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Home My WebLink About2016-04-11 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT Page 1 of 78 Regular Meeting April 11, 2016 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 6:02 P.M. Present: Berman, Burt, DuBois, Holman, Kniss arrived at 6:45 P.M., Schmid, Wolbach Absent: Filseth, Scharff Closed Session 1. CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS City Designated Representatives: City Manager and his Designees Pursuant to Merit System Rules and Regulations (James Keene, Molly Stump, Suzanne Mason, Rumi Portillo, Dania Torres Wong, Allyson Hauck) Employee Organizations: Utilities Management and Professional Association of Palo Alto (UMPAPA); Management, Professional and Confidential Employees Authority: Government Code Section 54957.6(a). Mayor Burt: Our first item is a conference with labor negotiators with the City-designated representatives, the City Manager and his designees, pursuant to Merit System Rules and Regulations. Those are James Keene, Molly Stump, Suzanne Mason, Rumi Portillo, Dania Torres Wong and Allyson Hauck. The employee organization it's regarding is Utilities Management and Professional Association of Palo Alto, UMPAPA, the Management, Professional and Confidential Employees. We have two speaker cards. Our first speaker is Henry—pardon me? Henry Nguyen: (inaudible) Mayor Burt: I'm sorry. The last name isn't written out. Mr. Nguyen: That's okay. That was me, so I can go first. Mayor Burt: Welcome. TRANSCRIPT Page 2 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mr. Nguyen: I've never spoken in front of Council before, so I'm a little bit nervous. My name is Henry Nguyen; I'm working for the City of Palo Alto, Electrical Engineering Department as a Senior for 14 years now. I came to the City because we had a very good benefit and salary package, but lately I've noticed that we're falling behind compared to other local municipality utilities like Santa Clara and Roseville. In particular, I lost an engineer back in August to them, because they have a 2.7 percent, what they call classic employee Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) retirement. He can go there and get a 2.7 retirement plan. They also have a higher salary package. We went out to hire a replacement for him, and since August we went through August 'til December, and we found only two qualified candidates. We made them two offers, and they turned us down citing that we have low salary and compensation package. The reason why I'm here today is I'm just asking the Council to look into considering the newest contract that City of Santa Clara and Roseville just have for their electric engineering. Those are the closest to the current market. With those, we will bring our salary package closer to the market so we wouldn't have such a hard time looking for engineers for our department. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Jim Pachikara. Is that it? Jim Pachikara: Yes, thank you. Mayor and Honorable Council Members, my name is Jimmy Pachikara, and I'm a Senior Electrical Engineer for the City of Palo Alto in the Utilities Department. With the help of other Seniors like Henry, we lead the Staff of the Electrical Division and, as a whole, we are the ones designing the entire electric system and the dark fiber network. We continuously review the systems to create projects, maintain it and keep up with demands. Tonight we want to stress that retaining and hiring diverse and well-experienced leaders, Senior Electrical Engineers, is critical to keeping the system up and running. The Utilities Department has not been able to hire an experienced Electrical Engineer with electrical utility experience since 2007. Any position posted since then has been filled with engineers with the right qualifications but requires many years of training still. In the immediate future, we are expecting retirements and don't have any internal candidates to promote. City of Palo Alto (CPA) Utilities cannot sustain the electrical system by continuing to hire inexperienced engineers and expect them to be leaders after just a couple of years. Even retaining those younger engineers with high potential are forecasting their career path and have left for an opportunity at Santa Clara or another utility if it means better pay later. The electric utility industry is about to experience some dramatic changes with electric vehicles, smart grid, local government electrification programs and the influx of solar panels and other renewable energy, all of which Palo Alto is about to face head on. We need to maintain a balanced group of experienced engineers while Utilities goes through these TRANSCRIPT Page 3 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 major industry changes. Not too long ago, City of Santa Clara finally pulled down a job listing for a Senior Electrical Utility Engineer that had been posted for three years. Santa Clara ended up with a young engineer from CPA who accepted the position for a promotion. What is important here to take note is that Santa Clara's compensation was not attractive or competitive enough to bring in talented, experienced Senior Electrical Engineers. The position was posted for three years, and they ended up with a young engineer who only had four years of experience. Now Santa Clara has updated their labor contract for the engineers to include a 26 percent raise in the salary alone over the next three years. On top of this, since California Public Employees Retirement System’s (CalPERS) retirement formula has changed, most experienced engineers with at least 10 years of experience are vested in the PERS system at other municipal utilities and will not leave their current jobs for reduced pension. That leaves Utilities trying to attract from the private sector, which is why the Senior Electrical Engineers are asking the City to consider updating the benchmark study. My final words to Council are to please consider some of these points I've made about the necessity of retaining and hiring experienced engineers as you discuss the status of the labor negotiations in tonight's Closed Session. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. At this time, we'll return to the Council and entertain a Motion to go into Closed Session. Council Member Wolbach: So moved. Council Member Holman: Second. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to go into Closed Session. Mayor Burt: Motion made by Council Member Wolbach, second by Council Member Holman. Any discussion? Please vote on the board. That passes 6- 0 with Council Members Filseth, Kniss and Scharff absent. We will now go into Closed Session. Thank you. MOTION PASSED: 6-0 Filseth, Kniss, Scharff absent Council went into Closed Session at 6:09 P.M. Council returned from Closed Session at 7:03 P.M. Mayor Burt: The Council has just returned from a Closed Session discussion regarding the Utilities Management and Professional Association of Palo Alto, and we have no reportable action. We'll now continue. TRANSCRIPT Page 4 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Mayor Burt: Our next item is Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions. We have the ones at our places. Do we need to announce how those differed from the previous? No. City Manager Comments Mayor Burt: We next have City Manager Comments. Mr. City Manager. James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. We thought we'd make this a little bit more like Broadway. I only have two things to report, both of them just kind of in the "nice to know" category. First of all, it's time for our folks to get the Scoop. The new Downtown Transportation Management Association, the TMA, which the City is a member of as an employer, is partnering with Scoop, a mobile carpooling app, to sponsor commutes to Downtown Palo Alto for just $1 per ride. The Scoop program started in Palo Alto on April 4th, and is available on Android or iPhone to book a ride one-way at a time. The app is flexible. Some people book ahead if they have a set schedule; others book as little as 15-30 minutes ahead of when they need a ride. The interesting thing about this program is there is a guaranteed ride home for employees if a rideshare match isn't available. Every Downtown employee, not just our employees, is eligible for the $1 ride program. The City is in the process of trying to work out an agreement so that all of our employees would be eligible for the $1 ride. We have a bunch of folks at the Municipal Service Center on East Bayshore and other locations in town. The latest in our efforts to test out how we could reduce single occupant vehicle trips. Just a note that April 30th is the Great Race for Saving Water. The City is teaming up once again this year with the Tuolumne River Trust and other community groups for the Great Race for Saving Water. A 5K fun run and walk will be held Saturday, April 30th, at 9:00 A.M. It begins at the Baylands Athletic Center and, of course, runs down through our beautiful Baylands area. The goal of the event is to raise awareness about water resources and conservation. There will be lots of fun things to do, Earth Day activities from local water agencies, local nonprofits, businesses and environmental organizations. More than 350 adults and kids of all ages turned out when we last did the race in 2014, so now's the time to register and run. Go to the City's webpage for details. I'll go ahead and run in this again. There's always a nice start to the race, because there is actually a person dressed up in a toilet outfit, and the goal is to actually catch the running toilet as part of the race. That looks like all I have to report. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 5 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Oral Communications Mayor Burt: Our next item is Oral Communications. We have three speakers. Our first speaker is Meghan Yaya [phonetic]. I just want to be clear to folks that Oral Communications are for items that are not otherwise on the Agenda, and that the Council is not allowed to discuss these items because they have not been agendized for the general public. I don't see Ms. Yaya. Our next speaker is Venkat Dokiparthi. Welcome. Venkat Dokiparthi: Respected Council Members, I'm interested in Royal Manor single story overlay topic that is coming up for next week. There is a lot of interest in the community about this topic. It is scheduled currently at 9:30 P.M.; it goes up to 10:45. My only request is to change the time to early because there is a lot of interest in the topic and a lot of people are planning to attend. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Sea Reddy. Welcome. Sea Reddy: Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Members and Palo Alto citizens. On February 9th, that was a rainy day, 2016, I was near El Camino Real and Wells Fargo Bank, near California Avenue. I was coming out of the bank, and I saw some activity going on, some fire department people and a few others standing there. There was one person who seemed to have fallen down or something was going on. They were finishing the triage. I stood there and quietly asked one of the fire—the person that was attending—they were not attending; they were standing there for whoever was injured, taken care of. I asked him what happened, and they wouldn't answer me. I asked him again what happened; they wouldn't answer me. Then they asked me, "Who are you?" I gave him my card; I had one of my cards, and I gave it to them. They refused to tell me, and then I say, "What's your name?" I got a little aggravated. I'm a local resident, especially College Terrace, and I thought I could understand what is going on. Nothing to prevent their work and all that. Anyway, then about a minute or so later, the policeman attending nearby or watching this whole thing comes by and asks me, with a little heavy-handedness that I need to leave. I left. I was on my way to Stanford, and I called the Chief of Police, Burns. Surprisingly the phone number I had on my cell phone, I was able to—he answered the phone right away. That was a big surprise. We exchanged some information, and he promised me to look into it. I happened to speak with him yesterday, after a month, month and a half. I brought this up to a couple of people. We resolved it to my satisfaction. Chief Burns has a great team. I want to thank him, commend him for being open and wanting to review the material. He did review the videotape. He was able to see all the audio communication part of it. I'm happy that it happened and he was able TRANSCRIPT Page 6 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 to resolve it. I thank Chief Burns. I think you have a great Police Chief. I just want to let the City management know. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. Mr. City Manager, on the issue of the timing of the single story overlay for the meeting of April 18th, we have really two substantial Agenda items. At 7:35, the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan which is anticipated to be about a two hour discussion. The meeting is scheduled to start at 6:30 with a Closed Session. I wonder if we might be able to look at whether the Council is open to an earlier start, so that the single story overlay could be addressed a little earlier in the evening, in the same sequence of Agenda items. I don't know that we can address that tonight, but maybe we can find out. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I know you mentioned the same sequence. I don't know what the feasibility is about putting the Closed Session last, which is what we sometimes do as well, without starting earlier. I leave it to you all to figure out. Mayor Burt: That's another thing we could consider. I was actually meaning same sequence of the Action Items, so that would still be a possibility. We'll look into that. Minutes Approval 2. Approval of Action Minutes for the March 28, 2016 Council Meeting. Mayor Burt: Our next item—excuse me. Too many agendas here. Our next item is Approval of Minutes. We have the Minutes from March 28th, 2016. Do we have a Motion to approve? Council Member Berman: So moved. Mayor Burt: Second. MOTION: Council Member Berman moved, seconded by Mayor Burt to approve the Action Minutes for the March 28, 2016 Council Meeting. Mayor Burt: Motion by Council Member Berman, second by myself. Any discussion? Please vote on the board. That passes 7-0 with Council Member Filseth and Vice Mayor Scharff absent. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 Filseth, Scharff absent TRANSCRIPT Page 7 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Consent Calendar Mayor Burt: We will now move on to the Consent Calendar. Do we have a Motion to approve? MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to approve Agenda Item Numbers 3-6. 3. Approval of a Contract With Pleasanton Engineering Contractors, Inc. in the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $275,000 for Improvements to the Household Hazardous Waste Station Located at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant. 4. Finance Committee Recommends Adoption of a Budget Amendment for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 to Adjust Budgeted Revenues and Expenditures in Accordance With the Recommendations in the FY 2016 Midyear Budget Review Report. 5. Adoption of new Memoranda of Agreement With Palo Alto Peace Officers’ Association (PAPOA), International Association of Firefighters’ Union, Local 1319 (IAFF), Service Employees’ International Union, Local 521 (SEIU) and Palo Alto Police Management Association (PAPMA) and Resolution 9581 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending the City of Palo Alto Merit Rules and Regulations.” 6. Approval of a City of Palo Alto Comment Letter Regarding the Draft 2016 California High Speed Rail Authority Business Plan. Mayor Burt: Motion to approve by Council Member Kniss, seconded by Council Member DuBois. I see no lights, so please vote on the board. That passes unanimously with Council Member Filseth and Vice Mayor Scharff absent. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 Filseth, Scharff absent Action Items 7. PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance to Amend Chapter 18.76 (Permits and Approvals) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Modify the Architectural Review Findings. The Planning and Transportation Commission and the Architectural Review Board Reviewed and Recommended the Proposed Draft Ordinance. The Proposed Amendments are Exempt From Further Environmental Review per TRANSCRIPT Page 8 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guideline Sections 15061(b) and 15301, 15302 and 15305. Mayor Burt: We now move on to our Action Items. The first one is a public hearing about the adoption of an ordinance to amend Chapter 18.76, Permits and Approvals, of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to modify the Architectural Review Findings. The Planning and Transportation Commission and the Architectural Review Board reviewed and recommended the proposed draft ordinance. Proposed amendments are exempt from further environmental review per the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, Guideline Section 15061(b) and 15301, 15302 and 15305. Mr. Lait. Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director: Thank you, Mayor. Amy French, our Chief Planning Official, will lead us through the presentation. We're here to answer any questions that you may have afterwards. Thank you. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Good evening. The ordinance in your report tonight was reviewed by the Planning and Transportation Commission as well the Architectural Review Board (ARB). The Architectural Review Board reviewed it during two meetings back in September and October of 2015. We all feel that the existing findings are great findings. They have positive aspects; they address key issues, but as City policy has evolved, some of the existing findings have become a bit duplicative. There are findings that it takes a lot of effort to read and write as well. We've been criticized for some weak findings in the past. Our ability to craft these findings is related to the volume of Staff Reports that we write and review and the schedules that we have to provide reports to the public in a timely manner prior to hearings. The proposed ARB findings, the Staff and the ARB recognize the need to improve the quality of Staff-prepared Architectural Review Findings and reduce the number. In the past year or so, we've been grouping findings into similar topic findings in our reports, and the ARB has appreciated this. With the proposed changes, Staff will still be preparing Context Based Design Criteria findings which are heavily focused on compatibility and some other key features such as green building and neighborhood compatibility. The ARB has adjusted the proposed findings during their two hearings to make sure that no key criteria were left out. The Planning and Transportation Commission did not provide additional tweaking of the wording. Basically, the proposed findings, there are six of them. The gist of it is—the first one is about compatibility and really consistency with the Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Code, Title 18, and related Context Based Design Criteria, which is contained in the Zoning Code, and design guides such as Downtown and El Camino Design Guidelines. Number 2 is about having a coherent design with quite a bit there, and then the third TRANSCRIPT Page 9 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 is about high-quality materials. Fourth is about functionality. The fifth is about landscaping, and the sixth is about green building sustainability. We basically wanted to recapture key aspects of the existing findings and the purpose section that's found in the Architectural Review Chapter 18.76. We added some key verbiage to clarify and enhance the public's understanding. We do recommend the Council adopt these findings that were presented back in December of 2015 and continued for further analysis. We think that they will facilitate easier review, reduce writing and reading fatigue and improve our analysis for the public and allow them to understand what we're doing here with our Architectural Review projects. If there are any questions, we're here to answer those. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll first go to—one, I want to open the public hearing at this time, then go to the Council for any questions before turning to members of the public for their comments, and then returning to us for discussion and Motion. Council Member Holman. Public Hearing opened at 7:19 P.M. Council Member Holman: Thank you very much for bringing this forward. You're right in your comments, Amy, that we have received a number of comments from the public, from the Council. Very likely you hear more from the applicants than we do about better clarity and better understanding. More easily understandable findings would be helpful. I appreciate all of that. One of the questions I have is the purpose of the ARB—I know Jonathan and I had a couple of conversations maybe earlier. Is the purpose of the ARB, is that possibly to be considered or could be considered this evening? Is the item agendized in such a way that we could, should we want to? Cara Silver, Senior Assistant City Attorney: Thank you. Cara Silver, Senior Assistant City Attorney. The matter is broad enough to address anything in 18.76; however, if you make changes to the ordinance, we would have to assess whether that would require an additional first reading of the ordinance. If those changes are substantive, then we would recommend another first reading. Council Member Holman: Thank you. If you can help us understand—so we do have the Context Based Criteria that are applicable to CN, CC and CS zoning districts. Those are pretty clear and pretty comprehensive. Not 100 percent, but they're pretty comprehensive. If you read through this—this is my personal perspective. If you read through those and look at the kinds of projects that we get, it seems like there's an inconsistency. If these are applicable to those zones, why do our projects not better reflect this design TRANSCRIPT Page 10 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 criteria? Do we need to make them design standards? How do we better incorporate these into our findings and in our Architectural Review? I guess I should clarify here. When I was reviewing this, what I used to—the filter I used to review these are my personal perspective of projects that we get, the basis of appeals that we hear, and also public comment that we get, and to some extent also comments that ARB members have made over time. Context Based Criteria. Mr. Lait: Would you like a response now? Mayor Burt: Sure. Mr. Lait: I think sort of inherent in the process is all of the projects that we send forward to the Architectural Review Board and are ultimately reviewed and approved by the Director do get evaluated to these findings. They do get evaluated to the Context Based Criteria that are set forth in the Code, the ones that you referenced, and also in the multifamily chapter as well. I think that there is probably a dialog that could take place about the quality of products that are coming out of that review process. I think there's a lot that we do that the Council doesn't see or hear about, because I think the vast majority of the projects that are going forward to the Architectural Review Board as a major ARB have been satisfactorily reviewed perhaps by the community. There are some, of course, that will get the public's attention; they're the larger projects. There is a review process that exists for those projects. It starts off with the Architectural Review Board, with an appeal to Council and action by the Council. It's this body also on appeal that sits in and weighs in on the findings and also the design based criteria. What might be helpful at a future session with the Architectural Review Board and Staff at a joint meeting is to talk a little bit more about the projects that we want to see come out of this project. I don't believe that there's any amendments needed now to the Context Based Design Criteria, but I would say that I do want to look at that. Our focus this round has been to look at the ARB findings. I do think that a reassessment of the Context Based Criteria could be helpful. There is another example of one of the problems that Amy had talked about and we have in our Staff Report is this fatigue that comes with reviewing projects to these standards. It's extensive. It's a thick amount of paper that we have to review each project to. I think that there may be an opportunity to even tighten these up, I think, in the future as well. Council Member Holman: Appreciate the explanation. I'm going to sound like a critic here, because we are supposed to be giving a critical eye to this. In that context, yes, there are a lot of projects that the Council doesn't review, don't get appealed, blah, blah, blah. Yet, we're all members of the TRANSCRIPT Page 11 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 community. Speaking personally, I mean, I go around and I look at projects that I'm not aware of until I see them built. I'm sometimes a bit thunderstruck at how incompatible. In reviewing again today the Context Based Criteria, actually they're pretty darned consistent with the South of Forest Avenue (SOFA) 2 design standards and compatibility standards, actually our compatibility standards. Finding Number 1 as it's being recommended now says... Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman, are these questions or did you want to (crosstalk) comments? Council Member Holman: They are. They are questions. Number 1 is the design is consistent with (inaudible) elements, blah, blah, blah, and any relevant design guides. Does any design—those relevant design guides, does that include the Context Based Criteria? Ms. French: I would like to answer that. The Context Based Design Criteria are contained in the Zoning Code and they're in—the consistency with the Zoning Code includes the Context Based Design Criteria. The relevant design guides are intended to refer to El Camino Real, Downtown. Council Member Holman: Then how are the Context Based Criteria addressed by the ARB? Specifically and explicitly, how are they then addressed by and incorporated in the review process of the ARB so that they are given the weight of their Code, their design criteria? Mr. Lait: They're evaluated in the Staff Report, and then also in our findings we articulate how a project is consistent with those standards. Ms. Silver: If I could add to that. What I have seen over the past few years is that it used to be that the Context Based Guideline findings were not expressly made in, say, the Record of Land Use Action that eventually went to Council. There were not specific findings made. More recently, Staff has really focused on actually articulating statements and applying those findings much more closely. You will see an actual discussion in the Staff Report or in the Record of Land Use Action now for those context based findings where they apply. They don't apply in every zone. Council Member Holman: Exactly. Perhaps my last question at the moment is—I had sent Staff earlier some recommended revisions to what's being proposed by Staff. Under compatibility of the—again, I'm looking at the Context Based Design Criteria. Under compatibility, it lists a number of things, and I'm going to point to one which is "B2," the rhythmic pattern of the street established by the general width of the buildings and the spacing between them. What this says is that compatibility goals may be TRANSCRIPT Page 12 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 accomplished through various means including but not to limited to. Would it be helpful if we even just added "and" at the end of each one of those? Is this looked at now as a pick-and-choose, this-or-that, the most of these? How is this viewed? I pointed to "B2" in particular because that's the one I think we really don't adhere to. It doesn't seem clear to me that—maybe it does Staff. We're looking to have a document or documents that are clear to any passerby and not just reliant on the current Staff, current ARB members. Is this looked at as a pick-and-choose or the majority of or do we need to have "and" there to make this clear that it's for all of these? Mr. Lait: Again, I think it's appropriate for us, at some point in the near future, to take a look at the Context Based Design Criteria. As far as how we evaluate it today, we do not look at this as a menu that you can choose from. It's to include all of these criteria, but not be limited to them. Council Member Holman: I think those are my questions. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: First, I wanted to thank Alexander Lew, a member of our ARB, for coming tonight. Thank you. I actually have kind of administrative questions. The report referred to the Minutes of the ARB. The question is how does the public find the Minutes. I've been searching on our website, and ARB Minutes don't appear to come up. You don't need to answer; I guess the Clerk could figure that one out. I'm glad the links are here; I went to the links. When did we—I thought with our Commissions and Boards we had lengthier Minutes. These were kind of very short sense Minutes. Did we change that at some point? Mr. Lait: What I'm understanding from Amy is that we do short Minutes, the Action Minutes, unless it's an item that's getting appealed to the Council, and then we will ask for those Minutes to be transcribed. Council Member DuBois: I think particularly with our Boards and Commissions, I find the discussion to be the most helpful thing. I would just ask if we can get more detail. I think most of the time from the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) we get pretty much verbatim Minutes. In this case, we had links and the Minutes were like a page each. It would have been great to just have them in the report. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid. Council Member Schmid: I had the exact same question. I followed the links to the Minutes and found out that the discussion on this item was shorter than was in the current Staff Report, less than a paragraph. One of TRANSCRIPT Page 13 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the functions of the ARB is to help Council and the public work through issues, see alternate viewpoints and interpretations, see what the language of the Code is used by professionals. I was just stunned to see there are no Minutes. It makes it very difficult to—I know over the last couple of years there's been a lot of negotiation back and forth between the ARB and the Council. I would think that the Minutes of their discussions would be very helpful in seeing how they are interpreting the language of the Code and how they want the public and the Council to do it. I had no notion of that. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Talk about music to my ears. I was coming back on a plane today, and I had lots of time to read the Minutes. This is what the Minutes look like. Truly everyone, I know it's our fault, but I think it's absolutely dependent on this Council to change this back. We don't have Minutes any more. Most of you don't go listen to the verbatim; I know you don't. I realize it's not quite a question, Mayor Burt. I'll make it a question. Why does this look like this? Mayor Burt: Can I just interject that we have processes by which we can address this. Just so that those who are using this process to... Council Member Kniss: Get frustrated. Mayor Burt: ...look at policies around Minutes, this isn't the right place, but there are places. We can have a Colleagues Memo. We are looking to schedule an upcoming Committee as a Whole where we would be looking at kind of a broader range of policy questions. Let's make sure that we channel these concerns through just the right mechanism. Council Member Kniss: Let me turn that into a question then. At the end of that meeting, we had a Substitute Motion which failed. I'm not even sure what the discussion was that caused it to fail. Do either of you remember that? Either Staff member. Mr. Lait: You're looking at the City Council Minutes from December 7, and you're asking about the last amendment. That last amendment—there was a ton of amendments. Which one are you looking for? Council Member Kniss: I won't perseverate on it, because clearly it is out of the realm of a question. Anticipate that I will bring a Colleagues Memo forth that we can go back to having Minutes that really do make a difference, so that when you're reading them and you don't happen to be where you're at a computer and can pull up the Minutes, you're not completely stymied. TRANSCRIPT Page 14 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: I have a few questions. When Council Member Holman was asking about whether the findings are all of the findings that need to be met, I think your response was something to the effect that we currently interpret it that way. I guess this is more directed perhaps to our legal Staff. Is it clear that the findings are all findings must be met? Is that clear that that's the intent? Ms. Silver: I think Council Member Holman was talking about it in the context of context based findings. Are you referring to the ARB findings? Mayor Burt: Go ahead, Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: To be clear—thank you. To be clear, for me it's both. I have some recommendations when we come to Motions. Mayor Burt: Both meaning the context findings and all of the findings? Is that what you mean by both? Council Member Holman: Yes, indeed. Mayor Burt: My reference would include the context, but it actually is about all findings. Ms. Silver: I think with the ARB findings, because we've had 16 or so findings in the past, there are certainly some findings for a particular project that are not applicable. It's very common in Record of Land Use Action when we're addressing a finding that's not applicable, we will say this finding is not applicable. The answer is no, we don't apply findings that are not applicable. Mayor Burt: That brings up an interesting subset. There are some that may not simply apply. Others that apply but a project doesn't meet. For instance, going forward we have a project; we have six findings and five of them apply, and the project meets four of the five. Under our intent of this ordinance, can that project be approved if it only meets four of the five applicable findings? Ms. Silver: No. Under the intent, it would not. It might be that we could clarify that in this updated ordinance to make that crystal clear. Mayor Burt: Thanks. Next, under Finding Number 2 on the second line, it goes the project has a unified and coherent design and creates an internal sense of order and desirable environment for occupants, visitors and the general community. Does that mean that we're referring to the face of the project to the community or is it somehow referring to—I don't think this is TRANSCRIPT Page 15 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the case, but it was just ambiguous—that the project as those members of the community who would enter the project, let's call it, enter the building or whatever would find these characteristics to have been met. I'm assuming that we're somehow meaning that as the project is visible from the outside, it's to have those characteristics for the general community. Is that the intent? Mr. Lait: Yes. Mayor Burt: It's only a little ambiguous there, but I want to try to reduce any ambiguity that we do have. Finally, my last question has to do with landscaping. Actually "5" and "6" both address landscaping; "5"specifically in landscaping, and "6" as landscaping as it applies to sustainability. In "5", we talk about utilizing drought-resistant plants, and then "6" we talk about really sustainable landscaping. Is there an understanding or intent as to what that means in terms of the type of plants? For instance, we could have drought-resistant plants that are native to Australia or Africa or the Middle East, and would pretty clearly meet "5" as it is written. I don't know whether, under Staff's interpretation, it would meet the landscaping component of "6." Can you tell me what the intent is in that regard? Mr. Lait: There's a wide variety of drought-tolerant plants. If the Council were interested in making sure that we had drought-tolerant plants that were compatible to the area or native to the area, we can add that distinguishment [sic], if that's a word, in the findings. Mayor Burt: I don't know whether Staff has reflected on this, but when you talk about sustainable landscaping, does it mean that that is sustainable in terms of its relationship to the natural environment and the species that may thrive on it or is it simply mean that it is a sustainable water supply or its impact on the water supply, which would be more narrow and, say, it just can't consume a lot of water? Ms. French: I would say that the original sustainable design green building and actually prior to that green building finding, there was quite a body of discussion about drought-tolerant and low-water use. I think that's been a common theme. I think that's been the most common theme that has run through since these conditions were established back when. I would say we certainly apply it to that. Could it be applied more broadly? I think they're worded in such a way that they can be applied more broadly. Mayor Burt: It sounds like we may want to do that. As worded right now, it's ambiguous as to whether it applies to a broader definition of what is sustainable. I understand that, and I'm not disagreeing in the historic context. I wanted to just have that understanding. That completes my TRANSCRIPT Page 16 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 questions. We have no other lights, so I'll turn to our member of the public who has turned in a card, Robert Mos. Welcome. Bob Moss: Thank you, Mayor Burt. I wasn't going to talk about this at first, but after hearing some of your questions and comments and the Staff comments, I had some thoughts. One of the problems we have in Palo Alto is that the ARB does not look at individual homes that are built. We've had some real monstrosities put in as a result. That's something that you might want to take under advisement. Second, the more of the discussion I heard, the more confused I got about what's the intent of coherent and unified design. Provides harmonious transition in scale and character to adjacent land uses and land designations. If somebody came in with a Bauhaus-style building—you know what that is—and put it in Professorville, totally incompatible. There's a building like this on Amaranta. It's a two-story cube, and the houses all around it are typically Eichler styles, one-story, frame. No compatibility of design at all. Of course, there's no control on it. They're sit there. That's just one example. I could give you a number of examples throughout the City. What I've seen over time is that the ARB— I've been to a number of ARB meetings—focus on the design in front of them, and they tend to ignore what's on either side and what the context is of the new building that's coming and the buildings that surround it. You could go all over Palo Alto and see some of these—let's be generous and call them turds dropped down in developed neighborhoods. I'm just not confident that the guidelines you're presenting tonight are going to really direct the ARB to make sure that a new building really fits in the neighborhood and really looks compatible and looks good. You could have a beautiful Bauhaus-style building, which by itself was lovely—but you drop it down next to buildings which are Eichlers, no compatibility at all. We have to make sure that the ARB talks to the entire area, not just the building they're looking at, which is what they tend to do right now. Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll close the public hearing at this time and return to the Council for discussion and a Motion. Council Member Holman. Public Hearing closed at 7:45 P.M. Council Member Holman: I have, if you would, a procedural question. Board Member Lew has come this evening. As our most senior Board Member, I'm wondering if I might propose a Motion and ask him to comment on it. Maybe other Council Members might have a desire to ask him about it too. Would that be appropriate? TRANSCRIPT Page 17 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: I think it would be more appropriate if you simply want to ask him a question. I don't think it's appropriate to ask even a Board Member to comment on a Motion that is before the Council. Council Member Holman: The only reason I asked it that way is because I have several amendments. The only way for him to see them is to put them up there. Mayor Burt: If you have a specific question that you'd like to hear what I presume would be his personal opinion on ... Council Member Holman: Yes, yes. Mayor Burt: ... I'll grant that, but not in response to a Motion. Council Member Holman: Good. You're giving authority for Mr. Lew to come forward? Mayor Burt: Sure. Council Member Holman: Thank you for coming this evening. I guess first I would give you the opportunity, if you have any comments you want to make. Then I have a couple of questions for you. Alexander Lew, Architectural Review Board Vice Chair: Why don't you start with the questions, and then I'll ... Council Member Holman: Good. There are a few things here. One is a question that often comes up, and the Mayor has brought it up a number of times too. Does the ARB currently have the feeling that it has the authority to and do these revised findings enhance that authority to reduce the size of a project if it just isn't fitting on a site? The Mayor, for instance, and I both have talked about ... Mayor Burt: Can you clarify—I think it would be better—I'm sorry. Council Member Holman: ... maximum Floor Area Ratio (FAR) being the minimum FAR. Can the ARB ... Mayor Burt: Council Member, can I ... Council Member Holman: Sure. Mayor Burt: I think it would be more appropriate to ask Mr. Lew if, as a member of the ARB, does he feel this way rather than ask him what the ARB feels. TRANSCRIPT Page 18 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Holman: Yes, as a member of the ARB, do you feel that that's clear? Mayor Burt: No, does he feel he has. Mr. Lew: I'm only speaking on ... Mayor Burt: I don't want Mr. Lew to speak on behalf of his colleagues without their authorization. Council Member Holman: As an individual ARB member, then. Mr. Lew: Yes, and I have recommended not approval on several projects in the past because of that, because I felt like they couldn't meet some of the compatibility findings. I would like to say, though, it's difficult to get a majority to vote against a project solely based on the compatibility criteria. I think whatever you guys decide tonight, trying to reinforce that all of the criteria have to be met before a project is recommended for approval, I think, is welcome. Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. I struggled with language because there are some projects that—a number of them that I see around town that get built—it looks like the architecture is almost an afterthought. It seems like a skin that's put on floor area ratio. I was trying to come up with language that would sort of address the holistic aspect of a design. There's some wording that's in a Motion that you haven't seen yet. This is where it would be helpful if you could see the Motion. What I have here is "the project has a unified and coherent design as an aesthetically holistic design of massing and materials." I don't know if you have any comment on that or if you have any—do you understand what I'm talking about? This kind of applied—it's not facadism, because that implies something else. You know what I’m saying. Mr. Lew: I have looked at your Packet. Under I think it's Number 3 of the revised findings that talks about materials, my recollection is the intent of that, as we discussed it at the ARB meeting, was really more in quality and character of buildings. That wasn't addressed narrowly through, say, setbacks or window patterns or whatever that are addressed in the first two findings. I think that was our intent. As it's worded now, it's just materials. If you wanted to make it broader, I think that—to my mind, that would meet the intent of keeping that particular finding. Council Member Holman: I guess from your personal experience, you said that you as an ARB member do use the Context Based Design Criteria. Is TRANSCRIPT Page 19 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 there any way that you're seeing that they could be strengthened, their importance could be strengthened in the findings? Mr. Lew: I would say that my general feeling about the Context Based Criteria is the way that they're written in our Code, it looks like design guidelines. It looks like the design guidelines that we have for certain areas of the City. It looks like that's pick-and-choose and not all of these apply. Whatever we do in terms of formatting of them or structuring them so it's more like a checklist, to say that all of these things apply, I think would be welcome. I think the Staff knows that. The Staff wants to bring that forward in the future. Council Member Holman: I think those are my only questions. If you have ... Mayor Burt: While he's up here, Council Member Kniss has some questions for Mr. Lew. Council Member Holman: Sure, of course. Mayor Burt: Then I can return to you, if that's all right. Council Member Holman: I just wanted to give him the opportunity to make any comments he wanted to. I'm happy to cede for questions. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Thanks for being here. It's very nice of you to come on a Monday night when you don't have to especially. Let me go backward here for a minute. I want to talk about Number 2, the internal sense of order which is an interesting comment. Then also the one comment you made that really struck home is compatibility. I have some houses in my neighborhood that are not compatible with mine. I'm not happy with them at all, but it doesn't make any difference. It's their house. It was designed apparently by some famous architect and wins all kinds of awards. Help me with this. I live in a rather classic house. It kind of looks like a lot of other houses in Palo Alto. I'm sort of comfortable with that. Apparently, in my neighborhood in particular, experimenting with lots of different styles and houses ... Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss, these don't apply to single-family homes. Council Member Kniss: Aren’t we talking about compatibility? I'm talking about compatibility. TRANSCRIPT Page 20 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mr. Lew: I can take in large the questions to other buildings. Council Member Kniss: No, I think it is compatible. It's compatibility. Mayor Burt: The design criteria don't apply to single-family homes, correct? Mr. Lew: Right. Council Member Kniss: What Mr. ... Mayor Burt: They don't review the single-family homes. Council Member Kniss: No. Mr. Lew said that's the hardest thing that they deal with, compatibility. Did you not say that? Mayor Burt: Yeah, but they don't deal with it on looking at single-family homes. Mr. Lew: We don't review houses. We review multifamily if it's more than three units of residential and all the commercial buildings. Council Member Kniss: That's all you were referring to? Mr. Lew: Right, yes. Sorry if that was not clear. To your point, though, is it about style, is it about different styles? I think that our compatibility standards are geared towards massing, window patterns. Council Member Kniss: We're on single-family homes, right? Mr. Lew: No, on all buildings. Council Member Kniss: Thank you. Mr. Lew: It's not based on style; it's based on the underlying principles of proportions and materials, colors and massing. You could have different styles of buildings together on one street. In the end, they're supposed to be sort of the same idea. That is actually what, I think, Palo Alto is about and used to do very well. We've been struggling in recent years. Council Member Kniss: Thank you. If I was slightly off the mark, thank you for bringing it back and making a really cogent comment. I appreciate it. Mr. Lew: I just have one follow-up comment on the Minutes, the ARB Minutes. Several of you mentioned the Minutes. It's been an issue with the Board as well. I think if you look at our recent meetings—I'm saying maybe even the last two meetings—it's changed. You'll see more discussion points, TRANSCRIPT Page 21 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 and you'll see where the different Board Members have different opinions. You won't just see one little blank paragraph that says the ARB discussed this and then approved the project. You'll see that they're longer; they're actually several pages longer. The discussion issues are listed. Mayor Burt: Thank you. I want to return to Council Member Holman, who had now comments. Council Member Holman: Actually I have a Motion that I had provided to City Clerk previously. If you'd care to put that on the board. What I did in this Motion was I took the recommendations by Staff and I—they've changed a little bit. I put the changes or my edits in bold; it looks like they're now in red. Maybe the easiest way—if you'll bear with me here, perhaps the easiest way to go through this is starting with the findings and just going through this. "Neither the Director nor the City Council on appeal shall grant Architectural Review unless otherwise it is found that"—I added "at a minimum each of the following findings is met." The first finding I did not change. I hope the City Clerk, if not Council Members, will help me with going through this to make sure that what I'm reading here is consistent with what's on the screen. The second one, I'm going to refer back to a comment that Alex Lew made. The second one, "the project has a unified and coherent design, is an aesthetically holistic design of massing and materials"—the parenthetical here is just to explain why—"intended to avoid superficial and applied appearance of design, creates an internal sense of order and desirable environment for occupants, visitors and the general community." I want to come back to that part of it and see if maybe—look to Staff and see if the added part there should belong in Number 3 consistent with Board Member Lew's comments. I look to come back to Staff with that. Ending that first section of Number 2 with an "and preserves, respects and integrates"—I've added "existing natural features and the historic character including historic resources of the area." "When relevant" seemed clearer than "when appropriate." "And provides harmonious transition in"—I added "size and mass." This is to try to reinforce that the ARB can reduce the size of a building. It's trying to give them a little bit more of that authority, because it's also one of the complaints that we see. "Size and mass," and then going on with the Staff recommendation "scale and character to adjacent land uses." Then with Jonathan this afternoon, deleted "and land use designations," but then added "is compatible within the context of existing development in that it establishes design linkages with surrounding existing buildings so that the visual unity of the street is maintained at a minimum by"—I added "at a minimum" this evening. I added those four points there. Those four points are pickups from—I think they're pretty much verbatim from Context Based Design Criteria and the SOFA 2 design standards. Not every neighborhood is TRANSCRIPT Page 22 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the same, and Context Based Design Criteria also don't apply to every part of town, only the commercial districts. I added those there. I look forward to any comments there. Picking up again with Staff recommendation, "and enhances living conditions on the site if it includes residential uses and in adjacent residential areas." Number 3 I did not change at all. "The design is of high aesthetic quality using high-quality materials and appropriate construction techniques, and incorporates textures, colors and other details that are compatible with and enhance the surrounding area. The design is functional." I didn't change Number 4 either. "The design is functional, allowing for ease and safety of pedestrian and bicycle access and providing for elements that support the building's necessary operations, for example, convenient vehicle access to property and utilities, appropriate arrangement and amount of open space and integrated signage if applicable." Number 5 I did change a few things here. "The landscape design is"—"suitable" seemed to be an unusual word to use there, so I put "desirable." "Integrated and compatible with the building and the surrounding area, is appropriate to the site's functions and utilizes drought-resistant"—Mayor Burt, you may have some comments here—"plant material capable of providing desirable habitat and that can be appropriately maintained." The last one, in consult with Jonathan Lait, "the project incorporates design principles that achieve sustainability and green building requirements in areas related to energy efficiency, water conservation, building materials, landscaping and site planning." We deleted "and sensible design," because who knows what "and sensible design" means. That would be my Motion that I would put forth. Council Member Schmid: Second. MOTION: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Schmid to adopt an Ordinance which is a continuation of the annual planning codes update discussed in December 2015 and contains amendments to the Architectural Review approval findings contained in Chapter 18.76 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 as submitted in the Staff Report, replacing Section 1 of the Ordinance with the following: “(d) Findings Neither the director, nor the City Council on appeal, shall grant architectural review approval, unless it is found that at a minimum each of the following findings is met: 1. The design is consistent with applicable elements of the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Code (including context-based design criteria, as applicable) and any relevant design guides. 2. The project has a unified and coherent design, is an aesthetically holistic TRANSCRIPT Page 23 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 design of massing and materials (intended to avoid superficial and “applied” appearance of design), creates an internal sense of order and desirable environment for occupants, visitors, and the general community, and preserves, respects and integrates existing natural features and the historic character including historic resources of the area when relevant; and provides harmonious transitions in size, mass, scale and character to adjacent land uses, is compatible within the context of existing development in that it establishes design linkages with surrounding existing buildings so that the visual unity of the street is maintained at a minimum by: (1) Siting, scale, massing, materials; (2) The rhythmic pattern of the street established by the general width of the buildings and the spacing between them; (3) The sizes, proportions, and orientations of windows, bays, and doorways; (4) The location and treatment of entryways where applicable; And enhances living conditions on the site (if it includes residential uses) and in adjacent residential areas. 3. The design is of high aesthetic quality, using high quality materials and appropriate construction techniques, and incorporating textures, colors, and other details that are compatible with and enhance the surrounding area. 4. The design is functional, allowing for ease and safety of pedestrian and bicycle access and providing for elements that support the building’s necessary operations (e.g. convenient vehicle access to property and utilities, appropriate arrangement and amount of open space and integrated signage, if applicable, etc.). 5. The landscape design is desirable, integrated and compatible with the building and the surrounding area, is appropriate to the site’s functions, and utilizes drought-resistant plant material capable of providing desirable habitat and that can be appropriately maintained. 6. The project incorporates design principles that achieve sustainability and green building requirements in areas related to energy efficiency, water conservation, building materials, landscaping, and site planning.” Mayor Burt: It was seconded by Council Member Schmid. TRANSCRIPT Page 24 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Holman: I don't really have much in the way of other comments, other than to say I do have the question to Staff and colleagues if the "aesthetically holistic design of massing" should be in Number 2 or Number 3 as Board Member Lew had suggested. Of course, look to the Mayor about the drought-resistant plants. Any other comments. One thing that is not part of this Motion, but something that I think the Council maybe ought to consider—I don't think it would be within tonight's purview. Just a comment, I guess. In looking at how projects come to the City Council, we rely on—because the ARB has very broad purview and very large projects go before it that never does the Council see or the Planning Commission, perhaps we ought to think about, as a future item, whether the Council has some kind of call-up that it can entertain rather than relying on members of the public expending their financial resources and personal resources to get something to come to the Council. That's just a comment. Council Member Kniss: Pat, could I ask a question of the maker of the Motion? Mayor Burt: Go ahead. Council Member Kniss: Karen, on first blush, so called, this looks like it's ... Mayor Burt: I'm sorry, Council Member Kniss. We need to allow the seconder to speak and then come to members. Council Member Kniss: I just have a clarification to make when the time comes. Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid. Council Member Schmid: There's substantial new language. What caught my attention were just some key words that have been inserted. In an introductory sentence, the "minimum of each of the following." On two, the insertion of "outwardly" is an important addition. A few lines down, the insertion of "size and mass." A few lines down from that, the "unity of the street." Under Number 2, "width and spacing" seems to me to be important. In three, the focus on windows, bays and doorways is a critical issue. In Number 5, entryways, being specific about that. Finally in Number 5, the term "habitat." I think each of those adds a critical element that would be helpful for the ARB and the public. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Once again, now that we've clarified compatible. In this context where it is used—I've now just lost my spot where it is. Where TRANSCRIPT Page 25 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 is the word "compatible"? Wherever it is, could somebody point out "compatible," because it's in here? When we're talking about this as details that are compatible with and enhance the surrounding area, are we asking the ARB to interpret whether or not that's compatible? Council Member Holman: If I might. The compatible criteria that we're talking about actually is the third part of Number 2, is compatible within the context of existing development. It's the third section of Number 2. Council Member Kniss: We have compatible here three times as Pat just said. Under Number 2, coming to Line 5, "is compatible with the context of existing development and that it establishes design linkages with surrounding, existing buildings so the visual unity of the street is maintained at a minimum." I'm sure that that has great meaning to whomever is judging it, but it always seems to me as though compatibility is a very difficult judgment to make. Mayor Burt: First, I think there was a question of whether it is intended that the ARB will have the responsibility to interpret compatibility. Is it correct that that would fall both on the Staff and the ARB, because the Staff is making a recommendation based on whether a project is consistent with the findings and then the ARB has a hearing on that? Is that correct? Council Member Kniss: In each of those instances, you will look at it in that way. Correct? Mr. Lait: Yes Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman. Council Member Berman: (inaudible) Mayor Burt: Do you want to go next? Council Member Berman: I'll happily wait a minute. Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: First, I just want to thank Council Member Holman for working on this ahead of time and putting it out there. You saved us a lot of time. I think I support all the changes there. I particularly like the specifics about compatibility in Number 2. I think Council Member Schmid highlighted a lot of the things that are appropriate changes. Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman. TRANSCRIPT Page 26 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Berman: Tom, I was kind of counting on you for a little more there, to buy me some time. Mayor Burt: Do you want me to go next? Council Member Berman: No, I'll go. Council Member Holman, a couple of questions. I'm not an architect, and this is not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination. I'm struggling to process all of this on the fly, which is my main uncomfortability [sic]. I guess I kind of wish some of these changes would go by the ARB to the extent that any of them are big changes to what they discussed and came up with. Maybe they aren't. That's kind of where I'll start my questions. In "D2" you changed "respects and integrates existing natural features and the historic character including historic resources of the area." You changed it from "when appropriate" to "when relevant." Does Staff or does the ARB or somebody have an idea for what's the definition of "relevant" or what are the criteria for "relevant" and how is that different from "appropriate"? Mayor Burt: That's under which one again? Council Member Berman: It's "D2," the big "2." This third part, I think. No, the second part, excuse me. I don't know if that's for Staff or for Council Member Holman or who. Council Member Holman: If you want to ask me, it's like "when appropriate" seemed like—"appropriate" seemed like it was a little more vague than what I think the ARB would be using and the Staff would be using. When it's relevant, it means that something is applicable, to my way of looking at it. Maybe a bit of semantics, but that's why I changed it from "applicable" to "relevant." Council Member Berman: From "appropriate." Does Staff ... Council Member Holman: Excuse me, from "appropriate" to "relevant." I'm sorry. Council Member Berman: No, I'm with you. How would Staff instruct the ARB to interpret that, I guess? Mr. Lait: Council Member Berman, in which specific section are you talking about? (inaudible) Number 2 here? Council Member Berman: It's "D2," the big "2," where it says "in regards to historic resources of the area when relevant." There's been controversy TRANSCRIPT Page 27 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 about that with one of the projects currently. I guess, are we getting any additional clarity as to when that would be relevant? Mr. Lait: The way I read that reference to historic resources, one, we've sort of set up historic character to sort of reflect the pattern of development of a particular area, but also for consideration of historic resources. These are properties that are on our inventory. Council Member Berman: Historical resources list. Mr. Lait: Yeah. We do that anyways, actually. Just as a part of review, we look to see what is on the property from a historic standpoint. That part of "2" I don't have a concern about. I have some reservations about some of the other comments, if there's an opportunity. Council Member Berman: Council Member Holman, you mentioned when you cited that "1" through "4" under big "2," where did that come from again? Council Member Holman: It came from the SOFA 2 design standards and also compatibility standards. It also is—I don't know word for word, but it's pretty darned consistent with also what the Context Based Design Criteria are. I put them in here because they're kind of basic and because the Context Based Design Criteria only refer to the CD, CS and CN districts and not others. Council Member Berman: Thank you. A similar question to what I just had about the difference between "appropriate" and "relevant." In Number 5, the landscape design is desirable. What does that mean and kind of according to who? How is that meant to be interpreted? It seems like a higher level, a higher standard I guess than suitable. Council Member Holman: That would be a goal. "Desirable" is, I think, a higher standard than "suitable." "Suitable" seems to be—again, it's a bit of semantics. How I read "suitable" is it's even less than appropriate. It just seemed like this provided some better clarity and some stronger oomph behind what our goals are as a City. Council Member Berman: Do we have something somewhere that—excuse my lack of knowledge—says these things are desirable, these things are suitable, these things are appropriate? I mean, how is that meant to be interpreted by the ARB? I don't know if it's a question maybe for Staff again. Mr. Lait: I guess we do have ... We don't have any prescribed standards. TRANSCRIPT Page 28 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Berman: I'm sorry, can you say that one more time? Mr. Lait: We don't have any prescribed standards. I believe that we have a plant palette or a mix of plants that we believe to be appropriate. When I look at desirable, I think it's from the City's perspective. If there's a plant palette or type of planting that we're looking to have, it's from that lens that we would be looking at the desirability, not necessarily from the applicant's idea of what would be desirable. Council Member Berman: If I'm an applicant, how do I know that what I'm proposing is going to meet the City's kind of expectations? Mr. Lait: I think that's where we look to the other part of the finding. Something for the Council to consider is whether we need the word "suitable" or "desirable," and just have it read "the landscape design is integrated and compatible with the building and surrounding area." That may not be what the Motion maker's ... Mayor Burt: When I speak, I'm going to have some suggested wording changes. Council Member Berman: Sounds like there will be some suggestions. Is this covering the bottom of "6"? Sorry. Is everything covered—yes, it was. Sorry. Thanks guys. Thank you. Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you very much to the Staff and the ARB for everything that went into this. Also, thank you, Council Member Holman, for offering these amendments. I am, at initial glance, very sympathetic to the proposed changes offered by Council Member Holman, but I'm also interested in improving the process by which we approve these. I'm wondering if we might want to send this with these changes for a quick glance by ARB as well as Staff. I also wanted to check. I forgot to ask whether our Chief Sustainability Officer and his department had weighed in specifically on the stuff here about sustainability and materials, design and efficiency. If not, I guess I would—I'll hear thoughts from Staff first, but I'm inclined to after that offer a friendly amendment to have Sustainability Staff, Planning, Legal Staff and the ARB just take a look at this. I do think there are a lot of changes here, and it's substantially different from what the ARB has already looked at. I would just like to get them to sign off on these changes. They might have a couple of word tweaks that would just improve it. I am largely sympathetic to these changes offered. Mayor Burt: Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 29 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Wolbach: I'm not—I was actually looking for Staff feedback ... Mayor Burt: Sorry. Council Member Wolbach: ...on that. Depending on that, I might offer a friendly amendment. Mr. Lait: With respect to the Chief Sustainability Officer, no we did not engage that office in these findings. In fact, Finding Number 6 is not one that Staff originally was proposing as we thought it was sufficiently covered in the City's Building Codes. This is something that is routinely looked at for any development that takes place. Having it here is something that the ARB was interested in having to sort of amplify the City's interest in these important goals. From my perspective, I don't believe that they are necessary to the Board's review of projects because... Council Member Wolbach: Let me ask—if I might ask a follow-up to that. Is there a mechanism that exists by which the ARB can seek input from or at a routine process has input from the Chief Sustainability Officer on sustainability or is that simply handled through the Planning Codes that the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) helps to craft in the first place, then specific applications are handled by Planning Staff? Mr. Lait: The latter. Council Member Wolbach: I'll offer a friendly amendment. That prior to our next reading of this, that Staff and the ARB have an opportunity to look at this version with these changes to offer either approval or minor changes or feedback. Council Member Kniss: I would second. Council Member Wolbach: It was hopefully a friendly amendment. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss, we allow the maker and the seconder to accept or not accept that. Council Member Kniss: Thank you, Pat. Council Member Wolbach: I am really hoping this will be a friendly amendment, because again I do like where the changes are going. I just want to have the comfort of knowing others have seen it. Council Member Holman: Question for Staff first. Does Staff view these as substantive enough to merit additional ARB review and Staff comment or are TRANSCRIPT Page 30 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 these mostly and largely clarifications and enhancements? By the way, I have not heard a response to the "aesthetically holistic design," if that should be in "2" or "3." The first question being relevant to the amendment. Mr. Lait: I guess if it were to be presented as this, I would like to go back to the Architectural Review Board and get some more comments. With respect to your second question, in light of the conversation, I think perhaps it should be in Finding Number 3. Council Member Holman: I'll accept the amendment. Can I work with David then to get the language in "2" to be moved down to "3," given Jonathan's input? Mayor Burt: Your Motion. It'll be up to you and your seconder. James Keene, City Manager: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Burt: Yes. Mr. Keene: I do agree with Jonathan. I mean, it's as much process. It's an important enough issue. You've worked on it. Council Member Holman certainly has a passion for this and has put a lot into this. I think we do need to—there are a lot of words here that can be interpreted a lot of different ways, and we ought to sort of vet that a little bit and get the—to what extent are they—is there sort of a unified understanding or the potential for confusion in being to put that out there. The other thing I would just say is that there's just a lot here. We made an effort to get the Packet out 11 days in advance to have time to look at things. To make changes like this, we want to be sure that we have some review process. The only thing I would just say is it included the word "minor." I'm not anticipating that the feedback could be minor changes. I wouldn't want to get in an argument with Council that we came back and we're saying things that weren't minor. I mean, a lot of these things are in the eye of beholder. I think we just want to raise some questions, give some feedback, let you know whether or not things were clear or they weren't clear. I just did want to clarify. This is necessarily approving a first reading in the sense of the ordinance itself as much as this is a first look at it. We'd be coming back with some feedback for you to try to finalize the first reading. Thanks. Council Member Schmid: Seconder would accept that and look forward to getting Minutes from the ARB discussion. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “Direct Staff and the Architectural Review Board to review the updated language prior to the next TRANSCRIPT Page 31 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 reading of this Ordinance and offer approval, feedback or changes.” (New Part B) Council Member Wolbach: If there are changes—I just want to check. Was Staff recommending that we modify this amendment slightly to remove the word "minor" and the word "feedback'? It would be "offer approval, feedback or changes." Would that be okay with the maker and seconder as well? Mr. Keene: Thanks. If I just may say. We may have just questions and not propose language, but the questions may be helpful to the Council also. Mayor Burt: Questions is under feedback, I think. Was that accepted by the maker and the second? Council Member Holman: Yes, yes. Mayor Burt: I have a few questions and comments. Generally, I think I'm supportive of the bulk of these changes. I think it is appropriate that we have this have more complete Staff and ARB review. When we look at it, we have almost as much red here as black. While it may not be inconsistent with what was there before, it's certainly substantial in terms of what it adds. A first question. I don't know what the impact of, in the preamble basically, adding "minimum" means. Council Member Holman, can you give me some explanation of what the intent is there? Council Member Holman: I did query that. Again, there are other design criteria. For instance, one that's often overlooked is SOFA 1 and SOFA 2. That's why I wanted to be more inclusive on that aspect of it. Also, there might be something that isn't covered here, but the Staff and ARB might say this needs to be considered here. Mayor Burt: On the SOFA 1 and SOFA 2, under Number 1, it says "consistent with applicable documents, the Comp Plan, the Zoning Code and any relevant design guides." SOFA 1 and SOFA 2 would be relevant design guides for within SOFA 1 and 2 areas, for instance. Council Member Holman: I don't look at SOFA 1 and SOFA 2 as design guides. They are coordinated area plans. They include design standards and design guides. I'm trying to be inclusive as opposed to exclusive. Mayor Burt: The "at a minimum," actually the way it's written, it would apply to all of the criteria, not that there may be other criteria that are not referenced. For each of the referenced criteria, the application would have to meet this "at a minimum." That's an implication—I think it's in some TRANSCRIPT Page 32 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 ways as problematic as ambiguity over whether all the guidelines must be met, but it's the flip side. It's telling an applicant that we may require more of you than what's in the criteria. I think that's problematic. We've talked a lot about trying to provide a lot of clarity. When we look at the Staff Report, that was one of their main ambitions, to provide applicants a better understanding of how projects will be evaluated. When you throw in "at a minimum" on everything, I think it actually moves away from that objective. Council Member Holman: If I might. There are "ands" put in a number of these locations, so I'd be okay with "as found that each of the following findings is met" and take out "at a minimum." I'd be amenable to that if the cosigner would be. Mayor Burt: The seconder? Great. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove from the first paragraph of the Motion, “at a minimum” after “unless it is found.” Ms. Silver: Excuse me, Mayor Burt. Mayor Burt: Yes. Ms. Silver: I think that we would recommend that you insert "applicable finding." The way these findings are structured, there still is some latitude where there are some findings that will not be applicable to each project. It would read "unless it is found that each of the following applicable findings is met." Council Member Holman: I'm good with that. Council Member Schmid: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the first paragraph of the Motion, “applicable” after “each of the following.” Mayor Burt: The maker and the seconder have accepted that Staff- recommended change. The SOFA standards, are they standards or guidelines? I was trying to recall. Standards. Council Member Holman: (inaudible) Mayor Burt: Amy, when we do have as standards, are they worded that these are all things that must be met? Is that the way those are framed? TRANSCRIPT Page 33 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Ms. French: Similarly to the Context Based Design Criteria. The issue with the SOFA is it's not in the Zoning Code; it's its own animal. We could add the phrase "or coordinated area plans" to the first finding. That would capture SOFA and other ... Mayor Burt: "And future coordinated area plans." Ms. French: Yes, yes. Council Member Holman: I'd agree with that, yes. Mayor Burt: The seconder? We'll add to that first finding after the parentheses "[comma] coordinated area plans and any relevant design guides." INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Subsection 1, “coordinated area plans” after “as applicable.” Mayor Burt: A couple of comments, and then I want to return to one more aspect of this. Mr. Lew's comments were pretty interesting that in his opinion it's difficult to get a no vote from the ARB solely based on compatibility criteria. Yet, we have compatibility criteria currently. That begs the discussion that Council Member Holman was asking earlier. I will say that I think we have seen over the last year the ARB moving in a direction that is, I would say, more assertive toward applications and toward insistence on meeting the criteria better. As the City Attorney stated, now the Staff Reports are stating the findings and how a project is meeting the findings. The statement by Mr. Lew gave me pause as to—for one thing, it made me more supportive toward strengthening the findings and making them more clear and more concrete. I basically have a question of if we have this requirement in the preamble that removes the ambiguity on whether it is cherry-picking findings or all of them must be met, that seems to help. Do we need anything else to make it clear to the ARB that if they can't make an applicable finding, they are not allowed to approve a project? That's really what the ordinance says, and I don't think that's their understanding. From everything I have heard, they believe that the findings are guidelines for their discretionary approval of a project as a whole and in its entirety and not a set of findings that each must be met. Mr. Lait: Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to explore that further with the Architectural Review Board. I would say that if that were true about the Architectural Review Board's perspective on the ARB findings, it is not the true perspective of the Director, who is the one who is actually approving the projects. From a Staff perspective, we look at this as every applicable TRANSCRIPT Page 34 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 finding needs to be answered in the affirmative in order for it to get an approval. We can certainly look at how we might adjust the language here to be explicitly clear about that. I also think with respect to your other comment about the sort of strengthening or sharpening our focus on that, we're trying to take this from a couple of different angles. Another angle that's sort of in the background of all this is our Staff Reports. We've made some changes to our Staff Reports that are going to be coming online, I believe, next month where we're drilling down on these areas a little bit more specifically, so that we're sharing that. Mayor Burt: The other way that we approach some of this is, for instance, we have context based guidelines. I'm sorry, what do we call them? Yeah. Within them are some drawings of examples of what is contextually consistent in several regards. It strikes me that maybe we need to look at additional examples that aren't covered well enough in the context guidelines. We may not want to—we may or may not want to have examples that maybe are in Palo Alto or outside. In the current ones, we have abstractions of examples, I think. I don't think we have any concrete "this building in this environment." I think about some of the buildings at Stanford in recent years that are distinctly modern buildings abutting historic buildings on campus, that also to most viewers would be viewed as being contextually compatible. You look at colors and materials, and then even certain architectural mass and scale and lines. A lot of the elements that you look and you just go, "That's really interesting. That's a distinctly modern building right next to an historic building, and it works." Then we have other places in town where we have sometimes really distinctive new buildings that are higher quality than we might get on average in the community and stick out like a sore thumb in their context. We just haven't been doing a good job for a long while on this. I think that the Council had been hesitant for quite a while to really intercede in this decision-making. Starting about two years ago, we kind of said enough's enough, or a number of us. I think we're now moving in the right direction. I think that this clarity that's being provided here will help. I think that we may still be missing some aspects of references to what meets these, so that people can see examples, both the public and the ARB, to what is our intent. That may be something that Staff would want to look at considering. I'm not going to recommend putting that in the Motion. Now I want to just go to that final part which is around the landscape. First, I think "desirable" is a problematic word. I don't know in whose eyes something is desirable. I don't think it's very concrete nor clear. I'm not sure that what I'm going to offer is as good as we may want. I was thinking along the lines that we want to complement and enhance the building design. We aren't just saying that it's good landscaping. It's good landscaping in relation to that building. We want it to be high-quality landscaping, and maybe we need to emphasize TRANSCRIPT Page 35 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 that. Maybe that's what's even intended by the word "desirable" over "suitable." "Suitable" implies it's adequate. "Desirable" seems to imply that it's good. Once again, we don't want just good buildings or good landscaping; we want good landscaping that relates to those buildings and to those surroundings again. I'd offer—as a substitute for "desirable," I would offer the language "complements and enhances the building design and its compatibility with its surroundings." Council Member Holman: You've got "the landscape design complements and enhances"? Mayor Burt: Yes, "the landscape design complements and enhances the building design and its surroundings." Council Member Holman: I'm good with that. Mayor Burt: Seconder? Council Member Schmid: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion Subsection 5, “is desirable, integrated and compatible with the building and the surrounding area” with “compliments and enhances the building design and its surroundings.” Mayor Burt: Thank you. Then this final part about what do we mean when we talk about sustainable landscaping. I've spoken briefly about this. I think that as we move toward over time an ever more urban environment and one where we have filled in the very last remaining plots that haven't been developed in our community, and as we at the same time appreciate the need to not only preserve but help reestablish a natural environment within an urban setting, we have to be deliberate in doing that. This is actually a real opportunity to begin to do so. I've alluded to, for instance, Stanford Research Park where we have really large areas of passive landscaping that on their own we're seeing some evolution in a positive direction at the present time. Historically, they were a lot of turf and junipers. I don't know if you've tried to be a bird or a bug living in turf or junipers, but it's not the most hospitable environment. I would recommend—let's see. We currently have "the project green building requirements in areas related to energy efficiency, water conservation, building materials, landscaping." I think that the most appropriate place may be in the—to give greater clarity—preceding finding. It says "and utilize." I would offer a substitution of "utilizes to the extent practicable indigenous, drought-resistant plant material." The key aspects of this are TRANSCRIPT Page 36 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 not saying that every plant has to be indigenous, but we want to push it to the extent it's practicable. Second, that it is not merely drought resistant but, as much as we can, we have indigenous plants that are also drought resistant. Council Member Holman: If you're looking at what's on the board, is that ... Mayor Burt: Yes. Council Member Holman: I'm good with that. Mayor Burt: Maker and seconder? Council Member Holman: Yes, yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Subsection 5, “to the extent practical, indigenous” after “functions, and utilizes.” Mayor Burt: That's all I have. Council Member Holman: We still do need to return to the switching of "2" and "3" that Staff had said we should do and based on Board Member Lew's comment. In Number 2, we take the language "is an aesthetically holistic design of massing," that whole bolded or in this case red comment, and put that in Number 3 instead. "The design is of high aesthetic quality," and then insert what was in Number 2 there. I believe that's what Staff was intending as well. Isn't that what you were indicating? Mr. Lait: Striking that—the question was where would that reference be best made. I agree that it's in "3." As we go to the ARB, we'll look at the words that we're using to describe that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove from the Motion Subsection 2, “is an aesthetically holistic design of massing and materials (intended to avoid superficial and “applied” appearance of design)” and add to subsection 3, “is an aesthetically holistic design of massing and materials (intended to avoid superficial and “applied” appearance of design)” after “high aesthetic quality.” Mayor Burt: If I might just add kind of some wrap-up comments. One, I actually do value the input from Staff and the ARB that we will receive to this. At the same time, I'm very encouraged by what we have here in principle and in, for the most part, the details. I think that this can have a very significant effect on the evolution of our projects to being higher TRANSCRIPT Page 37 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 quality, more sustainable in a number of different ways, and more compatible with surroundings. I think these are things that have been extremely important to the community. As our struggles here tonight to try and get right language indicate, trying to translate "we see it, we like it or we don't like it" into guidelines is not an easy task. I think we've moved in the right direction here. I'm actually really looking forward to not only seeing this come back to us, but seeing in the coming years the impact of this new ordinance and how it'll affect projects. I think this is good work. Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Burt: Yes. Mr. Keene: I most likely won't be involved in the detailed conversations with the Staff and the ARB. I just noticed one thing, a potential internal consistency issue particularly given the comments on drought-resistant plants and all the sustainability comments. That is in "2." I understand the intent in the second line that says "and integrates existing natural features." I'm a little concerned that the word "existing" could be very prescriptive depending upon what that is. I mean, that could mean there may be some nonnative plants and natural features that actually we would want to be replaced in a fashion, and would that restrict us from being able to do that. Does that mean almost anything that is existing as a current natural feature couldn't be changed in any way? Mayor Burt: Good question. Council Member Holman, can you clarify what you meant by that? Council Member Holman: Yes. I appreciate the comment as well. It wouldn't be—if you have a scrub oak, that doesn't mean that we want it preserved. It's a good comment. Since this is going back to the ARB, I look for them to maybe provide an adjective there. One's not occurring to me right at this moment. What I was really focused on here—this is what happens when an individual looks with their own focus and filter. What I was looking to there was—it was part of the conversation I had with Jonathan Lait—I don't think enough of our projects respect even heritage oaks and historic resources. They look at how can I work my project in without totally destroying those as opposed to projects that start with "here's a great resource; here's a heritage oak; how do I build a project that really features this resource." That's where I was coming from. Mayor Burt: I'm wondering whether what we're trying to do is talk about existing natural features that contribute positively to the project. Council Member Holman: To the community actually. TRANSCRIPT Page 38 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: Yes, but they're onsite. Maybe we have something (crosstalk)—pardon me? Council Member Holman: Why not what you just said? Mayor Burt: "Contributing"? Council Member Holman: "Natural features that contribute positively to the site and/or community." Mayor Burt: Just say "site" because everything's in the context. Council Member Holman: "Contribute positively to the site." Mayor Burt: That'll be fine by me. Seconder? Thank you. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Subsection 2, “that contribute positively to the site” after “natural features.” Council Member Holman: Thank you for that, both of you. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: One last question before we vote. I think we've changed this rather substantially. What it says in the amendment, Cory, is "for approval, feedback or changes." If they don't approve, what happens? Mayor Burt: My understanding is that we would hear back and say Staff recommends these changes which is not essentially approval or ARB or Staff could say, "We think this whole thing's bunk." I think a little more likely is that they would come back and say, "We would recommend the Council consider such-and-such change from your Motion." Council Member Kniss: In that case, I can feel comfortable with it. We really have changed this a great deal. It's quite prescriptive as far as if somebody comes in and—looking at the back of room—if they come in, this is a lot to follow. I'd like that same time and plot that you suggested, Council Member Wolbach. I'd like that time to digest this and see whether or not there are things in this that red flag when you finally take a look at them long term. We're discussing something that's going to be around for a long time. We're discussing something that I think is quite prescriptive. If I were an applicant and took a look at this, I think the first thing I would do is hire a consultant to say, "Get me through this so that I can build something on that piece of land." We're talking about plants. We're talking about the building. We're talking about the siting. There's nothing we have left out of TRANSCRIPT Page 39 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 this when it comes to the applicant. Thank you, Cory, for putting that in such a way that I can vote for it tonight, and that we have another bite at this apple so that we can really digest it and move on for the next round. This is our second round. There will probably be at least a third. Mayor Burt: I'm seeing a bunch of lights pop up here. Let's be real quick. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I was just going to emphasize that again one of the intents of this whole endeavor was to keep this as concise and clear as possible. Just I think it's already clear, but just wanted to emphasize that my encouragement to Staff and to the ARB to—if there are any wording changes that can remove any redundancies, if they're found, that would be useful. Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Even though it looks like a lot of red here, I would point out that we used to have 16 findings; we got down to six. I think it's movement in the right direction. I actually like—six or ten. Still, even these had subs before. I think we actually took a strong step in the right direction. Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: It has to do with the last and, I think, positive edit that was provided here in Number 2, "natural features that contributed positively to the site." Then the language gets to be murky. Rather than try to come up with language there, can we just for the purposes of this going forward to the ARB say that "preserves, respects and integrates" and then put a bullet "existing natural features," blah, blah, blah, and bullet "the historic character including historic resources." Leave it to the ARB and Staff to come up with appropriate language, because right now it reads really funky. Can we do that, David? Mayor Burt: That's just a restructuring; it's not a restatement. Council Member Holman: For clarity, yes. Mayor Burt: We'll just let everybody look at that change before we ... MOTION RESTATED: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Schmid to: A. Adopt an Ordinance which is a continuation of the annual Planning Codes update discussed in December 2015 and contains amendments to the Architectural Review approval findings contained in Chapter TRANSCRIPT Page 40 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 18.76 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 as submitted in the Staff Report, replacing Section 1 of the Ordinance with the following: “(d) Findings Neither the director, nor the City Council on appeal, shall grant architectural review approval, unless it is found that each of the following applicable findings is met: 1. The design is consistent with applicable elements of the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Code (including context-based design criteria, as applicable), coordinated area plans and any relevant design guides. 2. The project has a unified and coherent design, creates an internal sense of order and desirable environment for occupants, visitors, and the general community, and preserves, respects and integrates: • existing natural features that contribute positively to the site and • the historic character including historic resources of the area when relevant; and provides harmonious transitions in size, mass, scale and character to adjacent land uses , is compatible within the context of existing development in that it establishes design linkages with surrounding existing buildings so that the visual unity of the street is maintained at a minimum by: (1) Siting, scale, massing, materials; (2) The rhythmic pattern of the street established by the general width of the buildings and the spacing between them; (3) The sizes, proportions, and orientations of windows, bays, and doorways; (4) The location and treatment of entryways where applicable; And enhances living conditions on the site (if it includes residential uses) and in adjacent residential areas. TRANSCRIPT Page 41 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 3. The design is of high aesthetic quality, is an aesthetically holistic design of massing and materials (intended to avoid superficial and “applied” appearance of design) using high quality materials and appropriate construction techniques, and incorporating textures, colors, and other details that are compatible with and enhance the surrounding area. 4. The design is functional, allowing for ease and safety of pedestrian and bicycle access and providing for elements that support the building’s necessary operations (e.g. convenient vehicle access to property and utilities, appropriate arrangement and amount of open space and integrated signage, if applicable, etc.). 5. The landscape design compliments and enhances the building design and its surroundings, is appropriate to the site’s functions, and utilizes, to the extent practical, indigenous drought-resistant plant material capable of providing desirable habitat and that can be appropriately maintained. 6. The project incorporates design principles that achieve sustainability and green building requirements in areas related to energy efficiency, water conservation, building materials, landscaping, and site planning.” B. Direct Staff and the Architectural Review Board to review the updated language prior to the next reading of this Ordinance and offer approval, feedback or changes. Mayor Burt: Let's vote on the board. That passes unanimously with Council Member Filseth and Vice Mayor Scharff absent. That concludes Item Number 7. Thank you, thank you. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 7-0 Filseth, Scharff absent 8. Direction to Staff Regarding Downtown Palo Alto Parking Wayfinding and Parking Guidance Systems Design. Mayor Burt: We'll now move on to the Downtown parking wayfinding and parking guidance systems. Staff has recommended that the Council direct Staff to solicit bids for construction of the Downtown parking wayfinding design in the blue color scheme and direct Staff to prepare plans and estimates for construction and installation of Automated Parking Guidance System, APGS—I say that with emphasis because I'm expecting to hear many hallelujahs from the community—with preference for single space TRANSCRIPT Page 42 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 monitoring in the Downtown Palo Alto parking garages and to solicit bids when funding becomes available. Welcome. Who would like to kick it off? Jessica Sullivan, Transportation Planning Manager: Good evening, everyone. Jessica Sullivan, Transportation Planning Manager. I'm glad to (inaudible) with this update tonight. As Mayor Burt mentioned, we're doing two things tonight. We're really giving you an update on projects which we've been working on for the past several months, and we're also soliciting your feedback on how to move forward with these projects. The projects we're going to be talking about are the parking guidance systems, the APGS, as well as parking wayfinding. I'm going to give kind of a quick overview of how we got to where we are this evening, and then I'm going to hand this over to Sue-Ellen Atkinson, who's our parking and TDM lead for the City. She's going to give you an overview of the two projects side-by-side. Just to take a step back for a minute. Most of you remember our three-legged stool of parking management, Transportation Demand Management (TDM) and then our parking supply measures. Tonight we are very much focused on the parking management leg of the stool. As you remember, parking management strategies are all about trying to really regulate and manage our existing parking, so that we're using it as effectively as we can, specifically looking at technology systems that help us do that as well as improvements in parking wayfinding signage. Just a little bit of background on these two kind of components of our program. There was a nexus fee study in 2004, which was then updated in 2007, which mentioned the applicability of parking guidance systems for transportation impact fees. Moving ahead a few years, we did a study in early 2014 with a consultant who kind of looked at our Downtown parking system sort of holistically and noted that there were some potential improvements we could make. One of the most important findings out of that study was the improvements in parking wayfinding and regulation were needed. They noted we had some inconsistent signage and branding, and ultimately this was sort of less than desirable for customers who are coming Downtown and trying to locate parking. On August 18th, the Council directed us to proceed with an Request for Proposal (RFP) for a couple of things, parking access and revenue controls and parking guidance systems. We ultimately awarded a contract to Walker Parking on May 4th of last year. We're going to give you tonight an update on what they've done. In addition, we also moved forward with a separate project to look at parking wayfinding. Wayfinding, as distinguished from parking guidance systems, is really the signage that helps us find where the parking lots are. Once we're there, the parking guidance systems help us locate the spaces that are empty. Kind of moving forward with these two separate contracts. We looked at our wayfinding, and we looked at parking access and revenue controls and the parking guidance systems. During the stakeholder discussions, one of the things TRANSCRIPT Page 43 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 that came out was that ultimately everybody loved the idea of improved wayfinding. They loved the idea of parking branding. Everybody loves parking guidance systems. Maybe not everybody loves parking access and revenue control systems, maybe not yet. One of the things we decided to do kind of out of that stakeholder engagement was actually split these projects up. We moved forward with the wayfinding and the parking guidance systems projects. What we've done is we've actually sort of put the parking access and revenue control systems for the garages on a separate track. The reason for that is ultimately a couple of things. People are still hesitant about the idea of paying for parking in the garages. Additionally, this year we are embarking on what we're calling the Downtown Parking Management Study, which is going to look holistically at parking pricing and regulation sort of all throughout the Downtown core. A lot of folks sort of felt that it makes more sense for us to charge for parking on the street before we charge for parking in the garages, because ultimately we want to direct people to fill up the garages first, before we have them park on the street. Because of that, you can see we've kind of split the projects now into two separate tracks. We're going to give you an update on the parking wayfinding and the guidance systems this evening. The parking access and revenue controls will be sort of explored in tandem with the Downtown Parking Management Study which we'll be kicking off later this month. That's sort of an update on how we got to where we are. I'm going to hand this over to Sue-Ellen so she can give you an update on the projects. Sue-Ellen Atkinson, Parking Operations Lead: Thank you. As Jessica mentioned, the existing parking wayfinding in Downtown is, at best, inconsistent and perhaps confusing also. We have some snapshots of different existing signage within the Downtown area. Upper left corner the banners that are up in the parking lots that are difficult to see from afar, and they don't identify which lot you're in. We also have the waist-high monument signs outside of each surface lot that are very difficult to see unless you're right up next to one. We also have several—on the right-hand side you see the parking signs that direct you in three different ways to find parking, which when you're driving can be downright confusing when you're trying to decide if you're going left, right or straight when you're told to go all three ways. We also have different signage at each of the garages. The first thing that our design consultant did was to look at what's actually on the ground and how that can actually be improved. We've all experienced being on University Avenue. People don't know where to go to find parking. They're seeing these signs that tell them to go to the left, to go to the right. What our consultant did was look at how we could cohesively put together a parking brand that would be easily identifiable as a parking garage that's associated with the City and also placing those signs in key decision points TRANSCRIPT Page 44 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 to help people get where they need to go faster. Taking a step back at parking branding. We've seen parking branding for private garages. Just noting that it's also something that does exist in many other cities. Notably Pasadena, on the lower level of these drawings, is where our design consultant also did work. Beverly Hills, other cities all have very distinct parking brands that, when you drive around and you see that sign, you know that that's a city garage. It helps build a level of trust, and you know that that's somewhere that you can go to park off-street. As part of the parking wayfinding and branding, our design consultant has proposed a slight renaming of the surface lots and off-street garages in the Downtown area. As nice as Lot S and Lot X are for us, it makes more sense if it's in a uniform pattern. What they've suggested is an alphanumeric system from east to west. The numeric numbers would be the surface lots, and then the alphabetical would be the parking structures east to west. You know if you park in Lot A that's a garage. It's a letter, and it's on the easternmost portion of Downtown. It helps people gauge where they parked directionally so that they can easily find their way back to where they parked. To start the parking branding and wayfinding design process, our consultant asked the stakeholders what is a universally recognizable symbol in Palo Alto. We all came back to the City logo with the tree that residents and visitors alike are very familiar with. That's where the consultant started, with the green color that's recognizable in Palo Alto, and took it through a menu of options and came up with a few different iterations that we went through, then coming up with a few designs, the stakeholders vetting them, and then the designer going back and coming up with some other designs. What they came up with was a couple of designs that were all in a green color. At the request of one of the stakeholders, the design consultant also came up with another color scheme in a blue. The stakeholder requested another color option just for creativity and to be something different than green. The first step of vetting these two colors, the green and the blue, was to create field mockups. Please don't judge the photos; I'm not a photographer. Essentially the design consultant sent full designs of three different types of signage. A huge thanks to Public Works Staff for helping me get these signs up in the field. We had them installed at three different parking lots Downtown for the public and for Staff and for the ARB to go out and see in the field. It was a really great exercise in seeing how these signs would actually look. This first page is the initially preferred option of green in the field. What we all noticed when we were in the field is that the green really blends in with all the trees that we have around Downtown, and it was difficult to see. While the green signage is still the preferred option by the majority of stakeholders, consultant, Staff and the ARB felt that it was difficult to distinguish. We looked then at the blue signage, which stood out. It was crisp; it was clean and was certainly the preferred option for our design consultant team, for City Staff, and it was unanimously supported by TRANSCRIPT Page 45 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the ARB. Moving forward with that Staff recommendation in the blue color scheme, the design consultant came up with a menu of different types of signage that would be installed Downtown. Outside of each surface lots, there would be these pylons that are in the center. There would be signage that would be attached in a cantilever fashion to the outside of the garages. There would be monument signs outside of the surface lots and the garages with detailed information about any parking fees, permit restrictions, hours, that sort of thing. What you might see on the sign on the lower left-hand corner is a real-time parking occupancy. That real-time parking occupancy has been designed into several design types by our consultant to tie into the automated parking guidance systems or APGS that we've heard a lot of residents are very excited to talk about. The automated parking guidance system is the system that gives you real-time occupancy in the Downtown garages. It tells you how many spaces are available or it tells you if the facility is open or closed. It can help reduce traffic congestion Downtown by telling people where spaces are available. Instead of waiting for that one person to pull out of an on-street space, they know that there are 20 spaces available in Bryant/Lytton, "I'm going to go there." It helps to increase the utilization of the existing off-street parking spaces, and it helps the City with a positive perception of our parking system. You've probably seen these in several places before. Here are some examples that our consultants have provided of Automated Parking Guidance Systems in action. We again went through a stakeholder process as part of this parking guidance system. The first meeting that we had with the stakeholders was really a discussion session on gauging their feedback on what they think about signage and parking in Downtown and how they could see a parking technology helping with the perception of parking and with the ease of finding parking. A lot of words that we heard were congested, frustration, people need help, need to know where they can find places. Again, "frustrating" was mentioned a number of times. Taking that information forward into the different types of systems that were available, the consultant could start to determine some idea of what would work best for Palo Alto. Tying in the parking branding, wayfinding and with the parking guidance systems, this is just a mockup of what these types of systems could look like in Downtown. Again, that blue color is the Staff recommendation. They also mocked up the green color. These signs can either give a full facility count, saying like 120 spaces are available in the full garage or they can give a level-by-level count, so 20 spaces on Level 1, 50 spaces on Level 2. As I mentioned, there are a few different types of parking guidance systems. The first is a facility count parking guidance system. That's kind of the base-level system. You may have seen these in City of San Jose; Seattle, as mentioned here, has this type of system also. It displays open or full or a total count of spaces available in the whole facility. It doesn't break it down any further. It doesn't give any information about where those spaces are available. Being TRANSCRIPT Page 46 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 a very basic system, it's not very accurate, and it still requires manual calibration and counts. Staff would still have to go in and count parking occupancy, because this system does not have any way of giving that very accurately. The second type of system is a level parking guidance system that's kind of the middle of the road option. This gives parking occupancy by level or zone, so it could go Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or it could break it down into smaller zones if necessary. By giving the different levels that parking is available, it does help to reduce emissions slightly because people are not circling around a garage looking for that elusive ten spaces that's available. They know that they can go to Level 3 and find a space somewhere. However, it does not direct patrons to exactly where that space is. If they know that there are ten spaces on Level 3, they go up to Level 3, but they don't have any idea where those spaces are available. There is still some circling that happens. As a result of not knowing exactly where the open spaces are, the garage might be perceived as full before it is actually fully occupied. This system also is not 100 percent accurate, and it does require manual counts. This type of system is currently in place at the Winchester garage at Santana Row, if you're familiar with that garage, and at the Fifth and Mission garage in San Francisco. The final type of system is the single space parking guidance system. This builds onto the level count system by indicating exactly where parking spaces are available through the use of LED indicator lights that are mounted above each parking stall. Those indicator lights change colors either based on occupancy or based on space type. It could be a certain color for permit parking; it could be a certain color for hourly parking. This system is conducive to differentiating between hourly and permit parking, giving us counts of how many hourly spaces versus permit spaces are available. It can also indicate spaces that are handicapped, spaces that are for valet, or spaces that are reserved for some other use. It's a dynamic system, very flexible, that can be maintained offsite. We could in the future control what spaces or what color or what use essentially. If we're seeing that the permit spaces are full, but there are plenty of hourly spaces available, we could convert some hourly spaces to permit by changing the color of the light. That's a very, very dynamic and nimble system. By having the lights over each stall, people can look down an aisle and see where there's a green light and go directly to that open space, making this the greenest option. It reduces the emissions the most of any parking guidance system available. This system is currently in place at Valley Fair in San Jose. Any of these systems would require a hardwire connection to the Downtown network. Any of these systems, there are different ways to sense the vehicles, because any of these systems would require sensing the vehicles obviously. The first option for vehicle sensing is a loop. That's where cuts are made in the concrete, a loop is installed. It's a very basic option, least expensive. It's also the least smart, if you will, and the least reliable because the maintenance is very difficult. You need to TRANSCRIPT Page 47 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 saw into the slabs to install. It's not as nimble at recognizing the difference between vehicles and other objects like motorcycles, bikes, etc. A second option for vehicle detection is an ultrasonic system. That's kind of the mid- level option. It requires cabling and conduit to be installed overhead. It senses objects by measuring the sound waves. It's a little better at distinguishing what's a car versus what's an animal but still not 100 percent accurate. The third option is a camera system. That is the most expensive, but it is the most accurate. The cameras can identify cars versus other objects, but they do only identify what's a car. It doesn't identify license plates unless specifically designed to do so. It doesn't identify color of car, that sort of information. Looking at the stakeholder feedback, looking at the existing conditions in Palo Alto, the consultant recommendation is to install the single-space parking guidance with LED indicator lights in the Downtown garages. It's the most accurate and flexible system. It gives us the most nimble operation of the parking garages once installed. They recommend ceiling-mounted camera sensors and LED lights at each stall. On the roof levels where there's nowhere for a ceiling-mounted object to go, they recommend wireless, surface-mounted sensors. There would be monument signs at each garage entry that would indicate the number of spaces available on each floor and real-time parking occupancy data would be available from the system for use on the City website for third-party apps, etc. Looking at the very rough planning-level cost estimates, the primary recommendation from the consultant is that single-space parking guidance system with the indicator lights. The probable cost for installation of that system, recognizing that it would be retrofit into the existing garages and including an estimate for communications infrastructure and network connections, is roughly $2 million. The alternate one identified by the consultant is a single-space system with sensors only. That would just—it would have a single-space count, but it would not have the indicator lights that would identify what spaces or what type or which spaces are available. That cost is about $1.26 million. The third alternate is the basic facility count that would tell us if the garage is open or if it's full or would give us a total count of vehicles roughly in the garage. That's just under $350,000. Bringing us back to the Staff recommendation. First of the parking wayfinding portion, to direct Staff to solicit bids for the construction of the Downtown parking wayfinding design in the blue color scheme. Second, to direct Staff to prepare plans and estimates for construction and installation of an automated parking guidance system with a preference for the single- space monitoring in the Downtown parking garages and solicit bids when the funding becomes available. With that, we conclude our presentation. Mayor Burt: Mr. Keene. TRANSCRIPT Page 48 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 James Keene, City Manager: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you, guys, for this great work. It's exciting to be moving into the parking solution phase of things. Would you guys put Slide 3 back up again? That's the big parking picture, not to be confused with the barking pig picture. The big parking picture. I think it would be fair to say to the Council that—I mean, there's a lot here. In a lot of ways this is a preview particularly as it relates to Recommendation Number 2 on the Automated Parking Guidance System. While we talk about with a preference for single space and to solicit bids when funding becomes available, there are a lot of moving parts to all of this. What we're after is getting your support for this direction, but we're going to have to do a lot more deeper dives on both the technology, the timing and in the funding and how to identify those things. The reason I asked to have this is that, you see the circled part, the parking technology and the parking wayfinding are up for tonight, and then we go down to the paid parking study. The Staff thinking on the Automated Parking Guidance System is really connected to recommendations that would ultimately come out of the paid parking study, to then start to identify a future cash flow from parking revenues that could be allocated to fund the installation of this program. I think when I was talking with Staff a little bit earlier this evening, sometime in the fall towards the end of this year we would be back before Council with that. I think we're not going to be able to proceed without having a financing strategy, a cash flow, a sense of how to pay for these items. We're going to have a lot more work, but we're trying to come to you earlier on some of these projects as they're unfolding and get your direction. Secondly, as we look at this, I've been ruminating on our recommendation about the blue color scheme; I'm backsliding myself. Let me just make a couple of points here in that regard. First of all, when you look at just these pieces of our big parking picture, these aren't just about getting people to park in garages. They are part of our whole integrated system about how we're going to move people around our City. It's embedded in our Sustainability Plan. To me, everything we're doing has a green foundation and a green objective. The symbol of what we're doing, whether it's hitting people over the head with it or it's more subtle, is much more the color green and not as much of an institutional—sorry, I'm using my words obviously as I see them— component, so the meaning of that. Second, practically we already went through—not a criticism of the ARB—the signage program for the garages and right here around City Hall all used a green component on these signs. Already a little bit of a concern that we would be shifting in another direction. If you guys could go to the field mockups for a second. If you go back to the green one. In actuality, this isn't an even comparison. If you look at this, the very top of the green one is a green "P" on a dark background. If you go to the blue one, you see this white background with the "P." If you start to toggle back and forth between them and if you saw TRANSCRIPT Page 49 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 them being done in the same way, personally, I don't see that it gets lost in the trees as much. Secondly, I don't necessarily see all of our garages surrounded by trees a lot. I personally would be an advocate for rethinking the green signs. Again, partly because they do connect to the intention we have around so many of our different programs. Lastly, I still want to come back to the fact that we're previewing this. We're seeking direction to start to take the deeper dive on the automated parking guidance system. We would see ourselves coming back to Council as the results of our outreach and developing the specs and potentially having the funding solution—we'd be back before the Council. With that, I'll turn it back over to you all. Mayor Burt: Thank you. We don't yet have any speaker cards. I don't know if we will have any. Why don't we start with questions, and then we can loop back for comments and Motion. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Thank you. I appreciate your comments, City Manager. I do have a number of questions. They're, I think, mostly clarifying questions having to do with the wayfinding. If we're looking for the locations, is that Attachment—what is this? Attachment ... Mayor Burt: You've lost your place? Council Member Holman: Yes. Attachment A, sheet 3.0. Is that what that is? I was looking at this over the weekend and having a bit of a hard time understanding—it's just a very complicated map. What it looks like is there are like a lot of different signages in the same place. It's very complicated to try to understand this, if that's where you were trying to direct us to. Ms. Atkinson: Is your question the recommendation for locations for installation of new signage? Council Member Holman: Yes. Ms. Atkinson: In the Staff Report, the draft recommendations are in Attachments D and E. It's a sign menu ... Council Member Holman: Attachment which? Ms. Atkinson: "D" and "E." It's a sign menu and a quite large file, I think, with each of the different sign types and the proposed locations. There are different ... Council Member Holman: I have an Attachment F. I don't know that I have an Attachment D. The two big attachments we have are these two. This one's Attachment A, and this one's Attachment F. "F" is about ahead of the TRANSCRIPT Page 50 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 curve and the parking guidance system. Attachment A is blue concept number one, and it's got the different designs in it. Maybe we do need some wayfinding guidance, Mayor Burt. That's what I think we're looking at, but I'm not sure. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: It's the last (inaudible). Ms. Atkinson: We think that Attachment D may be attached to your Attachment A perhaps. Council Member Kniss: It's on the back of (inaudible). It's big on one and little on the other. Council Member Holman: Attachment D is part of—I didn't differentiate. Here's "C." Ms. Atkinson: On that map, it has small elevations along the bottom of each type of sign and then proposed locations. Council Member Holman: You said "D" was a part of Attachment A or F? Ms. Atkinson: It looks like it might be attached to Attachment A on yours. Council Member Kniss: It's also on "F." Ms. Atkinson: And perhaps on Attachment F. Council Member Holman: Let me come back to that one. City Clerk's pointing me to this. Is it Sheet 1.0, Attachment D? There it is. How in the world can we interpret? I'll just put out there. One of the concerns I have and a question I have about this is—one of the things I really struggled with over the weekend especially and completely—wayfinding is really important. If we put up too much signage, it actually can be eye litter, and it can be confusing. I was having a very hard time discerning from the information that we had where signage was going and where it was not going. I'll give you an example, and you can tell me what this means please. I think it was in your presentation this evening, I think. It talked about there would be both monument and pylon signage at the garages. I'm sure that was in your presentation this evening. What I'm trying to understand is—I think I've stated it. Can you help me understand what signage is going to be where? In some kind of simplistic manner so that we can feel somewhat confident that we're not going to be littering our Downtown with too much of a proliferation of signage. Ms. Sullivan: Thank you for your comments, Council Member Holman. On the first point about signage litter, that was one of the main things that our TRANSCRIPT Page 51 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 consultant focused on from the get go. Whenever you implement a signage program like this, one of the things we do is look for places where we can actually take signage away. While I think that this plan, this map does look pretty sort of complicated and messy, I think what you're not seeing is that part of this analysis is actually—there is a reduction in signage that goes with this. The five or six different types of signage that are proposed as part of the wayfinding project have specific, unique function. Directional signage such as the—which basically is an arrow typically pointing right. Right now we have directional signage that points right, straight, left, all different places. Signage pointing right would replace the existing signage that we currently have. We call them the "P"arking signs with the big "P" and the "arking" and the arrows. Those signs would be going away. The pylon signs are typically reserved for surface lots. They're sort of easily identifiable when you're walking by or in a car driving by. The monument signs are typically reserved for the garages. We also have marker signs within the lots that explain the regulations around the parking, like it costs X dollars to park here or this is a permit lot or whatever that is. I'm sort of speaking at a high level, but each of the signs has a specific function, and I know that we can certainly provide, I think, maybe a clearer map or a larger, easier to read map than what we have here. Ultimately, there is a huge amount of work that goes into identifying where all these signs need to go and where they don't need to go as well. Council Member Holman: I'm sure that's true, and yet the result we're going to have to live with for a while, and we're paying for it. We want it to be functional and functional in that it's not overkill too. If you look at again this drawing, this Attachment D, we've got the lots numbered. How do I know from this what signage is going in those locations? I guess what I'm asking for is can we get something that's more legible than this. You can't even tell from this what signage is going where. Ms. Atkinson: Sure. This file actually plots out at a pretty large size, but that's wasn't feasible to include in the Staff Report. We'd be happy to provide that if you'd like. Council Member Holman: I think that would be helpful. One of the questions I have along these lines is—some of the designs I would have less concern about them being disassociated, if you will, from the location of a parking garage since those are the ones where we're going to be counting spaces. Some of the designs are not intrusive if they were on University Avenue, for instance, or on Hamilton Avenue. Others I really am not in favor of. Again, I guess it has to do with the location of where signage is going. It would be important for me to understand what kind of signage is going where. I mean, we don't allow signage at businesses, for instance, TRANSCRIPT Page 52 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 that is neon and LED and blah, blah, blah. I don't want us to be bad members of the public. Could that be included as part of this map that we would get, that would show what kind of signage is going where? And which designs too, because the designs make a difference. Ms. Sullivan: Sure. I think we can provide that. I want to make sure we understand exactly, though, what you want to see. The signage that's specifically for lots and garages only is going to occur at lots and garages. The directional signage will occur along Lytton, along University and, I think, along Hamilton we have a couple of locations. Basically, the directional signage, the intention of it is to direct people to the public lots. The main arteries that go Downtown from all directions will have directional signage. Council Member Holman: For instance, if you look at your Slide Number 16 in the presentation, if you look at Slide 16, the upper left, those two images, are those intended to be at the garages or on one of the streets? That's what I'm ... Ms. Sullivan: Those signs are identifications for lots and garages. If it has a—the ones that have the numbers on them are going to be at the garages, because we're not going to use the variable message signage at lots. Council Member Holman: I understand that. I know they refer to garages. My question is where are these signs going to be located? Are they going to be at the garages or are they going to be on University, Hamilton, Alma, Ramona, Bryant? That's my question. Ms. Sullivan: The signs up here will be at the garages. Council Member Holman: Each one of those? Ms. Sullivan: Yes. Council Member Holman: Jim. Mr. Keene: Since Jessica was busy talking, I just asked Sue whether or not following, not tonight—one thing we could do is print out a much bigger map here, put it on the wall literally. We could even have the mockups of the things and we could have pins that would show you exactly what kind of sign was in what location where. You could really literally walk around the Downtown, if you were interested in something like that, having the picture to be able to see it. If you're not, you'll save us the work. Council Member Holman: This Council Member would be very interested in that. We'll see if others are too. I did read, of course, that we're going to TRANSCRIPT Page 53 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 remove signage having to do with the parking that's out there now, so we're removing that. Another question I have is if some of the parking signage, the shallower, the less tall banners—there's a different purpose for them— can those actually be combined with some other signage that we have Downtown without it being confusing? I mean, they're kind of short. We have some signage, for instance, that—I think maybe just one location Downtown—directs people to side streets and business on the side streets. It's not even at a corner; it's really kind of silly where it is. Can we combine some other signage with this, again to kind of eliminate all of the unnecessary eye litter that we've got? Is the anticipation that these will be on existing standards or there will be new standards put in place that would carry the signs? On the streets, I guess. In the parking lots, I'm sure they'd have to be new standards, or supposing. Ms. Sullivan: One of the kind of lines that we walked during this project was making sure that we really were focusing on parking wayfinding. We were not trying to redesign wayfinding for the entire Downtown. You're right there is a lot of signage. We wanted to make sure we were honoring the scope of this effort. That said, the purpose of this work is to develop some standard signage so that moving forward we'll have specifications and design standards. If we do wish to replace some other signage sort of in this similar look and aesthetic, we can do that. These are not meant to be static designs. We will own the files; we'll be able to fabricate signs if we want to change them. That was not the focus of this study. We didn't look at maybe we should change this existing signage to something different. Council Member Holman: Fair enough. I think maybe just two more questions. I didn't see in the Staff Report—perhaps I overlooked it—but did see in your presentation about the coordination of the digital systems, the APGS, with applications. I didn't see that in the Staff Report. It is intended that this would coordinate with apps? Ms. Sullivan: The intent of the single space parking guidance systems would give us the ability to have a mobile interface with apps that could be developed. When you come to Palo Alto, you could have an app that says, "Welcome to Palo Alto. Come here to park. Look, there's 32 spots at Civic Center right now." Council Member Holman: With the recommended APGS, how would that affect our ability to function accurately with valet parking? Ms. Sullivan: The great thing about the single space system is that it can be modified by the user. We can sort of turn off parts of it or turn on parts of it or change the color at will. We could literally—if we wanted to expand or TRANSCRIPT Page 54 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 contract the valet service, we could change the color of the lights above the valet service to a specific color, for instance. That system is inherently flexible. The other systems, the level-by-level system and the facility count system are less flexible. Council Member Holman: I think my last question is—two questions. One is if we build the fifth garage Downtown, this cost is $2 million for four garages. If we build a fifth garage, is it exponentially more or is it—what does the cost go to if there's a fifth garage? Ms. Sullivan: I think we would need to kind of look further to include that in the construction of a new garage. Retrofitting tends to be more expensive because you do have to—if you do the single space option, you do have to route conduit to get power and communications to all the sensors. Installing loops, which would probably be used for a facility level system, is much less expensive. Loops typically cost about $500 a piece. To retrofit with single space is more expensive. I think we could probably get you some better numbers at a new build. Council Member Holman: At what point will Staff be coming with some more recommendations that clarify what the potential funding sources are? That's a lot of money. We have the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), potentially use some of that. We have some polling we're going to be doing for an employee tax measure potentially. The Staff Report mentions another funding source but questionably. Ms. Sullivan: Initially our recommendation right now is that we look at the wayfinding systems or the wayfinding signage. We could look at using University Avenue Parking Permit funds for that signage. For the parking guidance systems, we do think the costs are obviously potentially extensive, and we would need to kind of complete our Downtown Parking Management Study, which would do a sort of parking revenue study that would help us figure out how much money could we generate doing that sort of thing and then how long would it take to fund something like this. Right now, we don't have CIP money for either of these projects. Council Member Holman: Thank you. That's enough questions for now. Mayor Burt: Yes. Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Luckily, Karen, you've covered a lot. Let me start where Karen left off, which is at the money. I can hardly think of anything that's going to actually pull us into the 20th century, 20th, anymore than this will do. We've talked about it now 3-4 years. Marc and I both think we made a Motion two years ago. TRANSCRIPT Page 55 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Berman: (inaudible) Council Member Kniss: Yeah, Marc is determined. At that time, we were told no, this needs to come to us as a combined answer to the whole parking system. We have some answers now. We have the Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) in place and so forth. Because you are saying the money isn't there and you're saying—what I'm hearing, Jessica, I think is this could be a long time coming. Is that what I'm hearing? Mr. Keene: I think we can't have a long time coming. I think what we need to be able to do is establish the revenue stream, and then we can find a way to capitalize that by borrowing against it. Even if we had to loan it some money in the short term to get it going, once we had the guaranteed revenue stream we could come out—we can't do this as a "pay as you go" thing and get it done in time. Council Member Kniss: I think, not speaking for all nine of us, certainly one or two of us would very strongly support getting it underway. It's the kind of thing that, I think, really will make the public feel so much more comfortable about driving Downtown. As you said, Jessica, there are many ways to alter. Just say a little more about the—I've got to learn—APGS, about that system and about its cost. It is expensive, and it does go through—it also gives you two options for the single—what's the last one called? Single space parking? Ms. Sullivan: The single space parking guidance system. Council Member Kniss: You've got about four options for single space parking as far as the monitor goes as well. Say some more about that and what you think of sensors on the floor or cameras in the ceiling or drones. Yes, drones would be terrific. Ms. Sullivan: I don't know if drones would be the recommended option from the consultant. Are you asking about the different colors and the space occupancy? Council Member Kniss: No. You've got, I think, four options in here for single space monitoring. I want to know which one—have you thought about which one would be the most desirable for us? Ms. Sullivan: In terms of the detection systems? Council Member Kniss: Yes, exactly. TRANSCRIPT Page 56 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Ms. Sullivan: Basically there's two sensor options that are potentially a good fit for us. One is the ultrasonic sensor that Sue-Ellen mentioned, and the other is a camera-type sensor. They work differently; they both work well. The ultrasonic one basically bounces a sound wave off an object and is able to sort of triangulate an image of the object, so it knows that it's a car and not a person on a skateboard. The camera works similarly. Of course, we know camera is a difficult word here. It can create essentially a binary image, so it knows a car is either there or not there. It doesn't have to track any information about that car; although, it could if we wanted to. Either of those sensor options works well. Paired with a sensor is this LED light, which we can program to be red, green, blue for ADA, pink, whatever. Ultimately, that's the technology that's out there. The good news is that this technology has been on the market now for several years and that the vendors are getting better and better. The products are more reliable; the costs are going down. We think that it's the right time to kind of pursue this sort of system. Council Member Kniss: I think it's more than the right time. It looks like it will run in that about $2 million range. I'd be very surprised if our citizens weren't supportive of that. Jim, what you're saying is we'll be not penny wise and pound foolish, but you really will go toward finding that amount of money that we could use. Do you want to give any deadline? Would you be willing to call out a date by which we might drive into a garage and get something that was actually indicative of what was available? Mr. Keene: Not in 2016. Council Member Kniss: In our lifetime? Mr. Keene: I think clearly this fall we should have the results of the Parking Management Study. It'll be up to you all to be willing to set the rates. Of course, we have some capital costs for that, I mean, depending what kind of parking control system, whether it's meters or what types and those sorts of things we are going to have to install. We'll have to work through that. I think we'll be able to model what the revenue stream should be able to be like. We could have some ranges. If you guys can do your part about making the decisions to start really charging for parking and we price it right, then I do think sometime in 2017 we could have a plan to know how to finance this investment. Ms. Sullivan: Can I just add one more thing to Jim's comment? As part of the Downtown Parking Management Study, we can also look at sort of alternative funding schemes. Some cities actually outsource sort of management of paid parking in that they have a vendor that basically does TRANSCRIPT Page 57 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the entire thing, installs all the systems, runs the whole thing, and then gets a cut of the revenue. There are other ways to do this, but we will look at the options. Council Member Kniss: Thank you for adding that. Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman. Council Member Berman: Thank you, guys, very much. The consultant recommended the per parking—I'm not getting the terminology right—the parking spot technology, which I agree with. When would the consultant possibly not recommend that? Isn't that kind of ... Ms. Sullivan: I think that's a fair question. In fact, we challenged—clearly it's the most expensive option. The consultant doesn't make more money one way or the other. They're a design consultant, so they're not benefitting one way or the other. One of the questions we did ask was most of our garages are one directional, meaning that you don't drive in and make a decision. You're driving essentially around in a circle, with the exception of Lot S which you actually have these sort of pods that go off to the left and you can park over there. We did sort of challenge them and say does it really make a difference, does the green and red really help you find parking. They said yes, it does. I can vouch for that. I park in Lot S, and every day it's like people creeping along looking for a spot and then someone trying to turn around and someone honking. Council Member Berman: You're absolutely right. That's the experience that I've had. I thought it was at Santana Row in San Jose, but maybe it was a different mall. When I used to work down there, we went somewhere for lunch, and they had these. I remember thinking this is so much easier. Ms. Sullivan: The Winchester garage has the green and red. Council Member Berman: This was a couple of years ago, and the technology wasn't super. Some spots were green that should have been red, and some were red that should have been green, but that'll happen. It really does—I think one of the slides said it makes it more welcoming, and it really does make it a lot more welcoming. As you use the wayfinding on the street to funnel people and then you've got the signs out in front of the garage that say—I'm a proponent of the per floor. If I know there's three spots on one and eight spots on two and 38 spots on three, I'm just going up to three; I'm not bothering with it. That does make it faster, and that's better for the business community. That's better for residents; that's better for the environment. I'd be curious what the actual greenhouse gas emission reductions are in terms of scope of magnitude and just whether or TRANSCRIPT Page 58 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 not they're really significant. I could see that being significant on the street, driving around town. It reduces congestion, which is obviously a huge concern in Palo Alto and something we really want to address. I mean, from soup to nuts, I'm a big fan of the plan and of doing that, the most comprehensive scheme. I'm happy to hear Jim say that no, we don't have the funding identified right now, but we can get creative so that the funding won't stop the progress of implementing it, assuming that my colleagues feel the way I do. Annual maintenance cost, forgive me if that was mentioned somewhere in here. Are those major or is it pretty minimal? Ms. Sullivan: Typically what happens is the vendor who ultimately installs and commissions all the equipment has a warranty on it. Council Member Berman: That's right; I saw that. Ms. Sullivan: The costs are typically pretty minimal. There is a hosting fee, because ultimately this is their software that's going to give us the interface where we would actually have "look, that light's broken" or whatever. Those are things, I think, we need to flesh out a little bit more as we move into the real sort of specification and design. Typically the equipment is covered by a warranty. Council Member Berman: A couple of questions just on the signage. Color scheme, you guys don't want an answer from us on that tonight, do you? You do. I'm going to let one of my colleagues take that. Questions that I had were—one was—a resident had kind of written in about this. He took it maybe a little further than I would have. In terms of the signs on the street—I didn't drive around and look at what our current signs really look like. They seem like the "P" is pretty high. Is that normal in terms of line of vision for a driver or is that a little higher than other folks have their signage? Like the ones outside the surface lots, it seems like the "P" is super high up there. Ms. Atkinson: That's something that our consultant will evaluate, and they'll also recommend as part of the construction package how high to mount them. I agree they are—for line of sight, they are kind of high. Ms. Sullivan: They're actually not typically mounted on traffic arms the way we have them mounted. We have some sort of unconventional things going on. Council Member Berman: In terms of just the—but that will be fleshed out in the implementation? Ms. Sullivan: Yes. TRANSCRIPT Page 59 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Berman: For what it's worth, I really don't want to dive into the weeds on each sign. To me, it didn't make sense—this is kind of part of the last point. It didn't make sense to have a "P" and then a ton of space and then the lot letter. To me, it seemed to make sense to have that closer together. That's as far as I'm going to go in commenting aesthetically on these signs. I think those were my main questions. Thanks. Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: We're still on questions, right? Mayor Burt: We've had questions and comments, so go ahead and feel free to... Council Member Wolbach: There are just a couple of areas that I'd like to touch that I don't think have been touched on as much. First, actually on the color scheme, one possibility I was thinking about was thinking about the color scheme for our parking wayfinding in the context of signage for wayfinding throughout the Downtown area, whether it is superior to have everything, even all of our City facility wayfinding, be the same color or to designate parking differently, to have the parking be blue while other City facilities such as City Hall, library, parks, historic resources, future history museum, etc., and wayfinding to those would be marked in green. That's why I've actually come around and I'm leaning towards supporting the blue over the green. As much as I was initially also in favor of the green, I think that this kind of subdued, subtle blue is a good shade; it's aesthetically pleasing. That's obviously very subjective, but I like the shade. It might help people identify the parking, have that stand out which aids in the primary goal which is helping people get where they need to go with their parking as quickly as possible to reduce frustration, circling, congestion, etc. That's why I'm leaning towards supporting the blue. Obviously, I've heard the arguments on both sides and appreciate those. Actually there's one detail I noticed on the—I can't remember what you call these. The pedestal signs, that have a lot of text on them including detailed directions. I noticed a couple of things that I wanted to ask about. I don't know how set we are on this. It says no overnight parking, and it also says no trespassing 11:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. I wanted to ask why those are stipulated. A number of our businesses are in operation past 11:00 P.M., and City Hall and City Council are as often in operation past 11:00 P.M. To tell people they can't go into a parking lot at the close of business of City Council or a restaurant or a bar in Downtown seems it like it might not make sense. Also as far as no overnight parking, I think we want to encourage people to frequent businesses in Downtown, a number of which have liquor licenses. If somebody does drive Downtown, has a couple of drinks, and then decides TRANSCRIPT Page 60 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 they don't want to drive home, we want to make that—we want to encourage that. We want to encourage them to leave their car and call an Uber or a Lyft or walk or to find some other way home rather than driving intoxicated. Just speaking for myself, I don't have a problem with overnight parking. I think we should, in fact, encourage that rather than encouraging unsafe behavior. Ms. Atkinson: If I could comment on that really quickly. Council Member Wolbach: Sure, please. Ms. Atkinson: That was just placeholder text that our consultant put in there. Very open to changing it. We can discuss a little beyond there at a later time. That was just to show what text on that sign type would look like. Mr. Keene: We had campaign language, but I told them to take that off. Council Member Wolbach: I appreciate that. As far as the—that's it for my questions. Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I have a burning question which is who are the stakeholders who liked the most expensive solution and didn't like the revenue controls. Seriously, I'd like specifically to know. Ms. Sullivan: Would you like names? Council Member DuBois: Yeah, they weren't in the report. Specifically, who were these stakeholders? Ms. Sullivan: We had a—let's see. We had several members of the parking committee, some residents, some Downtown business folks. I mean, I can give you their names if you want. Council Member DuBois: Yeah, I'd like to know. Ms. Sullivan: Dena Mossar, Chop Keenan, Judy Kleinberg, Russ Cohen, Bob McGrew, Bern Beecham and Terry McCarthy. Council Member DuBois: Thank you. There was a letter from the public that made a point about using kind of national standard parking direction signs versus custom signs. Does this estimate include a cost for custom signs that's higher than standard signs? TRANSCRIPT Page 61 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Ms. Sullivan: The thing that costs in the sign fabrication is the detailing of the sign and what it's made of. The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) standard signs could also be—I think we would be fine with using MUTCD standard signage, but right now all the signage is inconsistent. It doesn't cost us any more to have a specific parking brand versus the MUTCD signage. What will cost us is to fabricate these signs, depending on how they're detailed. Council Member DuBois: You're saying custom signs don't cost any more than standard signs? Ms. Sullivan: Based on what's on the sign, no. Where we are proposing these pylons, which have this sort of stainless steel kind of detail on them, which is nice. It's got this sort of etched finish. Clearly we could look at the construction costs and value engineer some of that if we wanted to. Council Member DuBois: I just thought it was an interesting comment from the public. I guess what I'm hearing is that when the parking access revenue controls go in, we're thinking that that may fund the guidance system? Ms. Sullivan: That's correct. Council Member DuBois: Is there any limit on revenue generation from parking in the way that there is with utilities? Does that money just go into the General Fund? That's maybe something the City Attorney knows. Is there a limit on parking revenue? It just goes in the General Fund, right? Mr. Keene: It can be used for anything, yes. I'm sorry. Council Member DuBois: We don't need to spend this money just on a guidance system if we were to raise that kind of money? Mr. Keene: No. When I was in Berkeley, it was a profit center for the city, big time. Council Member DuBois: Can the Downtown Parking Assessment District fund some of this? Ms. Sullivan: We were proposing that the Parking Permit Fund be used for the wayfinding signage. Yes, it could be. Council Member DuBois: Was that in the proposal here? Ms. Sullivan: Yes. TRANSCRIPT Page 62 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member DuBois: The $2 million number is just a guidance system? Ms. Sullivan: Correct. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: If I might, Council Member. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager. It might be worth drawing a distinction between the Assessment District and the Permit Fund, to the extent that the Assessment District is used to generate parking supply with specific rates associated with development and assessments on properties. The Parking Permit Fund, the revenue that's used for the issuance of the permits, is more flexible. Council Member DuBois: The Assessment District cannot be used for these improvements to garages? Mr. Shikada: It's not anticipated for that purpose. Molly Stump, City Attorney: The assessments that are made are for debt service on the capital costs of constructing the garages that are already constructed. Separate from that, the garages generate permit fees. The City's traditional practice has been to consult with a committee of business leaders who were associated with the formation of the Assessment District and the financing of the capital. That committee has taken somewhat of an ownership-like interest in the collection of those funds and the use of those funds. Technically, legally what the Staff has said—Assistant City Manager Shikada is correct—those are general funds, and the City has generally allocated them back to the operation and maintenance of the garages. That's what's intended here. It's completely appropriate. Mr. Keene: I just might add the establishment of the rate for those permits is within the City's discretion also. Again, as parking demand and supply becomes more valuable with the web of different changes that we make, then there will be pricing opportunities to look at as it relates to the parking. Council Member DuBois: I'm a little concerned with Molly's answer in that in a way some of these are capital improvements to the garage. Could not the Assessment District be used to, say, install sensors and those kinds of improvements? Ms. Stump: The current assessments are for the capital costs of constructing the facilities that have already been constructed. We don't have an ability to continue to add onto that in that sense. That would be a new assessment in a sense, and that's not a current vehicle that the City's looking seriously at for funding. TRANSCRIPT Page 63 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member DuBois: Thank you for clarifying that. Just a different, entire subject. Are we considering getting rid of the color zones? Is that part of this project? Ms. Sullivan: That will be part of the Downtown Parking Management Study. Council Member DuBois: Today, how do people get a pass for a garage? Ms. Atkinson: For the garages, there are daily and there are annual permits, and quarterly permits at some garages. Primarily people go to Revenue Collections... Council Member DuBois: For even the daily pass. Ms. Atkinson: ...in the lobby. For the daily pass, there are also permit machines that are in the Cowper/Webster garage and in the Bryant/Lytton garage. It's $17.50 for a daily permit, both in person here at the counter and at the permit machines. Council Member DuBois: Just on the fiber discussion. Is that a one-time fee or was that an ongoing service charge? Mr. Keene: Is that a one-time fee or is that an ongoing? Mr. Shikada: It's ongoing (inaudible). Council Member DuBois: It was a third party, so I'd rather have it ongoing to us. Mr. Keene: How quickly they sell out. Council Member DuBois: Is it seriously ongoing to a third party? Mr. Shikada: I think we're talking (inaudible). All kidding aside, I think we are talking about use of the dark fiber system Downtown, in which case it would be leased as it would to any private entity. Again, it depends on the design of the system, whether it be each individual parking structure is its own basically computer and it's a network among the computers or if the fiber is used to bring all back to a central system. Council Member DuBois: In the report, it said we needed to use a third- party company. I didn't know if that was just construction. Sounds like it might be. TRANSCRIPT Page 64 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mr. Shikada: I think the concept there was to develop the network, let's say, within each parking structure, and to tie those then together. Again, with the design of that yet to be determined. Council Member DuBois: If we did the LEDs in the garages, would those be visible, say, on the upper floors, outside the garage? The location LEDs, if there's a row of those lit up at night ... Ms. Sullivan: They shouldn't be, but we can certainly look at light pollution standards and make sure that they're meeting them. Council Member DuBois: A comment I made—I don't know if you were here for the earlier session. I saw this went to the ARB, but I didn't really see any of their discussion or comments. Again, I think that's useful from our Boards, to kind of know what they have talked about. Those are my questions. I'll go through some comments real quick. I'd like to know that we're really doing some value engineering and trying to save some money. I support the reasons for the project. I think we need the project. I'd love to see it sooner rather than later. Karen mentioned and I am starting to hear complaints about the sign blight. I'm glad to hear that you guys are sensitive to that. We've got a pretty wide range of options here, $331,000 up to $2 million in today's dollars. It seems like we could likely build the cheaper end sooner. I expect the higher end to be more expensive by the time we get around to building it. We got a list of benefits, kind of pros and cons, but they weren't really quantified. It makes it very hard to tell if saving $1.7 million is worth it. Things like manually updating the count, is that something an enforcement person can do when they're going through the garage anyways? Greenhouse gas, how much? How much do the different floor sensors save? We use a magnetic or in-ground... Ms. Sullivan: The number we have for the single space counts is that they can save during peak hours up to 25-40 percent on carbon emissions for circling. It's less in the non-peak hour because you're just going to drive and find a spot easier then. Council Member DuBois: It depends on how full the garage is. I was having trouble with that, because it's quite a big difference in price. Our garages aren't that massive, so for me the facility count made sense. If I know there's ten spots and it's a three-story garage, it's not that hard to find the spots. If we save that money, we could use it to buy the Post Office or do lots of other things. My preference is definitely kind of at the lower end. I'd rather get it done sooner. I think we could find $300,000 and start. I'd really like to see us move to the revenue controls. Being able to see that there's ten spots, buy the permit at the garage and not have to go to City TRANSCRIPT Page 65 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Hall or some other garage, I think that will be a huge benefit in itself. I just want to make one last comment about the parking study. I am concerned about increasing parking costs, and I'm kind of getting the impression that's the direction we're going, particularly if Town and Country and Stanford Mall still have free parking. I think we originally had more paid parking. A lot of the retailers Downtown felt like they were at a disadvantage. I want to keep them in mind as we think about changing parking Downtown. Thanks. Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid. Council Member Schmid: Just a couple of quick comments. First, thanks for all the work you've been doing, for the presentation, for the ideas that you've brought to us. I would be a big fan of the APGS. It's an investment, but I think it's really worthwhile in getting people to use the garage spaces, which they're not doing now. A key question might be who pays and why. I think clearly the Downtown Parking Assessment District is responsible. The critical starting report for the Downtown parking was a 1986 Downtown study. It started out with the words that between 1957 and 1984, the City relied upon the Downtown Parking Assessment District to supply parking in support of Downtown development. They did not—the Assessment District parking spaces did not keep up with growth. From that time, they got 9,146 parking exemptions, which they're still using. They didn't fulfill their original needs. The Downtown monitoring reports, which come out each year and are supposed to monitor the overflow, clearly now have understated by a factor of 2-3 the parking deficit. I think it's time clearly to say to the Parking Assessment District no new dollars, no continuing exemptions. Mayor Burt: A couple of my questions have to do with the returns we'll get on this investment. Do we have any rough estimates either from our own calculations or what other cities have found as the greater rate of utilization of parking spaces as a result of these different measures? Ms. Sullivan: Regarding greater utilization, we do know that the single space option is superior to other options as far as utilization. The facility level or the floor-by-floor level options sometimes do not fill up spaces as efficiently during the peak hour. We can get you some specific statistics, if you're interested. I don't have any sort of... Mayor Burt: I'm very interested, and I actually think that that should be pretty fundamental to our decision-making. I don't know what the current figure is of 60,000—did you have something? Ms. Atkinson: In terms of the level count, the one that just tells you there are X spaces on Level 2, that gets the garage to about 90-95 percent occupied, so there are still spaces that are available. Whereas, the single TRANSCRIPT Page 66 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 space system can guide people directly to the open spaces, so you can get to 100 percent utilization. Downtown we need to be making the most of all of our available spaces. Mayor Burt: The level count, is that alternative to the facility count? Ms. Atkinson: The facility count just tells you a total number for the whole building. The level count is the floor count basically; it tells you by floor. The facility count, we don't have an estimate on utilization. Mayor Burt: We have three alternatives. I'm trying to correlate the level count to the alternatives. We have three alternatives listed. When you refer to the level count getting us 90-95 percent, I'm trying to correlate that to any of the three. Ms. Atkinson: Level count was not one of the alternates that was recommended by the consultant. It wasn't included in that package. It's a type of system. The closest alternate to level count is Alternate 1; that's the single space with no LED lights. It'd have single space sensors, but it would not guide people to certain spaces. That would be the closest estimate to level count. Mayor Burt: What is our current utilization? Ms. Sullivan: That varies by garage and certainly by time of day. Certainly the garages that have the valet programs are ... Mayor Burt: We're talking about doing this across all the garages, right? Ms. Sullivan: Across four, yes. Mayor Burt: What's the average utilization across those four? That's all we'd really care about if we're—most of what we'd care about, unless we're talking about doing this selectively in certain garages. We've got a certain baseline of a utilization rate now. Then we'd have an anticipated utilization rate after we invested this much. Those four garages have how many spaces combined in them? Ms. Sullivan: We have about 3,000 for all the lots and garages. The four garages, I believe it's about 1,200 between the four. Mayor Burt: About 1,200. Do you have a ballpark even of the current utilization rate for those four on average? Ms. Sullivan: It does definitely vary by time of day. If we're looking at the peak hour, Lot R is probably 90-100 percent utilized or over 100 percent. TRANSCRIPT Page 67 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Cowper/Webster is probably 70-80ish. Civic Center is probably 70-80ish, and then Lot S is probably—Lot S has been definitely going up. It's probably 90. Mayor Burt: Say we average 85 percent; 85 percent utilization of 1,200 leaves—what's that math? I think this actually ... Council Member Berman: 180. Mayor Burt: 180 spots. If we increase that utilization to say 90-95 percent, then we're looking at picking up—say it was 90 spots or something like that. If we went to this 100 percent or near 100 percent utilization with the $2 million system, then that's close to 180 spots, call it 150. 150 times—are we using 60,000 per spot as our rough number? That's $9 million in parking spot value that we create. That's why I say that's really critical. To me, if we're looking at alternatives, if we spend $2 million to save $9 million, because we're talking about building a garage Downtown. We either are going to use that 150 spots that we've basically freed up or utilize better toward solving our problem more rapidly or toward less investment in the size of the new garage. That makes it, for me, a much easier decision first on which alternative we ought to pursue. If we're looking at spending an extra $750,000 and picking up 100 parking spaces worth $6 million, then $750,000 is money well spent. That's pretty important for purposes of our conversation. Then we ask ourselves if that's the savings we can derive from this investment, what's the best way to get those dollars? I think there are several alternatives. When you were talking about the parking permit funds, Jessica, were you talking about the annual permits sold in the neighborhood? Ms. Sullivan: No, it's just for garages. The money that's—for garage permits, the money that's used—the money that we get from selling permits goes to maintain and operate the garages basically. Mayor Burt: How would we get dollars from that to be able to pay for this? Are you talking about increasing the permit amounts? Unless we've got a surplus right now from that, which I'm not aware of. Mr. Keene: On the paid permit funds was towards the wayfinding program, is that what you were thinking of? That was in the $600,000 range, first of all. I don't know if we've run what the changes would be, both what the existing balance could be. Mayor Burt: There may be some balance that would pay for wayfinding. Would we have the latitude to increase those permit amounts? TRANSCRIPT Page 68 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mr. Keene: Yes. Mayor Burt: We could charge more on those permits to pay for this system. That would be one way. We don't have hourly parking on the streets. Have we done any estimate on revenue on the prime streets? Ms. Sullivan: Not yet. That's going to be coming as part of this new study. Mr. Keene: That Parking Management Study. Mayor Burt: I did this on the back of a napkin a year ago. If we look at the prime spots on University, and then you look in the perpendicular streets going out to Hamilton and Lytton, for instance, you can know how many on- street spots there are in what we might call the real prime area, where people would say, "If I could just park there any time, I'd pay a buck an hour." That doesn't mean we have that decision. It just means that we real easily—we don't have to go out to nine months to a consultant to get that kind of framing. We may still want the consultant to really flesh this out, but we can do a certain amount of framing of this really readily. Like I say, that doesn't mean that that's the decision we'll make. We'll go, "Wait a minute." Is this $1/2 million a year that we might get in revenue above expenses for that? I don't know. It could help us say we have several options. We want to go with the one that's going to free up the most parking spaces. Let's be clear on that. We haven't yet picked which option, but we know we have several good ones. Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor, that goes back to my opening comments when I said this really is a preview of our thinking on the timing and that these are exactly—it's good to get some of the Council's thinking right now. I mean, over the next month or two, we'll be able to structure the analysis more fully. Mayor Burt: As I said, the third one is—as we're looking at this infrastructure, do we want to consider any of the infrastructure dollars to spend $2 million to save $9 million from whatever parking garage we were considering building? Any of those look like they're viable funds. The last one is if we should go forward with a local transportation tax, would this potentially be something that could be funded out of that? That's four alternatives. All of them look like they would more than pay for the best of these. On that note, I would say that based on the different utilization between Alternative 1 and the primary, I guess I'll call it, if it's the difference between nearly 100 percent and somewhere between 90 and 95 percent, it looks like that's a good investment. Finally, on the color. I've always been fond of Palo Alto's green, but you want people to distinguish the parking signs from all the other green we have in our signs. Now, we do have— TRANSCRIPT Page 69 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 some of the new wayfinding signs are blue on the corner posts. Aren't those blue? Have I got that wrong? Ms. Sullivan: The ones around City Hall have a very similar look. They have a gray pylon, and then there's actually a blue circle with a white "P." Mayor Burt: I'm talking about corner posts, so directional. Joshuah Mello, Chief Transportation Official: Josh Mello, Chief Transportation Official. There are blue pedestrian wayfinding arrows. There's a set at the corner of the circle and University, the circle that comes up from Alma. Mayor Burt: We added a whole bunch about two years, a whole bunch of wayfinding on corner posts just like street signs. Mr. Keene: Those were street name signs that we put up as part of the Senior Olympics. Those are blue. Mayor Burt: They're not just street name signs; they direct people. Mr. Keene: I mean, not street name signs. They direct people to things, yeah. Mayor Burt: And they're blue. I thought I was not going crazy on that. My first inclination is stay with Palo Alto green, but I actually think that it's pretty important that people know where the parking is, and that we intuitively—if we start associating a given color with a function, it helps. A final question. Is the 800 High Street garage included in this? Ms. Sullivan: It will be included. I apologize, it's not on the map and neither is Lot X. Mayor Burt: It does get lost in the shuffle often. Ms. Sullivan: It's not forgotten. Mayor Burt: Some people may have only had questions, but I would look forward to getting a Motion on the table and then see if we can move forward. Mr. Keene: That would be great, Mayor. Again, I would just say other than the color issue here—by the way, as Bob Dylan said, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. I'll just say, if you like Kermit the Frog here, it's not easy being green. Other than that one, we would be coming back in an intermediate way. TRANSCRIPT Page 70 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: All you're really asking us to do is pick a color? Mr. Keene: We would like the direction on "2" also with this understanding that we're not going to—I want to make it clear we would not be unilaterally going out and soliciting bids without coming back to the Council with the results of our analysis. Mayor Burt: Recommendation Number 2 is to have us vote on guidance basically. Mr. Keene: We would be continuing to analyze them but, as I think it says, with a preference for the single space monitoring in the Downtown and when the funding becomes available, as part of that, some of the kind of analyses that you are suggesting in cost comparisons and those things. We'd be developing them, and then they'd be taken further by our consultant working on the Parking Management Study. Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: I'm ready to make a Motion. Let's begin with the easy part of it which is to direct the Staff to solicit bids for construction for the Downtown parking wayfinding design in the green color scheme. I'm making the Motion; I'm calling the color. We can alter it if necessary. Secondly, Jim, you're asking us to direct you to or not direct you? Mr. Keene: (inaudible) Staff put it with the clarification we would come back before we would be soliciting bids. Mayor Burt: Why don't we break this up? Let's just see if—do we have a second on the color? Council Member Holman: Yes. MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to direct Staff to solicit bids for construction for the Downtown Parking Wayfinding design in the green color scheme. Mayor Burt: Can we vote on color without a great deal of additional discussion? Council Member Kniss: Let's try it. Mayor Burt: I've cleared the board. I see no lights. The Motion is ... Council Member Kniss: Karen wants to speak to her second. TRANSCRIPT Page 71 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: You want to speak to the second. You don't have a light. Council Member Holman: I do support the green color. My question for Staff, though, is—I asked a number of questions. I didn't make comments. I support the green color and primarily actually consistent with comments of City Manager. I'm not crazy about either the look or the function of the pylon signs. That could affect certainly the cost. I did go out and see one that was a mockup in a parking lot, and I was not favorably impressed at all by its presence, its scale, its functioning. I don't know how you would actually get a bid if we—I don't know if the Council Members want to eliminate the pylon signs. If you could get a bid that included and didn't include the pylon signs, my suggestion would be to use flags or banners more at the front of a lot as opposed to using the pylons. I don't know how you would proceed with this given that comment. If you could. Ms. Sullivan: I think we could certainly respond and be flexible in the types of signage. The pylon serves a function as sort of a pedestrian-scale marker in the lots. It's something our consultants recommend. This is all they do day in and day out, so that's sort of where it came from. If the Council doesn't like it, we can certainly eliminate it. Council Member Holman: I happened to bump into a member of the public at the same time looking at that, and they didn't like it either, just anecdotally for whatever it's worth. Of course, how many we're doing, we don't really know. At least from this Council Member's perspective the map isn't a clear indication of how many we're doing, what, where, how many. Ms. Sullivan: The pylons, there's one at each surface lot. Council Member Holman: Not just pylons but ... Ms. Sullivan: The whole totality. Council Member Holman: The whole program, yeah. Again, that would affect an estimate. I don't know how you proceed, unless you came back with options or came back with some kind of clearer map in the meantime. Ms. Sullivan: We could certainly come back with a sort of clearer inventory or sort of menu of the options and where they would be. I think we do need direction on the colors and if there are specific directions around signs that you don't like or don't want to see. We certainly need that to move forward. Council Member Holman: I'm in favor of the green. I support Council Member Kniss in that for sure. If the designer could come back with some options and alternatives that either did or didn't include the pylons. TRANSCRIPT Page 72 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mr. Keene: I think we have a couple of choices. We could do that. On the other hand, we could go ahead and develop the proposal bids, put them out, but get them priced by the type of item that they are and be flexible enough to then make the decision, come back to the Council and start dropping things out also, if we want to. You may say actually we would like to have two of those but not eight of them or whatever. It seems like it might be easier once we know the cost and all of those things than trying to do that in advance. Council Member Holman: I'm good with doing that. It's what I was asking for, but you said it better. Thank you. Council Member Kniss: Pat, let me add just a couple of words. I'm very aware that men tend toward blue instead of green. I think green would be far more consistent. I think we're going to find that blue is very jarring by the time we install blue all over town. It may be very readable, but blue is particularly used for hospital signs, if you've noticed that. It's used for hospital signs and airport signs consistently. Although, as I said, I know men tend toward blue, I think green is far more attractive for a town that absolutely prides itself on being green and having green trees as our symbol. I'm going to be disappointed if we don't go with green. Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Sorry to disappoint. I'll just jump to making this an amendment, and we'll skip the friendly amendment attempt. The suggestion would be that we go with the blue color scheme. Council Member Schmid: I'll second that. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Schmid to direct Staff to solicit bids for construction for the Downtown Parking Wayfinding design in the blue color scheme. Council Member Kniss: What? Council Member Wolbach: The blue color scheme. Council Member Kniss: Why didn't you just vote against the Motion? Council Member Wolbach: May as well just put it out right now. Sounded like Council Member Schmid seconded it. To speak to it briefly. As I said before, I think it's important and as Mayor Burt pointed out, I think it's important to distinguish purposes with various color schemes. I think that TRANSCRIPT Page 73 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 the blue suggested is not a jarring shade of blue and allows us to retain green for other City purposes. Council Member Schmid: For my second, the slide on the screen shows that it's cleaner, more readable, a stronger contrast, better while moving to see. It just seems to be more effective. Mayor Burt: I'll just say I could live with either. Council Member DuBois: I don't want to abstain. Mayor Burt: Go ahead. Council Member Holman: I only want to respond to that because if you look at this and you're saying that the blue is cleaner, there are very different designs that you see in front of you. Mayor Burt: We're voting on the Substitute Motion which is blue signs. That passes 5-2 with Council Members Holman and Kniss voting no. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED: 5-2 Holman, Kniss no, Filseth, Scharff absent Mayor Burt: Now we can move on to ... Council Member Kniss: Don't blame us. Mr. Keene: I'm still hanging with my sisters. Council Member Kniss: Shall I continue with the Motion? Mayor Burt: Yeah. Council Member Kniss: The second part of the Motion—looking down at you, Jim—unless you want to alter some of the wording in it, is to direct the Staff to prepare plans and estimates for construction and installation of automated parking guidance system, heretofore known as APGS, with preference for single space monitoring in the Downtown Palo Alto parking garages and solicit bids when funding becomes available. Unless Staff wishes to add something to that, that is the Motion. Council Member Berman: Second. MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Berman to direct Staff to prepare plans and estimates for construction and installation of Automated Parking Guidance System (APGS) with preference TRANSCRIPT Page 74 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 for single-space monitoring in the Downtown Palo Alto parking garages and solicit bids when funding becomes available. Mayor Burt: Did you need to speak to it anymore? Council Member Kniss: I really think I've spoken ... Mayor Burt: Got you. Council Member Kniss: I've spoken enough. I am disappointed about the green. Mayor Burt: Did you want to speak to your second? Council Member Berman: I'm good. Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I appreciate the Mayor's discussion about ROI. I think the right comparison is the Return on Investment (ROI) on the $2 million investment and kind of what do we get back in spots versus the ROI on the $300,000 solution and what do we get back in spots. Again, I'm concerned about time. I think we're talking about construction costs in 2017, 2018 versus 2016 potentially. I don't think it's being penny wise and pound foolish, but it's hard to know for sure. I would like to see some analysis. I wouldn't mind paying for this immediately and starting to generate some parking revenues. I don't think Liz Kniss would mind either. Again, the difference between efficiencies. If it was 95 percent efficient with the lowest cost option and 100 percent with the expensive option, that's 60 spots. That's significant. We have one lot today that's over 100 percent or at 100 percent. If we're really talking about 20 spots, it shifts the analysis. Twenty-eight spots is the breakeven. We're somewhere between 60 and 28. I'm concerned about the annual costs which you didn't really know what they were going to be. Again, I'm concerned that the more complex solution is actually going to be a lot more expensive than the $2 million when we get to it. I think the facility count is a very simple solution, and the cost more (inaudible). I'd also like to say I'm not particularly swayed by the stakeholders' asking for the most expensive solution and not wanting revenue controls. I just don't think they're thinking about the fiscal health of the City. I'm just concerned we're kind of rushing to the most expensive solution. It is a reasonable amount of money, 1.7 million difference. Again, it could be $2.5 million, $3 million by the time we construct it. Mr. Keene: I just did want to say ... TRANSCRIPT Page 75 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: Mr. Keene. Mr. Keene: ... it's not in the Motion, but I said that we would come back to the Council prior to soliciting bids with more cost benefit clarity. Mayor Burt: We'll have that additional guidance. I do want to just respond to your math, Council Member DuBois. I kind of gave the benefit of the doubt toward the benefit. I think I rounded downward. Based on the numbers that Jessica provided, it sounds like our average utilization for the four parking garages is currently in the 80-85 percent range. She didn't give a number for the ballpark of the Alternative 2. Alternative 1, they gave a ballpark of 90-95 percent, and the primary close to 100. No, we're talking each one of these increments is a very strong payback. The other thing is that this is a long-term solution. I'm not saying it's a long-term implementation. Shaving perhaps a few months and not going for a solution that will save millions of dollars and be a much better technology, I think, is shortsighted. I want to ... Council Member DuBois: Just to clarify. We heard that one lot is at 100 percent full today. There are other ways to fill lots. That's really the point I'm making. It was 85 percent with no solution, so adding a facility count solution would have some improvement. If there are other ways to fill lots where we get to 100 percent already, (crosstalk). Mayor Burt: The near 100 percent on one lot ... Council Member DuBois: Shows high demand for that lot. Mayor Burt: It's only at peak hour that they were referring to that. Under the rationale of if it were near 100 percent, then the argument would be don't put anything on that lot. I don't think your ... Council Member DuBois: (crosstalk) Mayor Burt: Just a second. I've got the floor back. I think that we see that there would be significant benefit to a technology even on the lot that is the highest utilization, because there's a whole bunch of the day where we'll get better utilization. The parking problems exist not just at peak hour. They're just the worst at peak hour, at lunch time. We're going to get a lot of benefit. It dwarfs the difference in expense in my mind. In any event, I see no more lights. The Motion is to—we don't have it before us. Council Member Wolbach: Do we have a Motion? TRANSCRIPT Page 76 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Mayor Burt: Yeah. Council Member Kniss made a Motion and Council Member Berman ... Council Member Kniss: It's up on the board. Mayor Burt: There we go. To direct Staff to prepare plans and estimates for construction of the APGS with preference for single space monitoring and solicit bids when funding becomes available. As the City Manager said, this action tonight isn't binding direction. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: City Manager also said they would come back with iterations, with analysis. I don't know if you need that in the Motion or not, just to clarify that that will be happening. Mayor Burt: I don't think we do. Please vote on the board. That passes 6-1 with Council Member DuBois voting no and Council Members Filseth and Scharff absent. That concludes this item. MOTION PASSED: 6-1 DuBois no, Filseth, Scharff absent Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs Mayor Burt: The next is Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs. I'm not aware of any updates. Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Burt: Council Members' Questions, Comments and Announcements. I know that Council Member Kniss wishes to adjourn the meeting in memory of one of our citizens. Any other Council Member questions or comments? Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Thanks very much to people who contacted me about Paula Kirkeby, including Karen who was here earlier tonight, I think, from the Art Center. I'd like to read what she forwarded to everyone that she knew would be concerned about this. As we adjourn in her honor tonight, many of you would have known her because she was involved with art, had an art studio and was a real presence in this community for a very long period of time. Here's what Karen wrote: I'm very saddened to share that longtime Art Center supporter and community member Paula Kirkeby passed away on Friday afternoon. Through her work as an art supporter, consultant, dealer, community volunteer, owner and operator of Smith Anderson Editions, Paula made an indelible mark on the art world, and she will be deeply missed. Her connections to Palo Alto run deep. She first came to Palo Alto in 1956 and opened a gallery at 200 Homer in 1969. In TRANSCRIPT Page 77 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 1978, she opened what they ended up calling 3EP Press with partners Mary Margaret Anderson—many of you know her—and Joseph Goldyne where she worked with artists such as Nathan Oliveira and Frank Lobdell. In 1984, she became the sole owner of the press and renamed it Smith Anderson, relocating to its present location on Pepper Avenue in Palo Alto. For more than three decades in a modest building on a residential street, Paula worked to provide extraordinary opportunities for artists to experience monotype printing at the press, developing an impressive roster of additions from artists of national and international acclaim, Bruce Conner, Enrique Chagoya, Sam Francis, George Herms, Ed Moses, Miriam Shapiro and so many more. Paula also maintained an independent consultancy and, in that capacity, helped to support the careers of artists including Bruce Conner, working to organize the exhibition and publication of 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II at the de Young Museum and at the Walker Art Center, which remains—says Karen—one of the very best exhibitions I've ever seen in my entire career. Paula was involved at the Art Center as a longtime contributor and also participated in some of our early campaign capital leadership. She served on the Public Art Commission, contributed and facilitated the contribution of more than 30 works of art to the Art in Public Places collection of the City of Palo Alto. The Art Center featured works of art from Smith Anderson Exhibitions in several exhibitions, including one in 1992 and the exhibition For the Love of It in 2004 that showcased her legacy through more than 50 prints from more than 27 local collectors. The picture below—which I will try to pull up—is from the opening and features former Smith Anderson staff member Whit Loy [phonetic[ and former Art Center curator Signe Mayfield on the left with Paula and former Art Director Linda Craighead [phonetic] on the right. We also worked on numerous collaborations with Paula over the years, most recently in our artist residency with Ehren Tool, during which Ehren created his first monoprint series at Smith Anderson using paper created from military uniforms. She goes on to describe the wonderful time she had working with Paula, all the things that they did together, all the emerging young artists and so forth including a man I don't know, Joseph Zirker, who has printed at the press. She was a force, tenacious, passionate, deeply committed to her work and to her community, a fierce belief in karma and maintained a deep and expansive spiritual practice. She goes on to describe that, her beautiful jewelry, her exquisite dressing and you'll want to know she loved to gamble in Reno and Vegas. She worked to create, as they said, a vital community of friends and so forth. We understand she passed away peacefully. We have offered the Art Center as a location for the memorial, but I know the family is looking forward to doing a large event at Santa Clara University next year. We'll keep you posted. With that, I'd like to ask Karen Holman to say something very significant about her involvement with us as a City. TRANSCRIPT Page 78 of 78 City Council Meeting Transcript: 4/11/16 Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. Thank you for all your comments and to Karen Kienzle as well. Just a couple of quick comments. One of the things that Paula Kirkeby also did was she supported young collectors, buying their first pieces, which is very important in getting involved in that. The thing I was going to say was I think—it's maybe unprecedented, certainly unusual and I've never experienced it before. When Paula Kirkeby came before the Planning Commission—I don't remember if you were there at that time or not, Pat—she asked for an extension of her conditional use permit for the Pepper location because it's in a residential neighborhood. The Commission actually granted her not just the single Conditional Use Permit (CUP) extension, but doubled her requested time on the CUP. I've just not heard of that happening before or since. It just is a great demonstration of how much the neighbors supported her location on Pepper and how much the community supports her and her efforts. She will indeed be missed. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned in memory of Paula Kirkeby at 10:38 P.M. Mayor Burt: On that note, the meeting is adjourned.