on Action Item.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Do we have a Motion to approve the balance of the
Consent Calendar excluding Item Number 5?
Vice Mayor Scharff: So moved.
Council Member Kniss: Second.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Kniss to
approve Agenda Item Numbers 4, 6-10.
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4. Resolution 9578 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Approving a Power Purchase Agreement With Hecate Energy Palo
Alto LLC for up to 75,000 Megawatt-hours per Year of Energy Over a
Maximum of 40 Years for a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $101
Million.”
5. Finance Committee Recommendation to Adopt a Resolution Continuing
the Palo Alto Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) Program and
Decreasing the Contract Rate: (1) for Solar Resources to 8.9c/kWh to
9.0c/kWh, and (2) for Non-Solar Renewable Energy Resources to
8.1c/kWh to 8.2c/kWh; and Amending Associated Program Eligibility
Rules and Power Purchase Agreement Accordingly.
6. Approval of Amendment One to Contract Number C15157200 With
Walker Parking Consultants to add $29,330 for Design of Automatic
Parking Guidance Systems (APGS) and Parking Access and Revenue
Controls (PARCs); Approval of a Transfer of $29,330 From the
University Avenue Parking Permit Fund to PL-15002 and Approval of
Budget Amendments for PL-15002 in the Capital Fund and the
University Avenue Parking Permit Fund.
7. Recommendation Regarding the use of the Remaining Library Bond Funds and De-commissioning the Library Bond Oversight Committee.
8. Approval of Amendment One to Contract Number S16155217, Utilities
Underground Locating Contract With MDR Utility Locating Specialists,
Inc. to Increase the Not-to-Exceed Amount by $75,000 Annually to
$160,000 per Year, for a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $480,000
Over Three Years to Provide Utility Locating Services With the
Underground Service Alert of Northern/Central California for
Identifying and Marking the City of Palo Alto’s Underground Facilities.
9. Approval and Authorization for the City Manager to Execute a Contract
With Public Safety Innovations in an Amount Not-to-Exceed $250,000
to Perform Work Across a Facet of Network, Computer, Data, Radio,
and Other Telecommunications Systems That Reside in Vehicles,
Portable Platforms, or in Fixed Locations in Support of the Palo Alto
Public Safety Team for a Term Through June 30, 2021.
10. Ordinance 5381 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Amending the Palo Alto Municipal Code Regulations Related to
Hazardous Materials use, Storage and Handling in the Office, Research
and Manufacturing Zoning Districts and Nonconforming Uses and
Facilities (FIRST READING: February 28, 2016 PASSED: 9-0);”
Ordinance 5382 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo
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Alto Regarding Amortization of Nonconforming Uses at
Communications & Power Industries LLC (CPI) Located at 607- 811
Hansen Way (FIRST READING: February 28, 2016 PASSED: 9-0);” and
Approval of Related Terms of Agreement Between the City and CPI.
Mayor Burt: That's a Motion to approve by Vice Mayor Scharff, seconded by
Council Member Kniss. Please vote on the board. Council Member Wolbach,
did you vote?
Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible).
Mayor Burt: That passes unanimously. We'll move on to Action Items.
MOTION FOR AGENDA ITEM NUMBERS 4, 6-10 PASSED: 9-0
Vice Mayor Scharff: Can I just make a statement?
Mayor Burt: You didn't vote against anything, so it's not really in order to
make a statement.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I just want to congratulate the people from
Communications & Power Industries (CPI) (inaudible).
Action Items
13. Discussion of Reallocation and Increase of Housing Units at Stanford
University for Graduate Students and Possible Direction to Prepare a
Comment Letter Regarding the Project to Santa Clara County.
Mayor Burt: Our next area of business is discussion of reallocation and
increase of housing units at Stanford University for graduate students and
possible direction to prepare a commend letter, comment—I was wondering
what a commend letter was—a comment letter regarding the project to the
County of Santa Clara. Welcome.
Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director:
Thank you, Mayor. As we heard during the Study Session, there was a
presentation from representatives from Stanford. This item was placed on
the Agenda ...
Mayor Burt: Before we go further, I'm being made aware that Council
Member DuBois needs to recuse himself. Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I thought I was going to get to go home early
tonight, but we rearranged the order. Because I have a source of income
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from Stanford, I'm going to recuse myself from this item. I'll wait to be
called back. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Sorry. Please continue.
Council Member DuBois left the meeting at 8:05 P.M.
Mr. Lait: Thank you. This item was just placed on the Agenda to see if the
Council was interested in City Staff preparing a supplemental comment letter
that would go to the County for their consideration. As previously stated, the City of Palo Alto does not have any review authority for the project, but
the County would consider any letters that are transmitted. Their hearing is
on March 24th. If there's comments, I'll make some notes, and we'll
transcribe those into a letter. If there's no comments that you want to
forward on to the County, then no further action would take place.
Mayor Burt: Mr. Lait, can you review for the Council the sphere of influence
role of the City within Stanford-County lands?
Mr. Lait: To the extent that Stanford has property within the City of Palo
Alto and now also beyond in Santa Clara County, we do consider it as part of
our Comprehensive Plan, that sphere of influence. When there is
development activity that does take place, that is something that we do
want to be mindful about and think about in our long-range planning efforts. This is a project that originally was approved back in 2000. It contemplated
some additional housing units beyond the amount going forward, which is
why there is a review process to go to the County Planning Commission. I
think it's appropriate certainly for a city like Palo Alto to offer comments for
the County's consideration. That's the effort that we're going through today.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Vice Mayor Scharff, you have questions?
Vice Mayor Scharff: I do. My question was would it be appropriate to put
our comments regarding the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA)
issues in this letter and that we'd like to see it at least along the lines that
we did last time, where we got credit for it? Is that a good time to put this
in or do you not think it's a good time to put it in?
Mr. Lait: As I understand, the previous transfer, there was a conversation, I
think it was in 2013, where Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG)
had approved, I think it was 200 units going from Palo Alto to the County.
Those were moderate income units as best as I come up to speed on the
topic. What's different this time is that we've completed that review cycle.
We are not currently in a—our current RHNA schedule goes out to—I don't
know. What is it? 2021, 22? Twenty-three.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: I understand that. My sense of it was this. The way
they're going to do the next RHNA cycle, I hear, could very well have a
strong impact on how well you achieved your last RHNA cycle. I thought we
should get some credit for some of these units. When they look at the next
RHNA cycle, we get credit for some of the housing that was done on
Stanford, because this was a large. It's really one group of housing. If
Stanford builds 2,000 units and we build a number, we should get credit for some of that when people look at how much housing Palo Alto has built.
That's really my comment on this. I would like to see us get some of that
credit, because that will inform the next RHNA cycle.
Mr. Lait: I guess the short answer to that is we can include a comment to
the County stating our interest in having a conversation with the County and
with ABAG when we consider the next RHNA allocations. I don't know that
we'll get credit the way that you're thinking, a unit for unit credit. We've
already demonstrated that we can build the type and amount of housing that
we are required to do as part of RHNA. What we might do is what we've just
done, what we did in 2013, which is, "County, we'd like you to take a certain
amount of our units that have been allocated to us by the State." That's a
negotiation that we would have. We can reflect back on this conversation about the units that were produced here as part of the project of the
County's review.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Just briefly. They're going to look back and see what
you accomplished on your RHNA numbers, not just that you zoned for? That
may inform the next cycle.
Mr. Lait: They will look back and see what was accomplished as they do
with—I mean, that's one of the things that you report out on. If you fail to
achieve your numbers, it's ...
Vice Mayor Scharff: You'll get a larger allocation the next cycle. That's my
sense of what's going to happen.
Mr. Lait: Not for failing to meet your numbers. There may be other factors
that result in a larger number.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think they're talking about when they do the factors
next time, that's what they're going to do. You never know, but that's a big
discussion going on at ABAG at the moment.
James Keene, City Manager: Can I just add to this?
Mayor Burt: Sure.
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Mr. Keene: I don't see how our position is harmed by us making a
statement to this effect. Even to the extent that there isn't just a kind of
direct correlation as far as sort of the public perception and perspective
about what has happened in Palo Alto. It seems that we want to put
ourselves in a position to be able to make that case, that additional housing
has taken place here.
Mayor Burt: I see no other questions of Staff at this time. Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: I think Stanford made a very effective case that
building housing on campus would be helpful for Palo Alto, and it had a
positive impact on traffic. I appreciated your letter, Jonathan, that you sent
to them. I think it would be helpful to support Stanford in this and also to
make the case that it's important for us. I would like—on Packet Page 14,
there are ...
Mayor Burt: Sorry. Council Member Schmid, this is the question period.
Council Member Schmid: Not comment?
Mayor Burt: Correct.
Council Member Schmid: Then I'll hold off.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: This is the letter going to the County. Question is
can we get as fine-grained in our addressing of the project to the County,
such things as I raised earlier which were about maintenance of the
landscape screen and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
equipment noise. Can we get that fine-grained?
Mr. Lait: We can make a comment. As I understood it, even the building
placements haven't really been fully vetted out yet, so I'm sure items
related to mechanical equipment has not been developed yet either. We can
express our interest in compliance with noise standards that are comparable
to the City and also our interest in having the landscaping, that screening
the development, be maintained and encourage that those be incorporated
as conditions.
Council Member Holman: Who has the more stringent noise standards, the
County or the City?
Mr. Lait: I don't have that information, but we could look into it and request
that it be set to the more stringent standard.
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Council Member Holman: Thank you very much.
Mayor Burt: We will now hear from members of the public. I have two
speaker cards. Herb Borock to be followed by Phyllis Cassel. If anyone else
wishes to speak, please bring your card forward at this time.
Herb Borock: Thank you, Mayor Burt. Council Members. Stanford's general
use permit defines the level of noticing required for projects depending upon
their level of environmental review. In this project, their noticing involved is notifying City Staff. The noticing requirements don't define how Palo Alto
reviews an application such as this. I believe it's appropriate for the City
Council, based upon a recommendation of its Planning and Transportation
Commission (P&TC), to make a response to the application to the County
Planning Commission. Staff has essentially decided since they're the ones
who are receiving the notice, they determine whether they're going to notify
Council at all. For example, last year they didn't place on either the
Council's Agenda or the Planning and Transportation Commission Agenda the
fact that Stanford wanted to remove and change the housing designation
near the hospital, so they would no longer be for residents and instead be
for other students. This year, essentially Staff has said they're going to be
writing the letter, and they want to have Study Sessions with these two legislative bodies rather than doing what I believe would be the proper thing
to do, to place it on a timely basis on the Commission's Agenda and the
Council's Agenda as a decision-making action by the Council as to what to
say. In regard to the project's effect on Palo Alto, you heard recently from
the residents of Evergreen Park or their request for a Residential Parking
Permit Program because of cars coming from Stanford and parking the
neighborhood rather than paying permit fees. That's one thing that the
Council can do in response to this. Another as Vice Mayor Scharff has said is
to begin those discussions of how many of these units we should get credit
for. Two thousand units, that covers our entire regional housing allocation
for the current period. I believe that some kind of condition to the approval
to get those discussions going with the County. Finally, this is some housing
that's being done for the current use permit and the current entitlement for
academic floor area. Stanford tends to do things piecemeal. They may
think that if they do this housing now, then the next time there's a use
permit, they get credit for the academic buildings. It should be clear in the
Council's comments that this has nothing to do with a future increase in their
academic square footage entitlement. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Phyllis Cassel. Welcome.
Phyllis Cassel, League of Women Voters: thank you, Mayor Burt and Council
Members. I'm speaking for the League of Women Voters for Ellen Forbes,
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our President. The League of Women Voters would like to support this
project. It is 2,000 people who are being housed. Unfortunately, it's not
2,000 units. It would be nice if we really had 2,000 units, but this is a
significant amount of people who will no longer be seeking housing in our
community in the mid-Peninsula area. Again, not all in Palo Alto, but house
them someplace and they're not seeking housing in our community. In
addition, we support the reduction in traffic through our community. It will make a difference. It will be less with some very small numbers in one or
two intersections. In one part of the day, we actually get an increase, but
this is a decrease overall in traffic through our City and an improvement in
the air pollution situation that we have. I won't read the whole letter, but
please do move this forward positively. It's a big difference for our
community.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll now return this to the Council. I guess,
perhaps if the Staff could comment on the one issue that Mr. Borock raised.
The letter that the City would provide to the County Planning Commission,
would it be as a Staff letter or would it have the weight of the City Council
and policy position?
Mr. Lait: Either way is fine; it's just logistics. We can prepare that for your signature. Through the City Manager's Office, we can route that to you.
Mayor Burt: We'll hear Council Members' thoughts on that issue as well.
Colleagues, let's return for discussion of this item. Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think it would be appropriate for the letter to come
from the Mayor. I think that's something that's good. I also think we should
take a supportive position of this right out the gate and say we support
Stanford on building these units, that it'll reduce traffic and will be a positive
for our community. With that, I'll move that we take a supportive position.
I assume other people can add ...
Council Member Kniss: Second.
Vice Mayor Scharff: ... amendments as they want.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Kniss to
direct Staff to prepare a comment letter to Santa Clara County, for signature
by the Mayor, supporting the Stanford housing project.
Mayor Burt: That's Motion by Vice Mayor Scharff, seconded by Council
Member Kniss. Would you wish to speak further to your Motion?
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Vice Mayor Scharff: Yes. I think this is a really good thing that Stanford's
doing. I think it will actually reduce traffic, bring people out of other
housing, house them on the campus, will have minimal impacts on a range
of things. We'll have actually a bunch of positive impacts in terms of traffic
and congestion and all of that. I think this is something that we should
definitely support and be on records as supporting. I think that's important.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I'm glad to support this Motion. This is moving us in
a very good direction tonight. I don't think it was accidental that Stanford's
addition to the community in the way of housing is on our Agenda the same
night that we're having a long discussion on housing very shortly. Yes, we
do have something to say as we are within certainly the boundaries of
Stanford as far as commenting. However, I am reminded that the County
will actually make a final decision on this. I know they'll be interested in
what we have to say but, at the same time, they will make that final
decision. As I recall, I think they're either bumping up against the General
Use Permit (GUP) on into the GUP with this. The fact that it is housing and
is going to relieve the situation both in the mid-Peninsula as well as on the
campus, I think, will make a great deal of difference. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Mr. Lait, maybe it'd be helpful to just clarify the relation
between this proposal and the general use permit, just so that everybody's
clear. It's the amount that exceeds what is currently authorized.
Mr. Lait: I don't have the precise number, but the general use permit that
was approved in 2000 accounted for, I believe it was some 3,000 housing
units. What the proposal is to the County that they're requesting to do is
move about 500 units from other districts or other campuses to the
Escondido Village, in addition to that the 1,450. Again, the GUP did
establish that hard, I think it was 3,013 or 3,015 cap, but it did not preclude
the opportunity to go beyond that through the Planning Commission as long
as there was sufficient environmental review. This is not an amendment to
the GUP. This is just implementing part of the entitlements that were
granted.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: If you're going to add housing, I think this is a very
reasonable way to do it. I think we should support it. I do want to second,
third and fourth the Vice Mayor's comments about let's see how this relates
to our RHNA allocation, because it does increase housing in this area. The
only other thing I would comment—probably I should have asked this while
the Stanford folks were there—is the traffic estimate that it actually reduces
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traffic slightly. I assume that movement of the Stanford grad students but
doesn't include the new residents in Palo Alto who will backfill the units that
they're moving out of. My guess is that if you included all of those people,
it's probably neutral. My guess is that the reduction is muted, let's put it
that way. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: I'd like to endorse this, and to be specific in the language we use. I would request that we use the language in the Stanford
letter on packet Page 14, paragraph 3, where it says construction of higher-
density infill housing near jobs is precisely the type of project the Governor's
office has determined will reduce vehicle miles traveled.
Vice Mayor Scharff: You want to (inaudible) what?
Council Member Schmid: Fourteen, third full paragraph.
Council Member Berman: (inaudible).
Council Member Schmid: On one, yeah. Let's see. Just let me add a
comment on the RHNA. I think it's a good idea to get credit for RHNA in our
sphere of influence, but we should be careful. In the '99 to '06 period, Palo
Alto reached 120 percent of its RHNA allocation, and the RHNA allocation
doubled in the '07-'14 period. We should be careful.
Mayor Burt: Vice Mayor Scharff, are you accepting that amended language?
Vice Mayor Scharff: All you're asking is that we include this language
somewhere in the letter?
Council Member Schmid: Yeah, that we're supporting Stanford by using
their language.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'd like us to say we support the project. I'm happy to
have a sentence that says construction of higher-density housing is precisely
the type of project. That's fine.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss, you also accept that?
Council Member Kniss: Yes. If the Vice Mayor accepts it, I will accept it.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “incorporating the following
language, ‘construction of higher density infill housing near transit centers
and jobs is precisely the type of project the Governor’s Office has
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determined will reduce vehicle miles traveled, and associated greenhouse
gas emissions.’”
Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: I'll be supporting this, and actually just wanted to
weigh in on something that was just mentioned by Council Member Filseth.
I don't want to assume that the people who are going to moving into this
housing are going to be moving out of other Palo Alto housing. That's something that I don't think we've got clarity about. (inaudible) they might
be coming from other cities, and so it might really have a negative—in the
positive sense, but negative numerical impact on the number of car trips to
Palo Alto. Just wanted to throw my two cents on that one.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: As I mentioned earlier, I'm actually happy that
this is happening. It is a good location, and it's a good outcome for the
community overall. I think it's good for us to include the paragraph that
Council Member Schmid has asked to be added. I'd also like to ask for the
following to be included: as project plans are developed, attention be paid
to continuing the tree canopy as ongoing screening and that ongoing HVAC
impacts be considered at a level whichever is more restrictive, either County or City standards.
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's fine.
Mayor Burt: We don't have Council Member Kniss present, so we'll await her
consent on that amendment as well. I will just add my support. Maybe
somebody can see if they can get Council Member Kniss. One of the
questions of where these new tenants currently reside, I think, is important
information. Stanford said that they didn't have really that data. They
assume it's from both Palo Alto and other surrounding communities. I was
assuming that data would have been available to Stanford. It seems like it
would be pretty easy to obtain its current grad students or maybe not these
specific students, but what is the geographic distribution of residency of grad
students who don't currently live on campus. I think that's important just
for planning purposes and understand the impacts of this project. I support
the letter and support the project. Council Member Kniss, do you support
this latest amendment?
Council Member Kniss: Yes, it's fine.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “and include, ‘as project
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plans are developed, attention be paid to continuing the tree screening and
ongoing Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) impacts mitigated
at whichever threshold is more restrictive, those of the City of Palo Alto or
the County of Santa Clara.’”
Mayor Burt: I see no more comments.
Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Burt: Yes.
Mr. Keene: If I just might make just a quick comment just more for the
record. The Council discussion is focused on really the kind of core land use
issues of the project. I would just say that we do have a lot of
interrelationships with Stanford on a host of other issues that are separate
and outside of this particular letter. We haven't looked at identifying every
potential impact. For example, we provide fire and rescue services to the
campus. There's a potential in the future that this has impacts on services,
but we have a vehicle for working that out separate from this letter and that
sort of thing. I don't think it's a necessity to include anything like that, but I
didn't want it to be misunderstood that we thought there were no potential
impacts of the project. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
MOTION RESTATED: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council
Member Kniss to direct Staff to prepare a comment letter to Santa Clara
County, for signature by the Mayor, supporting the Stanford housing project,
incorporating the following language, “construction of higher density infill
housing near transit centers and jobs is precisely the type of project the
Governor’s office has determined will reduce vehicle miles traveled, and
associated greenhouse gas emissions.” And include, “as project plans are
developed, attention be paid to continuing the tree screening and ongoing
Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) impacts mitigated at
whichever threshold is more restrictive, those of the City of Palo Alto or the
County of Santa Clara.”
Mayor Burt: Please vote on the board. Council Member Holman, did you
mean to vote no?
Council Member Holman: Hit the wrong button, sorry.
Mayor Burt: I suspected as much. That passes unanimously with Council
Member DuBois recusing himself. Thank you everyone.
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MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 DuBois not participating
Council Member DuBois returned to the meeting at 8:29 P.M.
12. Comprehensive Plan Update: Housing Sites and Programs.
Mayor Burt: We will now proceed with Item Number 12 which is the
Comprehensive Plan Update, housing sites and programs. The Staff has
requested that the Council provide guidance on housing issues and programs
for consideration and implementation concurrent with the Comprehensive Plan Update. They've listed a number of potential issues. I would say that
one of the things that we will want to be considering tonight is not only the
question of which of these proposed programs and the Council would like to
provide guidance on or support for, but also to identify any that we are
interested in having proceed ahead of the Comprehensive Plan schedule. As
we have that—should we have any in that category, we'll need to have an
understanding from Staff on how that would impact Staff resources. I
anticipate that this would be somewhat of an iterative process if we were to
consider any of these items to move forward more aggressively. On that
note, Director Gitelman, welcome.
Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank
you. Mayor Burt and Council Members, Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. Before I start, let me thank the Staff who contributed to this item.
No doubt they are having a delicious beverage as they watch from home.
This evening is one in a long series of Comprehensive Plan Update
discussions, this one focusing on housing. There's a lot of materials and a
lot of ideas in the Staff Report that we sent to you. I'm not going to repeat
all of those. I have a high-level summary; it's about 20 slides that I'm going
to go through pretty quickly. Then we can answer any questions you have.
The goals for this evening. The primary goal is to receive your input and
guidance on housing issues and programs for consideration and
implementation concurrent with the Comp Plan Update. It's an opportunity
to inform the Citizens Advisory Committee's (CAC) work on the Land Use
Element. We have a delegation consisting of four members of the CAC here
this evening. I don't know if you recall, but originally this discussion of
housing was going to be a joint meeting between the CAC and the Council,
but our scheduled got modified, so we've ended up with a delegation of
these four members representing a diversity of perspectives. I'm hoping
that the Mayor will give the delegation collectively 10 minutes to address the
Council before the public comment period. Tonight's discussion also
provides an opportunity for the Council to inform development of this fifth
scenario that you've directed us to include in the Environmental Impact
Report (EIR) that we'll be preparing for the Comp Plan Update, and
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discussing with the Council later in April and May. Finally, it's an opportunity
to address—I think we all recognize one of the significant planning issues of
the day. Some of the issues that we will have the opportunity to discuss this
evening and that we hope to get your input on include the potential
relocation of some of the housing sites. We'll talk about those sites in south
Palo Alto that we committed in our Housing Element to reexamine. We also
want to get your input on some new ideas like potentially changing zoning regulations to replace non-retail, commercial Floor Area Ratio (FAR) with
residential FAR in certain parts of the City; also potential changes to zoning
to encourage small units, micro units, accessory dwelling units and other
forms of housing. I'm sure the Council will have some additional ideas to
put on the table this evening for discussion. The context of these
discussions, I think you know, is increasing housing costs throughout our
region and in the City, changing demographics and long commutes. We've
had many conversations with the Council about the impacts of growth and
what's happening over all in the region. This is just part of that story. Also
part of the context is the ratio of jobs to housing. We talk about it here as a
ratio between jobs and employed residents. This chart is showing the ratio
in the region, the County and the City. As we've talked about in the Council meetings quite recently, the ratio in the City is almost 3:1. The bottom line
really is that we are not producing housing in our region enough to keep
pace with job growth. That's true anywhere and also in Palo Alto. This is
just a bar chart showing units produced per year. You'll see in some years
we do a really great job and produce a lot of housing; in other years, not
very much at all. We have a long-term average—I meant to find out how
many years are in this average, but I didn't—of about 149 households per
year which equates to 160 units or so. Also in terms of the City's plans, the
context of what we're talking about here this evening include the City's
adopted Housing Element. We adopted the Housing Element in December of
2014, and then it was certified by the State in January 2015. We also, as
you know, have the ongoing Comprehensive Plan Update. We're setting the
City's goals, policies and programs for Land Use, Transportation and the rest
through the year 2030, which is quite a bit longer, a longer look than the
Housing Element. We're also preparing the program-level EIR for the Comp
Plan Update. There's the promise that we will do implementing regulatory
changes, changes to our zoning regulations either concurrent with or
following adoption of the Comp Plan Update. Those are all part of the
context of what we're talking about this evening. Let me just go into a little
more detail about the Housing Element. A lot of this is in your Staff Report.
This Housing Element was adopted at the end of 2014. It basically contains
an analysis of housing needs and constraints. Then it talks about how the
City will meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA), contains an
inventory of sites and contains a number of quantitative objectives and
implementation programs intended to facilitate the provision of housing for
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all levels of affordability. Importantly, all Elements of the Comprehensive
Plan including the Housing Element have to be internally consistent. The
fact that we're updating the rest of the Comprehensive Plan right now
doesn't mean that we can ignore the Housing Element. We really have to
look at the Housing Element and make sure we're not creating any
inconsistencies. Of course, if we decide to amend the Housing Element,
that's something that we have to do in consultation with the State Housing and Community Development, (HCD). The sites map. I think you're familiar
with the map, the inventory of sites that came out of the Housing Element
update. It's in four principal areas, Downtown, the California Avenue area,
the El Camino Corridor, and then there's San Antonio Road sites. The sites
in south Palo Alto are the ones that we actually included a program in the
Housing Element saying that we would reevaluate these sites and determine
whether they should be eliminated in favor of either increased densities or
new sites closer to transit and services. We'll talk about that in a minute.
The Comp Plan Update can complement and support the Housing Element
Update in a variety of ways. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to
amend the Housing Element. It's an opportunity to include programs and
policies in the Comp Plan to support the goals and objectives of the Housing Element. The Comp Plan EIR tests a number of build-out scenarios ranging
from what we call business as usual to this Scenario 5 that the Council has
requested and that we have not yet fully defined. I should say that, when it
comes to housing, these scenarios are really kind of additive. For example,
Scenario 2 adds a concept of small units, accessory dwelling units to the
business as usual scenario. It has the same number of units, but they tend
to be a different size. We've assumed that they would be a different size or
type of unit. Likewise, Scenario 3 adds to that kind of policy around small
units the idea of increased densities at existing sites in exchange for
eliminating the sites in south Palo Alto. As I mentioned, we haven't defined
Scenario 5 yet; we hope to do that with your help in April and May. We
really have to collectively decide how bold we're going to be in terms of the
housing numbers for this scenario you've talked a bit about, that you want
lower job numbers in this scenario, but it would be great to hear this
evening what your thoughts are for the housing side of the equation. Here's
a figure that shows Scenario 2 from the Draft EIR. It's basically showing you
that the sites remain the same, but there's a policy focus on smaller units.
This is Scenario 3. It proposes eliminating the sites on San Antonio Road
and on South El Camino Real and increasing density at other sites in
Downtown and the California Avenue area. That includes potentially
adjusting some of the nonresidential FAR and trading that out for residential
FAR in Downtown. Scenario 4 adds to that; it has some of the same
changes in unit size and policies around density, but it also suggests that we
could add new sites along El Camino Real, the frontage of the Research Park,
and the frontage of the shopping center, would be new sites in exchange for
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those sites that would eliminated on San Antonio Road and South El Camino
Real. This is a picture of one of the sites on San Antonio Road. It's from a
planning perspective. It's not a terrible looking site for redevelopment as
housing. It's just not as close to services as you could imagine some of the
other sites would be. The questions we have for the Council this evening.
Should we follow through with this idea and eliminate sites in the south and
place them with higher densities elsewhere or should we replacement them with new sites or should we replace them with both? Then what policies and
programs can we include to encourage the type of housing that we want. All
of these questions relate not just to planning and zoning, but to design
issues. Design is a factor in a variety of ways. It can affect the character of
the corridor or the community and neighborhood that the housing is located
in. It can affect unit types. It can affect aesthetics or compatibility. This is
a picture from the South El Camino Real Guidelines, dates back to 2002. I
think it advances this idea of nodes along a commercial corridor. That is one
possibility of what you can achieve with higher-density housing. The City
Council has talked about unit types and potentially reduced parking
standards. This is going to be critical if we start thinking of higher densities
in Downtown or substituting residential FAR for commercial FAR in places like Downtown where it's very constrained. Reducing the amount of parking
reduces the costs and the traffic impacts of units because people are
encouraged or really forced to take alternate modes. The Council has also
talked at length about good design and about compatibility and the ability of
design to reinforce neighborhood fabric and great streets. In fact, I think
this is really—we don't say it this way—one of the Council's and community's
core values when it comes to new development. I've thrown a lot at you
both in the Staff Report and in the presentation. Here are some suggested
discussion questions for this evening, if you'd like. Number one, as I
indicated, we're looking for your input on whether we should eliminate those
housing sites on San Antonio Road and South El Camino Real. If so, should
we replace them with higher densities or with new sites or with both? What
additional information, if any, do you need to make that decision? Also,
should we explore this idea of eliminating non-retail commercial FAR and
substituting it with residential FAR in mixed use areas? If so, which mixed
use areas? Would new types of housing, small units, reduced parking
requirements be acceptable in these areas? Are there other incentives or
types of housing that we should explore? How can the CAC help to advance
this conversation during their work on the Land Use and Community Design
Element? Very important. With that, I look forward to the Council's
questions and comments. I was hoping that you would hear first from the
delegation from the CAC, and then from the public.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Before we hear from the members of the CAC, we
have already 23 cards. If anyone else wishes to speak, they need to bring
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their card forward at this time. We'll be cutting off submission of speaker
cards momentarily. Just so everyone can prepare. Because of the large
number of cards, we will be limiting comments to two minutes for each
speaker. We have even more cards. You're not obligated to even take the
full two minutes, because we're looking at probably in the neighborhood of
an hour just for the public comments. We had budgeted an hour and a half
for the item. That doesn't look like it's going to be very promising, if we're looking for substantive questions and comments by the Council. Just to
make everyone aware of that reality for ourselves. We have, I think, four
members of the CAC here. You have approximately 10 minutes amongst the
four of you, if you would like to orchestrate how you'd like to do your
comments.
Ms. Gitelman: While they're getting assembled, I should say the Committee
is doing fantastic work. They started their discussion of the Land Use
Element at the last meeting, and they'll continue it in April. It's, as you can
imagine, a very robust conversation. A lot of different opinions, but also a
lot of similar opinions.
Elaine Uang, CAC Member: Should we begin?
Mayor Burt: Yes, go right ahead.
Ms. Uang: The four of us are-I'm Elaine Uang.
Julia Moran, CAC Member: Julia Moran.
Doria Summa, CAC Member: Doria Summa.
Lydia Kou, CAC Member: Lydia Kou.
Ms. Uang: We're here just to kind of give you a sampling of some of the
thoughts that the CAC as a body, points of agreement, areas of differences.
We just are trying to represent the totality of some of the discussions that
have been happening. Just want to share a few thoughts with respect to the
items that are on this packet. First, with respect to small units, I think
there's some broad consensus that the best place for small units is in the C
zones in mixed use buildings with retail on ground floor and some or no
commercial office space. There's some sense that increasing density limits
can assist with the creation of smaller units. Some CAC members have
expressed support for increasing the density limits or maybe even having no
density limits. Adjusting parking ratios, but not abolishing them. For
example, one car per unit or maybe even a little bit less. Coupled with car
sharing or other incentives to reduce parking demand and car trips. Others
definitely felt too that increasing density limits could be explored, but only
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within existing height limits, setbacks, site development standards, etc. I
think slightly more than half of the CAC members were open to some height
increase for strategically placed housing, especially affordable housing.
Again, this is housing for seniors, housing for adults with disabilities, and
again along those C corridor areas. A few other CAC members have
expressed an interest in what is known as car-lite micro units, again going
back to the sort of parking reduction idea. Some CAC members are obviously very concerned about the parking requirements and want to
ensure that there's adequate parking onsite. I think that kind of captures
the range of ideas that are offered on the CAC with respect to small units.
Overall, there is interest in it and placing that in the C zones. With respect
to mixed use, there's definitely a broad sense that there's support for
retail/residential mixed use designations. Comp Plan Policy L-10 already
supports this, the idea within the C zones of allowing greater residential floor
area ratios. If you were allowed 2.0, maybe increasing the residential share
to 1.5 or 1.75, something a little bit higher or having a pure retail over
residential mixed use zoning designation would help. I think there's also
some concern from several CAC members recognizing that there's a finite
amount of expansion that the City can provide, and any time redevelopment occurs there may be a displacement of existing tenants, whether that's small
commercial or residential who might not be able to find new or afford more
expensive rents. There's interest in retaining members of our community
who have already made the commitment to being in the City. CAC members
included support for including office space, maybe like the idea of a single-
story, ground floor retail, single story office, and then additional stories of
residential. On San Antonio Road, it's a little bit of a mixed bag. There's not
a lot of consensus, but a couple of ideas. Some members are open to keep
San Antonio Road sites, because the services might be there given what's
happening kind of southward. Again, there's the concern, however, that
anytime you redevelop it may displace the existing tenants. Retaining those
community members in the existing sites along San Antonio Road is
important to several of the members.
Ms. Summa: Thank you, Mayor and City Council. Moving on to the Fry's
site. We felt like this was one of the most important opportunities that could
yield more housing and other exciting ideas. The Fry's site provides a
unique opportunity as it will be a clean slate and can be designed from the
ground up to benefit what the City needs most and what residents need the
most, with possibly potential for some higher buildings and density towards
the center of the development that transitions on the perimeters so it can
coexist and be compatible with existing neighborhoods. We're also thinking
there definitely of parkland opportunities and even maybe daylighting or
unchannelizing Matadero Creek. That's an exciting opportunity. The
affordable housing overlay. There was general agreement that this should
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be only done in specific locations. We thought that the most promising were
University Avenue, California Avenue and Fry's. The CAC has mixed views
on increasing height limits. Some CAC members were in favor of increased
heights, FAR and densities. Other were concerned about the negative
impacts of doing so and felt present site development standards should be
maintained and compatible in terms of scale, massing, style and FAR. In the
future, I think we all agree that we would like to move to a future where cars would be less emphasized. There were also two members on the group
that were concerned that we call out the high standards that we use for all
other development and building design should be applied to affordable
housing, and that the public process for affordable housing should be
maintained. The transparency should be maintained so that the public can
be informed and participate. On El Camino Real, we would consider moving
El Camino Real sites to the Stanford Research Park and look forward to
finding more sites there. University Avenue and Fry's, we think there should
be a coordinated plan, especially for South El Camino Real. When it comes
to second units, we were also of two minds about these. Some CAC
members thought units should only be allowed on standard size, R-1 lots
with flexibility in parking perhaps. Current ordinance allows second units only on lots 35 percent larger than a standard lot. Other CAC members felt
second units should conform with existing daylight plane, setback, FAR, lot
size minimums and parking requirements and should not be allowed on
substandard lots. We noted that it's a community-friendly way to provide
additional housing for caretakers, adult children, grandparents, and that that
should be encouraged. We believe that the design guidelines should be
followed to maintain privacy on adjacent sites. We feel that we need policies
to discourage or not make them available for short-term uses and turning
them basically into rooming houses and hotels. I wanted to thank you on
behalf of the four of us. We all participated equally. I'm sorry, we had a
really, short, short, short amount of time to do this is time, so we didn't get
to probably touch on as many topics as we would have liked. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Before proceeding to members of the public, does
the Council have any technical questions of Staff? I see no questions. We're
now up to 31 speaker cards, and we'll be ...
Council Member Kniss: Could I ask just one quick one?
Mayor Burt: Sure. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: We're hearing so much about affordable housing.
Would one of you define it for me?
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Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Kniss. Normally when we say
affordable housing we mean housing that's affordable to these categories:
extremely low income, very low income, low income and moderate income
as has been defined in Table 1 on Packet Page 767. Basically extremely low
income is anywhere from 0-30 percent of area median. Moderate income
goes up to 120 percent of area median. That's in our area an income of
about almost $130,000 for a family of four. You can make quite a tidy income and still qualify for subsidized housing in our region because the
costs are so extraordinary.
Council Member Kniss: When the time comes, though, I'll go more into what
I think affordable housing is, which is it must be subsidized.
Mayor Burt: I have one quick related question to that. When the units are
defined as you just described, if we have smaller units with, say, the same
number of bedrooms, does that in any way alter its affordability other than
what its asking price would be? Say you have a—if it's a two-bedroom unit
that's 1,500 square feet and instead we have a two-bedroom unit that's 700
square feet, does that potentially move it into being affordable because that
unit at 700 square feet is rented or sold for a price that would fall into these
income categories?
Ms. Gitelman: I'm not sure if I understand the question. I mean,
presumably a landlord would rent a smaller unit for less than they would
rent a larger unit. In that sense, I think it would be more affordable. If
you're looking at the definition of subsidized housing, it really wouldn't
change. That's based on what's affordable to the certain household size
based on area median income.
Mayor Burt: If it's not subsidized but market rate and we have these
categories, as we have smaller units, does that drive more units in all
likelihood into the more affordable categories?
Ms. Gitelman: As I indicated, presumably a landlord or a seller would
charge less for a unit that's smaller than a unit that's larger.
Mayor Burt: It's not based upon unit size per se; it's based upon the sale or
rental price. Correct? Just want to make sure we're all clear on that. Is
that correct?
Ms. Gitelman: Yes.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Vice Mayor Scharff.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: You said 120,000 for four, for a family of four. What
I'm interested in is figuring out housing for public service workers, teachers,
that kind of thing. I'm really curious as to what would be one person for the
moderate income or two people.
Ms. Gitelman: I'll have to look that up, Vice Mayor Scharff, and get back to
you.
Vice Mayor Scharff: If you could. I don't know if it'd be possible tonight. It would be helpful.
Mayor Burt: We will now turn to members of the public. Our first speaker is
Herb Borock, to be followed by Rebecca Byne, if I'm reading this correctly.
Welcome. If people could move toward the front, that'll help make things
more expeditious.
Herb Borock: Thank you, Mayor Burt. Having Staff hand out a correction to
the last paragraph of the letter that you have at places—for those who don't
have it, I'll read it into the record. It's on the second side of my letter
received at 5:11 p.m. following the words "accommodated by." That refers
to the amount of housing that I calculated for the Research Park to meet our
RHNA needs at the advocated use of some people of 200 square foot living
units which would result in 586,384 square feet of residential area which, I said, could be accommodated in the Research Park. The language that is
the new language is accommodated by reducing the Research Park
entitlement of floor area by 234,554 square feet of research space. The
reason I chose the Research Park is that that's an area that can be
controlled who lives considering who owns the property and who the
leaseholders are. In all these other areas that you've been talking about,
some of them could rent or buy a new unit near a train station and go to
their job in San Francisco or San Jose. It doesn't solve our problem.
Parking is a problem. If you want to do away with parking, then we already
know from Downtown that people are going to want to park in the
neighborhoods. There needs to be a mitigation of essentially telling people if
there's no parking for your unit, you're not going to have a place to park
anywhere. In regards to what other people think, Steve Levy was quoted in
the draft Business Plan for California High Speed Rail, "the Bay Area
economy is threatened by a shortage of housing and high housing costs that
make it difficult for many workers and their families to live in the region
where they work. This is both an economic competitiveness and family
challenge. High speed transportation connections between the Bay Area and
adjacent areas including Central Valley communities, can provide affordable
housing and fast car-free commuting while at the same time providing
support for vibrant Downtown areas in these communities." To which the
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Mercury News replied the next day that the only people who could afford the
tickets were high-priced tech workers who could then live in Madero. Lucky
them, said the Mercury News. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Rebecca Byne or Byrne to be followed by Ellen
Forbes.
Rebecca Byrne: Hi, guys. I'm Rebecca Byrne. I'm here on behalf of the
Housing Choices Coalition. We are a nonprofit that focuses on finding housing for adults with developmental disabilities who are looking to be
independent. I just wanted to start by commenting on some of the numbers
that were in the Housing Element. They differ from some of our numbers
quite dramatically. In the Housing Element, it says that there are 42 people
with developmental disabilities living in Palo Alto. According to the California
Department of Developmental Disabilities, there are actually 473. We'd love
to work with you guys on this just to find the correct number, because there
is such a dramatic difference. Of that 473, 216 are adults, and only 48 of
those are living independently. Currently we're working with 51 adults in
Palo Alto looking to find them housing but, of course, that's extremely
difficult. We're hoping that within this Comp Plan that you consider making
high-density, transit-oriented housing specifically for adults with developmental disabilities. This is the last thing I'll say. Many of these
people are extremely low income. If you could be conscious of that too, that
would be wonderful. Thank you so much.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Ellen Forbes, to be followed by
Bonnie Packer. Welcome.
Ellen Forbes: Good evening. As President of the League of Women Voters
of Palo Alto, I wanted to read the letter that we sent to the Council today.
Many cities view affordable housing as a bitter pill, a necessity perhaps, but
one that provides no amenities and improvements to a community. The
League of Women Voters of Palo Alto would like our City instead to think of
affordable housing as one tool to help build more walkable and vibrant
communities that offer strong support for retail and lessened dependency on
auto trips. At the time same, encourage population diversity. In this spirit,
we urge you to move forward with many of the visionary goals and
programs suggested tonight by City Staff. In particular, we support efforts
to build housing in transit-oriented zones along El Camino Real, that is
appropriate to seniors, millennials and low-income workers, by rezoning to
favor smaller-sized units. Steps can be taken to ensure that these folks do
not rely on cars for transportation, thus fostering walkability and
strengthening local retail. To achieve this, zoning densities must be
increased where appropriate, and parking restrictions relaxed wherever
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feasible. We also support many other strategies mentioned in the Staff
Report, such as steps to support co-housing and accessory units. Park
restrictions should be reduced for accessory units. Additionally, we support
minimum densities for certain zone districts such as RM-15. We would like
to see the Fry's site included as part of the transit-oriented zone surrounding
California Avenue. We do not support removing South El Camino Real sites
from the housing inventory since sensitively designed affordable housing could actually enhance this part of our community for everyone's benefits.
In general, in order to allow homebuilders and citizens to choose the most
effective tools for a given site, we recommend that the City provide a flexible
toolkit rather than set immutable requirements. In certain cases, this might
even include exceeding the height limit in transitory unit areas where the
effect will be to create more openness and community at those sites.
Although our comments tonight are primarily focused on affordable housing,
increasing the overall housing stock can slow the upward pressure of rents
and prices for all income levels. We'll hope you'll support efforts for a
diversity of housing types tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Bonnie Packer, to be followed
by Robert Moss. Welcome.
Bonnie Packer: Good evening, Mayor Burt and Council Members. I'm not
here to represent the CAC, even though I'm on it. They did a great job
summarizing our 24 different views. I'm speaking for myself as a citizen of
south Palo Alto and an advocate for affordable housing and as a member of
the board of Palo Alto Housing which is a major provider of affordable
housing in the City. There really are a lot of great proposals in the Staff
Report. I hope you consider all of these or most of these, if we're going to
continue to have Palo Alto be vibrant and economically diverse. The issue I
want to speak to, however, is the proposal or the idea to consider moving
some of the housing site inventories from San Antonio Road, between
Charleston Road and Middlefield Road and South El Camino Real. This idea
came up before we knew about what Mountain View was thinking about in
the North Bayshore precise plan. In November of last year, they said, "Let's
look at 10,000 units there." I think what's going to happen is that there will
be more services in south Palo Alto and along San Antonio Road, and we
should consider that before we prematurely decide to remove those housing
sites from that area. I think what you might want to consider doing—I don't
know if it's feasible—have some kind of cross-jurisdictional relationship with
Mountain View for that area, perhaps a coordinated are plan or some such
vehicle to look at what might be happening in that area. When you increase
the density of people, you're going to provide the support for good transit to
connect to Caltrain and to connect to the buses on El Camino Real. There is
shopping there; there are services there. I know; I live in south Palo Alto,
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and that's where I shop. That's what I want you to consider doing. Don't
remove those sites. Also, keep the densities that are being proposed for
Fry's, etc., because we can use it all. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Robert Moss to be followed by Linnea Wickstrom.
Robert Moss: Thank you, Mayor Burt and Council Members. There are a
couple of other aspects of housing that ought to be considered, and they've
been overlooked. One is called traffic. Every multifamily unit generates about six trips per day. Look at that when you're looking at where housing
is going to go. Second, cost. Every housing unit costs the City almost
$2,700 a year more for services than it pays in taxes. Think of that also. As
for the specific discussion questions, I think it's a good idea to eliminate
housing sites on El Camino Real and San Antonio Road. When all the
housing that Mountain View is building along El Camino Real is completed
and occupied, San Antonio Road will be even more of a traffic jam than it
already is. More housing in that area is totally impractical. I think you
ought to consider very seriously eliminating nonresidential uses on the upper
floors in the Service Commercial (CS) and Neighborhood Commercial (CN)
zones. Make that residential only; I think it's a good idea. As for granny
units, I think if you said if somebody puts in a Below Market Rate (BMR) granny unit, they can increase the FAR on their property by, let's say, 10 or
15 percent, so you have an incentive. We also should consider incentives for
subsidized housing or lower income housing in the other residential zones,
RM-15 and RM-30. Perhaps if they want to put in some number of BMR
units, they get an FAR increase of, let's say, 10 or 20 percent. I'm not going
to give you the numbers right now; I'm just saying this is something that
ought to be discussed and come up with some figures that are rational.
Finally, one of the real problems we have in Palo Alto is it's the highest cost
housing in the entire country. It's going to be extremely difficult to get
affordable housing without being very creative. One of the things you're
talking about is smaller units. Very small units are not going to sell. Seniors
are not going to move from their existing housing to a very small unit.
Define small as 500 or 600 square feet.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Linnea Wickstrom to be followed by Winter
Dellenbach.
Linnea Wickstrom: Good evening, Council Members. I'm a 40-plus year
resident of Palo Alto, also south Palo Alto. I have a 24-year-old son with
autism. I'm here to speak for housing for the developmentally disabled. It's
important to all parents, especially those of us who are aging. We can't our
house kids forever. Independent living skills take a long time to teach, so
we need a running start. The struggles are there are too few units. We
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need units that are affordable for extremely low income. One of the big
problems is that the units that do exist are too far away from city centers
and/or from transit for people who don't drive. I'd like to emphasize for the
City of Palo Alto these are people who don't drive. They don't have a car;
they don't need to park. Just one my little hobby horses. I'm hoping that
the City will partner with agencies such as Housing Choices to build close-in,
affordable, high-density housing for people with developmental disabilities. One of the innovative things that Mountain View has done is to put up 1585
Studios on El Camino Real in Mountain View. That's worth a look. In
addition, just as my personal ax to grind, please consider an additional
solution, granny units or accessory units. They're a highly desirable and
affordable approach that can also help Palo Alto with their housing goals and
help with residents' needs. It's my hobby horse because I have a large lot.
I'm 200 yards off El Camino Real. My son can take the bus, the train. He
can walk to stores, etc. Thank you for helping it possible for people like my
son, who can hope to live and work relatively independently in his home
community to do that. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Winter Dellenbach to be followed by Drew
Lusebrink.
Winter Dellenbach: There are two types of housing in Palo Alto: market
rate housing and below market rate housing. Only one, BMR housing,
guarantees affordability long term. Market rate housing is always as
expensive as the market allows. Just look at Palo Alto over many decades
through booms and busts. No so-called affordable housing is left other than
BMR. Working class people once lived here in an economically diverse
community with professionals and academics, but now this is a rich person's
town or it's becoming so. Surely we don't suffer the illusion that we can
build our way to affordability. We now have about 26,000 units of housing
and three times as many jobs. We cannot possibly build enough housing,
even going dense, even going high, to actually bring down housing expense.
That is voodoo economics' trickle down housing policy magical thinking,
ineffective and illusory. We are a job center. We've had more jobs than
residents since the late 1960s. I came here in 1970; it was a 2:1 ratio. This
is not new and not bad, and it's not going to change. The thing that has
changed is that housing around us has also become expensive, creating a
regional housing crunch. We can't fix the region, but we can build some
smart housing that avoids burning down the cathedral to warm ourselves.
We can expand and strengthen the office cap and utilize affordable,
environmentally sound transportation modes for commuters. Unlike market
rate housing, below market rate housing remains affordable over the long
term, now 55 years, due to such devices as deed restrictions. BMR housing
is the way to build housing that will remain affordable and avoid a cycle of
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building market rate housing that becomes unaffordable, and then feeling
the need to build more, on and on, until we have a civic nervous breakdown.
Let's avoid that. As the Weekly says, laser like concentrate on building
below market rate housing for people of all ages and family configurations.
Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Drew Lusebrink to be followed by Anita Lusebrink.
Drew Lusebrink: Hello. I am Drew Lusebrink, and I am one of the developmentally disabled adults who lives in Palo Alto. I have no source of
income other than Social Security, so my income will stay the same unless I
am able to find another source of income. This means that I need to find
somewhere that I can afford on my current income. However, when I have
looked for such a place, no places existed. I also have a boyfriend who
works in the area and would also be completely unable to afford housing
around here. I know that we are not the only people who have this
problem. Neither of us drives, so any housing that we would have would
need to be accessible by public transit. Now the thing is that I have issues
with speaking, but I felt that this was important enough that I would need to
say something for everybody else who has these issues and will not or
cannot. That is why I have said this.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Anita Lusebrink to be followed by Anne Hare.
Anita Lusebrink: Hello. My name's Anita Lusebrink. Drew is my family
member with developmental disabilities. We were told about this program
through Housing Choices Coalition who has spoken already on our behalf. In
general, I think that Palo Alto prides itself on being a very sort of forward-
thinking and thoughtful, intelligent, creative community, and yet we're in
great danger of becoming very homogenous to the top 1 percent of people,
because that's who can afford to live here now. Drew's grandmother, who is
92 years old and who Drew lives with right now, has owned her house for—I
don't know—probably 40 years. She's still there, but it's a little, tiny house
next to a new basically three-story house that was bought by a person in
this 1 percent that bought the house next door too while they were building
this new house. The demographic is pretty diverse in that the old school is
going to be kicked out. I just would like to say let's think of diversity in
many different ways, what all kinds of people can bring to this community,
not only the very wealthy 1 percent. People without cars and without high-
paying jobs add quite a bit to the community as well. Even though it's not a
tangible thing, it's not tax-based income, it's not flash, it's the intangibles
that will hopefully help our community be an example going into the future
for the long term, not the short term. Thank you so much for listening.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you. Anne Hare to be followed by Vanessa Warheit.
Welcome.
Anne Hare: Hello, Council Members. Thank you. I think word must have
gotten out, because I'm the mother of a young adult with developmental
disability and autism. I will say, though, that since Rebecca, Linnea, Drew
and Anita have spoken so eloquently on the topic, I will only say this. I
believe strongly that where my son lives now in Mountain View in a brand new development for individuals with developmental disabilities that was
built by Housing Choices Coalition that they are able—I would ask the City
Council to please consider partnering with them because they have built
some very smart and creative housing. I would say that it would make a lot
of sense to put that housing in high-density, transit-oriented areas that are
accessible for people with developmental disabilities, who also have
extremely low incomes. Thank you to everyone, and thank you very much,
Council Members.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Vanessa Warheit to be followed by Peter
Taskovich. Welcome.
Vanessa Warheit: Hi. I'm here to advocate for many more smaller units
which, as our Mayor has pointed out, generally end up being cheaper. Just to give you a little story. I lived in Palo Alto when I was in—many years
ago, let's just say. It was in the 1980s. I lived in a house that at the time
had, I think, six units. There were approximately ten people who lived in
our building. That home, as many others, has been turned into a single-
family home. I bike by it regularly. Our apartment, I think, was maybe 500
square feet for myself and my single mother. It allowed me to attend
Jordan and to attend Paly of which I'm very proud. I don't think that we
need necessarily to build many high rises; although, I would encourage to
not be too firm in holding that height limit. I think that densification around
transit is really smart. We are a City that prides ourselves on being smart,
so we should continue to look at that as a really viable option. We should
definitely look at small units and infill units. We should build as much
housing as we possibly can, because we need it. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Peter Taskovich to be followed by Craig Lewis.
Welcome.
Peter Taskovich: Hello. I'm not going to be talking about micro units or co-
housing or most other of the things mentioned in the Housing Element.
What I want to focus on is the Accessory Dwelling Units, the (ADUs), and
their impact on the R-1 neighborhoods. Palo Alto's R-1 neighborhoods are
Palo Alto's crown jewels. This is why many people have paid so much
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money to move into Palo Alto and to stay living here. The quiet, tree-lined
streets, uncrowded neighborhoods is what makes Palo Alto so special. Right
now, ADUs are allowed in R-1 neighborhoods, but I would like to keep the
current development standards and zoning restrictions on ADUs as is. We
don't need to loosen them. We don't need to make it possible so
substandard lots can have ADUs now built. This going to help destroy what
makes Palo Alto so special. Please keep the ADU zoning as is. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Craig Lewis to be followed by Bill Ross. Welcome.
Craig Lewis: Thank you. I've been moved by much of the commentary here
tonight. I'm here to speak as an employer. Housing markets move just like
every other market do; they move on the margin. If you increase the
supply of housing, you are going to incrementally decrease the price. The
more you do that, the more affordable it becomes. As an employer with
offices in Palo Alto Square, I'm in one of the areas that would, I guess,
benefit from the higher-density housing that's being promoted here. I would
add to that promotion. Palo Alto Square and that vicinity is walkable to
Caltrain. Nobody else on the Clean Coalition team can live in this area, so
everybody is coming in from outside, many of whom take the train. Many of
our visitors who come to meet with us take the train and walk from Caltrain to Palo Alto Square. It's about 9/10 of a mile, easy walk. Housing in that
area would be an easy walk to public transportation. I've got an everyday
example of it. I would just say it would be awfully nice if some of members
of the Clean Coalition team could actually live close to the office and walk to
and from. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Bill Ross to be followed by Steve Downing.
Bill Ross: Good evening, Mayor and Council. My questions are profoundly
procedural. Substantively, I think I agree with the letter that Mr. Keller sent
to you. Procedurally, I'd ask this question. Issues that are advanced to you
by Staff deal with land use and intensity that is most appropriately dealt
with in the Land Use Element which must, as several individuals who have
appeared before the CAC, be correlated with the Transportation and
Circulation Element. That assures concerns with respect to traffic are met at
the same time that the land use density is addressed. I would reference
specifically Government Code Section 65.302(b). If you choose to proceed
with a standalone amendment of the Housing Element, I would discourage
that. One, it's one of the two mandated State elements. If you did that, it
would be internally inconsistent with the existing Plan. I would encourage
you also to provide for more public participation. The restriction tonight for
2 minutes, the restrictions before the CAC is directly contrary to the
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governmental policy of the Legislature about this type of decision. You
should encourage public participation. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Steve Downing to be followed by Amie Ashton.
Steve Downing: Good evening, Council Members, Mayor. I came here to
speak in favor of more housing in general, especially dense housing near
transit corridors. The zoning restrictions here in Palo Alto have made it very
difficult for anyone to find apartments near where they work. I've lived and worked in Palo Alto for many years now. I actually don't really like driving.
It's not the worst, but I'll do it. The last time I moved, five years ago or so,
within Palo Alto, I looked obviously for an apartment or some such near
Downtown. There are very few of those, and there is very little liquidity in
that market. I ended up further away in south Palo Alto, in a nice
neighborhood, in actually a nice house. It's much bigger than we need. It's
much bigger than what I was looking for. Now, I drive to work every day or
almost every day. I'm not saying this to complain. This is not a bad
existence by any stretch, but it does mean that I clog up the roads for all of
you. I'm taking up a bigger house than I needed. Presumably I pushed
another family out who actually would have used the space. This has
happened with many colleagues of mine as well. Many of them have been pushed even further out, and they create more traffic for all of us. In
summary, more diverse housing stock would benefit us all. I favor more
density and more choices, particularly near transit. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Amie Ashton to be followed by Becky Sanders.
Welcome.
Amie Ashton: Hello. I'll just speak quickly. I wanted to express my support
for housing density, in particular near transit. I live Downtown. I pay an
exorbitant amount of money to live in Palo Alto. I love living here because I
don't have to drive anywhere. I bike, I take Caltrain, and I walk. I support
density because to me it means that we have a more vibrant Downtown.
That's what's exciting to me. Increase the height, increase the types of
units. I don't care if they're luxury, micro, anything. Get the density here
because to me it's so exciting to have all these great uses Downtown or to
bike over to Cal. Ave. and have all these fun places to shop and walk
around. This is what life's all about, and it's very exciting. Living Downtown
and taking advantage of all this, I just wanted to share how important that
was to me, that you call consider it. It's the environment; it's the quality of
life; it's health. Please support housing density near transit. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Becky Sanders to be followed by Suzanne Keehn.
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Becky Sanders: Good evening. I live in Ventura which I can just feel the
pave-over happening there. We have monthly meetings of our association.
Most of the people that attend do own homes, but we do have some renters
that live in Ventura, that come to the meetings. Shout out to Steve, who's
wonderful. I really understand and hear and empathize with the desire of
people to live here in this beautiful City. I get it. Everything I've heard
here, I mean, it's all good. However, the preservation of residential neighborhoods is the first goal listed as a high-level goal on Page 4;
however, most of the underlying recommendations strip that goal of any
basis in reality and reduce it to mere lip service, I think. Remember that the
City is made up of citizens, not corporations. Corporations are not people.
Let's remember whom Council is here to serve, and it is the people who vote
and live here. To say that at the very least the aggregate long-term impact
on residents of all these developments that are in the pipeline have really
not adequately been considered. As someone pointed out earlier, the
jobs/housing imbalance didn't happen overnight. Rushing to build more
housing is really not going to solve this problem. We have Fry's; we've got
the Footlocker; we've got—what is that? The multi combination of residents
that have been bought at the corner of Ash Street and Page Mill Road. Then we've got Palo Alto Square. I don't know what's going to happen. It's really
scary. In Ventura, we're kind of the last affordable neighborhood in Palo
Alto. I'm very concerned that the developers are just eyeing us, all those
eyesore properties on El Camino Real in Ventura. I just recommend that
you think about neighborhood quality of life before you approve all the
wrecking balls. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Suzanne Keehn to be followed by A.C. Johnston.
Welcome.
Suzanne Keehn: Hello. I would just second everything Becky said. The
other thing I would add is that when we talk about sustainability, we just
don't have supplies of everything for all these people. This is a problem in
the whole Bay Area. Look at San Francisco now. Where's all this water
coming from? Sure, we've had a little rain now, but we are not anywhere
near making up the deficit. This is what bothers me. I think about America,
but here we are in this very wealthy, well-to-do, educated people, and yet
we don't look at the long-term overall. This housing imbalance happened
way a long time ago. Like you were saying, it has gone back many, many
years. Why didn't we look at it then? We've let developers really have their
way. I think residents are not listened to the way they should. I definitely
think that we have to be a lot more connected to this planet if we're going to
have one to live on. Thank you.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you. A.C. Johnston to be followed by Dan Garber.
Welcome.
A.C. Johnston: Mayor Burt, City Council, I'm A.C. Johnston. I live in
University South. I'm going to be brief because you've heard much of this
already. I just want to urge the Council to take steps to encourage the
development not only of affordable housing, but what I'll call reasonably
priced housing. Housing that young people, that seniors, that members of our—people who serve the community like our teachers and our police could
afford to live here, so they could live in our community. In particular, I hope
the Council will encourage development of accessory dwelling units, micro
units and encourage increased density particularly near transit centers, jobs
and services. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Dan Garber to be followed by Arthur Keller.
Welcome.
Dan Garber: I'm Dan Garber; I'm here as a citizen this evening. I'm going
to forego most of my comments and simply mention that there is—in the
conversations that have been going on at the CAC, there's a tremendous
amount of flexibility on these issues. They are not as black and white as
they're often portrayed here. There's lots of opportunities that people have begun to think more broadly about things. The last thing I wanted to say
was I really wanted to thank Julia and Lydia and Doria and Elaine, who did
an amazing job in coming up in just a few days here and then getting
together last night 2 1/2 hours to pull together the comments which are
extremely disparate, but very robust has been described. I think they did a
really great job trying to pull that series of comments together.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Arthur Keller to be followed by Diane Morin.
Arthur Keller: Thank you. I'm speaking as an individual and not as a Co-
Chair of the CAC, but I do echo my fellow Co-Chair's comments about the
quality of the comments by the four CAC representatives on housing. One
thing about density is we seem to be confusing two things because of how
our Code works. That is density in terms of number of housing units per
acre and density in terms of FAR. We might want to think about increasing
the number of units per acre through smaller units without necessarily
increasing FAR, increasing height, and all of that. I think that's maybe the
direction we need to go. I think we should think about that and make more
(inaudible) requiring smaller units, because that's the kind of units that are
not as profitable for developers. They don't necessarily want to build that.
We need not necessarily up-zone FAR and height in order to be able to have
more housing units and whatever. We should require parking to meet
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demand for all developments as parking demand is demonstrated to
decrease, then fewer parking spaces can be required and excess parking
spaces can be leased to under-parked properties. The Fry's site needs a
coordinated area plan and designed as nice as South of Forest Avenue
(SOFA 2) along with dedicated parkland. The existing Comp Plan called for a
coordinated area plan for South El Camino Real; we need to proceed with
that. We should focus new housing near services and transit. ADUs don't do that. San Antonio Road doesn't do that. We need to think about what
we can do in terms of new housing that minimizes the impact. I've give you
a longer letter that you can study at your leisure, but I figured I'd give a few
comments now. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Diane Morin to be followed by—Diane is gone?
Female: Diane is (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: Okay. Cathrine Aulgur to be followed by John Kelley.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Did John leave? Is John here?
Council Member DuBois: No, Cathrine's first.
Vice Mayor Scharff: it's Cathrine, right. Is Cathrine here? I'm sorry.
Cathrine Aulgur: Mr. Mayor and Council Members. I'd like to follow up on
some of the input you've already heard from both parents and advocates for those with severe developmental disabilities. We have two adults in their
mid to late-40s with severe autism. For instance, just to give a picture to
you of what it would be like to have my son closer. Easter morning, I have
to leave early, drive to Novato, pick him up, drive him back here, get my
daughter in Campbell, drive her there, cook, feed them, take them for a
walk, take them back to their home, take them back to Marin. That's 12
hours of driving. It's not easy when you have family members who cannot
be living closer. They're very severely autistic, and they would need
transportation with a caregiver. I did want to bring out that there are some
laws you may or may not be aware of. The Supreme Court landmark
decision, it's called the Olmstead decision. It mandates that you serve—
that's U.S. Supreme Court, 1999—requires that meaningful opportunities be
created for individuals with developmental disabilities to reside, work and
receive support in their own communities in integrated settings. I'm going
to just sort of touch through some of these. There are some U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-issued guidelines
also that help and encourage the planning. They do require set asides
specifically for people with developmental disabilities. Developmental
disabilities would mean those who would not be able to live probably
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independently. These are people who have agencies. There's HUD
guidelines, and there's the Supreme Court decision that are requiring that.
We're not meeting it. Believe me, I think the numbers are in the hundreds.
We just don't have places for them nearer to us. Thank you.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you. John Kelley to be followed by Jeff Lewinsky.
John Kelley: Mayor Burt, Vice Mayor Scharff, Council Members. I've sent
you a letter that talks about my views on ADUs, so I won't repeat all that. I'd like to use this limited time that I have to address—some of the issues
have been raised tonight, but I'd like to take them sort of more globally. I
think there are two big arguments that people who oppose more housing in
this community tend to make. The first is essentially an economic
argument, that we can't move the needle at all, that we are so incapacitated
by the market, that we really can't change rents or housing prices. I think
that's fallacious for two very simple reasons. As Craig Lewis pointed out, if
you increase supply, you're going to change demand and you're going to
change prices. It's just that simple. That's not voodoo economics; that's
real economics. If we change the supply, if we make more housing available
in Palo Alto, we will move the price for everyone, especially the kind of
housing that A.C. Johnston's talking about, reasonably priced housing, down. I think that's good. The second argument that people have been making is
that somehow by creating more density or creating ADUs or doing
something else, we're going to fundamentally change the character of Palo
Alto. In some sense, that's right, but I think we will be changing the
character of Palo Alto for the better, not for the worse. It's not traffic or the
lack of traffic. It's not parking or the lack of parking that is the fundamental
value of Palo Alto. To me it's the people who live here. When we make
housing more affordable, when we distribute additional housing throughout
the community such as ADUs would do, we are going to have better,
stronger communities. We're going to have better, stronger neighborhoods,
and we're going to have better, stronger families. I would encourage you to
go for more density throughout the City, particularly by ADUs. I would
encourage you to think that by doing so we will actually be improving the
character of life here in Palo Alto. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Jeff Levinsky to be followed by Leslye Crosiglia.
Jeff Levinsky: Good evening, Mayor Burt and Council Members. I actually
come from a multigenerational line of multiunit property owners. I'm not
going to speak as an individual; I'm going to speak as a developer and
operator of the very properties that you are thinking about tonight. There's
two factors here that I haven't heard mentioned at all. The first—this comes
from growing up in a family that deals with these issues—is that the old rule
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of location, location, location applies. Palo Alto is going to become a more
expensive community no matter what you decide tonight or at all. It's going
to become that because of outside forces that drive people to better
communities, and Palo Alto's going to remain where they go. The second is
that people have known for millennia how to make housing cheaper, and
that's to share it. That happens in communities all over the place, and it
happens in Palo Alto. It means that a four-bedroom house is going to be more affordable than a micro unit, because that four-bedroom house can be
shared by four or eight people. That's going to happen no matter what you
do. We're going to see more parking problems, because you're going to
have four or eight separate people living in that house. You're going to see
more traffic, and that's all going to happen independently. My concern is
that hasn't been accounted for in any of the studies and such, because
everybody is looking at today, and they're not looking at the forces that are
going to happen in Palo Alto over the next decades regardless of these
choices. I'd ask that you factor that in. I think when you do, you're going
to see that we're going to have different ways of solving these problems.
That may be to have to adjust parking upward and traffic needs upward to
accommodate what's going to be coming. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Leslye Corsiglia to be followed by Lydia Kou.
Leslye Corsiglia: Mayor and City Council, my name's Leslye Corsiglia. I'm
Executive Director of Silicon Valley At Home. We're the voice of affordable
housing in the Silicon Valley. We represent a lot of the leading employers in
this region as well as nonprofit and for-profit developers and a lot of citizens
of the county that are interested in affordable housing. On behalf of my
members, I really commend you for the conversation you're having around
housing and especially around affordable housing, because it really is a
housing crisis. Some of the folks who have talked before have talked about
this is just situation that we have and that there's nothing we can do about.
I really disagree with that. Last year alone in the county, we created 64,000
jobs and only 5,000 housing units. We continue to exacerbate the problem
that we have. The other thing I think is really important to recognize—
people will talk about transportation as being a problem. You build more
housing, you create transportation problems. It's really the opposite. Our
transportation problems are created because we do not have enough
housing near our jobs. We need to be worried about the fit of our jobs and
our housing. Without that, we have people who are driving. We have
100,000 people in this county that drive into the county every day, net,
because we don't have enough housing here. What we encourage the City
to do is to plan and build for more housing, especially for affordable housing.
We really support density whether it be smaller units, whether it be height.
We need to use our land better. We have very few land opportunities in this
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county because we are so built-out. We need to be more innovative. We
need to use our publicly owned lands better. To the extent that Palo Alto
has publicly owned lands, we encourage you to proactively set aside those
lands and also look to—lastly, we're very supportive of second units and any
innovative housing types like that that again use our land better. Thank
you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Lydia Kou to be followed by Rita Vrhel.
Lydia Kou: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Lydia
Kou. I'm here today as a resident, not a member of the Citizen Advisory
Committee for the Comp Plan. I think the greatest concern is the kind of
schizophrenic approval of development continuing now in the name of
providing housing. Residential growth has its own impacts, the need for
parks, community centers, community and recreation services and schools.
Building housing has impacts as well. If the current cumulative impacts are
not addressed, it will only further compound the issues. Let's face it,
without clearly and boldly expanding the office/R&D building cap to become
a Citywide cap with no exceptions and no unmonitored areas, data collected
is fudged. Then it becomes people's every day experience which become
better evidence of the inconveniences that they encounter day in and day out. There seems to be an inordinate focus on young, well-paid
professionals who spend most of their time at work and their need for
housing. Also many have mentioned the concern of the loss of
socioeconomic diversity with housing prices continuing to rise. They are the
community members, volunteers, the teachers, the service workers, the
mom and pop store owners, the faith-based community members, childcare
providers, seniors in our community and also those who have special needs.
These are people who enhance our community. I want to give you a little
rundown of what Mountain View has available in their newly built
apartments, Carmel Village at San Antonio Center. They have a total of 330
units; 19 apartments available right now. Their range for the rent is $3,015
for a 500 square foot studio, $5,000 for a 690 square foot one-bedroom, and
a two-bedroom of approximately 1,051 square feet for $8,850. The complex
is also now offering free rent for one-bedrooms until April 1. The reason I
bring this up is when Mountain View is building the way it is and you build
over here high density, what is going to happen when demographic changes,
when the older millennials start having babies and wanting the yards? Think
about that.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our speaker is Rita Vrhel to be followed by Peter
Stone.
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Rita Vrhel: Thank you. I don't envy you. I've been sitting here tonight
listening to everyone who has their special request. This is such a complex
problem. Good luck. I've here in Palo Alto since 1983. There's been so
many changes, especially in the last 10 years. I think that with the
increased development, we're all now looking at traffic. Certainly those
issues with traffic have not been resolved. The resolution is just getting
started. I would encourage you to take a measured approach to housing increases. You can always increase housing once it's built, once it's
approved, once it's planned. You can't take it down. I think with the 2,000
units that Stanford is putting up, that is going to free up some housing.
Also, it's probably going to create some traffic. I live in the Crescent Park
area. There are so many houses in Crescent Park and Community Center
that are not occupied. They're owned as an investment. The shutters are
drawn; the house is empty day after day as I walk my dogs. I'm wondering
if you do increase the housing stock, especially if its affordable, how are you
going to make sure that the person who buys that stock is actually going to
live in it rather than have it as an investment, which is not occupied. Also I
think that—it's awful to say—not everyone is going to be able to live in Palo
Alto. It used to be you moved to Redwood City. You can't afford to live in Redwood City now. I think that this topic deserves a lot more discussion, a
measured approach. Please don't ruin Palo Alto while you're trying to
accommodate everyone else. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Peter Stone to be followed by Vijay Varma.
Peter Stone: Good evening, Mayor Burt and members of the Council. I'm
Peter Stone speaking on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce to go on the
records that the Chamber is very supportive of the initiatives to increase
smart housing inventory in Palo Alto. We are very concerned about housing
more of our workers closer to their jobs. To the extent that we make
housing somewhat more affordable, we think there will be more
opportunities for people to live and work and perhaps not have to use their
cars to get between their housing and their jobs. We are appreciative of
many of the ideas that the Staff has brought forth in their report and that
are coming out of the CAC. Certainly transit-oriented housing, mixed use
development with ground floor retail to encourage walkable neighborhoods
and perhaps encouragement as well of smaller units that presumably will be
more affordable. Just want to conclude by saying we're very appreciative of
the Council's openness to the creative and innovative approaches that are
being supported from many quarters here tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Vijay Varma to be followed by Joe Hirsch.
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Vijay Varma: Good evening. Vijay Varma. Some of the things I was going
to say Lydia has already said. My comment is growth is not always good or
better. We got into this imbalance because we let other area of the
economy grow. We can't fix that or other area become worse, which is
housing. We have a limited number of green space per person who lives
here. We can't cut it down; that impacts the quality of life. If somebody
doesn't believe it, they can go see the third world countries, how they've grown. My own native city is the worst city in the world today to live. We
don't want that to happen here. We need to make sure there's enough
water, enough clean air for the residents who live here. We cannot
compromise on the health and the quality of life of the people living here.
That's the only comment I have at this point. Yes, we can go on building
more; we'll be living in pigeonholes. That's not the way of—the more you
encourage, more problem you're going to have. Just like we had on the
commercial side of the development. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Joe Hirsch to be followed by our final speaker,
Stefan Heck.
Joe Hirsch: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Many people have talked this evening
about very compelling needs which obviously need to be addressed. However, others have talked about the jobs/housing imbalance which was
around 2.7 when I was on the Planning Commission in the '80s, and is now
well over 3:1. This has been growing for many years, and now the City
proposes to mitigate that by belatedly building more housing, which no
matter what is said and done will make traffic and parking and quality of life
in Palo Alto worse, maybe much worse on top of the current situation which
we all know is extremely bad. Traffic jams, heavy traffic, gridlock on
freeways any time, day or night, is common. Council Member Wolbach and I
agreed last year that traffic on San Antonio Road at times is gridlock, and
that hasn't changed. Putting more housing or hotels down there will only
make it worse. Traffic and quality of life are the key to the residents of this
City. There are other factors, of course, but new housing, particularly high-
density housing, will not make the situation better. Most people have cars,
even those who walk or bike frequently. I happened to walk by the parking
spaces for the Council Members tonight, and they were all filled with cars.
The nature of the Bay Area is such, with its traffic layout, that cars are
needed by the vast majority of people. At the same time, yes, they're on
the freeways; yes, they're on the roads of Palo Alto. It takes a lot longer to
go everywhere. People are thinking about leaving the Bay Area. I had a
conversation yesterday with a woman from Menlo Park who was so fed up
with the situation and the lack of responsibility of the City Council there that
she's selling out and moving to Oregon. Affordability—one final point. The
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land that I’m aware of, Maybell site, sold for $9 million an acre. With those
land prices, how do you convert something into affordable housing?
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker, Stefan Heck. That concludes
our public comments. Let's return to the Council. Let me ask just any
members of the public who are here to speak on our final item, just raise
your hand if you are. One. Colleagues, I suspect that the public hearing on
the negative declaration will be relatively brief, but we're well behind schedule on this item. Ten to 10:00, let's just see how it goes. This is
probably going to be a substantive discussion. Yes.
James Keene, City Manager: Is your thinking we could get later in the
evening and the ability to actually make a decision on the next item on your
Agenda could—you've got a public hearing. You have to hold that. Whether
or not we actually have to work through the whole process and make a
decision tonight on that item could be something that might be carried
forward to another meeting after you've heard from the public.
Mayor Burt: That's a possibility if it takes any prolonged period of time. I
suspect it'll go quickly.
Council Member Wolbach: I was just going to point out that I think the last
member of the public who had signed up to speak might have just stepped out of the room but just walked back in, Mr. Heck.
Mayor Burt: Mr. Heck, if you would like to speak, you're our last speaker.
Council Member Wolbach: Also, if it would please the Chair, if any members
of the public arrived and had not had a chance to speak, I'd be willing to
hear them speak.
Mayor Burt: Thank you for your comments.
Stephan Heck: Thank you very for the opportunity to speak, especially since
I was a little bit late. As you know, I fully support the concept of moving
more of the housing nearer the transit locations that we already have along
Caltrain. I think the efforts to make that shift are really important. The
data clearly shows that having both work and home locations near transit
makes a big difference to the modal share, to how many people use transit
versus car trips. If we are going to keep growing as a region and we have a
massive jobs imbalance, as you've already heard, with a lot of jobs and not
enough housing, we need to add housing. The best place to put it is near
transit and take advantage of the system that we have, particularly in light
of the upgrades that are already being planned for capacity in that system.
That was really all I wanted to say. Thank you for your time.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you. Returning to the Council, we have kind of several
categories of discussion. One that I didn't layout earlier that Staff has in
their Recommendation A is the issue around replacement of housing
inventory sites on San Antonio Road and South El Camino Real with either
increased densities in the Downtown and the California area or other new
housing sites. We have essentially that issue. We have issues of our
feedback on some of the alternatives that Staff has laid out in the Staff Report. We're not limited to those. That's a pretty comprehensive set of
alternatives. Within those alternatives, we have the discussion of which of
them, if any, we would like to have Staff return with feasibility of pursuing
sooner than the Comprehensive Plan adoption. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Let me strike out on San Antonio Road. I don't
mean striking it out; I mean just going forward on it. I lived on Fern
Avenue, which is one block from San Antonio Road, for quite a length of
time. I don't recall a lack of services whatsoever. When we're talking about
San Antonio Road, I think we're also talking about the same road where the
Greenhouse is located. Am I correct? With how many people in the
Greenhouse? It must be 300, right? Somewhere in that. A whole string
runs along there. As you go around the corner, just beyond the gas station, it starts up once again with residences. You could walk to Cubberley or to
Piazza's market from there, I would guess, in seven or eight minutes. You
would have to obviously cross San Antonio Road. I cannot see that as being
so service-deprived that we would take a really good area for housing off our
map at this point. That's where I am on it. I'm speaking from the point of
somebody who lived there and still know a great number of people who live
there. I don't think they would see it as quite the wasteland that we've
described it as being. That's it.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: A procedural question first. Are you looking for
questions, questions and comments? Do you want us to address the first
four, like "A" through "D," to being with or how do you want to structure the
conversation?
Mayor Burt: First, it can be questions and comments. As far as the
structuring, we not only have the "A" through "D," we have really on Pages 7
and 8 of the Staff Report a more deep discussion of what are some of the
other alternatives. I think we're open to the whole range there, unless
Colleagues want to break up the discussion into pieces. We could begin with
just discussing the relocation of sites or we can do a round hearing general
input and then try to narrow the focus for potential Motions.
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Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. I have a few questions and a
number of comments. The questions—because Council Member Kniss just
went. I actually concur, I think especially with the more recent development
that's happened in Mountain View on and along San Antonio Road. I don't
think it is so disparate from services, and it is near Highway 101. I mean,
transportation is transportation. It's an easy jump on/jump off to Highway
101. I don't see a need really to replace those sites. Questions are around co-housing. I'm in favor of co-housing, but there's no indication of how we
would go about locating that in what zones. Would it be a different zone?
What's Staff's thinking on that?
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Holman. It is one of the issues
that we identified for exploration on that list that Mayor Burt referred to as
Item 3 on packet Page 771. It's also, I think, called out in one of the
programs in the Housing Element that was attached to the Staff Report.
Essentially, I think, it would take amendments to our Zoning Ordinance to
define that as an acceptable use and articulate where in the City's zoning
districts we would allow co-housing. Is it something we would allow in the
R-1 district or are we thinking that it would be permissible only in
multifamily districts? I think that's something we would want to get the Council, the Planning and Transportation Commission and the public's input
on as we developed an Ordinance.
Council Member Holman: Right now, it's out there as a topic, and Staff has
not fleshed anything out yet.
Ms. Gitelman: I think we're interested in hearing the Council's appetite and
interest in pursuing legislative changes to accomplish that as a goal.
Council Member Holman: We heard this evening about housing for
developmentally disabled. Also I know in Austin, when some of us visited
there a couple of years ago, in touring some affordable housing projects
there, Austin actually dedicates a percentage of their affordable housing
units to artists, because artists are sadly often lower income persons in the
community. Did Staff give any consideration to that? I didn't read anything
about that, either the developmentally disabled or artists.
Ms. Gitelman: Special needs populations like developmentally disabled are
addressed in our Housing Element. I could spend some time looking through
that and get back to you on policies and programs. With that in mind, we do
not currently have policies and programs related to artists. They're not part
of that definition of special needs population.
Council Member Holman: I would be in favor of exploring that. The
question that does come up, and it comes up frequently, is decoupling land
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use from transportation. How does Staff want to respond to that? It does
seem to be they are intrinsically related to each other.
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Holman. You're absolutely right.
They're intrinsically related, both Housing and Transportation and the Land
Use Element. It just is a kind of chicken and egg thing; you've got to get
started on one of them. Then you've got to go to the next one, and you've
got to make sure that they all work together at the end of the day. That's going to be one of the challenges that the Council will face as they start to
get the input from the CAC. As the CAC makes progress and the Council
makes progress on all of these Elements, they have to be internally
consistent and supportive of each other.
Council Member Holman: Impacts not going unaddressed with land use
recommendations for the Comp Plan. That's what you're saying, they need
to be integrated and considered (crosstalk).
Ms. Gitelman: Correct.
Council Member Holman: The Fry's site which is mentioned quite often. I
know we've talked about doing a specific plan for that. My person view on
that is that if we just develop the Fry's site or plan the Fry's site for housing
or housing and retail or housing and retail and services, they'd be required to put in some parkland, but we're missing all kinds of opportunities,
creative opportunities, there if we just do basic, typical zoning at that
location given the size of the property and the opportunities that exist there.
What are the mechanisms that are available to us to associate or tie rental
housing, especially, with job locations? Let's just say for instance—probably
the easiest one to address is probably Research Park. If there was housing
built in the Research Park, what mechanism does the City have to associate
those units to be linked to the jobs there?
Ms. Gitelman: Very good question. I think the answer is a little complicated
and would depend on the circumstances. In general, there's a way to
structure housing opportunities to give preferences for workers who work in
Palo Alto, for example. I think we would have to talk to the City Attorney's
Office and develop that idea more fully in the context of a specific proposal.
In general, preferences are acceptable.
Council Member Holman: To go along with that—we won't have the answer
to this—is let's just say someone works at Tesla and they get a unit that's
built in the Research Park, then if that employee moves to a job in San Jose,
then what? I won't expect an answer to that this evening, but is a question
on the list for me. There's a policy, H-29. I know this Staff Report, because
of the work of the CAC, is looking at programs. There is a policy, H-29, in
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the Comprehensive Plan currently. It talks about where there are three or
more units existing and if somebody wants to replace all of them, then
there's a restriction on doing that. When we first started this journey of
updating the Comprehensive Plan, there was a commitment by the then
Staff that that would be addressed in an updated Comprehensive Plan. I
know there are some things that are approaching that, but not really getting
there. For instance on packet Page 777, there's a program, H-1.1.3, that says provide incentives—I would say eliminate the words "to developers,"
because it's not just developers—such as reduced fees and flexible
development standards to encourage the preservation of existing cottages
and duplexes currently located in R-1 and R-2 neighborhoods or residential
areas. That talks about it, but doesn't really get us anywhere. I'll put that
out there too.
Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry. If you could articulate what it was that you
thought you wanted to achieve? I didn't quite follow that.
Council Member Holman: Policy H-29 in the current Comprehensive Plan
talks about if there are three or more units on a parcel and someone wants
to eliminate them, then the Comprehensive Plan at least—I don't remember
the exact wording. Basically you can't do it. You have to replace some of the units with other units. I don't see that being addressed as a
requirement anywhere in the Comp Plan. It was committed again, like I say,
by the then Staff. There's also something else that I think needs to be
addressed. I'll stop after this because I do have more, but I'll stop after this
or maybe one more. Addressing the loss of housing units. I talk about this
and have talked about it for a very long time. We don't really have much
discussion in here about minimum densities. Most especially, it's of a
concern to me when we are losing housing units. Let's just say for instance,
somebody buys a lot, and there's, even in R-1, a house and a cottage. I'm
not sure—at least to my recent knowledge, we don't even track the lost
residential units. If someone buys a parcel and there's a house and a
cottage on it, the cottage can be eliminated and just build a single-family
home. Same thing when somebody buys a parcel. Let's just say there are
eight apartments. Somebody can redevelop that with four much more
expensive, for-sale units. We're not doing anything to stop the erosion of
our housing stock. I think the last couple of things I'll mention right now
is—I would confirm. I think we really need to focus on affordable housing.
Affordable here is "oh, my goodness," if you could look at other areas in the
state even. I think we do need to focus on affordable housing. The look and
feel is actually very important. I refer again to the Colleagues Memo that
was signed onto by Vice Mayor, then Council Member Scharff, Council
Member Schmid and myself and then Council Member Gail Price, talking
about the design of buildings. I'll refer to something that I know Mayor Burt
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is well familiar with. The appearance of single-family houses in the SOFA
area that were actually RM-40, because they were large houses that had
been divided into four or five units, but they were well integrated into the
community. It's because of how they looked, and they were traditional. If
you look at Oak Court that was developed in SOFA 1, how well integrated
that is into the neighborhood. I think whatever we do it's really important
for the community and us as a sense of pride that whatever we build or whatever we design and our Comprehensive Plan as far as developmental
standards, that they be really compatible with existing community. I think
I'll stop there. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you. Thank you to all the members of the
public who came to speak tonight on all sides of the issue. I thought that
was really a good group of comments. Clearly this is an issue that people
care a lot about, and it's an issue that I care a lot about. We have a housing
crisis in Palo Alto. We have a housing crisis on the Peninsula. We have a
housing crisis in the Bay Area. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly
what the solution is. I support a lot of the proposals that Staff have kind of
offered up in the Staff Report. My hope is that a combination of things including building higher-density housing in and around our commercials
districts, supporting housing over additional commercial space in mixed use
developments, supporting micro units will lead to a situation where people
that live in larger, single-family homes and want to downsize to an area
that's walkable to services, which I hear a lot about from folks in the
community. My hope is that if we build that supply, then that will happen,
and that frees up single-family homes for families. It's this trickledown
effect and all these different moving pieces that might not necessarily lower
the cost of housing in Palo Alto, but might either slow or stop the growth of
the cost of housing in Palo Alto. Do I know that's going to work? No, I
don't. Do I know what won't work? Doing nothing. Doing nothing won't
work. If we really care about the cost of housing in Palo Alto and if we care
about the cost of housing in Silicon Valley, we need to be honest with
ourselves that the answer isn't do nothing because we don't know if doing
something will work. We have to try to do something. We have to do it in a
deliberate manner. We have to be strategic about it. We have to look to
best practices from other communities. I think that personally is my
philosophy and my kind of outlook on this problem. It's not to kind of
despair at the fact that we in Palo Alto can't solve the whole problem. We in
Palo Alto won't solve the whole problem, but we in Palo Alto have to try to
do our part to address what is a larger problem. I'm very intrigued by a lot
of the ideas that have been forward. I'm especially curious about the
affordable housing overlay zones in strategic areas. I hope that as a
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community we're not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I
think we kind of fall into that trap, where we identify all of the problems with
certain housing proposals, and we use those little problems to stop
something from happening. The folks that can't find housing won't mind
those problems. They just need housing. A member of the public alluded to
the site of Maybell and the cost of housing there and how much it sold for
and said with that cost, how can we possibly create affordable housing. We had a plan to create affordable housing there, but that didn't pass the
community's approval. I hope that as we move forward and try to identify
other sites for affordable housing, try to identify other sites for housing for
the disabled, try to find other sites for our teachers and our public safety
officers and the people who support us in the community, that we take a
little bit more kind of understanding of an approach to the fact that it might
not be within a quarter of a mile or a third of a mile or walkable distance to
certain things, but we're passed that in the Bay Area. We really need to
start to learn how to get to yes as opposed to always ending up at no.
Those are kind of some macro comments. The affordable housing overlay
zones, I think, are something that need to be discussed. My Colleagues'
comments are right that San Antonio Road is an area under transition. I don't necessarily think—I think it might be getting to the point that it can
accommodate housing. I'm more interested in identifying more sites that
accommodate housing, not eliminating others. I'm intrigued by the idea of
focusing more on FAR and less on units per acre and a lot of the other
proposals. I know this is going to be a long conversation; I won't talk for
the half an hour that I want to. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting to
yes by the end of the night.
Mayor Burt: The City Manager was just informing me that Staff is
comfortable with postponing the decision on—listed as Item Number 11, the
public hearing. We're obligated to open and close the public hearing. If it's
all right, what we'll do is ...
James Keene, City Manager: Or open and continue the Public Hearing.
That's what you would do, open and continue the Public Hearing.
Mayor Burt: That's fine. We can do that and thereby allow the balance of
this evening to be on this housing subject. If it's all right, we will pause this
item, continue to Agenda Item Number 11.
At this time Council heard Agenda Item Number 11.
11. PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of a Mitigated Negative Declaration and
Approval of a Site and Design Review Application for a new Two-Story,
7,500 Square Foot, 50-Foot Tall Building Designed to Handle Sludge
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De-watering and Truck Load-outs, With Adjacent Stand-by Generator,
and a new Outdoor Equipment Area Next to the Existing Incinerator, to
be Placed Centrally on the Regional Water Quality Control Plant Site at
2501 Embarcadero Way.
Mayor Burt: It's a public hearing, the adoption of a mitigated negative
declaration and approval of a site and design review application for a new
two-story, 7,500 square foot, 50-foot tall building designed to handle sludge, dewatering and truck load-outs with adjacent standby generator and a new
outdoor equipment area next to the existing incinerator to be placed
centrally on the Regional Water Quality Control plant site at 2501
Embarcadero Way.
Public Hearing opened at 10:17 P.M.
Mayor Burt: We have one speaker. Mr. Borock is allowed speak when we
rescheduling this hearing. I will close the public hearing. He said it's fine,
Jim.
James Keene, City Manager: (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: We're going to continue this item. Closing the Public Hearing,
and we will continue the item to a date to be determined. Is that correct?
Molly Stump, City Attorney: Sorry for the confusion. We had originally set up that procedure to allow the public comment to occur tonight. It sounds
like it's going to occur another night. You actually don't need to open the
public hearing, and you certainly shouldn't close it.
Mayor Burt: We've done it already.
Ms. Stump: You can open it, but don't close it. You need to hear the public
comment when the item gets continued.
Mayor Burt: We would open; is that ...
Ms. Stump: Yes, please, and leave it open and continue it to—I think we
need a date.
Mayor Burt: The public hearing will remain open and continued to a date to
be determined.
Mr. Keene: We will confirm that tomorrow. I would expect we can continue
it to your next meeting on the 28th, but I'll confer with the Mayor on that.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
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Staff requested Agenda Item Number 11 be continued to March 28, 2016.
At this time Council returned to Agenda Item Number 12.
12. Comprehensive Plan Update: Housing Sites and Programs.
Mayor Burt: We'll now return to our discussion on housing. Next is Vice
Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you.
Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor, may I just interrupt.
Mayor Burt: Yes. Sorry.
Mr. Keene: I apologize. Excuse me, Mr. Vice Mayor. The Clerk's Office
informs that actually just as a public hearing if we're going to pick a date,
we need to do that tonight while the meeting is going on. I would
recommend that we do carry this forward to the meeting on the 28th, next
week.
Mayor Burt: All right. Then this item is continued to March 28th.
Mr. Keene: Thank you. Item Number 11.
Mayor Burt: Item 11. Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you. First of all, I guess I'll comment on the San
Antonio Road sites. Whereas, they're not bad sites for housing. The issue is
that they will actually create quite a bit of traffic and will have impacts on the community. Whereas, if you move those housing sites to Downtown, for
instance, I think you could eliminate those impacts to the community,
because they'd be much closer to transit, and you wouldn't have to have a
car. I think you have to have a car if you live on San Antonio Road. I think
we should move those housing sites to Downtown or possibly California
Avenue. I think what we need to do, though, is I'm willing to move forward
on some of these items before we finish the Comprehensive Plan. I think if
we do so, we should do so in a very moderate and pilot-type project. I
really want to see what the fifth scenario looks like. I want to see how we
can reduce impacts to the community, because that's what all the speakers
are concerned about. What I don't want to do is to go approve a lot of
housing, and let's watch all the traffic. All the things we talk about in the
community, about reducing traffic and making Palo Alto a more livable place,
we don't want to undermine all of that. We want to do this in a smart way
that doesn't do that. I think part of that would be moving those housing
sites from San Antonio Road and maybe building micro units Downtown.
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You could look at how we could decouple parking from that. We could have
it so they couldn't get a parking permit if you had a unit there. I think micro
units, for instance, should be rental housing, should not be for sale for a
whole host of reasons I don't think we need to go into necessarily. People
will move out of them; you don't want people that's going to be raising
families in micro units. I think we want to think carefully through those kind
of things and look at that. I do want to move forward on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). I know Staff's working on it. I'm hoping we're continuing to
work on it, given that we had a Colleagues Memo and a vote on that to
move forward. Of these priorities on Packet Page 7, the one I think is funny
enough is one with the least priorities is probably the land assembly
incentives, but yet that's what we agreed to do in the Comprehensive Plan,
so I think we have to do it. From my point of view, I would not be
supportive of reduced parking unless it is in areas in which you are going to
not need that parking. I don't want people to be parking in neighborhoods
and exacerbate the parking issues we had. I would not be supportive of
reducing retail requirements. Height or density are all location specific for
me. I wouldn't want to have a blanket rule that says we could do greater
height on these or greater density. I might at some point be okay with affordable housing overlay zones, but in general I have strong concern
that—we have the rules for a reason. If the rules that we're going to change
are going to make things worse in those particular projects for the people
that either live there or for the community as a whole, I wouldn't support
that. I think that we want to basically build as much housing as we can
without having impacts to the community. Therefore, I think we want to
think carefully about why we have the rules and what we're doing with
them. I also want us to look at eliminating or the reasons why we have
special setbacks throughout the City. I understand from a lot of people that
special setbacks are a cause to make it difficult to actually building on sites
and things like that. I want to look at that. I am supportive of Downtown in
lots of times of possibly moving towards looking at your Floor Area Ratio
(FARs) and envelope and not having a number of unit count and letting
people decide how they want to do that. I would be supportive in places like
Downtown, but probably not other places, of having different height limits
for that if you built within the FAR zone. I actually think you get some very
attractive buildings I've seen Downtown which are much higher than 50 feet.
I'm not thinking a lot; I'm thinking like a 65-foot height limit. They're within
the FAR, so you can do more with that. You have more of a form-based
zoning that creates much more attractive buildings as opposed to building
these boxy things that are completely designated by your building envelope.
I think that gets to Mayor Holman's point about attractive design. Again, in
terms of unbundling parking, I'm only willing to unbundle the parking if
we're not going to have impacts on the neighborhoods and the people
actually aren't going to have cars. I think that's very location specific. Co-
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housing, whereas, I'm probably supportive of co-housing in places that are
like California Avenue, in a multifamily setting. I don't think I'm really
supportive in single-family neighborhoods of co-housing. I might be, but I
also don't view this as a priority item. I think we have so many items and
Planning is so overwhelmed, that I don't quite see spending a lot of time on
co-housing. I might be convinced otherwise if people thought it was a
strong reason to go forward. Our first paragraph. Let's see. On the Fry's site, again, my recollection is that the developer came forward and said they
had a new lease with Fry's, and we had some time on this. I don't think
Fry's is where we should be spending our time right now. We made that
decision earlier. I do think we have to decide and we should do a—what do
we call them? Not a plan. A coordinated area plan for Fry's and move
forward on that, but the question is when and what is the timing. I believe
my recollection is that we have time, and we made that decision at some
Council meeting, and we put off that given the workload that we have. On
affordable housing, I think we have to also think about—we mix up a lot of
concepts when we talk about affordable housing. We talk about teachers.
We talk about firefighters. We talk about people that work for the City. As
far as I can tell, none of those people qualify for affordable housing. What we have to figure out is how we can do subsidized housing that works for
what I would consider the "new middle class" which would be our
firefighters, our teachers, those groups, so that they can stay in Palo Alto.
At the moment, if we build affordable housing, especially with the numbers
we look at, I don't think any of those people qualify. I'd be interested if we
had metrics and figuring out by Staff how we can make those qualify. That
may be changes in what we can collect our affordable housing fees for and
how we can use our affordable housing dollars, so that we can subsidize not
traditional low-income housing, but more moderate income housing for
people who actually make more than 120 percent of the median income.
That's what those people do. Those are my initial thoughts on this. I think
this is really complicated. I actually think this is almost too complicated for
the time we have allotted tonight.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: The first thing I want to say is thanks to every
member of the public who showed up tonight to speak or who emailed or
called us or met with us outside of tonight's meeting. I think that the range
of views that we've seen expressed tonight really demonstrate that there's
not really consensus yet in Palo Alto. There's probably not a consensus on
Council yet about what exact policies we want to pursue. There are two key
themes that I'm really hearing. One is a recognition that our supply does
not meet our demand for a diverse range of groups. People have different
thoughts about whether we should try to address those various supply
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problems or how to do that. The other big theme I see is that whatever we
do, however we add housing for whichever groups, we have to be really
thoughtful about what the impacts are on our R-1 neighborhoods and on
quality of life throughout the City. My big picture thoughts on this is that
when we're talking about housing programs, which we're talking about
housing programs (inaudible) tonight. When we're talking about housing,
we really ought to think of it as a three-legged stool. Leg 1 of that is the total supply. Leg 2 of that is having as many BMR units as possible. Leg 3
is preservation. This is in part for Council Member Holman, but something
I've thought for a long time. We really need to talk about preservation both
of the supply that you have and also preserving opportunities for people who
are here now to remain here. Just anecdote that I heard recently. I met
somebody who had just left Palo Alto. He'd lived here for many years with
his wife and their kids. They got divorced. As two separate incomes, they
were able to together afford to live Palo Alto. They're no longer able to.
Now there's the question of where are the kids going to go, what's going to
happen to the family. I think that's just one more example of the kinds of
people who are hurt by the crisis that we have. Of course, in the context of
this, I think we should keep a real laser-like focus on the potential negative and the potential positive impacts of housing with traffic and parking really
at the top of the list, but also including parks, utilities, schools, City finances
as well as the aesthetics of design and making sure that the process really
includes the community, which is why I think that coordinated area plans,
especially for the Fry's site but potentially for San Antonio Road, potentially
for South El Camino Real or other sites, is a smart way to include the
community at a high level and at a deep level in planning. Just a couple of
things though. I want to go back to this total supply issue. From 1970 to
2010, Palo Alto's population grew by about 15 percent. If I'm wrong on
these numbers, feel free to correct me. My understanding is Palo Alto's
population grew by about 15 percent from 1970 to 2010. Santa Clara
County's population grew by 62 percent during that same timeframe. I'd
like to address this anti-housing fallacy that market rate housing does
nothing to address housing cost in the region. The California Legislative
Analyst's Office and academic research increasingly confirm what logic tell
us. If there isn't enough market rate housing, then people who could afford
higher-end market rate units move instead into what would have been
lower-end market rate housing. Because they can afford to pay more, the
lower end of the market becomes more expensive. This means the people
who can afford only the mid to low-ranges of the market are squeezed into
overcrowding housing or out of our City or out of the region entirely.
Obviously this isn't a Palo Alto problem. This is a regional problem. It's a
classic collective action problem. If ever city says we want jobs, but we
don't want homes for years, we end up with the housing crisis. That's where
we are. Palo Alto can, however, do our part to not—even if we can't make
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Palo Alto any cheaper, we can at least do our part to keep the region from
becoming more expensive. Yes, we do need to provide some market rate
housing, and we also need more Below Market Rate (BMR) housing, lots of
BMR housing, really as much as we can get. Recognizing of course that the
economics of BMR housing is extremely challenging as are the politics as we
know all too well. We also, I think, need to explore—back to that third leg of
the stool—policies that reduce the chances of displacement for current, existing renters especially. The political reality is that Palo Alto's really
unlikely to approve more housing than our Regional Housing Needs
Assessment (RHNA) obligations. I accept that; I understand that. At least
we can make sure that we actually produce more of that, rather than zoning
for it, planning for it, and building any of it. I do think that we should move
towards Scenario 4's housing production as a real target, the housing, not
the jobs side. I think we should set that Scenario 4 housing as a target that
we'll really try and meet. Housing growth beyond that. If we do consider
anything beyond that, it should be conditional based on meeting certain
impact targets like infrastructure, traffic and parking. There was something
mentioned—I think it was by Arthur Keller earlier—that we should provide
the appropriate amount of parking for a site. I think that's really important. What's appropriate might change depending on what kind of housing we're
providing. When we talking about micro units or higher-density units within
the same FAR and height limits that we already have, but maybe removing
or raising the maximum densities of units. Maybe even also adding
minimum densities with the goal of it being car-lite or car free. There are a
couple of things that I think we're going to need to eventually give City
Attorney Staff direction to go explore or Planning Staff. Those are, one,
could we have buildings in which residents are not eligible for Residential
Parking Permit (RPP) permits. If you build, say, a micro apartment building
in a Downtown area with very little parking, could you have it as a condition
of approval that nobody who leases an apartment in that building is going to
be eligible when they come to the City or go on our website and ask for an
RPP permit. Second, this would be the next step beyond that and potentially
more complex to enforce, but I'd like to at least know if it's an option. Could
we have buildings in which residents are required to sign a lease agreement
committing to not own a car at all? If they do register a car with the
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), they're in violation of their lease
agreement. Not sure we want to go down that path, but that's the kind of
thing where I want to at least know what are our options. When people say
micro units without parking sounds like a nice unicorn idea, I want us to be
able to say we're actually going to enforce the lack of cars and the lack of
parking. Getting onto some more specifics. I think we should think about
whether we want another Channing House or something like that. Whether
we want another Opportunity Center or something like that. Whether we
want housing for the developmentally disabled and extremely low income
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especially near transit services. We heard a number of speakers about that
tonight. I'm generally supportive of all of these. When it comes to co-
housing, in Mountain View they have a co-housing site that was built not
long ago. I believe it's for seniors, but I'm not positive. When it comes to
special setbacks, I think this is something we should look into. I've heard
we have places where the site is zoned for a certain number of units, but
because of special setbacks that might take away half of the property it's almost impossible to build the number of units that we've already zoned for.
That doesn't mean I want to get rid of them throughout the City, but I want
to at least have some discussion about that at some point. As I mentioned
before, when it comes to micro units, that's something where I think maybe
we want to look at doing an overlay for Downtown. I'm not sure we're ready
to do that at the Citywide level or in other areas, but I think Downtown is
the right place to start. We already have RPP set up. Maybe an overlay for
Downtown for multifamily housing without a maximum density limit, but
instead with minimum density limits, retaining FAR and height limits and no
eligibility for RPP permits, as I referred to earlier. I'm open to considering
increasing residential FAR, at least in certain places. I'm not going to
advocate for increasing the height limits. When we have apartments that are decoupled from parking, we really ought to talk about residential
Transportation Demand Management (TDM). The kind of stuff that we're
doing in TDM for commercial spaces, we need to start doing for residential
as well. That's whether it's micro units or not. That means Zipcars onsite,
bike share onsite, Caltrain, Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) passes.
That would even be for pretty much any new apartments. As far as location
rearrangement, for me it's too soon to say. I'm not ready to say at this
point that we should move housing away from San Antonio Road. I think
that San Antonio Road—there's a lot going on there. There is a Caltrain
station there. Like Cal. Ave., it's not well served currently. I'm not sure yet
what the future of San Antonio Road and the area around San Antonio Road
looks like. This might be another area for a coordinated area plan. I agree
we should be working closely with Mountain View. Between what's
happening at San Antonio Road and El Camino Real in Mountain View and
what's happening at North Bayshore and how congested San Antonio Road
is, I think we should start really looking at San Antonio Road and maybe
partnering with Mountain View and seeing if we can make that a place that's
really well served by shuttles, even if it means we're joining forces with
other cities or businesses in the area. The congestion is San Antonio Road is
really awful. Until we have some shuttles running frequently, regularly and
long hours on San Antonio Road, I can't advocate for more housing there.
Bob Moss mentioned for BMR ADUs that maybe we should allow extra FAR.
I'm not sure if I'd advocate for that. I'm interested in that idea. I would
think we should also at least look into that concept of maybe offering a low
interest loan, perhaps using our affordable housing funds as a source, low
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interest loans for an individual who says, "I qualify for whatever the rules
are, current or future. I qualify for the rules for a BMR unit, but I'm on a
fixed income and I can't afford the construction cost." The ADU, whether it's
a freestanding structure or just remodeling inside my existing home, so it
blends in, but I can't afford it. If the City said, "We'd be willing to make
available or help you find a low interest loan if you commit to listing your
ADU as a BMR unit for X number of years," I think that would be really great. These are complex discussions. Going back to the idea of
preservation. I don't think we can get into it a lot tonight. I want to make
sure it's mentioned. One is the question of right of return. If a small,
multifamily housing complex is replaced with a larger, higher density,
multifamily housing complex, is there a way we can make sure the people
who are there now don't get displaced permanently, but could come back
after the remodel is done. Two, a voluntary program to encourage landlords
not to increase their rents rapidly. Just as one example, Redwood City has a
program that, I understand, works like the City says to a landlord, "If you
agree for X number of years to moderate your rental increases, we'll help
you pay for your fire sprinkler upgrades," which is actually a pretty big debt.
Third, I think we do need to talk about ghost houses at some point. Fourth, a year ago we asked City Staff to come back in a year—we're coming up on
that—about short-term rentals. I think we need to look to what other cities
have done to have better regulation, clearer rules about short-term rentals.
I've become very concerned about what short-term rentals, Airbnb, etc.,
what that means for the loss of housing stock, whether it's somebody's ADU
or their whole house they're renting out or even whole apartment buildings.
They get taken off of the market to be regular rental housing, market rate
housing, and they get turned into hotel rates which are far beyond what
almost anybody can pay on a monthly basis. Those are my thoughts for
now.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much. I'm going to try also not to
take up all the time that Marc Berman said he wasn't going to take up. I
want to make a few very sort of more high-level comments on how I think
we should look at that and reserve the right, if there's time remaining, and
come back and talk in detail. First, I want to note that we just approved a
supply increase in town of several hundred or as many as 1,800 units of
market rate housing, depending on how many of those are in the City as
those folks migrate into the Stanford housing development that's going to
come online in a few years. We've had a pretty big increase tonight in City
housing without actually even building anything. The main challenge here
and the reason we've all been in here and are still here late at night is this is
not an easy problem. The reality is we can't possibly house everybody who
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would like to move to Palo Alto. The concern is we could do a lot of damage
trying if we're not very careful about how we go about it. That's what we're
all talking about here. I think the real questions about housing are how
much should we build and who should it be targeted for. If you answer
those things, you sort of get cues of where to build it and what kind and so
forth. Given that we probably can't help everybody right away at least, who
should we help first? I'm going to weigh in on—I think the Vice Mayor said this very eloquently. I really think you've got to look at the affordability
issue, but it's kind of an expanded definition of affordability. The classical
affordable housing was sort of low-income people. I think in this town it's
expanded to cover a lot of middle income people who are kind of stuck in the
middle. They make too much to qualify for BMR housing, but not enough to
actually live in town on a sustainable basis. A couple of people in the
audience brought up how do you define affordability. I think anybody who
can't afford to pay market rate in town basically falls into the affordability
bucket. That includes people like teachers, City Staff, other Palo Alto
employees, white collar folks, accounts payable people, Human Resources
(HR) staffers and so forth. These are people that are middle class but can't
afford to live in Palo Alto. The reason it's relevant is because there are people who can afford to live here. There's actually supply in town for those
kinds of people; it's expensive. You're talking basically about people who
own their own home already, maybe for a long time and it's a huge asset,
maybe their seniors who own their home, or they earn enough to pay
market rate. If you work for a tech firm or you're an associate attorney or
something like that and you make $120,000, $150,000 a year, yes, you can
afford $2,000 or $3,000 a month for housing. I mean, you grimace while
you write the check, but you can afford it. The housing crisis was mentioned
before. I think it's probably more accurate to call it a housing affordability
crisis. If you can afford housing, if you can afford to pay market rate in Palo
Alto—that's not saying it's all roses for the market rate people, but there's
options out there. I think that needs to be the major focus here, on
affordability, and it's the expanded definition of affordability. The second
thing I want to talk about briefly is sort of this idea—Winter Dellenbach was
pretty eloquent about it—of you can't build your way out of affordability. I
think that's exactly right. I know there's been some discussion but, for
example, I've been watching Craig's List for a few months now about rentals
in Craig's List. In Palo Alto, typically they're somewhere between 250
rentals advertised on Craig's List at any given time. A quarter of them are
under $2,500 a month, but not much. This is from a couple of weeks ago.
Here we go. This is the cheapest you can find in Palo Alto: 415 square feet,
$2,100 a month; 360 square feet, $1,900 a month. I didn't see anything
less than that. I mean, that's a micro unit. When we talk about micro units,
I think there may be good reasons for building micro units, but there's not a
lot of evidence they're going to be dramatically less expensive than existing
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units, particularly to the point where middle income folks, teachers, other
School District staff, City Staff and so forth, are going to be able to afford
them. I'll give you another example. The lady next door to me rents out a
studio over a garage; it comes with the garage. Tiny place. It's over $3,000
a month. The guy that lives there, a nice kid from Texas, works for Google.
That's almost a micro unit there. I think there may be good reasons for
micro units, but it's certainly not proven that affordability is going to be one. I think right behind that is sort of this idea that if we have micro units, then
we're going to have RM-80 zoning as well. I think that's a separate issue we
need to think about as well. The second thing I want to talk about in terms
of affordability is one thing that doesn't get mentioned too much is that a
major component of the cost of housing in Palo Alto is actually the brand
image of the Palo Alto School District (PAUSD). A couple of years ago, Anne
Duncan who used to be the District analyst estimated that on average being
inside Palo Alto School District boundaries added $500,000 to the price of a
home in Palo Alto. That seems like a lot of money. Yet, if you look at price
per square foot in Palo Alto versus neighboring cities, Menlo Park is 25
percent less per square foot than we are. Mountain View and Redwood City
are less than that. A bunch of that can be attributed to the School District. My point is that just building a lot more market rate housing isn't going to
reduce that. You're still going to have that unless you build so much that
you trash the school system, which obviously we're not going to do. Again,
I'm not saying it's all roses for the market rate people, but I think our focus
as Council, particularly given that we just approved a big increase in market
rate housing availability, (inaudible) on Weekly said was the laser focus on
the affordability problem (inaudible). I realize that's a really, really hard
problem. Who's going to pay for it is inevitably. If we want to be in the long
term a moderate-density, family town with great schools and great services,
then we want these kind of people here, and they can't afford to live here
now. I actually think this is the formative housing problem here in town. I
hope as we go through these things and the Comp Plan and so forth, that's
the filter we ought to look at that. Is this going to help us achieve that end?
Again, I think the market rate folks—it's not perfect, but they've got options.
I think this is where the focus needs to be as we consider accessory dwelling
units and micro units and so forth. The question we've got to ask is, is this
going to help us keep people in town who can't afford to live here right now.
Thanks very much.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: Just a couple of general comments. We heard a
lot today about affordable housing, a balanced, diverse community. I think
that the heard of a lot of the residential concerns is traffic. Community
survey certainly says that. Our 3:1 ratio that we are a major commute
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center, which makes affordability for housing extremely difficult. Stanford
gave us the hints of a solution. They said dense, infill housing near transit
and jobs cuts traffic. They didn't add especially when the number of
graduate student places remains the same. That's an important lesson. We
can make a difference if we balance jobs and growth and put the jobs where
they make the most sense, near jobs, near services, near transit, near
entertainment where you have options, walkable options, and full of life. That's in places where you have blocks, where you can walk in different
directions, not in strings where you walk along a single path. All the maps
from the Housing Element go back to the issue that the housing committee
ended up with. We have now our housing sites dispersed. There's one-third
in the Downtown area, one-third in the Cal. Ave. area, one-third strung out
along South El Camino Real and San Antonio Road. If you look carefully,
there's a very strange thing in there. The two places that are most
walkable, the Downtown center and the Cal. Ave. center, only account for
about 20 percent of those housing sites. The places that make the most
sense are where there are the fewest number of these houses. I would be
very much in favor of targeting housing growth in the Downtown area, in the
Cal. Ave. area and in the Stanford Research Park where the jobs are and they're trying to create a balanced community. Bottom line for me, I guess,
is moderate growth with a balance of jobs and housing, I think, would give
us like Stanford has given us a lesson tonight a way to begin to change the
3:1 ratio and the issues and problems that we seem to have created.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: If anybody's still awake, I have three ideas I'd like
to try to get across, maybe broaden the discussion a little bit. (inaudible)
recovering houses in our neighborhoods. The new mixed use definition, this
residential and retail (R&R) zone in Downtown and Cal. Ave. Three is really,
I think, building on Council Member Filseth's idea of targeting housing for
specific users. We really haven't talked much about recovering housing. I
think we could probably most quickly, simply by enforcing some of our
residential ordinances, actually get back a lot of existing housing. Again, we
just recovered potentially housing tonight by approving the Stanford project.
I am very concerned about short-term rentals, Airbnb. I've been tracking it
for the last year. We have a huge number, as much as San Jose, probably
over 600. I think many of those, you can tell they're clearly speculators. A
hundred percent of the house is rented out on a daily basis. They advertise
as they're in nice, quiet neighborhoods. They're very expensive. The
quickest way to actually add housing would be to eliminate speculation in
our neighborhoods, short-term rentals, and turn that into long-term rentals.
I also think we need to enforce prohibiting businesses running out of
neighborhood houses. I think we've probably all heard stories. I mean, I've
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had people come up and say, "There's ten cars every day at this house."
Again, if we just enforce that and rent it as a house, we're recovering
housing stock. We talk a little bit about ghost homes. I think Vancouver is
trying something really interesting. They have a tax. If you buy a house
and it's not occupied—it doesn't have to be owner occupied, but it needs to
be occupied. They're projecting raising about $90 million, and they're going
to return that money to homeowners and to renters. That's a very interesting idea, and I'd like to see us evaluate kind of creative ideas like
that. That's recovering housing. On the R&R zone, we actually have a
surprising amount of middle housing in Palo Alto. I think Karen mentioned
these kind of well-integrated, multiunit housing in transitions. I think where
we need to focus is, again, in Downtown, Cal. Ave. I think we should really
try retail residential. I think it limits office in our most densely impacted
areas, and it's a good place to try micro units. I do support moving the
housing away from San Antonio Road and shifting those micro units.
Nobody's really talked about protecting affordable business. That part of
San Antonio Road that we're talking about is probably the last kind of
affordable semi-industrial business district. To me, that's kind of more
interesting than almost any other reason to try to protect it. This last one, targeting kind of the middle income housing. I think we should seriously
look at an active program for teachers and City Staff. Teachers should
include preschool teachers. By working jointly with PAUSD, I've heard from
School Board Members that they're actually very interested in exploring this.
They're looking at working across multiple school districts to create teacher
housing. As we know, the School District owns a lot of sites they're not
using as schools right now. If the School District contributed the land and
the City contributed building, I think it could be really interesting. I think we
could actually get it done, and we could have some housing. It could be
land that the School District continues to control, if they ever need it back
for a school. I think they have more sites than they need to use. Also in
this kind of, low income, affordable and middle income, I think we need to
stay focused on Buena Vista, anything we can do to resolve the lawsuit
there. I think the idea about preserving housing is really important, not
letting it be torn down. I think the program that Karen was citing was pretty
interesting. I would be supportive of some kind of program for disabled
housing in the Comp Plan. I'm less bullish on ADU changes. I think we
could do some minor tweaks. We get relatively few number of new housing
units that way. If we did major tweaks, I don't think it'd be supported by
the majority of people in Palo Alto. I'm a little concerned that we're
spending a lot of time on ADUs for potentially a small return. Those are my
main three points. Let's recover the housing we already have and make
sure it's being used as housing. I'd like to try this R&R zone. I'd like to see
if we could really create some teacher or Staff housing. In terms of timing, I
think we could recover some of that housing right away; we don't need to
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wait for the Comp Plan. I see the R&R zone and the teacher housing as
more Comp Plan-types of ideas. I'd like to see the Citizens Advisory
Committee (CAC) really pick up on this issue of recovering housing and
maybe discuss it and see what they think about this idea of short-term
rentals, businesses in neighborhoods and empty houses. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: I think we've had a lot of good thoughts tonight. I'm going to
add a few of my thoughts. We haven't really zeroed in on whether we want any of these initiatives to precede the completion of the Comp Plan.
Colleagues really haven't spoken specifically to that. We're going to need to
think about what our process might be going forward. Let me just offer a
few of my comments. On accessory dwelling units, we've had them in my
neighborhood, got them all over the place, principally in alleyways. They
really are well integrated in the fabric of the neighborhood. I am sensitive to
this newer problem which is how we contend with those becoming short-
term rentals if we expand that. I think the two things are going to have to
be dealt with hand in hand. On micro units, my wife and I—actually the first
place we rented in Palo Alto was in College Terrace. We didn't think it was a
micro unit. It was half of a small duplex, but it was about 400 square feet,
and we lived there almost four years. We had parties in the park; we didn't have them in the home. Other than that, it's not unbearable especially for
young couples or singles. Whether they're in Downtown areas or elsewhere,
I don't think this is really a bizarre concept. In the Downtown area, I think
the one thing if we want to see them built, we'll need to look at the parking
requirements, because that drives so much of the housing. It's one of the
benefits of having implemented the Residential Permit Parking. Up until
then, whether we might have been able to prove or be convincing that in
theory the parking could be reduced for certain types of units at certain
locations, if they were under-parked, they could just get spilled over into the
neighborhoods, we'd still have a big problem. I think that we should prohibit
residential permit sales for all development in the Downtown areas. That's
both commercial and residential; they're just ineligible. I think that would
be one of the best things to do. Right at the outset, it's an easy call. I don't
think there's any legal constraints on that. Maybe the City Attorney can loop
back to us later on that. I think that's easy to do. Then we get into a
serious discussion about what is appropriate parking. A lot of folks actually
don't realize that we have some of these examples already existing in our
Downtown area. The one that comes to my mind is Alma Place, which is a
single-room occupancy. It was built now 18 years or so ago. It's also
essentially a co-housing unit. They have minimal—a microwave or whatever
in the rooms. The rest is shared. I went in their garage and hadn't checked
it out in a while. I recalled it was under-parked. Hillary, I don't know if you
know how many units are at Alma Place.
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Ms. Gitelman: Yes, Mayor Burt. In Alma Place, there are 107 affordable
single-room occupancy or studio apartments. The average unit size is 238
square feet. There are 71 parking spaces, 13 people are currently on the
waiting list to get a parking space. They share with the staff who work there
during the day.
Mayor Burt: When I went in their underground garage on Sunday, there
were available parking spaces but no available bike racks. The bike racks were overflowed. It's kind of goofy to me that we continue to—we saw in
our survey Downtown how many people would avoid driving Downtown if
they had more, better bike storage. Talk about low hanging fruit. I think
that that concept is one that we should be proceeding on. I think that
couple with that would be we establish what is an appropriate floor area
ratio that we want to allow. That has to consider the impact of housing
density bonuses, so that we don't think we've put one standard in. Then
with the density bonuses, it's 30 percent more than what we intended. We
have to anticipate that most housing developers are going to take advantage
of the housing density bonuses. The way we drive those small units is to
have a certain FAR, and developers are almost invariably going to go up to
the max FAR and put a minimum number of units. Right now, we tend to constrain the number of units. We put a minimum level of units, and you
can kind of establish a range of small unit sizes by a min and perhaps a max
under a given floor area ratio. Making them own the consequences of the
parking, no spillover, we can have units that have less parking. They'll be a
lot more likely to get built. They won't have impacts on the schools.
Despite what some people have claimed, you're just not going to have
families in units of a few hundred square feet. I think that's something that
we should look at doing sooner. I agree with Vice Mayor Scharff that while
we embrace pursuing some of these options, these are new innovations. We
want to go at it in a moderately measured way and see results. We could
take certain that we say we'll have initial implementation of these practices
in. Something that allows us to look at doing some of these innovative
measure and establish, not only to ourselves but to the community, that it
doesn't have unintended consequences. The co-housing, I don't know why
we're even talking about this in R-1. That's not where co-housing is going to
happen. I think it's a moot point. As far as in multifamily areas, I don't see
what the big issue is. I don't know why we would care about regulating
lifestyles or how people share kitchens or don't share kitchens. If it's more
efficient, that's fine. If somebody wants to build it and people want to live in
it, I don't have sweat either way on that. Then we have these important
issues of reducing commercial density and increasing residential. I think this
goes back to some of the things that we've talked about. Not only has the
RPP helped enable more housing to be built, but the office cap has as well.
As long as there is a more attractive alternative, we could incentivize
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housing, and it still won't get built as long as there's a better return on
investment. We've already done a great deal to curtail that. That should be
viewed as part of the success of what we've done with the office cap and
other measures where we've eliminated the exemptions on parking
Downtown and curtailed Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) for
commercial. I think all those things have teed it up for being able to
actually implement some of these new housing approaches and see them actually getting built. I do think unbundling parking is another component of
these small units. People should rent the unit; if they have a car, they rent
a parking spot. Finally, this affordable housing overlay, I do have a
questions. It doesn't necessarily have to be answered now. This paragraph
talks about strictly carrots rather than sticks. I'm not sure why we couldn't
create some form of an overlay that has certain requirements, not just
carrots. I'm not sure that we'd want to have an overlay that is exclusively
affordable. I don't want to see ghettos of certain housing types. As Council
Member Holman talked about, in the SOFA areas we really deliberately
looked at integrating affordable housing in neighborhoods and embracing it,
but not putting big islands in town that are all affordable. If we had an
overlay that required a certain percentage to be affordable under whatever development standards we have, I think we could increase the proportion of
affordable housing and get it in a right mixture. I think that's an interesting
approach. I see Vice Mayor Scharff has his light—I suspect you're going to
try and put something forward here. We're now after 11:00 p.m. I'm not
sure how easily we're going to be able to move forward if we want to have
actual direction rather than guidance. I'm open to hearing what Vice Mayor
Scharff has in mind. Unless we are able to pull this together, we're going to
have to figure how we will move from what I think has been a really good
discussion to actually the guidance on what we want to do on the housing
sites, what we want to support in Comp Plan housing policies and programs
and what we might want to do before the Comp Plan is complete. Those are
the three open issues in my mind. I do think that there's moderate amount
of consensus on the various directions that would be constructive. I think
more than maybe a lot of us thought we would have six months or a year
ago. I want to also commend Staff for coming forward with a whole set of
alternatives that were framed in ways that allowed us and the public to
really start sinking our teeth into it. Thank you. Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: First of all, I actually did want to know how many units
in San Antonio Center are we talking about moving? If we did those three
sites. I didn't see a number.
Ms. Gitelman: We calculated there were about 250 units in the Housing
Element in San Antonio Center and the very end of South El Camino Real.
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Mayor Burt: Can I make one comment?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Sure.
Mayor Burt: I neglected to make one comment on the San Antonio Road
sites. That's to bear in mind, right now we don't have very good transit
down there. There's some services, but it's not a service rich area. We
have on the horizon electrification of Caltrain, which will—if it happens by
2021 as it's scheduled, it will drastically alter the service levels at both Cal. Ave. and San Antonio Road. We should really be thinking about that. This
housing, how soon would it get built? We're 2016 now. We wouldn't have
projects submitted for another year or more, and then these tend to take a
couple of years. We're talking 2019 probably, pretty much at the earliest,
before we actually see very many things start happening. That's only a
couple of years away from when we'd have Caltrain electrification. Since
we're thinking about these as development that's going to be there for 50
years or so, we really ought to bearing in mind that change that's going to
happen in the Caltrain Corridor. The land value increase that is happening
right now for commercial land, I've been told within a half mile of Caltrain,
it's like 30 or 50 percent higher than a mile or more away for office. That
maybe more so on office than residential. In this environment and our future environment, that's really valuable land. We also haven't figured out
any way to monetize that increase of land value around transit to help pay
for transit and to help pay for parks, common space, all these things. That's
another meta issue that we haven't had here, but I just want people to start
thinking about that and for Staff to start thinking about it. I think that's
really crucial as we go into all these other things. We're going to create a
whole bunch of value. We may get housing out of it, and we'll create value
for developers and not necessarily for government to be able to help provide
the very important things that have to go hand in hand with that. I don't
have those answers. I just want people to start thinking about it. Sorry I
went back.
Vice Mayor Scharff: It's all good. There was a couple of things on my list
here. The first thing is a number of my Colleagues spoke about the need for
housing for moderate income Palo Altans, teachers, firefighters, employees
of the City. What we need to do is figure out how to do that. I would like to
make a Motion that Staff come back to us with how we could achieve that.
That includes in my mind what dollars can we use from our affordable
housing funds, what rules do we need to change so, as we collect fees in the
future, if we can't use those funds how that would work. We're about to
look at our new impact fees, how those impact fees could be used for these
projects. What are the barriers to doing that and how we can overcome it.
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Council Member DuBois: Can I ask a question?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Sure.
Council Member DuBois: Is this in the context of a program or policy for the
Comp Plan or is this more detailed?
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think this is more detailed to be able to do this now
frankly. This is the stuff I think we should do before we finish the Comp
Plan.
Council Member DuBois: I just wanted that clarification.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think there's specific rules that we need to change
possible. That's my understanding. I wanted Staff ...
Council Member Kniss: You want this (inaudible)?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yeah.
Council Member Kniss: Do you want a second?
Mayor Burt: He's still working on the Motion.
Council Member Kniss: You're not done.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I don't know how you'd like to do it. If you want me to
break these up. I have three different things if you wanted to break—I could
put them altogether and then it could be up to the Mayor if he wants to
break it up.
Mayor Burt: Why don't you lay them out in components, and then we can
see whether they should be broken apart.
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's the first round. I'll work with you to make sure.
I'd move that Staff come back to us with a program for micro housing units
Downtown. That could be specific sites or it could be an overlay for the
entire Downtown. What that looks and what are the different options for
Council. I think we need to include the issue of decoupling parking, the
issue of not selling parking permits, possibly the issue of lease restrictions
depending if that's legal. I want Staff to come back with a plan of how we
could do that with minimum impacts and what that would like. How many
units, frankly, is a pilot program? I don't think we want to suddenly have
1,000 micro units. I want there to be some metering on this where we try
this, see how it goes. The first people that get to do it, get to do it or
something like that. The third thing is I think Staff should come back to us
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with a plan for more bike storage Downtown. It is low hanging fruit. We
shouldn't just talk about it.
Mr. Keene: Bike storage?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yeah, bike storage. We should do it.
Mr. Keene: That's the one thing we can do.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'm going to speak to this a little just to put it in
context. I think we should look at changing our Housing Element from the San Antonio Road sites to Cal. Avenue and Downtown. That can be part of
the micro housing or it can be different additional sites.
Council Member DuBois: This is "D"?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yes, this is "D." I'll make that, and then I'll speak to
the Motion about why I think we should do that. I'd just say that I don't
think that precludes necessarily doing housing there in the future, but I think
we want to move forward in that direction.
Mayor Burt: To try to be expeditious, let me just take a straw poll. If
anyone has strong feelings about wanting to separate any of these into
separate votes.
Council Member Kniss: I'm fine with everything but "D."
Mayor Burt: Let's take them one at a time. I've got basically three people over here, and I didn't even look this way. We're going to separate the
Motion into four components, some easier than others. I imagine the bike
storage will be easiest.
Mr. Keene: Clarifying questions. I don't know how in-depth you're going to
get on each one of these discussions. Even for this moment, could we be
thinking about—I don't want to say these votes as straw votes, but there are
follow-up. You may say we want Number 1, but then there are all these
questions about how much of it is for the Comp Plan versus now. We
probably would need to come back and flesh some things out in more detail.
We wouldn't walk away feeling that everything was locked in concrete.
You're pointing in a direction that you would want us to go.
Mayor Burt: Would it be acceptable to have these framed as issues that the
Council has shown an interest in pursuing these ahead of the Comp Plan and
for Staff to return with feasibility of doing so?
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Vice Mayor Scharff: That was the plan. That's sort of how I phrased, that
Staff will return on all of these. I didn't mean Council would necessarily do
them.
Mayor Burt: Also, Staff would return on the feasibility of them being able to
accomplish it before then.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Fair enough.
Mr. Keene: Not to complicate it, in one sense even if you're talking about how could these things happen before the Comp Plan, you would also expect
that all of these things have a relevance and a connection to the Comp Plan
and incorporation in the Comp Plan. It may be a pilot that ultimately you
want the Comp Plan to more expansively talk about the scale or scope. This
is going to happen, even if we can do it, in isolation of the Comp Plan.
You're asking us to think about a pilot, for example, which would be different
than just putting a policy together for the Comp Plan.
Vice Mayor Scharff: The Comp Plan may take a while. I'd like to see these
things happen before the Comp Plan.
Mr. Keene: I think if these are directions for us, that'd be good. We can go
back and start to figure out the scale and the scope of what's really involved
here.
Council Member Holman: Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Burt: Yeah, Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: A procedural question. If "A" is to just return for
information, fine. "C," fine. The other two and implementing "A," "B," "D,"
would have to have the environmental analysis that would go concurrent
with the Comprehensive Plan. I don't know how we could move ahead with
those unless "B" was like a very small pilot program.
Mayor Burt: Let's ask that question, see if Staff has any guidance on what
environmental analysis might be required.
Council Member Wolbach: Before we get into the discussion, do we want to
get a second out here? I haven't seconded it yet.
Mayor Burt: Let's do that. We're going to—let me ask procedurally. Since
we're going to break these up into separate considerations, do they each
have to be individually seconded then? How do we do that?
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Molly Stump, City Attorney: If you have a second for the group already,
that's sufficient.
Mayor Burt: Can we vote on them individually?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yes, you as the Mayor could ...
Ms. Stump: Yes, you can.
Mayor Burt: I can divide them.
Ms. Stump: If you add new elements, then you'd want a second on the elements.
Mayor Burt: Good enough. Is there a second that's been made?
Council Member DuBois: I'll second that.
Mayor Burt: Second by Council Member DuBois.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois
to direct Staff to:
A. Return with options to provide affordable housing for moderate income
government employees including funding options and any barriers to
creation of such housing; and
B. Return with a program for micro-units Downtown, including decoupled
parking, not selling parking permits, lease restrictions with minimum
impacts, and how many units to include in a pilot; and
C. Return with a plan for more bike storage Downtown; and
D. Move housing sites from San Antonio Road to California Avenue and
Downtown.
Mr. Keene: There was a question about the Environmental Impact Report
(EIR) connection. Before Hillary even answers that, I really do feel we need
to keep all of these in the realm of this signifying a direction you would like
to explore in more depth coming out of a very broad-ranging discussion
tonight. We've got to come back.
Mayor Burt: I think we should have—Vice Mayor Scharff had agreed to this
in principal, but let's get this language into the cover sentence to the Motion
which is to direct Staff to evaluate feasibility of doing these changes in the
nearer term.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: Okay.
Mayor Burt: Then to return ...
Vice Mayor Scharff: Why don't we just say the nearer term (inaudible)?
Mayor Burt: Okay, nearer term.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “evaluate feasibility of these
changes in the near term” after “direct Staff to.”
Mayor Burt: That means you're going to come back after you evaluate the
feasibility, and you're going to tell us what you think can or can't be done in
the comparatively near term and what that means.
Mr. Keene: I think it would be pretty—at least a summary return without
doing lots and lots of analysis, just to structure the components of this and
what the implications are. We'd probably come back with a lot of questions
for the Council also. Honestly, the difficulty with this for us is we don't have
any existing to do this really without resetting some things. On the other
hand ...
Mayor Burt: Except the bike racks.
Mr. Keene: (inaudible) bike racks. On the other hand, the question of
actually planning and building and delivering housing is a big issue for the Council. This is a very significant conversation you're having. This is a way
to start to try to push in getting more specific than just all the different
things you guys said up here tonight. You may have alternatives that are
better ways to do that, but I would really caution. I do not think this can be
like even a typical Council meeting where you would do a bunch of Motions,
and we would walk away and feel like we've got to deliver on that thing in a
detailed way. There is no way we can proceed without being able to come
back and giving you better thinking about what the implications are, even
though all of these can sound really appealing even to us as the Staff.
Mayor Burt: Can we also get any feedback on Council Member Holman's
concern on what would trigger environmental analysis?
Ms. Gitelman: Let me see if I can tackle that. Let just step back for a
moment. This has been fantastic. First we heard from the CAC
representatives that they're conversation had included a lot of different
perspectives. Some of them in disagreement with each other, but many,
many of them, which I think are looking at some of the issues that you're
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looking at ways to address this issue of housing in a meaningful, that doesn't
create unwanted impacts. I think the Council's discussion tonight has been
very constructive. We did put this on your Agenda in the context of the
Comp Plan Update, thinking that the guidance you gave us would inform the
Comp Plan Update and the policies and implementation programs in that
update. In addition, we thought that the input you would give us would
inform the fifth scenario, the quality of life. I'm actually looking at "A," "B" and "D," thinking that sounds like you're giving us direction on what you
want us to analyze as part of the fifth scenario. Saying that, Jim is agreeing
that we can come back and talk about whether we can do any of this in
advance of the Comp Plan Update, but that was not our intention with this
Agenda Item, to create a whole new list of to-do items that will cause to
have to put off other items that the Council has asked for. We can, of
course, come back with those tradeoffs. It is true, as Council Member
Holman indicated, that before you could move to adopt a new program or
ordinance establishing an interim micro unit program Downtown or the like,
we would have to not just develop the ordinance and the program and get
the Council's approval of that, but we would have to prepare a California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) document of some kind to assess the impacts, community outreach, outreach to stakeholders and property
owners. These are not small discussions that we would engage in. I just
encourage the Council, if you can, think of a way to frame what you're
asking in the context of the Comp Plan Update. It starts to be much more
realistic that we could accommodate your requests and move diligently to
incorporate this and get this done concurrent with that effort.
Mr. Keene: May I just sort of ... I agree with everything Hillary has said
there, with one possible clarification. I think if the Council were to say you
wanted to constrict yourself to giving guidance to the Comp Plan, that you're
not in a position to get to that directive even here tonight. You would be
doing what you're doing in identifying some particular strategies or themes
you want us to pursue. We'd still have to kind of come back to you a little
bit and give you more information. You all were a mirror of the CAC,
listening to you, as far as the range of issues. How to reconcile that in some
way that's something of a strategic feedback to the CAC. I think you need
to be indicating where you really want the emphasis to lean towards around
the range of issues. We can then come back and say—we have to figure out
how we could talk about it both in the context of the Comp Plan and/or if
you wanted to begin something concurrently.
Mayor Burt: As I heard Colleagues tonight, if the question was what are we
interested in the CAC pursuing, that's a broader set of alternatives than
what's in the Motion. I don't think this Motion was intended to narrow the
things that we're interested in the CAC to do. It was intended to identify the
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things that we would perhaps want to move forward on preceding the
completion of the Comp Plan. Those are two different things.
Vice Mayor Scharff: They did ask us to do that. You did ask.
Mayor Burt: Let me ask for a little more clarification on this CEQA impact.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Can I speak to this a little bit?
Mayor Burt: Yeah, go ahead.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Hillary and Jim, I wanted to speak a little bit to what you just said. I think when we talk about the micro units Downtown, that
maybe you come back to us and say you either need to do the CEQA or you
don't if you limit it to 50 units. I think that's part of you coming back and
saying to us, "Yes, we do this. Yes, we cannot." Otherwise, it has to be
included in the EIR. It has to go through the Comp Plan process. That
would be an acceptable answer to our question about can we move forward
with this now or not. I think that is built into the Motion, that issue you had.
I think the same with the site from San Antonio Road to California Avenue.
You might come back to us and say as part of the Comp Plan process, we
need to move forward in that direction and that's how we're going to do it.
What I thought we'd talked about earlier—in fact, it says in the Housing
Element—we are going to look and evaluate that. I thought maybe this was something we do in terms of that evaluation now, and that it was
appropriate to do so. You can come back to us and say no, we don't have
the bandwidth or no, it's appropriate to do it differently. That's coming back
to us. I actually disagree a little bit on "A." Let me talk about "A" a little bit.
We are raising substantial amounts of money for low income housing. We
are about to change our fee structure. There are other sources that may be
coming in. I believe we're having a Closed Session on that issue. I want to
make sure that we don't lock ourselves into not being able to do moderate
income housing for government employees, teachers, and other people who
fit that category. If we don't, we will miss that window of opportunity. We'll
have a big chunk of money, and you will then tell us we can't use it for this.
I think we need to evaluate. I think that actually falls more on legal in lots
of ways to come up with what are the legal strictures here, how would we
change our Ordinances to do that, than it does Planning. I know Molly has
infinite capacity. I'm not as concerned about that. This is not (crosstalk).
Council Member Kniss: Mayor Burt, could I ask the Vice Mayor a quick
question?
Mayor Burt: Sure.
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Council Member Kniss: What you've said here is to evaluate feasibility. If
that's what you mean, this says to Staff take a look at this and tell us what
are the issues here and is this something we can do or is there something
that's going to get in our way for months or years. Is that correct?
Vice Mayor Scharff: That is correct.
Council Member Kniss: I think in that case then, I can just accept them all.
If we're just looking at evaluating feasibility, that's fine. If the Staff falls over in a dead faint, that's going to make me concerned. Big difference
between that and saying let's accomplish it tonight.
Mr. Keene: No, no. I was joking about the bike plan. If the idea was we
were really driving towards some—this is an iterative conversation with the
Council is the approach I'm hearing put forward, for us to come back and
say—I'm sorry about it this way—your move, okay, here's our move back.
This is some of the information about what's involved and what does it take.
The complicating issue is, is that enough for you all tonight or will there also
be more that you're going to put on that list. I really think this is one of
those areas where we need to show that the Council direction is tentative in
the sense of asking us to be able to come back and flesh out this more, so
we can come back and have a more informed discussion, tell you the implications of some things. I was just running some—how many units do
you want to do for affordable? It doesn't take that long to figure out we're
talking billions of dollars if we have a target of 3,000 housing units that
could be affordable versus—there's a lot of things we can do to just sort of
put more meat on the bone about the options or what the implications are
for some of these things.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois, both has a question and he's the
seconder.
Council Member DuBois: It was actually some potential amendments. The
first was really getting to this idea of the Comp Plan versus this. Amend that
first sentence to say "to evaluate feasibility of these changes in the nearer
term as pilot programs for the Comp Plan." I think that's the context you're
really suggesting.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'm not suggesting it for "A." I'm suggesting it for "B."
I'm not sure it's a pilot program to move from San Antonio Road to
California Avenue or more bike storage Downtown. I think it would be "B."
Council Member DuBois: Just for "B." Okay. That's fine. For "B," I wanted
to see if you'd accept an Amendment at the end there to evaluate a new
mixed use definition of residential and retail.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: Yes, I think that's a good idea.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add at the end of the Motion Part B,
“reevaluate the definition of mixed-use retail and residential in select
locations.”
Ms. Gitelman: Is that just in Downtown or other mixed use areas?
Council Member DuBois: In select locations. Maybe you could come back and suggest. Is that okay?
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's fine.
Council Member DuBois: I really wanted to add an "E," to return with a plan
for ensuring existing housing is utilized as housing, not other uses or
unused. Return with a plan.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Everything else is return with options.
Council Member DuBois: Like "C" ... Return with options, that's fine.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “return with options for
ensuring existing housing is used for housing and not other uses or unused.”
(New Part E)
Mr. Keene: I just wanted to clarify. I don't even know that it needs to be exactly in the Motion. To me, everything we're talking about is our doing a
preliminary assessment of these directives and potentially coming back to
tell the Council what's involved. There is a sort of second ..
Mayor Burt: Necessarily coming back, not potentially.
Council Member DuBois: You can come back and say we can do this in the
context of the Comp Plan.
Mr. Keene: Or we can say forget it. I have a ...
Ms. Gitelman: (inaudible) when we're going to come back?
Mr. Keene: No. I don't even know that. That's part of the assessment. We
have to huddle as a Staff. We may say we can't even come back for three
months, to be honest with you. We'd have to put that in writing and explain
to you why.
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Council Member Dubois: I think you could also—one of the questions was
how do you go to the CAC. You could share this with the CAC as well. They
could have some discussion about some of these options.
Mayor Burt: That starts getting the CAC involved in measures that would be
done prior to the Comp Plan which is not really their purview.
Council Member DuBois: I don't know if we're joking about "C," but I'm not
really sure. It's assuming we need more bike storage, but what ...
Vice Mayor Scharff: We're definitely not joking about it.
Council Member DuBois: As part of the Housing Element, it just seems out
of place.
Mayor Burt: Maybe it is; it's also just easy, low hanging fruit. You're right
it's a little out of place.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think we could tie it there, thinking that we've been
talking a lot of how we deal with the transportation issues with the housing.
That's the context.
Mayor Burt: It is a little disconnected, but I don't think it does a great deal
of harm. Now that we've clarified that we're talking about evaluating
feasibility, do we still need to separate these or can we allow Staff to come
back with the feasibility? I think I'm going to be inclined to try to have them voted on as one group. Maker and seconder, are you done?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yeah.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: I think you have some of us that would like to
have "D" separated, because I don't think we can support it. I think there
are at least three of us...
Mayor Burt: You don't think what?
Council Member Holman: I think there are some of us that cannot support
"D." If that could be separated, I would appreciate it.
Mayor Burt: Let's go ahead and separate "D," and we'll vote on that
separately. I don't want to vote on all these separately.
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MOTION PART D SEPARATED FROM THE MOTION FOR THE PURPOSE
OF VOTING “move housing sites from San Antonio Road to California
Avenue and Downtown.” (New Part F)
Council Member Holman: There's some other things that should be added to
this. I think we're going off a little bit sideways here. It's not what Staff
came to us for, which isn't to say we can't change direction. I think we're
confusing things a bit here. If we are going to go down this path, there's another thing too with "B." I think "B" ought to be divided into two. I think
the micro units is a separate issue than reevaluating the definition of mixed
use. I think it's a separate issue. Also, I think, with the maker and
seconder's approval, I also think reevaluate the definition of mixed use retail
should actually be reevaluate the definition of mixed use to consider
retail/personal service with housing.
Council Member DuBois: That wasn't captured. If you could just capture
what I said, and then we could go from there. Retail and residential.
Council Member Holman: Retail and personal service, right?
Council Member DuBois: No. Retail/personal service and residential.
Council Member Holman: Retail/personal service and residential. Don't you
think it should be a separate category? You're not talking about just Downtown for mixed use definition, are you?
Council Member DuBois: After "residential," "in select locations," which was
the question Hillary asked.
Mayor Burt: Should it be broken, that second half, into a new "C" and not
lumped with the micro units?
Council Member Holman: It seems it's a different topic.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yes.
Mayor Burt: Let's do that.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to separate from the Motion Part B, “to reevaluate
a new mixed-use definition of residential and retail in select locations.”
(New Part C)
Council Member Holman: Staff has also asked us—hang on just half a
second.
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Vice Mayor Scharff: I haven't agreed to this. I would agree to retail; I don't
agree to personal service. I think that personal service includes lawyers and
nail salons. I actually want retail.
Council Member Holman: I don't think personal service includes attorneys'
offices. Does it?
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think it does.
Mr. Keene: Isn't this a little detailed? I don't mean to be rude about it. We're looking at some conceptual ideas about mixed use with ground floor
retail and residential. We'll probably tell you it'll take us five years to work
on this.
Mayor Burt: I don't think that's the use definition of lawyers. I think
personal service is like nail salons.
Council Member Holman: As long as ...
Mayor Burt: Unless lawyers are doing that these days.
Council Member Holman: As long as Staff understands the general direction.
We don't want to be eliminating places for your personal accountant to be.
Mayor Burt: Let's see if we can move the ball forward here.
Council Member Holman: Having to do with ADUs, there were a number of
comments that were made...
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman, I'm just real worried that if we're
starting to throw everything that we talked about tonight into the potential
nearer-term category, it's just going to eliminate the meaningfulness of
being able to do anything nearer term.
Council Member Holman: If we're still thinking about Staff coming back with
some of this in the nearer term as far as direction to go forward...
Mayor Burt: That's exactly what this is for. To try to distinguish which
things we want them to evaluate the feasibility of doing in the nearer term.
Council Member Kniss: I just think there are enough decorations on the tree
now. I think we could move forward and puts the lights on.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Yep.
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Council Member Holman: If that's the direction we're continuing to go, I'm
fine with that. I'm just..
Mayor Burt: That's the direction.
Council Member Holman: You have broken out—I'm sorry, which is it?
Mayor Burt: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Holman: "E," you've broken out "E" separately, correct?
Mayor Burt: Yes. Council Member Filseth, did you ..
Council Member Filseth: I think we may have gone in the right direction on
this. One of the things I worried about on Number B and C—it may be that
we've given the Staff enough direction to be general on this. These things
seem like the kind of things I'd really like to see Scenario 5 before we start
doing policy and spending a lot of time on these. Some of these things,
depending on which scenario we pick, may or may not factor. If you look at
the Stanford expansion or the recovered housing from the Stanford
expansion, potential recovered housing from Hacker Dojos and stuff like
that, we may well have recovered most of the housing in some of the
scenarios. We're not going to really know that until we get a little further on
these things. As long as we're not directing explicit policy or the Staff to
spend many man months of effort on this and that's clear, I think it's okay.
Mayor Burt: We're not. It's evaluate feasibility. That's what covers all this.
Council Member Filseth: Is Staff okay with that?
Mr. Keene: Yeah, to evaluate the feasibility.
Council Member Filseth: In the context that we haven't picked a scenario
yet. Some of this is going to be very dependent on which scenario we pick.
Mayor Burt: I'm going to push the ball forward here. Council Member
Wolbach, I...
Council Member Filseth: Let me make one more comment, please.
Mayor Burt: All right.
Council Member Filseth: On "E" specifically, it isn't clear to me that there's
consensus on the Council that we want to do that one. I think that one
makes sense ...
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Mayor Burt: We're going to vote on that separately. That's how we'll figure
out what consensus we have. Everybody, it's 20 minutes to 12:00 A.M. I'm
going to try to get us to a vote real quickly. Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: My question has been answered. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: See, that worked. Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: I'm a bit concerned about "A." It reads like we're
trying to deal with our employees first. I know both at the CAC and tonight, there's a lot of concern about disabled, seniors, very low income, a diverse
community, diverse affordable housing. If we could switch in there to
provide housing for moderate income as well as lower income or a diverse
spread of incomes, I would be much more comfortable with it.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to do that, because we already have that.
That's what the rest of affordable housing is about. This is a specific
category that's not covered under our existing affordability.
Council Member Schmid: Is this then specifically asking to take some of the
small amount of funds we have for affordable housing and put it ...
Mayor Burt: It's asking for return with options. We'll have a discussion
around those options when they return. That's provided that Staff has
determined that it's feasible to return with options. If we try to make all those decisions tonight, we're not going to be out of here. All this is, is Staff
to evaluate the feasibility of coming back with options.
Council Member Schmid: That sounds like we're dealing with our
negotiations with the employees.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Why don't we put in (crosstalk)?
Mayor Burt: I think the clarification was a belief that this is an additional
category that we are interested in options on, not instead of. That's the
intent. Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Maybe this wouldn't belong here. On "B," do we
add in the idea of moving away from number of units per acre and towards
just having FAR be the criteria with the ...
Mayor Burt: I think Staff has gotten the sense of that being one of the ways
to do micro units.
Council Member Berman: Just wanted to make sure. We seem to be having
things called out. As long as we're all onboard.
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Mayor Burt: Why don't we break out "E;" that'll be a second vote. Let's
make that a new "F," and make "F" "E." We can vote on "A" through "E."
MOTION RESTATED: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council
Member DuBois to direct Staff to evaluate feasibility of these changes in the
near term:
A. Return with options to provide affordable housing for moderate income
government employees including funding options and any barriers to creation of such housing; and
B. Return with a program for micro-units Downtown, including decoupled
parking, not selling parking permits, lease restrictions with minimum
impacts, how many units to include in a pilot; and
C. Reevaluate the definition of mixed use retail and residential in select
locations; and
D. Return with a plan for more bike storage Downtown; and
E. Return with options for ensuring existing housing is used for housing
and not other uses or unused.
F. Move housing sites from San Antonio Road to California Avenue and
Downtown.
Council Member Kniss: Are we voting?
Mayor Burt: Yeah. That passes 8-1 with Council Member Schmid opposing.
MOTION PARTS A-E PASSED: 8-1 Schmid no
Mayor Burt: Now, let's go for—Sorry. The new "F" is what we will now vote
on, whether we're going to have—once again, it's still covered by that same
preamble, Staff evaluating feasibility of moving housing sites in the nearer
term, is basically what we're talking about. Let's vote.
Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) discussion about this one?
Mayor Burt: Very briefly. Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: This is also one that I didn't feel ready to make a
decision on, even this level of moving forward, even having a little bit of
iteration on it. I was just curious to hear the maker and the seconder, if
they wanted to speak to this one in particular.
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Council Member DuBois: I'll speak to it too.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to it too.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois:
Council Member DuBois: I was in the Housing Element when we worked on
this. When we say San Antonio Road, we're talking about a particular
portion of San Antonio Road, mostly down, across from the nursery. It's not
right where the Caltrain station is. It's further down near the Jewish Community Center (JCC) and the nursery. Again, it's where Hengehold
Trucks is. It's kind of semi-industrial. I personally don't feel there are a lot
of services there. Yes, you can get to Cubberley and other places. As
Council Member Schmid has said, the weighting in the Housing Element was
weighted more heavily to South El Camino Real and San Antonio Road. This
idea of locating smaller units near transit, University and Caltrain, just
makes sense to me.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'll just go briefly to add to that. When we did the
Housing Element, we got the input from—what was your group called? The
Housing Element group. We got that input. There was strong feeling on
that. I don't understand why Council Member Holman has changed her
mind, since she was a strong proponent of this when we actually sat down. I think you were. We sat down and did this. I also think there's a lot of
congestion on San Antonio Road. What this does is move these housing
sites to places with less congestion, at least to evaluate. That doesn't mean
we wouldn't eventually go back to that. San Antonio Road has some really
interesting, funky, lower income business-type opportunities where the rents
are cheaper. I don't really want to lose that right away when we could
actually have the housing sites somewhere else.
Council Member Wolbach: Let me just—thank you for that. I guess my only
concern is I do want to make sure that we do focus on improving San
Antonio Road in a lot of ways. I don't want to close the door to maybe doing
a coordinated area plan and focusing on transportation there. I'm okay with
this, as long as that's not shutting the door on the future.
Mayor Burt: It's only what it is. Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: I'm okay.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
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Council Member Holman: Actually my light was on about something else.
You've called on me for now. In the housing, it was just to consider this.
That's why I could support it; it's not do it.
Mayor Burt: Please vote on the board. That's closer. That passes on a 5-4
vote with Council Members Berman, Kniss, Filseth and Holman voting now.
MOTION PART F PASSED: 5-4 Berman, Filseth, Holman, Kniss no
Mayor Burt: I think that concludes this item. What do we still have to do?
Mr. Keene: I might have missed it. Did you vote on two things?
Mayor Burt: Yeah. Where were you?
Mr. Keene: I'm sorry. I wasn't ...
Mayor Burt: Go ahead.
Mr. Keene: I want to say two things in conclusion. First of all, you did not
do what the main intent of this item coming to the Council was, to give the
feedback to the CAC ultimately on this issue.
Mayor Burt: Let me say that I think what we did was essentially a Study
Session sort of feedback. We had a lot of comments. I think that they
were—Council Members spoke clearly enough that they could be
consolidated without having to be reduced to Motions. I think we gave
feedback, but we didn't—frankly, for the CAC, I'm not sure that we want to be necessarily giving this binding direction. We want to give our feedback.
I think that did occur.
Mr. Keene: I didn't mean it as a criticism. I just meant the idea of forming
anything as a Motion or directive to the CAC. The other thing, I will just put
all of this in perspective. We have a meeting on the 28th, next week, where
out of Planning we'll do the user fee update. We have April, May and June
before the break. We have 24 planning items, everything from wayfinding
and parking guidance system to the Comp Plan Draft EIR to the
Transportation Element review again to the Scenario 5. We actually have
the Scenario 5 planned to come back to the Council on May 23rd. I don't
mean this facetiously. It all going to Council Member Filseth's comment.
You very well may have the Comp Plan fifth scenario before definitive
solutions.
Mayor Burt: I think this goes into a discussion we've had with you that one
of the things that we will find as reasonable is for the Staff to come back and
say we could do this in this timeframe, but these things would have to be
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moved out. This also goes into upcoming Committee as a Whole where if
any of these things could also be screened. I know that you've said that
Staff's going to need more time to have that kind of master plan of the work
plan. We could have some preliminary discussion that allows us to give
some feedback without being definitive on that. Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: What my light had been on actually for earlier was
to add one more item to this. To have Staff return with options on how not to erode our existing housing stock. That's akin to previous Policy H-29. It's
not in here. We have nothing that addresses erosion of existing housing
stock.
Male: (inaudible)
Council Member Holman: No, that doesn't change anything about housing
stock. It just has to do with how the housing stock is used.
Mayor Burt: I would say that we actually have a slew of things that aren't in
this motion. They're all things that we commented on tonight and have
given feedback to the CAC about an interest in including in the Comp Plan.
Council Member Holman: Agreed.
Mayor Burt: This is only about things that we want evaluated feasibility on
in the nearer term.
Council Member Holman: Agree, understood. This is something we haven't
given any direction on at all as a group.
Mayor Burt: We did in comments. We just aren't having it in the motion.
We had a whole bunch of things that we had in comments, and that was
commented on.
Council Member Holman: Is Staff clear on the intention? Is Staff clear on
the intention that do we want to have some options coming back to us about
how we can stop the erosion?
Mayor Burt: Let me clarify. I wasn't saying that the options on that are going
to come back in the nearer term. I was saying that that's something that we
gave feedback to the CAC on, and that's amongst another whole ten things
or so that are not in this request for nearer term evaluation of feasibility on.
They are feed back to the CAC. Everything not covered there ...
Council Member Holman: I'm confused. I thought what Jim just said was
what we didn't do tonight, which was on our Agenda was give direction to
the CAC.
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Mayor Burt: I then clarified that we did give guidance to the CAC, but we
did not place it in formal Motions. It was in Council comments, extensive
and pretty clear comments amongst each of the Council Members that the
Staff can summarize for the CAC based upon the comments that were made.
Mr. Keene: We're going to come back with the feasibility assessment on this
directive. This items' going to be on your Agenda. You're going to have
another discussion and many more on this item.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman was raising the issue of in our
comments we really didn't talk about these other alternative housing sites
that were cited, Palo Alto Square and places like that. No, we didn't and I'm
not interested in taking it up at this hour. Not a bad topic, but we just have
our limits on what we can do here.
Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs
None.
Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements
None.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:55 P.M.