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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-03-07 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT   Page 1 of 117  Special Meeting March 7, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 6:04 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Seeing no Oral Communications, we'll go to Item 1. Action Items 1. Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 16.28 of the Municipal Code to Require Testing, Monitoring and Protective Measures for Temporary Construction-related Dewatering and Consideration of Recommendations From the Policy and Services Committee to Direct Staff to Analyze Additional Measures to Minimize Construction-related Groundwater Pumping. Mayor Scharff: Adoption of an Ordinance amending Chapter 16.28 of the Municipal Code to require testing, monitoring and protective measures for temporary construction-related dewatering and consideration of recommendations from the Policy and Services Committee to direct Staff to analyze additional measures to minimize construction-related groundwater pumping. We'll go to the public first. I see there's a lot of public here. You will have 2 minutes. The first one is Cate A., to be followed by Keith Bennett, who is speaking for 5 minutes. Keith, you'll have 10 minutes. Council Member Holman: Mr. Mayor, just a quick question. We usually have the Staff presentation first, and then … Mayor Scharff: We do. That's a good point. I just see everyone, and I'm like, "Come speak." I get it. Come on and do the Staff presentation, of course. FINAL MINUTES    Page 2 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mike Sartor, Public Works Director: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and members of City Council. We'll be very brief. We have, I think, four slides that we'll show. Phil Bobel, to my right, will do the presentation. I also have at the table Brad Eggleston, Assistant Director of Public Works, to answer any questions that might come up. Mike Nafziger from our Development Center is also here to answer any detailed questions that might come up. Phil, go ahead. Phil Bobel, Public Works Assistant Director: Phil Bobel, Public Works. Thank you, Mike. As he said, this will be quick. You've all had an intro to this item. What we're talking about is the basement pumping, the pumping that occurs during construction of a basement. We have new suggested requirements that are in two parts. One part for the year that we're in, calendar year '17, that construction season. The second part is construction season calendar year '18. I'll start with calendar year '17. These are what we're calling the minor adjustments to our current program. We recognize some weaknesses in our fill station requirements. That's the requirement that you have to be able to provide water to trucks and to neighbors via hose bib. The rate of pumping was not great enough at all sites last year, so what we're suggesting is a demonstration. The contractor would have to actually demonstrate that they could fill up a standard 2,500-gallon truck in 10 minutes and that the hose bibs would supply neighbors with a rate of 10 gallons per minute. It just gives a performance standard to a requirement that we already had. Secondly, we're suggesting adjustment of the timeframe. We had a maximum of 10 weeks indicated last year for the pumping to occur. It had to be done in 10 weeks or less. After more experience and listening to the contractors and others, we believe that it makes sense to have a 2-week startup period to let them work the kinks out of their system. Adding those two together, you have a 2-week startup period and a 10-week pumping for a total of 12, if you want to think of it that way. Thirdly, a series of reporting requirements, really just one requirement and a number of steps. One step would be at the end of the startup period, next it would be biweekly and then a final report. This follows a weakness that we realized in last year's program where we didn't have good information soon enough and weren't able to have a good feedback loop on things. That's what we're suggesting in the way of minor adjustments. Given that they are minor adjustments to our current program, we suggest that there be no grandfathering. Our Attorney doesn't like that word, but I think we all sort of know what it means. In other words, everybody would have to meet that requirement upon adoption. The other part of the 2017 requirements are ones where there would be an exemption if you had already gotten your conditions of approval, shorthand term is entitlement, from Planning. If you'd gotten your conditions of approval or if you'd a gotten a building permit, that is you are entitled or FINAL MINUTES    Page 3 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  permitted, the shorthand we used on this slide. If one of those two things had occurred, then you would not have to meet these listed requirements on this slide. I'll just run through them quickly. One is that the maximum depth of the pumped groundwater could not be 3 feet below the anticipated slab height. In other words, you couldn't pump it at a greater depth than that. What the slide doesn't say but is part of it is that once the slab is poured, then that changes to 1 foot. You can let the water rise up to 1 foot. Secondly, the contractor, owner have a discussion with the neighbors. If they wanted their trees or other vegetation to be watered, then you'd be required to follow up on that and provide water for them and work that out. I should have mentioned that this whole 2017 program is supported by an Ordinance, which is Attachment A to your Staff Report. This particular third bullet, however, on this page would be supported by a change in the municipal fee structure as opposed to the Ordinance because it is a fee. One of the main weaknesses in our program last year and the year before was that we really don't have the Staff to manage this whole set of requirements, keep track of the amounts, deal with the contractors as they comply or don't comply, back and forth with the contractor. There's a lot of work involved in implementing this program. We feel we'd have to have contractor assistance, and that would cost on the order of $10,000 per site, so we would institute a fee to cover that amount through our municipal fee system. If you approve this in concept tonight, we'd be back to you at a later meeting with an actual change to our Municipal Fee Schedule. The fourth one is—this is a major one—an enhanced geotechnical study. We required it last year for the first time. We're, as far as we know, the first agency to do this. It shouldn't have surprised anybody that it was imperfect; we didn't get the information we needed. We're requiring some enhancements to that geotechnical study. One of the main ones is that we set a performance standard. If you are going to have cutoff walls and be exempted from this geotechnical study, then you've got to meet a performance standard of 30 gallons a minute, which is basically a tenth of what the large sites were pumping last year. Instead of pumping on the order of 200 or 300 gallons per minute, you'd have to demonstrate that you could reduce that pumping amount to 30 gallons a minute by virtue of having these cutoff walls that we've talked before or some other technology to dramatically reduce the pumping. Absent that, you'd have to prepare this enhanced geotechnical report. In the interest of time, I'll let it go at that for now. Switching to 2018. Let me emphasize again that those first two slides would be supported by an Ordinance, which our City Attorney drafted and we supported. It's Attachment A to your Staff Report. Except for that fee, the points on the first two slides would be supported by the Ordinance as would our preexisting requirements. There were preexisting requirements that would also be supported by the Ordinance. For 2018, we're suggesting that we perform further analysis, that you not adopt in final form anything FINAL MINUTES    Page 4 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  tonight. The four major points of that would be to require the owner, contractor to look at the wells in the nearby area, determine if any are usable for the purposes of helping with the study and determining the outcomes. If not, a new monitoring well, one or more, would have to be— that's the second bullet—installed. An important one is the third. The groundwater drawdown would have to be limited to 3 feet at the closest adjacent structure. In other words, if your neighbor is 40 feet away, the nearest point of their structure, you'd have to demonstrate that you were not drawing the water down more than 3 feet at that location. Lastly and most importantly, it'd be mandated that you use some form of technology to dramatically limit the pumped groundwater. I referred to cutoff wall previously; that's sort of a general term. You'll hear the term secant wall also. Some kind of man-made wall, either steel or more likely bentonite or concrete, pumped into the ground that would form a barrier, not a perfect barrier but a barrier that could limit the flow to roughly 10 percent of what it would have been otherwise. That's this 30 gallons per minute performance standard that you see again. The difference between this and what I described earlier is in 2018 we'd consider a mandatory requirement. In 2017, we're just proposing that that technology provide a way of complying but not mandate it. The thing that we'd consider upon your direction for 2018 is a mandatory requirement of this advanced technology. The recommendations are first to adopt the Ordinance, which again is Attachment A to your Staff Report, to implement the 2017 requirements— that's the first two slides that I showed you—and the preexisting ones, less controversial but they would be included. Secondly, you direct Staff to evaluate the potential 2018 requirements that I talked about. In other words, we're not suggesting that they be adopted tonight, but that Staff evaluate them further, bring it back toward the end of this calendar year, toward the end of 2017, in such a way that it could apply to 2018. That's our presentation. I'll stop there. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we will turn to the public. Everyone will have 2 minutes unless you have a group of five. Cate A. to be followed by Keith Bennett. Stephanie Fullerton: Hello, Mr. Mayor and Council. Thank you for listening. My name is Stephanie Fullerton and this is my daughter Cate. She made this presentation back in December and presented it to a subcommittee. We were invited back to give it again. I'll let her introduce herself while I set up the audio/video. Cate. Cate A: My name is Cate A., and I go to school at Roosevelt Elementary in San Leandro. I made a presentation about dewatering. I'm in third grade. [Video shown.] FINAL MINUTES    Page 5 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Keith Bennett speaking for Atsuko Bennett, Harriett Lehrbaum, Stephanie Fullerton, Charlotte Fu: I'm Keith Bennett, a Palo Alto resident with Save Palo Alto's Groundwater. You've already heard the punchline of my talk, but I'll provide a lot more detail. We have provided Council and Staff with data and analyses showing the impacts of basement construction dewatering. I believe you all received a copy of our presentation to the Policy and Services Committee summarizing the most important information. I will be happy to answer any questions. The presentation to the Policy and Services Committee documents that dewatering from a single site lowers the groundwater by 2 1/2 feet at a distance of over 200 feet from the applicant's property and 6 feet in the middle of an adjacent property. The amount of water pumped in 2016 for the construction of eight residential basements was enough to irrigate 5,000 Palo Alto single-family residences on average for a year. Furthermore, it represents a substantial fraction of the natural aquifer recharge from precipitation for an entire year for the entire City of Palo Alto. The combined value of the groundwater discarded at a reasonable allocation of costs for storm drain usage for an average basement exceeds $100,000. Dewatering for underground construction is an issue at the intersection of three major considerations. Water. Simply put, management, conservation and wise use of our groundwater is important. Our current practices simply are not sustainable. Former Mayor Pat Burt in this mailing that came today in support of the storm water ballot measure, which every current Council Member supports and has endorsed, states Palo Alto gains double benefit: flood protection and transforming rainfall from a threat to a water resource. I posit that pumping it out is the opposite direction. The second consideration is balancing owners' rights to develop their property while protecting the properties and resources of others. The third consideration is money. Dewatering makes significant use of public resources, particularly groundwater and the storm drains, by a few without compensation to the community, who provide funding for these resources. Impacts of private development on the larger community are an increasing angst from many residents not only for basement construction. We must not be afraid to require applicants to incur additional project costs to reduce impacts on the community. We are here tonight to request the following actions of Council. To facilitate specific Council actions, I've taken the liberty of providing you both with two pages of what I would call enhancements to Staff's recommendations. There are three points, and I would like to go through each point and provide the reasons for each. Item Number 1, the 2018 program enhancements. In addition to what Staff has proposed, I posit it's best to simply direct Staff to investigate an Ordinance to take full effect in 2018 requiring zero waste of groundwater without increasing flood risks. Preferably, the 2018 program enhancements should prohibit the issuance of street work permits for discharging groundwater from construction dewatering to the storm drains. Such an Ordinance goes to the FINAL MINUTES    Page 6 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  core of the issue, is simple and easy to enforce. It provides applicants with maximum flexibility on methods to meet the policy objectives for their projects. The City does not need to try to overanalyze groundwater, aquifer, and geological conditions at each site, nor do we need to figure out which geotech reports are reliable and which are not. Several of the 2016 enhanced geotech reports were off by a factor of ten, and none were even close to being correct. Further, applicants don't need to spend money on reports simply to satisfy a checkoff, freeing their resources to directly address the problem. We expect zero waste will be feasible through a combination of basement siting, design, construction methods, and handling of extracted groundwater including onsite, neighborhood percolation, and trucking when needed. If Staff determines that zero waste is not possible and storm drains absolutely must be used, then direct Staff to propose policies to minimize groundwater extraction and impacts on neighboring properties and to assess a fair fee for any community resources used or depleted. We need to manage storm water and, therefore, the shallow aquifer as a resource. If we intend to do that, why are we letting it be pumped freely in large quantities by a few, moreover, for free? The second recommendation is the implementation of the 2017 enhancements. Implement all 2017 program enhancements as well as the previous requirements for all projects without exceptions due to permit status, entitlements, or building permits. Among the reasons no grandfathering is important. First, we need data from 2017 enhancements and especially from those applicants who voluntarily used low-impact methods to develop the 2018 program. Second, based on experience last year, approximately 60 percent of the projects will be exempt from the 2017 enhancements if grandfathering is permitted. Therefore, these enhancements will only apply to three to six projects. Last year, it applied to three. Need we remind you that when the 2016 pilot program was approved, enhancements for 2017 were expected to be decided by the Council before the end of calendar year 2016. Third, for people living near dewatering projects, what happens this year matters. Item 3, encourage applicants to use low-impact methods. We recommend slightly modifying the intent of the language in one section of the draft Ordinance, which Dan Garber will discuss in more detail. Separately from changes in regulations, we hope the City through our Staff will use this opportunity to collect data to better understand our shallow aquifer and flows and to prepare a report summarizing the data obtained. Data on aquifer storage and flows is very valuable for understanding the storm water handling capabilities of our aquifer and not easy to otherwise obtain. If Staff needs Council authorization to use resources for the effort, then please provide appropriate resources. Regulations are only as good as their enforcement. We trust Staff will make every effort to educate applicants on the reasons for these regulations and obtain their support but also to discipline contractors who don't meet their obligations. At the FINAL MINUTES    Page 7 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  February 27th Council, Mayor Scharff mentioned that Stanford University has adequate water supplies for their planned expansion because Stanford implemented policies that reduced their water consumption. At the same meeting, Ed Shikada reported to the Council on the extensive efforts and preparations taken to prevent San Francisquito Creek from flooding not only during the storms but through planning and coordination for several years beforehand. This effort paid off; San Francisquito Creek did not flood. We are asking Palo Alto to apply the same foresight towards our groundwater. Groundwater is a resource, and the shallow aquifer provides many environmental services including storm water management. We don't see our groundwater, but it is important. It is surprisingly dynamic. We need to understand it, manage it wisely all year every year. Palo Alto residents have been concerned with dewatering for basement construction since before 2004. As stated in the Palo Alto Weekly last week, the City has generally tweaked existing rules adding relatively modest regulations, monitoring impacts and making revisions based on experience. It is time to stop tweaking and definitely address this problem. Palo Alto has lots of smart people, and surely after 13 years of study we can solve this problem. We request Council to adopt Staff recommendations incorporating at a minimum the specific recommendations that we have provided for the 2018 program enhancements, make the 2017 enhancements effective for all projects immediately, and slightly modify the wording of the draft Ordinance to provide motivation to those applicants who choose to do better than currently required. Finally, to answer a question I was once asked by a reporter, Palo Alto pumped and dumped enough water last year to provide drinking water for all of the world's elephants for a month or enough water to provide drinking water for 200,000 people for a year. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we'll have Dan Garber, to be followed by Sandra Browman. Dan Garber: I'm Dan Garber, a resident and architect of Palo Alto. I have submitted a letter and presentation to the Council and Public Works regarding what cutoff walls are and their benefits, basically reducing the amount of water to be pumped out of our shallow-water aquifer potentially to zero in the best case. Cutoff walls are not new. They are used in commercial construction regularly. What is new is the smaller equipment that has been developed in recent years, that is more easily used on smaller residential sites. The first budgeting exercise I have done are the costs for doing a secant or cutoff wall adds about $35,000-$60,000 to the house that might cost $1.5-$2.2 million or around 3-4 percent of the total cost of the house. This does not include the likely savings building a cutoff wall presents to the applicant, in particular a reduced construction schedule. The most important part of the Staff's recommendation is Item 7e on Page 6 of FINAL MINUTES    Page 8 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  the not-yet-approved 2017 draft Ordinance because it is the only item in the Staff recommendation that incentivizes a homeowner or other applicant to use a cutoff wall or other localized area dewatering strategy this year. We recommend slightly modifying the language so that it matches the Staff recommendation in their report's discussion to also allow the City Engineer to waive calendar year pumping limitations and all additional fees if the homeowner is pumping 30 gallons a minute or less. Finally, the City's green building compliance program does not include an elective for conserving groundwater, and it should. Direct Staff tonight to administratively add a groundwater conservation elective under the innovation concepts and local environmental conditions section of the Green Building Code. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Sandra Browman to be followed by Julianna Frizzell. In maybe 5 minutes, we're going to cut off accepting new speakers. If there's anyone in the audience who wishes to speak, please get your card in now. Sandra Browman: Members of the Palo Alto City Council, good evening. My name is Sandra Browman, and I live on Webster Street for the last 33 years. I'm reading this letter on behalf of 18 Palo Alto residents living on my block. It's time for the Council to definitely add (inaudible) construction dewatering and for the City immediately implement policies that reduce the waste of our valuable groundwater and cut the damage to properties. We now have (inaudible) supporting our Council and the magnitude of the waste of groundwater, the extent to which the water table is lowered on the neighbors' properties hundreds of feet away, and the availability of construction methods that preserve the groundwater. We urge Council to uphold the Ordinance proposed by Staff with the addition of, one, the goal for 2018 should be zero waste of groundwater without increasing flood risks; two, requirement that the new regulations apply without exception to all new 2017 projects, no more project exempted from the dewatering program requirements. It is essential that the 2017 enhancements take effect immediately for all projects. Three, enforcement of all approved regulations. Four, stronger incentives to reduce groundwater (inaudible). We have just had 5 years of drought, and we don't know what the future will bring. There is no need to keep experimenting with our properties and resources. Thank you. Please save the water. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Julianna Frizzell to be followed by Mary Sylvester. Julianne Frizzell: I live on the corner of Channing and Center. I was interested—I was looking at my utility bill, the flyers. There is this flyer on composting at home, save water. The first sentence is water is a precious FINAL MINUTES    Page 9 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  resource, and using it wisely is a way of life in California. It seemed to me that that was a good theme for tonight and that many of us in Palo Alto do work hard to save water. I think that it is not right that one homeowner or a corporation or developer can remove millions of gallons of water out of our aquifer for one basement building project. The water in our aquifer belongs to all of us, and it should be preserved and protected. There are methods of construction, as noted by Dan and others before him and tonight, that allow construction of the basements without dewatering. I urge the Council to adopt measures that stop property owners and developers from removing our groundwater. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mary Sylvester to be followed by Beatrice Cashmore. At this point, we will not be taking any more cards. Mary Sylvester: Good evening, Council Members. I'm Mary Sylvester: I live at 135 Melville Avenue. I'm a 39-year resident of that site. I'm here tonight in support of the proposal by Save Palo Alto's Groundwater, which calls for City Staff to investigate simplifying the current groundwater Ordinance in 2018 and simply putting an end to discharge of groundwater to the storm drains. I support completely what Sandra was just saying. We've all been working hard for years on saving water at home. Meanwhile, developers and homeowners are pumping out millions of gallons of water that we've been actively trying to conserve. There are proven better ways to build basements. When water is pumped out, I'd like to see that used for irrigation and for fire hydrant use. I'd like to thank Save Palo Alto Groundwater for their excellent work on behalf of all of us. This benefits this community at large, and they've tirelessly advocated, researched on behalf of us all. Thank you, Save Palo Alto Groundwater. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Beatrice Cashmore to be followed by Patrick Cashmore. Beatrice Cashmore: Good evening. I'm speaking on behalf of many residents from my Triple El neighborhood. Would you all please stand? Thank you. We strongly urge the City to adopt local area dewatering in place of broad area dewatering. This is particularly because a large-scale construction project is poised to begin in April of this year with the dewatering of three basements at once, that have a total area of 7,087 square feet. I happen to be one of the homeowners that lives right next door to this project. Broad area dewatering is an unsustainable practice. It has several environmental impacts that are known. Residential basement excavations are not allowed in Mountain View and San Jose for this very reason. You've just heard about the cutoff wall method of constructing a basement. It's not experimental; it's been used for many years. It's been FINAL MINUTES    Page 10 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  successfully used in Palo Alto commercial and residential constructions. Using it removes all of these risks that we've talking about. What is experimental is the consequence of the planned broad area dewatering of three basements on a 30,000-square-foot lot in Triple El, a size that makes it equivalent to a commercial project. The neighborhood is at 10 feet elevation. It's located 1 mile from the Bay and has a measured shallow groundwater level that hovers around 4 feet below the surface. To excavate down to 13 feet below surface for construction of those three basements at 900 North California Avenue will result in a groundwater drawdown at an estimated 6-9 feet. This is based on data gathered over the last 3 months within 100 feet of the proposed construction site. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Patrick Cashmore to be followed by Kimberley. Patrick Cashmore: Good evening. First of all, I'd like to thank all our neighbors who stand and support this critical matter for coming. This is a continuation of my wife. The proposed 2018 regulations submitted for today's meeting calls for a drawdown limit of no more than 3 feet at the closest, offsite adjacent structure. We have a problem. The 4,017-page Policy and Services Committee report, most of which is attachments, contains many long letters from homeowners and petitions with hundreds of residents' signatures protesting broad area dewatering. Some of the documents date back to 2008, '07, and '03. It would seem that we are having the same discussion, controversy that began 14 years ago except that now we have a sustainable and established method of basement construction available to us. We have a way to resolve this that will allow all parties to be satisfied. The Staff Report indicates new fees to be leveled for Bay area dewatering, $10,000 permit fee, and a $10,000 or more price tag for a geotechnical study to determine drawdown plus the additional costs of ongoing monitoring. These fees will not apply to local area dewatering, which is completed much more quickly, thereby reducing construction time and costs by 2-4 weeks. We urge the adoption of local area dewatering, aka the secant cutoff wall method, as mandatory for basement construction on any property that would require dewatering and, further, that this shall include 2017 basement constructions with no grandfathering from the 2016 regulations. Let me finish up. The property owners of the 47 homes that are within 300 feet of this construction project do not accept carrying the risk of subsidence and the property damage which would belong solely to us. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Kimberley, followed by Peter Drekmeier and Hamilton Hastings. FINAL MINUTES    Page 11 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Kimberley Wong: Hi. It's actually Kimberley Wong. I forgot to put my last name. I have another fast fact for City Council Members and for Cate. The earth is covered in 75 percent water; yet, only 2.5 percent is drinkable. Only 1 percent is accessible because the rest is trapped in glaciers. Kudos to the folks at Save Palo Alto Groundwater for pushing for regulations to save our precious resource, water. Remember the old adage waste not want not. As a Cool Block leader, I am more than ever committed to saving water where I can. I am only one, but if we multiply my efforts by the numbers in the City, the effort is enormous. Increasing regulations and practicing strict enforcement to regulate the biggest water wasters is a huge step in the right direction. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Peter Drekmeier, long-term water champion. Peter Drekmeier: Nice to see you, Vice Mayor Kniss and Council Members. Thank you so much for addressing this issue. I think it's very important to our community. We all know that water is very precious. Unfortunately, the water that's pumped out for basements is considered to have no value because it's a nuisance. That's why we don't charge for it. The 140 million gallons that were pumped last year is enough water to supply the City of East Palo Alto for 70 days, and we know for them water is very valuable because they're on a very tight allocation. I really appreciate the City of Palo Alto moving forward to help out our neighbors. I was on the train coming down here, and I got off with a neighbor who tends to be slightly more pro property rights than I am. He asked me where I was going, and I said to City Hall. He said, "Are you there for the dewatering?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "What's your take on that?" I said, "I think we need to put a value on this." He said, "Yeah, I'm all about capturing externality costs in the price structure." It reminded of a Resolution we passed in 2009 acknowledging externality costs, the hidden costs, and embracing the concept of true cost pricing. There was one basement last year that 30 million gallons of water were pumped. If that water were sold on the market similar to the water we drink and irrigate with and flush our toilets with, it would have been $130,000. I think the groundwater basin including the upper aquifer is going to be a really important part of our integrated water management moving forward. I appreciate any action you can do to protect that groundwater. I really want to thank Dan Garber and Keith Bennett for getting together and figuring out a solution that, I think, could work for everyone. I think the cutoff walls make a lot of sense. Thank you. I also wanted to thank Cate A. for her fantastic presentation. Hamilton Hitchings: San Jose banned residential basement pumping because there was substantial damage to the residents' roads and buildings. Mountain View has a tax that increases with the size of the basement. FINAL MINUTES    Page 12 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Because we do not count FAR for basements, basement construction will continue to grow in Palo Alto from eight basements last year to 20 new basements being built this year. In Palo Alto, less than 1 percent of the water pumped from a basement dewatering is from the property building the basement, and 99 percent is from the neighbors' properties and the neighborhood. This creates a local drought for nearby neighbors and needlessly wasted 140 million gallons in Palo Alto last year. As long as pumping your neighbor's groundwater is free, new construction sites will continue to do so until there are financial incentives and regulations put in place to minimize pumping. One no-brainer solution is simply to pump closer to the surface, singlehandedly reducing groundwater pumped by over 50 percent. Another, as Dan Garber has shown, is cut walls and similar techniques that will limit the water pumped to primarily under your own property. We have practical solutions to dramatically reduce groundwater pumping while allowing residents to continue to build basements. I urge the Council to adopt the Staff's proposed groundwater rules for 2017 without grandfathering, increase financial incentives and fees to further encourage the use of cut wall-type techniques in 2017, and adopt Dan's additional recommendations. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Pete Moffat to be followed by George Block. Pete Moffat: Hi. I'm Pete Moffat, and I'm a general contractor. I've lived and worked in Palo Alto for about 30 years. We have remodeled, restored or renovated probably 50 or 60 homes in Palo Alto. Sustainable building practices are typically governed by Building and Planning Codes. In Palo Alto, much, much more than any other neighboring city, we're pushed by our clients to use more sustainable practices. Over the past 15 years, I don't think we've had a client in Palo Alto not wanting to incorporate some sustainable building practice into their projects. It was in Palo Alto that we built our first LEED project, our first gray water/rain water project, our first passive project, and our first deconstruction project was also in Palo Alto. None of these practices were mandated by regulations, just the desire of our clients. My point in all of this is to be a contractor in Palo Alto I need to be versed in sustainable building practices. Of our Palo Alto projects, about 20 have had basements, and we've had to dewater two. We have used alternate methods to avoid dewatering our four or five projects that had systems running through the groundwater. We have never had nor other contractors I've spoken with had issues of subsidence or trees dying by dewatering. From what I understand, none of the studies commissioned by the City of Palo Alto recognize any significant issues from dewatering. I do not think most arborists or geotechnical engineers have concerns about tree health or subsidence from dewatering. What I think I clearly understand is that politically dewatering in Palo Alto will not be done the same way it's FINAL MINUTES    Page 13 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  been done in the past. Contractors can improve on the process for basement constructions. I do think cutoff walls are viable options for building basements in Palo Alto. I do think cutoff walls potentially will allow more sustainable building practices in building basements in Palo Alto. I do think that cutoff walls will allow basement construction to take place in more months of the year. We need a little bit of time to figure out how to do this, so I ask you to give us this season to look and figure out how all this process is going to work in our construction. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. George Block to be followed by Floura Wayes. George Block: Thank you. Mr. Mayor, Council Members, and Staff, I've heard the presentation. I live in Community Center on Greenwood Avenue. I am concerned about this waste of water. It sounds like there are solutions. I do have an ongoing question. In our neighborhood, I continue to see groundwater, I presume, being pumped out from houses that have completed construction. It's at the point now where there's actually algae forming in the gutters. This is a one-time talk we're having here about what to do during construction. My question is how about ongoing. Are we going to continue to pump groundwater, and what shall we do about that? Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Floura Wayes to be followed by Tom Martin. Floura Wayes: Hi. Thank you for your time. My name is Floura Nayebe [phonetic]. I live on Moreno. I just have a few things to say. Three houses on Moreno have basement. A lot of water are now coming, a lot of insects, algae because we had rain. They keep pumping water right now. I'm noticing that when I want to open my door to the house or the garage door, I cannot open the door, and then I have to make a hole in the key longer so I can open the door. My question is this. We hear a lot of sinkhole all around California right now. If our houses come down, who we are going to blame. I don't have the money to build my house again. I like to know who I should go after if something happen to my house. Now is too late. I don't know. On Moreno we have three houses that—also, my neighbor had two or three big trees, evergreen trees; they're all dry now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Tom Martin to be followed by Ester Nigenda. Tom Martin: I wasn't aware of the geotechnical study. Some of this might be redundant. Developers need to demonstrate that impacts of dewatering will not damage neighboring properties by making borings on the properties to define the subsurface soils and groundwater levels, making a numerical simulation of groundwater flow and groundwater level, using the numerical simulation to predict the extend of dewatering of surrounding properties, FINAL MINUTES    Page 14 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  defining the impact of dewatering on expansive soils in the surrounding properties, and confirming that groundwater pumping will stop after the basement walls are installed and backfilled. The possible outcome of dewatering is differential settling of structures and paving due to soil expansion and contraction. In order to minimize the amount of dewatering, one method is to have these walls that have been mentioned previously. Another type of wall is to dig trenches and fill them with impermeable clay. These trenches have the same effect as the sheet piles but are permanent, thus, also reducing groundwater migration into the new basements. In general building basements in areas with high groundwater levels is a bad idea. Not only does it impact the existing properties, but it also exposes owners to a constant problem with moisture and water in the basements. There is also a bathtub effect where the buoyancy of the basement puts large forces on the new structure, causing the potential for upward motion. The City Council should not allow such construction unless all of these impacts can be avoided. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ester Nigenda to be followed by David Weiss. Ester Nigenda: Good evening, Council Members and members of the public. Speaking for Save Palo Alto's Groundwater, we thank Staff for all the time and effort they've put into studying, proposing, and implementing the dewatering regulations. We thank last year's Policy and Services Committee for listening to our concerns and deeming them important enough to send to full Council. We sat through a few Council meetings, and we have come to deeply appreciate Council Members' service to our community. We thank all members of the construction industry who have joined us in trying to craft solutions to the waste of groundwater. Last but not least, we thank all our supporters, those who have joined us today, those who wrote letters, and those who wish us well. I have been an emergency services volunteer longer than I have been with Save Palo Alto's Groundwater. One thing we're taught is water is the most important item in your emergency supplies kit. When we were in the drought and I saw all that water running into our storm drains, I thought, "I want that water in my emergency supplies kit or at least in the City's emergency supply kit." With climate change and growing water demand, the paradigm has changed. Experts tell us that the best way to manage the water we have is to consider it all one water. It is no longer surface water, wastewater, potable water, etc. It is all one water, and all water is important and valuable. It is time to think of shallow groundwater as a resource and not as a construction byproduct. It is time to work together to ensure we have a sustainable water future. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. David Weiss to be followed by Joan Plastiras. FINAL MINUTES    Page 15 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  David Weiss: City Hall allows my neighbor basically to steal water underneath my home. We have many droughts as we know, and then City Hall comes and, if I try to haul too much water on top of the surface, I will be penalized. I'm saying that this practice reminds me of a question that was asked 2,900 years ago. King Ahab was asked, "Have you (inaudible) and taken possession also?" I think that's simply unacceptable procedure. I don't see a reason, especially that there are simple technical solution like cutoff walls and things like that. Also, as (inaudible) said, property rights (inaudible) full rights are ending at the border of the property. They are not supposed to invade other properties. What I'm saying is what was unacceptable so many years ago should just stop definitely today and not allow any more such practices. All the nice people here who was talking about the impacts in the entire City, of course, is also so important. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Joan Plastiras to be followed by Keith Kvenvolden. Joan Plastiras: My name is Joan Plastiras. I've been a resident of Palo Alto for about 18 years. I'm going to make this really short. I don't live in the California Avenue neighborhood, but I've been listening to the dialog on the groundwater. Look, I make my living as a real estate broker. I love development. I love construction. I've done a little of it myself; however, it needs to be responsible construction. My neighbors on California Avenue are not saying, "We're against basements." Although, I personally have seen situations where the construction of basements has damaged the foundations of nearby buildings. They're not saying they're anti-basements. They're saying they are anti-wasting water. I think this is a reasonable concern. We've been encouraged as Palo Altans to turn our neighbors in if there's runoff on the concrete. In that context, it seems to me reasonable that you ask developers to be conscientious in terms of wasting water. Another thing that occurs to me—I'm kind of a common sense person. It seems to me if you've got a good solution for 2018, what the hell's the reason for delaying the implementation of it? You ought to put it in place right now, starting immediately. It's a good law. You're doing the right thing for conservation. It needs to be done. The last time I checked, I didn't hear God say that contractors had the right to build basements if it's going to damage our ecology and it's going to hurt the groundwater situation of nearby neighbors. I'm up here, just in conclusion, to say I'm pretty balanced, I'm pretty fair, and I see both sides, and I'm not immediately affected. It seems pretty clear to me that the common sense thing to do is to implement good water conservation now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Keith Kvenvolden to be followed by Greg Schmid. FINAL MINUTES    Page 16 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Keith Kvenvolden: I've been a resident in Palo Alto for more than 50 years now. I've been moved by this debate. There's very little else that needs to be said, but I would say a couple of things. One is water is the fluid of life. It is really important, and we should manage it as if it were a vital and life- giving thing. I'd like you to think about that. In terms of the dewatering, we've already seen the unintended consequences of dewatering, the change in property next door, the rise of the water table causing damage to the home itself that has the basement. We need to think about the future, climate change, the rising sea level. We're going to see sea water intrusion into our aquifer. We're going to see these things happening. We need to think about that and really prepare for this future. I'm actually of the opinion that we should have a moratorium on basements. They're not really needed in this situation. We live on an alluvial plain. The consequences are unimaginable. Please, think about the future and think about the possibility of putting a stop to things until we really understand what's going on in our aquifer. Remember, water is the fluid of life. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Greg Schmid to be followed by Winter Dellenbach. Greg Schmid: Honor to be here talking to the City Council. Water, as people have said, is a key sustainable asset for our future. Groundwater is part of a very complex system. Take it seriously. I would emphasize especially the 2018 program enhancements. Here's a chance to get proper data available, to look and explore this critical issue. There are at least three things that have to be looked at there. What are the real impacts on neighbors? How can they be measured, quantified, looked at, and taken care of? Number two, recharging the groundwater system during this very uncertain future that we face, how to make it sustainable. Third, finally, the complex relationship between groundwater and the deep aquifer. These are three critical issues where there's a lot of debate out there amongst the experts. I guess we have an opportunity to prepare over the 6 months to make permanent decisions. I think the nice thing about tonight is there's some very practical solutions available. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Winter Dellenbach to be followed by Terry Holzemer. Winter Dellenbach: I live in Barron Park. We know a few things about groundwater. Our groundwater bit us. Being adjacent to Stanford Industrial Park, we have a couple of Super Fund sites there. We have some Super Fund plumes around the edges of Barron Park. We know what it is about to ignore groundwater. Groundwater isn't anything; we don't really see it much; we don't think about it much. Now, we're starting to think about it. FINAL MINUTES    Page 17 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  It bit us, and it can bite us again. It can bite this whole town. In fact, it is biting us because we're ignoring it, and we're wasting it, and we're abusing it, and we are not respectful of it. That is just plain stupid. We're smarter than stupid. We think that we're really a smart town. In fact, we say it all the time. We tell the whole world how smart we are. Given how smart we think we are, how come we're acting so ridiculous? In 2018, we should cut out this whole dewatering, wasting water thing. We have good alternatives. We should get Public Works out of the middle. We should use the alternatives we have. We should incentivize those alternatives. Let's get on with this. Let's be the example that we want to be, that we can be, that we see ourselves as. Mountain View and San Jose ahead of us? Wait a minute, wait a minute. That's a blow to our civic pride. Let's turn this thing around. Don't you guys let us down tonight. We're depending on you. We need to get on with this. Don't be thinking about my little basement. It's not about basements. This is so much bigger than that. We're depending on you; do not let us down. Mayor Scharff: Terry Holzemer to be followed by Miriam Sedman. Terry Holzemer: I don't know how to top that. Good evening, Council Members. It's a real pleasure for me to be here tonight to support the efforts to limit the dewatering effects of our community. It's been very evident to me for many years that dewatering is not only a very devastating thing to the surrounding neighborhood and individual homes that are affected but also to the community at large and also is a threat, as so many other speakers have said, to the future of our water supply in Palo Alto. I won't mention again what other people have said. Water is a very critical resource. We need to protect and conserve it as much as possible on a daily basis. I urge this Council to really adopt rules and Ordinances that will protect our groundwater, not only for our current residents but to remember about the generations that will come. Remember water is something that will come and go. We've been lucky this year, and we've had great rainfall. Like everyone else, I worry about 5 years from now. Will we have the same resources available to us? Protecting the groundwater, nothing could be more critical. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Miriam Sedman to be followed by Suzanne Keehn. Miriam Sedman: Hi, I'm Miriam Sedman. We live at 915 Elsinore Drive in Triple El. We live one backyard, 100 feet, from three planned basements. These are three 5,000-square-foot homes. The basement on each of these properties is bigger than our entire house. The entire neighborhood is Eichlers; we're all on slabs. We're very, very close to this building site. FINAL MINUTES    Page 18 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  There's no data that anyone has presented relative to building two or three basements in the exact same area. Is the risk two times worse or three times worse to the canopy and the trees that (inaudible)? It's a complex problem. I'm just here to urge you to look at the cutoff wall and really to accept that as an alternative to doing this extensive resource. We know that it's going to reduce the risk to the trees. We know it's going to reduce the risk to our properties and the neighboring properties. You can hear from the community that this is a solution that would make us happy. I really urge you to take this into consideration and, if possible, put it into place sooner than later. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Suzanne Keehn to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Suzanne Keehn: I've been so impressed with all the facts that people have been able to share with you tonight. I myself think that the idea of private property and that we're all separate is really having—we're looking at the whole earth and what we can do to keep using it is not working anymore. It's not working anymore because it's time to look for the public good and the good of the earth. We are not disconnected from the water. Like somebody said, our bodies are mostly water. I actually think we should have a moratorium on digging basements. Are they really needed? I do think that everybody needs to think of how they affect the others and how we affect the earth, and the idea that we need this water for not just now but for generations to come. Once you take it out, where's it going to come from again? The earth is one system. I think we've gotten so out of balance from understanding that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Jody Davidson. Rita Vrhel: Good evening. First of all, thank you everyone for coming. It's such an important issue. I and Save Palo Alto's Groundwater appreciate your support. Tonight, I am asking you to make the right, moral, and ethical decision for Palo Alto's residents, the environment, and our aquifers. It is not a choice between property owners exercising their right to build basements in areas where groundwater extraction is required and dumping is permitted or not allowing the construction of these basements. You can do both. You can build your basement and save our groundwater. It is a misleading and a false argument to say it is either/or. It is not. You asked for information on alternative construction methods and ways to minimize groundwater extraction. We provided that information. You also asked for information on how extracted groundwater could be percolated, used or recycled other than flushed into the City storm drains and waste. How can the City and Council and Staff be discussing enhanced storm drain management, seeking voter approval of increased storm drain fees and be FINAL MINUTES    Page 19 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  exploring alternative sources of water while allowing eight residential basements to waste over 140 million gallons of groundwater in 2016? Homeowners can still build their dream homes; builders will embrace ways to build while preserving our groundwater; hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater will be saved; the perceived inequality of residential storm drain fees will be addressed; saved groundwater can serve as a source of our future water if you enact what is proposed. I would go further to say stop the dumping now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Jody Davidson to be followed by Steve Broadbent. Jody Davidson: Good evening. My name is Jody Davidson. I've been a resident here all my life. This is the perfect week for our Council and Staff to be discussing this important topic again, since this is actually National Groundwater Awareness Week. Since 2007, I have been involved in studying dewatering impacts to have this industrial-level construction practice limited in residential construction. My views have not changed, and I support Mr. Bennett's recommendations. Residential construction dewatering operations have no place in a City which follows Green Building Code guidelines. Water is such a precious resource that it cannot be pumped out on a large scale and mitigated by any kind of green point offsets by the architect or builder. This was stated to Council by several senior engineering professors who are residents of Palo Alto. There are real impacts, unintentional desiccation of areas outside the construction zone and later flooding to nearby properties from there being too much underground concrete since the water must re-channel itself beneath the ground. As I once mentioned to this Council, the original EIP consultant who wrote that report for the City of Palo Alto a long time ago told me that he was completely unaware of the volume of water and length of time of this operation. He asked me to ask our City Manager to contact his company, which is now Parsons Brinkerhoff, to restudy it. He was actually shocked. Dewatering may also have the unintentional impact of causing the movement of yet unmapped toxic groundwater towards the construction site, causing further complications. Thank you, guys, for reconsidering this. Again, thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Steve Broadbent to be followed by Martin Bernstein. Steve Broadbent: Ground Hog Day was February 2nd. My name is Steve Broadbent. I'm here again after 8, 9 years. Nine years ago, I was at this very podium addressing the City Council about this very issue. (Inaudible) encore performance of my letter from May 2008. I urge the City Council to FINAL MINUTES    Page 20 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  strengthen City Ordinances related to the construction of residential basements, especially basements which require dewatering during construction. Mechanical removal of millions of gallons of groundwater from a construction site has detrimental environmental impacts, and it is disingenuous for a construction project to be considered green when it builds a basement in an aquifer. One so-called green project in Old Palo Alto pulled over 100,000 gallons of water per day for over 6 months. The volume of space displaced by a basement could also result in tens of thousands of cubic feet which would displace groundwater flow around the newly constructed basement. This could significantly have impacts especially around the immediate vicinity. The Foundation Engineering Handbook by Hasi-Yang Fang confirms that the process of dewatering can have side effects that are harmful to the project under construction, to other facilities nearby, or to the environment. Dewatering can cause damage to structures being built or to the adjacent structures. The City clearly recognizes the need for water conservation; yet, it permits the intentional discharge of millions of gallons of water into storm drains. That simply doesn't make sense. I'm glad the City Council is looking at this again. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Martin Bernstein to be followed by our final speaker, Jack Morton. Martin Bernstein: Thank you, Mayor Scharff and Council. I'm Martin Bernstein; I'm a resident of the City of Palo Alto and a local architect. Water management is certainly important. I suggest that any Ordinance that the Council approves, there's wording that makes it crystal clear if dewatering is not a requirement for the construction; that minimizes all the regulations that might have to happen if a proposed basement is built. We've done several projects where we've done a simple geological bore going twice the depth of our proposed basement and found no water. My suggestion to any Ordinance is if that's the case, then that's the end of the regulation regarding any dewatering. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Jack Morton. Jack Morton: Good evening, Council Members. A young grade three spoke to you earlier tonight with a very simple message, do what makes sense. Politically, nationally schizophrenia seems to be the fashion of the day. I would suggest to you that we ought to look a little bit at home and see the kinds of things we've been doing the last few years. We ask individual residents to conserve water. We permit hundreds of gallons of dewatering. That's not politically admirable. We ask residents to provide more funds to upgrade the storm drain. We allow millions of gallons to go through the storm drains without a charge. It seems really clear that what we need to FINAL MINUTES    Page 21 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  do is ban dewatering, do so quickly. It makes sense. Even a grade three can tell you that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we'll come back to Council for questions, comments, and motions. I'm going to kick this off a little bit. First of all, I wanted to thank all of you for coming out. It's very heartwarming in Palo Alto to see the level of citizen engagement and how much everyone really cares. I also really appreciated the presentation from the youngest member in the audience. I thought you did a really great job. Keep up the great work, and maybe you can run for City Council soon. I also really wanted to thank Staff. I know you guys have worked really hard on this and gone through it and given a lot of thought to it. Phil, I think you've done a great job and worked really hard. I know, Mike, you have too. I just wanted to thank all of you for that. I wanted to put a little bit of context. We did this back in—was it November? December. That's right. It was December of last year we went to Policy and Services. Policy and Services basically endorsed the Staff recommendation that you see before us and went forward with it. With that, Staff and Policy and Services suggested the recommendation, which is on Page 1 of the Staff Report, which was adopt the seven new components for the City's construction dewatering guidelines and craft an Ordinance codifying the dewatering guidelines with the updates, which are in Attachment A. There were four additional requirements. You were supposed to return to Council for adoption with a goal of making the new requirements applicable for the 2018 construction season. To cut through all of that, what we were really looking at is let's put in place an Ordinance. We didn't have an Ordinance. Let's make it clear that this is what's required. Then, let's see how that goes in 2017 in terms of basement construction, in terms of the cutoff walls. I did want to actually say that I appreciated Keith and Dan Garber getting together and coming up with that. At least, Policy and Services, I think, seemed to buy off on that; that that's the solution and that's where we should all go. I think that's what I heard from most of you. I think the notion was that we'd give it one season and see how that works. We'd give people a chance to adapt, to learn a little bit about cutoff walls, to know that's coming. I think contractors should realize that that is probably coming, barring some new information we learn in the next 6 months. At that point, we'd basically have the requirement that you'd need to do some sort of technology with a cutoff wall. I know that Staff didn't want to be prescriptive and say it's cutoff walls. That's what we're going to say, that it's some new technology that allows you—that's why we have those requirements on the pumping of 30 gallons as opposed to the 300 gallons, because that's really what that means. I also really appreciate Dan Garber for coming forward with some minor changes to the Ordinance. I thought those were really good changes. I would hope that we would adopt those FINAL MINUTES    Page 22 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  within the Ordinance. I wanted to ask Staff if they had any concerns at all with Dan's changes. I don't know if you have that in front of you. Mr. Bobel: We do. He's basically adding a little bit of detail to the tenets that we had in there. If you'd like to take them one at a time. Mayor Scharff: Yes, we would. Mr. Bobel: There'd be an exemption from the geotechnical study. We had that in there. He specified a given Ordinance provision. Verification of anticipated drawdown. We had that in there, the verification. He's added the clause in which that appears. The time limitations, again we had that in there in concept. He's added that. We certainly don't have any. The City Attorney may want to comment on whether that degree of detail is actually needed. Let me assure you those three features were in there. The one that wasn't in there was this waiving of all additional fees. I think that's why he's written that word "new" in parentheses there. The only reservation I have about that—it is sort of significant—is to the extent we have fees, as you guys well know, we have to justify them based on the cost. This would not be a zero cost option for Staff. We'd still have a lot of oversight, arguably even more review and oversight because now there's a new technology being employed. The City Attorney and I just discussed this a minute ago. I think you could direct us to consider a graduated fee structure and take into account these features. To completely waive them, I think we'd have trouble with our favorite State proposition. I would just mention that. Mayor Scharff: That's very helpful. Molly Stump, City Attorney: If I could just add a few comments. City Attorney, Molly Stump. We appreciate their thinking on this. As Phil Bobel indicated, the detail that's provided here is consistent with how Staff had talked about implementing this language. There's another sentence in the draft Ordinance that authorizes the City Engineer to adopt implementing administrative regulations. What we really intended with this is to have an Ordinance that's fairly high-level and general, and then to authorize the City Engineer to add regulations consistent with the Ordinance so that we can have the detail in that more flexible document, that doesn't require the Council to tweak continuously. This situation is—not to have a bad pun— relatively fluid. We are learning about groundwater. We're learning from our citizens. We want to have the flexibility to respond. Sometimes when you add detail, you actually make it narrower instead of broader. We think the narrower provisions or more specific provisions are better in the administrative regulations and keeping the language of the Ordinance FINAL MINUTES    Page 23 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  somewhat more broad. Except for the provision that Phil has talked about, about the fees, the intent and approach is certainly consistent with what the citizen advocates are suggesting and the Staff. Mr. Bobel: Just to add one point. Brad reminded me. Brad Eggleston is with us; better memory than me, so we take him everywhere. The very first part of that, the way we had worded it was not pumping to the storm drain system. We thought it was important, especially after listening to everyone, that it be a limitation on pumping. It wouldn't be okay to pump and truck it to Alaska or something. We thought about that actually long and hard. Should we allow the options of trucking it somewhere or using it even in a positive way at some alternative location? We thought no. Although, it's unlikely that somebody's going to be able to take this amount of water anywhere—that's what we've experienced—we shouldn't really open this up to someone who is willing to reinject it in Bakersfield or whatever. We don't want it removed from our groundwater is the essential feature here. The more we thought about it, the more we don't think it should say to the City's storm drain system. That's not the key. The key is are you pumping it. We'd prefer that that part be left as we had it. Mayor Scharff: I guess what I’m hearing is that you prefer the Ordinance you drafted for some specific reasons, but all of the concepts that Dan put in there are actually in there. If that's a fair assessment. Mr. Bobel: Yeah. The only one that's not in there is the fee part. That's because we handle fees through the municipal fee structure as opposed to the Ordinance. We just haven't brought you the municipal fee change yet. We could certainly take this to heart and would want to, the concept that Dan's proposing. Mayor Scharff: To get a Motion out there, I am going to move the Staff recommendation. I was going to include Dan's changes but, frankly after hearing from Staff, I'm going to defer to Staff on that. I actually would say I think sometimes as a Council we do get too much in the weeds in being too prescriptive and Staff actually, in terms of making those administrative regulations … Vice Mayor Kniss: Would you like a second, Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Sure. I will be happy to take a second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to: A. Adopt seven new components for the City’s Construction Dewatering Guidelines; and FINAL MINUTES    Page 24 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  B. Adopt an Ordinance codifying the Dewatering Guidelines, with the updates recommended by Policy and Services, in the Municipal Code at Chapter 16.28 (Grading and Erosion and Sediment Control); and C. Direct Staff to consider four additional requirements and return to Council for adoption, with a goal of making the new requirements applicable for the 2018 construction season; and Council Member Kou: Are we allowed to do questions of the Staff? Mayor Scharff: Every Council Member will have a chance to talk. You can ask questions, make counter Motions, do whatever you like. That's totally fine. I think it's important that we focus the discussion tonight so we can get onto other things as well and get this done. In speaking to the Motion, I want to say I think this is a really good compromise in terms of for one season we have this approach, and then the next season hopefully we move just towards the—I'm going to call it the cutoff walls for a term that's easier. At which point, we won't be pumping groundwater except at minimal amounts of that 30 gallons. I think that's the vision. I think it's a good vision. I think it's a sustainable vision. I'm really pleased with all the work that everyone's done. I'm really pleased. I again would like to do a shout- out to Keith, who I know has put huge amounts of time and effort into this and has given a lot of thought to it. I'm just going to say great job, guys, and thanks for persevering with this and bringing it to the City Council. Do you wish to speak to your second? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yeah, briefly. We took this up in Policy and Services late last year. I think for us the big aha was Dan coming forward with something that we understand has been used in construction in other areas, particularly at Stanford University, for a long time. I wasn't aware of it. I think a good number of the community weren't aware of it. We're very aware that we've just gone through a drought. I don't know if we're officially done with our drought or not. There has never been a time when we have been as aware of water flowing in a gush down the streets. Keith, you've done a great job of bringing it to everyone's attention. Thanks to all of you who met with us. Any number of you met with us to explain what you had in mind and what your concerns were. There's been an enormous community involvement. Thank you all for doing that. I think this is the way for us to go. I do want to acknowledge the frustration I know some people have for us just not jumping right onto the answers that Dan has provided us. I think we need this period of time to gradually move to the new method and to have contractors and others being aware of how this actually can be done, with apologies that we're not just jumping right into our new technology tonight but taking a short time to figure that out before we make it permanent. FINAL MINUTES    Page 25 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I would like to start with some questions. First, I want to say thank you for everybody for coming. It shows great support. I do acknowledge that since 2008 this has been going on or maybe perhaps even longer. On some part, we have to take some responsibility for the waste of water. On the geotechnical engineering, the enhanced technical engineering, the firms, are they decided by City so that the contractors can use or the property owner can use? How does that come about? Mr. Bobel: No, we're not specifying the firms that could be used. Council Member Kou: Can I ask why? We want to make sure that these people who are doing this report know our soil here and know our area, what kind of aquifers we have, shallow water, groundwater. I don't want them getting somebody from Timbuktu looking at it. Mr. Bobel: It's not typical for us to dictate who does these things. We would review the document. That's part of why we're suggesting the need for consultant help on our part, so that it could be reviewed by someone that the City has confidence in. Mr. Sartor: I would like to just add one point to that. The geotechnical study will be required to be done by a licensed geotechnical engineer. That would ensure that the work is being done to professional standards. Council Member Kou: I've seen reports that make me wonder whether they actually know what our soils are like here and what kind of water we have, how deep they are, the water table. I guess if it's something that it's not satisfactory, do we have the opportunity to go and get a peer review? Mr. Sartor: We actually have the authority to accept or reject any report. The report would be subject to review by our Staff and by our professional management Staff that we are proposing. Council Member Kou: I notice in the Ordinance there's language that says there's monitoring wells. Having been a member of Santa Clara County Cities Association Emergency Operations Area Committee, long name, we got a report saying that our dams and our lakes are pretty full, but the shallow groundwater as well as the aquifers are not. It takes years and years for them to refill. How can we use the water that's pumped out for the basement? Can we use those monitoring wells to recharge the aquifer on that property? FINAL MINUTES    Page 26 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Bobel: You can't use those same wells as recharge wells, the monitoring wells. The recharge that occurs naturally is occurring up in the hills from rainfall. Actually, this wet year we've seen the groundwater respond, so we know that it does respond to wet years. I would just point that out. Council Member Kou: There's no way for part of the regulation to have a well dug for recharging what they pump out? Mr. Sartor: Those are two different types of wells. Mr. Bobel: Yes, two different types of wells. There is that option. There were three options the way we had structured it even this year to reduce groundwater discharge to the storm drain system. One of those was reinjection. Another was to use it on plant material, vegetation somewhere. It is an option, but it hasn't been required. Council Member Kou: It's just that there's so much water coming out. Last year, they said 140 million gallons. I don't know how much you can give to the neighbors. I was just hoping you can kind of consider direct recharging since our aquifers are slow to recharge. One more is the pumping station. It's still part of the regulations to have a pumping station, right, at the site? Mr. Bobel: The so-called fill station, where people can fill up? Council Member Kou: The pumping, on the door, is there a phone number for Public Works in case there's a complaint or there needs to be a report of some sort? Mr. Bobel: Yeah. Brad Eggleston, Public Works Assistant Director: I believe the phone number that's there is actually for the contractor. Council Member Kou: How about reporting to the City then? I think we should have one for the City, not just a contractor. I think we want direct communications if there's water being wasted or something. I hope you can consider that into that guideline. Mr. Eggleston: That's an easy thing to add to our program. Council Member Kou: Thank you. I had one more. There was mention in one of the letters or—I don't remember where I read it. There were fines that were—violations that had happened, and there should have been penalties that were supposed to be collected. Is there any way to go back and collect on those? It seems like it's a very large sum. FINAL MINUTES    Page 27 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Eggleston: I don't think there's any way to go back and look at those. The way we characterized the work we were doing on this last season was that it was a pilot season. We were testing out this 10-week period. In general, the sites were pretty successful in meeting the 10-week period. I believe there was one that went several weeks over. There was a determination, as we talked to them, that there were issues involving some City permitting and inspection review, where we determined it wasn't really feasible for them to finish in 10 weeks. Also to the point, we did identify a couple of problems with the permits we were issuing that caused issues with us being able to enforce and collect fines when people went over. One of the things we're looking for improving the program in this coming up season is to clean that up and make sure that the permit time limits are more enforceable. Council Member Kou: Mayor, I would really like to push this—I think we've waited long enough for the regulations to come into place. Water has been wasted more than enough. I would really like to see Keith Bennett's proposal for both the 2017 and the 2018 to be moved forward. I don't know how to do it. I'm sorry. Mayor Scharff: You have to do something. Council Member Kou: I move to have Keith Bennett's proposal for the calendar year 2018 construction … Mayor Scharff: You're moving an Amendment to include Keith Bennett's— you're moving an Amendment to include Keith Bennett's proposed—with the proposed language? What are you doing? Council Member Kou: For anything that I need to get in there. I know there are some that are duplications. For whatever it is that he has on his, I'd like to add onto your Motion if you … Mayor Scharff: I think it's an Amendment to include the proposed one, two, three on Item 1. On Item 2, it would be proposed—I think it's the wording in 7e … Council Member Kou: 7e yes. Mayor Scharff: … to change that wording? Council Member Kou: Yes. Mayor Scharff: I think it might—year, I think that's what you're looking for. Would that be correct? FINAL MINUTES    Page 28 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Kou: Yeah, what you said. Mayor Scharff: Will I accept? I think we should have discussion about that. The answer is no, I won't accept. You need a second. Council Member Kou: Do I have a second? Council Member Holman: I'll second that. AMENDMENT: Council Member Kou moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to amend the Motion to include the proposed changes provided by Keith Bennett as follows: A. All proposed changes for the 2017 Enhancements (and the pre- existing requirements) would apply to all sites; and B. Revise the Second Phase: Potential Calendar Year 2018 Construction Season Changes as follows: i. Direct Staff to investigate feasibility of an Ordinance related to underground construction to take effect in 2018 requiring zero waste of groundwater without flood risks; and ii. Investigate and propose such other policies as may be needed to reduce all impacts of construction dewatering, including impacts on neighboring properties and vegetation; and iii. If significant usage of storm drains is permitted, determine an appropriate charge for storm drain usage; and Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman will second. Would you like to speak to your Motion? Council Member Kou: I just think that we've waited long enough. The residents have done a great deal of research on this. They have talked to a lot of professionals also. I think it's just time to move forward with this and implement it so that we are moving to 2018, where there will be zero waste of water. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, would you like to speak to your second? Council Member Holman: Yes, please. I think the recommendations or proposed language that Save Palo Alto Groundwater is providing just provides more strength to this. I'll go one further if the maker of this Amendment would accept it. Two things, to apply—unless you want to take FINAL MINUTES    Page 29 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  these separately—the 2018 regulations in 2017 and not allow grandfathering. Council Member Kou: I accept. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to apply the Second Phase: Potential Calendar Year (CY) 2018 Construction Season Changes in 2017 and the only projects that would be grandfathered are those that have received planning entitlements. Mayor Scharff: Why don't we let the Staff catch up and put that in there? Ms. Stump: We do have a number of questions to explore about what the Council's … Mayor Scharff: I understand. Why don't we go ahead and let the Staff get that up. Council Member Holman: Then, can I speak to … Mayor Scharff: I was going to say and then you can speak—you can speak to your Motion now while Staff's getting that up. I just wanted … Council Member Holman: Thank you. One clarification here, and maybe it's because I'm a woman I'm sensitive to this. There's been an awful lot of due credit given to Dan Garber and to Keith Bennett. Save Palo Alto Groundwater is, from my perspective and from my experience and all the communications we've received, really three people at the heart of it, Keith Bennett, Ester Nigenda, and Rita Vrhel. I don't think that they have gotten the credit that they deserve this evening for all the work that Palo Alto Groundwater and the efforts you've put forward and all the community you've pulled together. This is a great turnout. Not one person has spoken against moving forward with protections. Most people have been pretty clear about stop dewatering into the storm drains now. There's only one person who hedged on that, and that was a contractor who said he wanted a little bit of time to get up to speed on the process. That's the only person. I don't remember seeing any emails opposing moving forward now. The public is going to remember what we do tonight. Whatever we do, the public is going to remember. I want to be remembered for something where we stand up and take care of our groundwater, take care of a resource that—I did listen to the NPR clip that, I think, Rita sent to the Council. It talks about how groundwater is a third of our water supply. That's not to be underestimated. It may have been Winter Dellenbach who said get Public Works out of the middle of this. I think she's absolutely right if that was FINAL MINUTES    Page 30 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  who said this. We have plenty of data. We need to move on it. We need to act on it. We need to stop the waste. However one actually measures this, at least the optics—we talk a lot about optics. At a very minimum, the optics are that there is a localized benefit to one property owner at the cost of and the expense of the whole community who pays for our storm drains. That's just not equitable. If it is as Jody Davidson, I think it is, said—I remember, by the way Jody and Steve, coming to the Planning Commission meetings, when I was there. We had this conversation back then. I really am grateful to Save Palo Alto Groundwater because this has been an issue ongoing for all those years. If it really is—I don't have any reason to doubt it—National Groundwater Awareness Week, what better time for the Council to take a strong and proactive action to protect our groundwater. We talk about wanting to save trips. Some of the things in here—I won't go into a lot of detail about this. Trucking water, my goodness, we talk about how we want to save vehicle trips, but we're talking about trucking water. That's why I'm—that's just a few of the reasons. I could go on but don't think I need to. As the third grader said—a child will lead, to quote another document. A child will lead; I think that's what we need to do tonight. That's why I put forward these additions to the Amendment that was put forward by Council Member Kou. Mayor Scharff: I think that's not the Motion you guys made, which is up there. I assume we're fixing it. I'm correct, right? That's not the Motion. They need to … Council Member Holman: I added to the Amendment that we would move Phase II for this next year, for 2017. I added that to the Amendment. Mr. Bobel: "A" is what Mr. Garber presented, not what Mr. Bennett presented. Ms. Stump: Folks, there are quite a few elements here. We're going to need to walk through them so that we understand what you're wanting to do. We also can give you some advice. Some of it cannot be done this evening. You could give direction. We need to walk through it point by point. Mayor Scharff: What I wanted to do right now is make sure we had—this doesn't reflect at all what was said up here as the Motion, what Staff has put on the board. I just wanted to make Council Member Kou and Council Member Holman aware to at least put up there what that is. I think you understand what they're talking about. If you want to start walking us through, I'm happy to do that. I do want to get the actual Motion up on the board so we at least know what we're talking about as a group. FINAL MINUTES    Page 31 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Stump: We received a handout just this evening, a two-page handout that was prepared by Keith Bennett. I understand that the reference has been made to the document. I don't think we really—some of it we've already talked about and said we won't do. Mayor Scharff: Yep. Ms. Stump: Other elements we need to talk through. I think it makes sense for us to talk and then the Clerk can add or we could take a 10-minute break and she could input the whole document. Mayor Scharff: No, no. I said I'm happy to have Staff start walking us through it. We do have the document in front of us, so I think it works. I just wanted to make sure that while we're doing that Staff is getting the Motion up on the board. Council Member Holman: What I had added to the Amendment, to your point Mr. Mayor, that Council Member Kou had accepted was that we go to Attachment B and apply that to this next pumping season and not to allow any grandfathered projects. That's what I had added to the Amendment. Mayor Scharff: I know I don't understand that, Council Member Holman. I'm sure Staff will explain it. You can work it out and get it explained, but I actually don't follow. Council Member Holman: I don't think it's that hard. We're applying—I'm sorry, I don't mean any disrespect. We're just applying Attachment B. What was proposed for 2018, we're applying that additionally to 2017 and not grandfathering projects. Council Member Kou: Can we work off Keith's? Council Member Holman: Staff's going to do that. Mayor Scharff: We're going to let Staff walk us through. Council Member Holman: One question I have for Public Works while they're doing that. Maybe Mike can answer this. If we don't exempt—excuse me. If we don't disallow grandfathering, to use maybe not the best phraseology, what happens to the projects that have been permitted for 2017? Do they have any regulation, any requirement? Ms. Stump: I can answer that. For projects that have received their building permit, they have a legal entitlement to proceed under the rules that were applicable when they got their building permit. We do not have an ability to add additional requirements to those projects. Beyond that, we do FINAL MINUTES    Page 32 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  have some ability to add additional requirements. That's one area where we can be more protective than the way that we framed the recommendation that was put before you tonight. There's a line in the Staff Report that suggests new requirements for this season would apply to projects that haven't applied, to projects that are in the pipeline, but not to projects that have received planning entitlements, which are called conditions of approval or building permit. We could remove the planning entitlement from that so that, even if folks have gotten their planning entitlements but they haven't gotten their building permit, the new requirements could be applied to them. Now, the new requirements that are being adopted by Ordinance do not go into effect this evening. Ordinances, as you know—I just want to inform the public—require two readings of Council 10 days apart and then 30 days before they're effective. It would be that period of time before the new requirements would be legal requirements. Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. The grandfathering would still apply to those who have received their planning entitlements, but the other projects, as you say are in the pipeline or in the process, not to grandfather them is allowable. I'm trying to repeat in a different way what you said. Ms. Stump: You could increase the requirements from what you just said. It is possible to have new requirements apply even to projects that have received their conditions of approval but haven't gotten their building permit. Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. Mayor Scharff: Maybe we could go through it from Staff's perspective. Ms. Stump: I'll use Mr. Bennett's document, which is the one you've referred to. Public Works will jump in and help. A lot of this is engineering, and that's their thing. We need you all. The first one is kind of a biggie. It's to direct Staff to investigate feasibility of an Ordinance related to underground construction to take effect in 2018 requiring zero waste of groundwater. This is similar to what Staff had identified in Attachment B. We had some extensive discussion with Policy and Services Committee about wanting to take another very significant step for the next construction season of really increasing the substantive requirements. I think the Committee felt and the City Staff felt as well that we are not quite in a position yet to establish that as a requirement immediately. While there is some experience with these construction techniques, as I recall from the Committee meeting—again, I'm not an engineer—it's somewhat limited, and the Committee was interested in one season of experience with that through a more incentive type of program before we actually introduce it as a FINAL MINUTES    Page 33 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  requirement. It is not in the Ordinance that's drafted before you. If we were going to make it a requirement, we would need to think very carefully about how to draft that into legally enforceable language. It is not something that you're able to adopt on first reading tonight. You would need to direct us to come back. We had recommended 2018, and I think the Committee had agreed that that was the soonest feasible time to take that additional step. Mayor Scharff: I think there's some other point that is really important, that we should get out there. We're under a bit of a gun. The next season starts really soon. If we want to have this Ordinance apply in 2017, if we try and move too fast—I'm sympathetic to the idea of why Council Members want to do that—we could very well have no Ordinance in 2017 at all. All we end up with is the 2018 Ordinance and actually get the opposite of what we're trying to achieve. When we talked about this at Policy and Services, we had no Ordinance at all. We basically created some concepts that we were enforcing without an Ordinance. There is some legal risk to that. We need an Ordinance to continue this process. If we don't have an Ordinance in place, I think there's some issues regarding that. What we want to do is get an Ordinance in place, give Staff the time to go ahead and get the 2018 requirements, which we're all looking at doing—I don't think there's much dissension on Council on that—in place in 2018. That was the thought. Listening to Staff on that first point, I'm going to ask the two of you if you want to continue to "F," have Number 1 the way it's set in there, which is direct Staff to investigate the feasibility of an Ordinance related. After hearing Staff, do you want that in the Amendment? Obviously, you have a right to, and we can vote on it. The question is do you want it. Mayor Scharff: No, they want it in 2017. Council Member Kou: No, no, no. That's 2018, right. I recognize that Policy and Services wanted to give some time to the contractors, the professionals, to figure out how to do this. If I read Mr. Garber's note, it says that this is done in commercial construction regularly since the smaller equipment is now available and developed in recent years. If it needs the time for the contractors to be able to do this in residential, then perhaps a moratorium should be in place until they figure it out. To continue wasting water is just not acceptable anymore. That's the urgency for me. It's been going on for such a long time, and we need to put something in place now. Mr. Bennett's proposed, if you look on the bottom on his page, it basically says all proposed changes, one through seven—he's proposing the same thing. It's just that he added in that irrespective of building permit and planning conditions, which already is in your original Ordinance. Right? I don't see any changes there. FINAL MINUTES    Page 34 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Stump: You're skipping to the bottom of the Page … which maybe I should have started there because there's more items there where we can enthusiastically say yes. As to that paragraph at the bottom … Mayor Scharff: Could you just explain where you are on this sheet? Ms. Stump: This is Keith Bennett's handout, at the bottom of Page 1, where it says Item 2 proposed. Here he's suggesting an adjustment to Staff's initial thinking as to which projects the 2017 new requirements would apply to. We can do this if Council wishes to direct it, to make it—actually we can do part of this. We can't do irrespective of building permit because those are constitutional rights that property owners have once they've received a building permit and have relied on that. New requirements cannot be applied there, but they can be applied to projects that don't have their building permit but have received their planning entitlements, if Council would like to make that Motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman and Kou, could you go down there and work with them to get the Ordinance? I don't see the Ordinance. I see a real difference in what I heard from Council Member Holman—maybe I misunderstood—who said she wanted to apply this stuff now. That was my confusion when you talked about 2018. I'm trying to understand what exactly the two of you are suggesting. Ms. Stump: What is currently on the screen under "A" is something the Staff is comfortable with. Please speak up, Public Works, if I'm getting out of hand. I think investigating the feasibility for 2018 to go to zero is something we would like to do to advance this program. We would come back to you later in 2017 with data on the 2017 construction season and a proposal for strengthening the Ordinance for 2018. Council Member Holman: I think what we have here is a little bit of a confusion where some of the language is actually conflicting with each other. Let's let them work this out if we could, just for a minute. Mayor Scharff: That's what I was thinking. I don't mind if you want to go down there and take a—do you want to take a 5-minute break and work with Staff, get your Motion up there? Then, we can discuss your Motion without confusion. Council Member Holman: Yes. Also, I wanted to say something about applying the 2018 proposed regulations in 2017. If I'm understanding it correctly—maybe Dan Garber is the person to answer this, if I could through the Chair. If the cutoff wall method is used—if I could through the Chair? FINAL MINUTES    Page 35 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Sure, go ahead. Council Member Holman: If the cutoff wall method is used, is there a longer construction period? Mr. Garber: Meaning how long you can build throughout the year or the actual construction itself? Council Member Holman: How long you can built throughout the year. Mr. Garber: The opportunity with the cutoff wall is that, because you're not utilizing the storm drain or the amount that you're using is so diminished, you could use it throughout the year because it doesn't burden the storm drain system. Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. Where I was going with that and the reason I asked it was because it did come up at Policy and Services that there would be a moratorium. This could be a brief moratorium until contractors became more familiar with the cutoff wall or other comparable construction methods. Because they can build later in the season, it's not like we're putting anybody off for a year. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: Mr. Mayor, I would like to suggest and request on behalf of Staff that we take a brief recess so that Staff can regroup. I will tell you that, speaking as an engineer, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the discussion getting very specific and making a number of assumptions based upon the assertions from one professional. I think I would like to confer with our professionals on our comfort level with doing this at this point. Mayor Scharff: I completely was happy with taking the 5-minute break to get the Motion up there. I understand that. I do want to reemphasize that this is just a Motion by two Council Members. There's not necessarily support from five Council Members. We don't know that yet. I don't want Staff to think this is. I for one, so far, do not support most of what was said in that Motion. I think it probably goes too far. I think there's a lot of concerns with Staff. I'm happy to have Staff confer on that. I don't want Staff to have the impression at all that that's the direction Council is moving. That's not necessarily true. Why don't we take a 5-minute break? Council took a break from 7:59 P.M. to 8:11 P.M. Mayor Scharff: If we could all sit down. Council Members, if you could come back to the dais. Could we return to the dais? Is Staff ready to take a quick walk through the proposed Amendment? FINAL MINUTES    Page 36 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Stump: Yes, we are, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, are you ready for us to proceed? Mayor Scharff: I am. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Kou moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion: C. All proposed changes for the 2017 Enhancements (and the pre- existing requirements) would apply to all sites that have not received a building permit as of the effective date of the Ordinance; and D. Revise the Second Phase: Potential Calendar Year 2018 Construction Season Changes as follows: iv. Direct staff to investigate feasibility of an ordinance related to underground construction to take effect in 2018 requiring zero waste of groundwater without flood risks; and v. Investigate and propose such other policies as may be needed to reduce all impacts of construction dewatering, including impacts on neighboring properties and vegetation; and vi. If significant usage of storm drains is permitted, determine an appropriate charge for storm drain usage; and E. Apply the Second Phase: Potential Calendar Year (CY) 2018 Construction Season Changes in 2017 and the only projects that would be grandfathered are those that have received planning entitlements. Ms. Stump: Looking at the Motion … Mayor Scharff: The Amendment. Ms. Stump: The Amendment, thank you. Paragraph A—just a minute. I lost it. Mayor Scharff: Staff, we need to be able to see it. Ms. Stump: Paragraph A works with some refinement. There is a legal requirement that we honor building permits that have been issued. "All sites that have not received a building permit at the effective date of the Ordinance" would be the language that we are legally required to use. If that's the intent or if that language can be added. Mayor Scharff: Are you guys willing to add the language? FINAL MINUTES    Page 37 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: I am, yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part A., “that have not received a building permit as of the effective date of the Ordinance.” Council Member Holman: You're equating building permit with planning entitlement? Ms. Stump: No. It's my understanding under our process those are two different things. Not all projects have planning entitlements, but all projects will require a building permit. It's when the building permit is issued that the legal right to proceed attaches. Council Member Holman: That have not received a building permit, good. We're on the same page. Ms. Stump: In Paragraph B, it's my understanding the Amendment describes items that the Council would like the Staff to explore for—those are potential changes for 2018. We don't need to spend a lot of time on the specific language of those because this is going to require some gathering of data, some analysis, some working with the community, and then coming back to Council. These are not items that are proposed to be adopted today. It's direction to Staff. We are comfortable with "i." We are comfortable with "ii." "iii," we do want to direct Council attention to. As I understand that language, it refers to a different type of charge than Public Works has proposed be part of the 2017 Municipal Fee Schedule that will come back to you. We're proposing for this construction season, 2017, a cost recovery fee that will help the Staff hire additional resources so that they can implement what you're doing now. We can do that this year. As I understand it, this is suggesting a charge for the water itself, a charge related to the volume of water. This is an item that we had brought to Committee and asked the Committee whether the Committee wanted us to work on this. There's quite a bit of legal complexity to this. It will require us to do a cost of service type of study, and it will take some time. We are happy to do that. The Committee did not direct us to do that. The Committee said hold off on that effort and focus on the construction technique piece. As I understand it, this would be a change from what the Committee directed, which is fine. Again, we would want Council to be mindful that this is an additional item. As I understood the conversation at Committee, the Committee felt the construction approach was appearing to bear fruit and be productive in getting at the root issue and that perhaps spending what would be a fairly considerable amount of resources on time to develop a fee was something they wanted to set aside for now and not have Staff pursue. That's a FINAL MINUTES    Page 38 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  question for the Council, whether you want to change that direction and have us go in both directions at the same time for 2018. For "C," Council Member Holman can fill us in. My understanding is that "C" says that all of the elements of "B" actually become effective this year. There are both engineering and legal challenges and barriers to that. Specifically, we cannot do this type of charge without a cost of service basis that would withstand legal challenge. This would be the first type of Prop 26 fee on top of a Prop 218 fee that I'm aware of in California. There's a lot of work to be done, and we're not able to adopt that at this point. I think even on Number i and Number ii the Staff and the citizen advocates are looking for some examples of the proposed construction techniques to actually get built in Palo Alto in a residential context. We are hearing that maybe some projects are on the drawing board and hoping to move forward. I think everybody wanted to learn from those. We understand that Save Palo Alto's Groundwater is supportive of having that occur this construction season before we actually move forward with a mandate on that for 2018. That's the engineering piece if I summarized it correctly. Council Member Holman: If I could ask a question. On "C," you said—as I heard it anyway—something about a charge. Did I hear correctly? Ms. Stump: What I understood was that "C" says that Bi, Bii, and Biii would go into effect in 2017. Biii is a charge. Perhaps you can clarify your intention on "C." Council Member Holman: I didn't recognize that Biii was a charge. I didn't recognize that as a charge. I'm sorry. I'm looking at "C," and then I'm looking at Attachment B. Then, I'm looking at Biii. "C" is really Attachment B. Council Member Kou: In your Staff Report, it's actually Attachment B on Packet … Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, just to clarify, are you saying what you're trying to do is the items in Attachment B should occur in 2017? Council Member Holman: Yes, correct. "C" is Attachment B, yes. Mayor Scharff: Not the items in "i," "ii" and "iii"? Council Member Holman: That's correct. Mr. Bobel: Phil Bobel, Public Works. That's problematic. Now, we've essentially changed—Item B on this chart essentially changes "B" in the Staff Report. You can't do both things. If you're going to change what we had as FINAL MINUTES    Page 39 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Attachment B, which is what this "B" does—it changes it—then you can't refer to Attachment B anymore. It would be inconsistent. If you want "i," "ii," and "iii," that supersedes what we had in the Staff Report for 2018 requirements. There's a second problem, if I could just say. The second problem with "C" here is that, I think, we have it reversed. I think what you meant was that they would be grandfathered, those that have received their building permits. That's the thing that the City Attorney has been telling you is possible. It's possible to only grandfather in the things that have received building permits. It wouldn't be legal to grandfather in the things that have only received the planning entitlements. I see two problems with that. One is you're trying to refer to something that you've superseded in the first paragraph. Secondly, I think you mean to say building permits, not planning entitlements. Council Member Holman: Is that correct, City Attorney? I thought it was planning entitlements. Ms. Stump: No. The way Phil Bobel has described it is correct. Council Member Holman: Planning entitlements change to building permits. Ms. Stump: That's correct. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to change the wording in Part C. from “planning entitlements” to “building permits.” Council Member Holman: What I'm trying to do is move the requirements for the groundwater cutoff walls into 2017. That's the intention. Mr. Bobel: The way you've worded it now, that's now covered by Bi. Rather than refer to cutoff walls, it now says "requiring zero waste." Palo Alto Groundwater's shorthand way of referring to new technology including cutoff walls was zero waste. Council Member Holman: Understood. We got that at places, and I didn't catch that. Except for the grandfathering comment, we could eliminate the first part of "C." In "C," we would just keep "the only projects that would be grandfathered would be those that have received building permits." Mr. Bobel: Except "A" already says what you've got in "C" now. Now, you don't need "C" because "A" … Council Member Holman: You're right. Council Member Kou: That will work. FINAL MINUTES    Page 40 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove Part C from the Amendment Mayor Scharff: I think there's one other clarification we need on this. It says all proposed changes for 2017 enhancements would apply to all sites that have not received a building permit. That makes sense. What do we mean by "and the preexisting requirements"? I think that should go out of there. I don't understand what that means. How is that different in the Ordinance? Mr. Bobel: The Ordinance includes preexisting requirements. Maybe we don't need to say that. I'll think about that. Ms. Stump: You don't need to, but it's not wrong. It's fine to include both. Mayor Scharff: It doesn't change anything? Ms. Stump: All "A" changes is to bring the grandfathering down as small as is legally required. Mayor Scharff: Got it. Council Member DuBois, you had your light on to speak to this Amendment. Council Member DuBois: Yes. First of all, I think we're getting near the end. I did want to say I was Chair of the Policy and Services Committee at that December 14th meeting. We had probably our largest number of attendees of any meeting all year. It was a good debate. Ultimately, we did not unanimously agree. What's here is a 2-1 vote, and Marc Berman had resigned at that point. Just so the Council's aware. It's been mentioned that when this started several years ago, I think Dan and Keith were on opposite sides. They came together and presented a pretty interesting proposal. Just quickly, my personal comments. We've heard a lot of them about the optics of pumping water down the streets. I also think there is an equity measure here in terms of we're asking people to pay a storm water fee, and then we're pumping water into the storm drains without a fee. We did have quite a bit of discussion about the value of this water and the cost of pumping it. As Molly has said, we had this discussion about starting to do some legal work for 2018 to really assign a value and potentially charge for that water. I would propose an Amendment, I guess. I don't know if we need an Amendment, but "B" … Mayor Scharff: I don't believe you can do an Amendment to an Amendment, but maybe you can. Ms. Stump: Just that far. FINAL MINUTES    Page 41 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Just that far. You can do an Amendment to the Amendment, but then no one else can make an Amendment to your Amendment. Council Member DuBois: I'm not sure if we need one. To Molly's point, what this Amendment is saying is that we want to investigate the zero waste. In the event that zero waste is not possible, then maybe Biii would be analyzed. I don't think we would necessarily want to do both at the same time. If that makes sense. Ms. Stump: I think that would be a welcome addition from Staff's perspective, because there is some complexity and quite a lot of work to Number i and Number ii. If we can focus on that and if we're successful, great, we've solved the problem. If we're not, then we can come back to you, give you a report, and expect you would direct us to do the charge piece. Council Member DuBois: The proposal would be to add to the beginning of Biii that "if zero waste is infeasible, then only if storm drains is permitted, determine an appropriate charge." Mayor Scharff: That needs to be accepted by the maker and the seconder. Council Member Kou: I'll accept. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the beginning of the Motion Part B. iii. “If zero waste is infeasible and.” Council Member Dubois: I also want to point out that our Blue Ribbon Storm Drain Committee also recommended we consider some kind of storm water fee. Some other ideas that were talked about—it's getting late—whether we count any of basement FAR even if it was 50 percent instead of 100 percent. Bii, investigate impacts captures—we talked a lot about multiple dewatering, if they were happening at the same time, kind of cumulative effects. I do like the idea of casting it as zero waste. With these modifications, I can support the Amendment. Mayor Scharff: I see no other lights, but I'm going to speak briefly to this. As Mayor, I'm going to exercise the prerogative and split the Motion between "A" and "B." "A" is really a good idea. What we really want to do is use those 2017 enhancements and limit it in terms of the grandfathering. All I understand "A" does is have a larger number of houses under the new Ordinance. I think that's a good thing. I appreciate the catch on that. That's a good thing. On "B," I cannot support that. There's several things. FINAL MINUTES    Page 42 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  We have to come back to what Staff has done here and the whole framework of what we're doing. The frame work of what we're doing is looking in 2018. What "B" looks at is 2018. The goal is to implement the cutoff technology. Does everyone understand that if we implement the cutoff technology, then we are limiting it to 30 gallons? I am unclear what is meant by zero waste versus 30 gallons. I think that's a mistake. The 30 gallons has been vetted by Staff. It's a clear concept of where we're trying to get to. We then have the cutoff walls. If we then have the cutoff walls, it makes no sense to be imposing a storm water fee and going through that process. That process is not like tonight we say, "Let's have a storm water fee." The process is you hire at a couple of hundred thousand dollars and do a nexus study that takes you at least a year to do. Your consultant comes back and asks you if you—is reasonable to do that nexus study. It would be very unlikely that a nexus study would make any sense at 30 gallons per minute. I don't think that makes any sense. I think it would be a waste of Staff time and Staff resources. If, for instance, in 2018 they come back to us and say, "This cutoff wall technology does not work. That's not an option," at that point we regroup and say to ourselves, "What are we going to do about that?" That may very well be a whole bunch of other things people have talked about. At the moment, it does not look like that's going to be the case, so we would spend a lot of time. I don't want to spend time directing Staff resources to worrying about that until we have some sense of whether or not the cutoff wall technology works. Phil, you wanted to say something. Mr. Bobel: Yes, Mayor Scharff. We've tinkered with "iii" a little bit to reflect what you were just saying, the problem of zero being zero and 30 gallons and then it being something else. What we're saying is if zero waste is infeasible and significant use of the storm drain is permitted. In other words, if we end up allowing a significant use of the storm drain, then and only then would we consider fees. I think that gives us what we need, and we won't be exploring the fee initially. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth, I saw your light come on. Council Member Filseth: I was just going to ask a question of Staff. Up until this point, I've been hearing what I interpret is some concern from Staff. First of all, I completely agree on "A" and "B." I think "A" is a great idea. On "B," some concern that maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves and we haven't laid the foundations we need for this. It's one of these undelivered code solves every problem thing. There's a lot of Code implications in here. Is that an accurate statement, that Staff is still a little concerned that we're getting ahead of ourselves on "B"? We're not quite ready. FINAL MINUTES    Page 43 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Bobel: On Biii, I think it would be better from our perspective if we did it in two phases like Mayor Scharff was suggesting, that we not muddy the water there. I think we can do "i" and "ii." It's not a mandate. We're investigating "i" and "ii." Council Member Filseth: The Staff Motion for potential 2018 says we're going to do "i" and "ii" anyway, right? Mr. Bobel: That's right, we were planning to do that. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Kou moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion: A. All proposed changes for the 2017 Enhancements (and the pre- existing requirements) would apply to all sites that have not received a building permit as of the effective date of the Ordinance; and B. Revise the Second Phase: Potential Calendar Year 2018 Construction Season Changes as follows: i. Direct staff to investigate feasibility of an ordinance related to underground construction to take effect in 2018 requiring zero waste of groundwater without flood risks; and ii. Investigate and propose such other policies as may be needed to reduce all impacts of construction dewatering, including impacts on neighboring properties and vegetation; and iii. If zero waste is infeasible and significant usage of storm drains is permitted, determine an appropriate charge for storm drain usage; and Amendment split for purposes of voting. Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on "A." "A" passes unanimously. AMENDMENT PART A PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, if we could vote on "B." "B" fails on a 6-3 Motion with Council Members DuBois, Kou, and Holman voting yes. AMENDMENT PART B FAILED: 3-6 Dubois, Holman, Kou yes MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to: FINAL MINUTES    Page 44 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  A. Adopt seven new components for the City’s Construction Dewatering Guidelines; and B. Adopt an Ordinance codifying the Dewatering Guidelines, with the updates recommended by Policy and Services, in the Municipal Code at Chapter 16.28 (Grading and Erosion and Sediment Control); and C. Direct Staff to consider four additional requirements and return to Council for adoption, with a goal of making the new requirements applicable for the 2018 construction season; and D. All proposed changes for the 2017 Enhancements (and the pre- existing requirements) would apply to all sites that have not received a building permit as of the effective date of the Ordinance. Mayor Scharff: Now, if we can vote on the main Motion. The main Motion is Staff's recommendation plus "A." Council Member Kou, we're just waiting for your vote. That passes unanimously. Congratulations, and thanks again for coming out tonight. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, we're going to move to our second item. If I say take a 5-minute break, I mean a 5-minute break. We do have … One of the reasons for the break, frankly, is to ask if you're not going to stay for the next item, now is the time to … Council took a break from 8:33 P.M. to 8:37 P.M. 2. PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Update Code Sections Regarding Accessory Dwelling Units. The Ordinance is Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Sections 15061(b), 15301, 15303 and 15305 and was Recommended for Approval by the Planning & Transportation Commission on November 30, 2016 (Continued From February 6, 2017 and March 6, 2017). Mayor Scharff: If everyone could settle down a little bit, and we could start. Do we have a Staff presentation? I'm ready. If we could quiet down a little bit. I know I should use the gavel. That's what we do next. Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director: Thank you, Mayor. We're going to give a presentation. We've got Elena Lee, Senior Planner, with the Planning and Community Environment FINAL MINUTES    Page 45 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Department. We're going to give the presentation about accessory dwelling units. Thank you. Elena Lee, Senior Planner: Thank you. We're here tonight to bring forward a draft Ordinance for the City Council to consider for the purposes of encouraging construction of accessory dwelling units and also to bring the City's regulations into compliance with State law. As background, this topic first came up via Council Colleagues' Memo where the Council directed the Planning and Transportation Commission to study ways to encourage the construction of more accessory dwelling units or second dwelling units as it's known currently in our Code, and also to consider steps to bring our Code and bring existing noncompliant ADUs into compliance. Following that, PTC held one Study Session on January 2016 and a second Study Session on July 27th. At the July 27th PTC Study Session, they directed Staff to return to them with a draft Ordinance. During this time of the Study Sessions, the State actually adopted three legislations that basically proposed new requirements that would trump actually City regulations. A draft Ordinance was prepared and presented to the Planning and Transportation Commission on November 30th. After that, as of January 1st the legislation that the State passed became effective. At the PTC Study Session, Staff discussed with the PTC all the constraints prohibiting construction of new ADUs. We also discussed new ideas to increase ADU construction as well as providing information on other jurisdictions that have gone through similar processes. Again, there was specific discussion on lot size, parking, unit size, height, and setback requirements. Staff also received via written comments as well as at the public hearing significant comments from the public regarding ADUs, both support for ADUs as well as concerns regarding the impact increased construction of ADUs may have on neighborhoods. At the November 30th PTC hearing, the PTC recommended City Council adopt a draft Ordinance with a few modifications, most of which have been incorporated into this draft. Since about 2002, in reviewing our database for permits for ADUs, around 55 second units have been approved with building permits since 2002, 36 of those have been in R-1 zoning districts. Basically, it's been an average of 45 units per year between 2002 and 2015. As referenced earlier, there were three new State laws that were approved. Senate Bill Number 1069, Assembly Bill Number 2299 basically amends State legislation Section 6558.2 regarding accessory dwelling units where cities are required to approve these types of units ministerially. These particular laws basically require—there are several significant changes with these. The most significant one was requiring cities to allow ADUs within existing building units, basically conversion of existing space. It also eliminates parking requirements in some instances. It also addresses fire sprinkler requirements and utility hookups and fees. The third bill, AB 2406, introduces the new type of accessory dwelling unit called junior accessory FINAL MINUTES    Page 46 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  dwelling units. Cities aren't required to approve JADUs or (inaudible) to the ordinance. However, if they do, the State does have stipulations which regulate it. For example, JADUs can't exceed 500 square feet. It is intended to allow conversion of existing bedroom into a separate living unit with a kitchen facility with or without a separate bathroom. The draft ordinance that you have before you again was drafted in response to Council direction, PTC direction, and also the State changes. Some of the key changes in this draft ordinance would be allowing construction of new ADUs on all R-1 lots that meet the minimum lot size. All conforming lots would be allowed ADUs. Currently, you have to have a lot that's 35 percent larger than the minimum lot size. It also would allow the conversion of legal accessory structures existing as of January 1st, 2017, and that would not require you to meet your minimum lot size. It would similarly allow conversion of existing space within the actual residence. The other item would be allowing the creation of junior accessory dwelling Units, which would involve conversion of existing building space. All of those conversions as well as new construction would be permitted ministerially but subject to revised development standards that are included in the ordinance. The other significant item is that this also eliminates or reduces parking requirements in compliance with State law. The draft Ordinance introduces a new format to our Code. Currently our Zoning Code includes regulations regarding accessory dwelling units in each of those zoning districts. For R-1, R-2, RMD, there are separate requirements for it. What we've done in this case was basically take out those references in each of the zoning chapters and consolidate them into new Chapter 18.42.040. Some of the things that we've introduced into this, that hasn't been specified previously, is to limit any single-family residential lot to one ADU or one junior ADU, so not both. It stipulates that ADUs may not be sold separately from the primary residence. It also requires that ADUs not be rented out for less than 30 days to ensure that they don't become short-term vacation rentals. It also requires a deed restriction to notify future owners of these restrictions and also requires that at least one of the units be owner occupied. As previously mentioned, one of the big changes that the State legislation brought forward was changes to the parking requirement. Currently, we require two parking spaces for an ADU, in most cases, one covered, one uncovered similar, to what we require for the primary unit. In this case, parking shall be limited to one per unit or one per bedroom, whichever is greater, and all parking may be uncovered. Notwithstanding above, these are the situations where parking would not be required for an ADU. That would be for any conversion of an ADU whether it's in the primary residence or an accessory structure, if the property is located within a .75-mile radius from a Caltrain station and also .5-mile radius from any bus stop with service of 15 minutes during peak hours. This also would include the Marguerite shuttle. It also prohibits requiring parking for properties located within architecturally or historically FINAL MINUTES    Page 47 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  significant districts and also where on-street parking permits are required but not offered to the owners of an ADU. Also, what we're proposing is that it not be required if you're located within a residential permit parking area. Also, the other provision would be where there's an established car share located within 1 block of the property. This would be where it's an established program. This map, that was included with your Packet, shows the radius where parking would not be required because of its proximity to transit or the RPP or historic district. Some of the other provisions of this draft Ordinance is that it does not propose to change the lot coverage or the floor area ratio requirements currently in our Code. It maintains the existing setbacks for most cases except for conversions, including conversions of garages. It maintains existing height limits, which generally is about one story except in the RE district. It also continues the requirement for the maximum size, so that would be 450 for attached, 900 for detached. For junior accessory dwelling units, the maximum would be compliant with the State requirement, which is 500 square feet. One of the things that we also introduced for our Ordinance is it prohibits new windows, doors, and mechanical equipment within 6 feet of the property line. That's to basically make sure that we ensure privacy. It also eliminates specifically design review that we have for the RMD, neighborhood preservation combining district. Currently, we do require it if there's two units. In this case, because of this change, we would no longer be requiring that. During the PTC discussion, one of the things that was discussed also, that I just wanted to bring up, was the Ordinance before you tonight is shaped not just because of discussion that we've had throughout this process, but the draft Ordinance as well as the timing has been driven by these State changes. Some of that is summarized in the At-Places Memo that you have, the table showing what the requirements are and what the City's ability is to make changes in our own Ordinances. As part of that discussion, the PTC also requested that the City Council consider directing Staff in order to encourage construction of more ADUs. That would be to prepare a Parking Study of residential neighborhoods to assess peak utilization and also then not require parking if those blocks have a parking utilization of under 50 percent. The other item would be to request City Council to consider directing Staff to prepare an Ordinance that would allow underground parking in a residential neighborhood. Currently, we do not permit underground parking in any of our R-1 zoning districts. There are two additional items that City Council could consider to incorporate into the Ordinance. One is for historic properties. We've drafted a development standard that would be included. Because this is a ministerial process, CEQA wouldn't apply in this case, but we can incorporate a development standard saying that if a property is on the City's Historic Inventory, is on the State or Federal Registry, or is considered historic after a historic resource evaluation, any new ADU or expansion would be required to comply with FINAL MINUTES    Page 48 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  appropriate Secretary of Interior Standards as determined by the Planning Director. Again, this needs to be included in our Ordinance because this is a ministerial process. The other item that was brought forward by a representative, Canopy, that City Council could require is tree protection. In consultation with the Attorney, we've determined that we can incorporate additional provisions to protect trees more than the standard process. Currently, we do have a process that tree removal permit is required for type of single-family property. It's also subject to design review through our Individual Review process. If the Council is interested, we could have another development standard that says no removal of protected trees would be required for the purposes of construction of an ADU unless—no protected tree shall be removed for the purpose of establishing accessory dwelling unit unless a tree should be removed because it's dead, dangerous, or constitutes a nuisance under Section 8.04.50. Any protected tree removed pursuant to this subsection shall be replaced in accordance with standards in the Tree Technical Manual. Sorry, that's not on the slide. Going to next steps. This Ordinance would become effective 31 days after second reading. The provisions of the State laws are already in effect. For example, the conversion requirement was effective as of January 1st, 2017. After this is adopted, the City is required to submit the revised Ordinance to HCD within 60 days of adoption. Conforming changes to the Municipal Fee Schedule. As we stated earlier, there are other changes that were required by the State. That's in reference to utility connection fees and also fire sprinkler requirements. Fire sprinkler requirement changes will be made as part of the regular Building Code update. In consultation with Utilities, no other Code changes would be required for that. The other item that Council could direct Staff to do is to consider a program to address illegal units once the effectiveness of this Ordinance—there's been more time to consider that. The other thing I wanted to add was in terms of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment requirement. These type of units, the ADUs as well as JADUs, would count as smaller units for that purpose. Our recommendation from Staff today is to adopt a draft Ordinance amending the Municipal Code regarding ADUs and finding the Ordinance exempt from CEQA with also the addition of the two additional development standards for historic and for tree removals and again to incorporate Staff's recommended addition regarding those two items. That concludes Staff's report. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we will go to the public. We have a number of speakers. I encourage everyone to get their cards in. I'll probably leave it open for another 10 minutes. If you can, get those cards in. Our first speaker is Jan Stokley to be followed by Peter Taskovich. You'll have 2 minutes. Public Hearing opened at 8:53 P.M. FINAL MINUTES    Page 49 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Jan Stokley: Good evening, City Council. I'm Jan Stokley. I'm with Housing Choices Coalition. Our organization helps residents in the City of Palo Alto with developmental disabilities seek affordable housing. There are 473 citizens in Palo Alto with developmental disabilities. Unfortunately, only 48 are able to live in their own apartment, according to data from the Department of Developmental Services. I'm here to speak on behalf of liberalizing the ADU unit in Palo Alto in order to increase housing options for people with developmental disabilities. We've heard from a number of families who are homeowners in City of Palo Alto. They would very much like to pursue the concept of an ADU for their adult child with developmental disabilities to be able to remain in Palo Alto and utilize the services and relationships in the City, that have been so important to them. I've been following the progress of the ADU Ordinance in the City of Santa Cruz over the years because we also work in Santa Cruz. Every time City Council in Santa Cruz has looked at their ADU Ordinance, they've taken steps to liberalize it. It's had very few negative impacts, and it's only added and enriched the life of the community. Looking at the experiences of the City of Santa Cruz and other cities across California, I would just ask you to make sure that this Ordinance is sufficiently flexible to really provide an incentive for people to pursue it, to add to the affordable housing stock. Secondly, we need to look at 21st century families. Families are different now. Families group and regroup. People bring parents to live with them. People have relatives come to help care for the children. We need to have a housing stock that's flexible enough to really address the needs of changing families including families with adults with developmental disabilities. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Peter Taskovich to be followed by Judith Wasserman. If we could get the names up on the screen when you get a chance. Peter Taskovich: Hello. Good evening, my name is Peter Taskovich. I'm here on behalf of Palo Alto Neighborhoods, PAN. In our letter, we outline the items in the Ordinance that we agree with. Tonight I will focus on PAN's concerns about the Ordinance that fall into several categories. Lot size. We are concerned that ADUs and JADUs can have a negative effect of turning R- 1 zoning into R-2. We urge caution in reducing the lot size to the impact on neighboring properties regarding noise and privacy and potential daylight plane issues, particularly in neighborhoods with smaller lots. We also recommend that you allow only JADUs on smaller lots. We are opposed to having ADUs all or in part in basements, either by conversion or a new construction. Parking. Most Palo Alto households own at least one car. Reducing parking requirements will not mean that residents of ADUs and JADUs won't have cars. Because State law precludes certain ADUs from requiring additional parking, it is even more imperative that we keep other FINAL MINUTES    Page 50 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  parking standards in place whenever possible. The one-half mile to transit definition should be defined as actual walking distance, not how the crow flies radius. ADUs should not be allowed to exacerbate or create parking problems in a neighborhood. Both day and night parking conditions need to be considered as to whether a neighborhood has a parking problem. Rather than conditional reduction requirements, we suggest that you enact only those requirements required by State law until the time it can be shown that more restrictive measures are necessary. Underground parking. Enabling underground parking in residential neighborhoods is an issue that warrants more study before it's allowed. Underground parking would be out of character in many of Palo Alto's more suburban neighborhoods and should only be considered in Palo Alto's more urban neighborhoods near Downtown and California business district. In summary, we ask that at this time you amend the Code only to comply with the State law while deferring further changes to future discussions and public input on issues we have raised. We request the City monitor the number of ADUs and JADUs being created and periodically review their impact. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Judith Wasserman to be followed by Phoebe Bressack. Judith Wasserman: Good evening, Council Members. I'm really glad you're doing this because this is something you have control over as opposed to dealing with general economic development issues that are much harder to deal with. If you are really serious about housing people and not just giving lip service to this hot topic, there are some things that you can do. One is to eliminate the lot size requirement. You get the possibility of over 8,000 new units by doing that. That is a lot of units, especially compared to the previous history. I do not understand the requirement that the attached ADUs are smaller than the detached ADUs; that makes absolutely no sense to me and really restricts the usage of those units. I think relaxing the parking requirements is a policy decision. Which is more important, housing people or keeping cars off the street? That's what the Council is designed to do. You're supposed to make policy decisions. Another thing you can do for the junior ADUs is to allow the FAR that's in excess of a bedroom to be added to the existing house rather than being carved out of the existing house. If you make the available lot sizes smaller, you make the available houses smaller. Carving 450 square feet out of an already small house makes the whole process impossible. The last thing that you can do, if you really want long-term occupancy and not Airbnbs and vacation rentals, is eliminate the restrictions on kitchens. Right now, the kitchens are restricted to microwaves and hotplates. Nobody will live with a microwave for longer than about 2 weeks. Thank you. FINAL MINUTES    Page 51 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Phoebe Bressack to be followed by Richard Roberts. Phoebe Bressack: Good evening, City Council and Mayor. My name is Phoebe Bressack. I'm an architect and a Los Altos Planning Commissioner, where we too are reviewing the implications of the new State mandate for creating affordable housing. I believe we can agree that affordable housing is truly a regional crisis. I'm speaking tonight both as an architect and as a private citizen. I agree with the previous speaker that two aspects of the junior ADU in the current Ordinance as proposed actually hider the goal to provide additional long-term small-scale affordable housing. The first is the requirement that the entire junior ADU be carved out of the existing house. It would be better if the Ordinance said partially instead of entire, expanding on the State requirements, and then specifying bedroom or bedroom and bathroom as the part to be incorporated. The Staff Report has provided an excellent chart illustrating how decreasing minimum lot size increases the number of lots with potential for ADUs. Lot size analysis does not address existing development. It's a rare Palo Alto house that can afford to lose 400-500 square feet for a junior ADU without compromising the viability of the original house. It's likely that a project that created a junior ADU would also expand, therefore, the existing house to replace the missing bedroom/bathroom somewhere else on the lot. It would be considerably less disruptive to people living in the main house to have all construction in one area. The second hindrance is the absence of a true kitchen by not allowing gas or 220 electric kitchen appliances in the current proposed Ordinance. I think as written it's creating Airbnbs instead of units for long- term use. If you can't cook except on a microwave, it's a hotel suite. It's not a home. If you're looking more broadly at all ADUs, I believe you can weigh the policy decision about the higher value of creating affordable housing as opposed to discouraging street parking and, in doing so, eliminate the parking requirement for all ADUs. Mayor Scharff: Richard Roberts to be followed by Jeffrey Salzman. Richard Roberts: Thank you very much, Council Members, for taking up this important issue. I want to speak to the theme particularly of keeping families together. Given the nature of the housing issues and the difficulties we face here, it's absolutely imperative that we begin to think about how flexible we should be in keeping families together, those adult children that may be challenged, that need to be in an environment that's supported by their family, but also multigenerational families. I think this is one of the waves of the future that we need to address. We need to be able to be—the ADUs and the junior ADUs are exactly the means to provide for flexibility in this regard. In thinking about that, I urge the Council to be flexible in terms of the maximum size of these junior ADUs. Several of the speakers have FINAL MINUTES    Page 52 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  already talked about some of the fundamental challenges facing the small size of these ADUs. It might be imperative to think about allowing flexibility but still keeping within the FAR that's established. When we take into consideration the minimum lot size, we should be flexible in terms of what minimum lot size will be eligible to use these ADUs and junior ADUs within the context of remaining within FAR that's established. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: I just wanted to announce, people, that we're cutting off the speaker cards. If you want to throw in your speaker card, now is the time to run up and do it. In 2 or 3 minutes, we'll cut it off. Jeff Salzman. Jeffrey Salzman: Thank you very much for this opportunity. This is a historic issue that the Council really should address in a very positive way to make a solution towards a problem that really plagues this area. This is a great opportunity. I'd just like to speak personally to this. We have a large house, and I have a child who's a teacher, who could never afford probably to live in Palo Alto. The possibility of creating an apartment for him would be a wonderful thing. I urge you to do so with maximum flexibility, to work on housing instead of cars, and to provide maximum lot size and ADU sizes that will be flexible and allow for all the different varieties of situations that people have. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Former Council Member Gail Price. Gail Price: Thank you. I'm Gail Price. It's always a pleasure to be here. Thank you again for taking up this issue. We've looked at this issue over many years. I'm very in favor of increasing the flexibility in the Ordinance. I would like to see maximum flexibility regarding parking. Many people have spoken to that. I feel very strongly that attached ADUs within the existing footprint of an existing home should allow up to 600 square feet. Right now, it's 450 square feet. It's my feeling that with simply 150 square feet additional opportunity, you are really making this space more livable. The quality of life is better. Frankly, if someone lives in one of these units and has a wheelchair or is restricted in any way, this would make a huge difference for them. I'm supportive of the parking study that has been proposed earlier. I also think you should eliminate the distance requirements. There is a .75 or a mile from transit fixed or bus transit. I feel that frankly if people get to transit and want to do it, they will get there by foot. They can get there by shuttle. They will get there by car. They can get there by bicycle. I could give you very many numerous examples of how that's done every day by people who live in this community. The restrictions for distance at it relates to parking also does not provide this opportunity to a large number of units throughout the City of Palo Alto. Lastly, this is a source of income for individuals. I think we should keep that in mind. For FINAL MINUTES    Page 53 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  seniors with restricted and fixed incomes, it's important if people want caregivers or family members to live there. This is a very important opportunity. Frankly, given the housing costs here that are not going to get better—it's going to get worse if that's possible—this does provide an opportunity or resource to help people address their housing costs. Thank you very much. Please do excellent work. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Kristian Meisling followed by Peter Maresca. Kristian Meisling: Hello. I'm Kristian Meisling, and I have a few remarks I wanted to share with you. My family and I are longtime property owners in Palo Alto, who strongly oppose relaxation of restrictions on development of accessory units in R-1 zoned areas. We believe that the proposed zoning change will negatively impact our neighborhood character, quality of life, and property values. The reasons are as follows. One, it will result in fundamental redefinition of the R-1 zoning, which I interpret as a single- family residential suburban type of setting. The change is irreversible, and it will change the single-family character of our neighborhood. The accessory rental units are not the same as granny units or single-family. I hear a lot of people talking about having family members come and stay with them. That's a completely different scenario than having a rental unit dropped into 8,200 lots in Palo Alto. I think those are two different issues. It will have a negative effect on property values, in my view, by eroding the suburban character of the neighborhood. Future R-1 zoning changes may allow duplexes, lot mergers, apartments and so on. I see it as a slippery slope that leads us into other things. Secondly, it will negatively impact quality of life in our neighborhoods, parking, traffic congestion, noise, transient population and will result in additional congestion and noise associated with construction. Each of these is going to be a construction project, which will be in addition to all the other construction projects going on in the neighborhoods. How many units will be approved per year? Will public comments be solicited? I don't feel that there's an assurance of public benefit. How will affordability of the rental units be enforced? Looks like more housing, not affordable housing. I think the rental units will go for a premium price. Who really benefits from the change? Proposed changes will benefit contractors, builders, developers. They will benefit. Some families and people who want to have suitable space for their family to move in with them, I understand that. That's perfectly valid. I think they're also going to benefit people seeking rental income and property speculators, which is already a problem. In closing, I'm against the proposed zoning. I realize that's just maybe one voice in the wilderness. Thank you for listening. FINAL MINUTES    Page 54 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Linnea Wickstrom to be followed by Elaine Uang. Linnea. Peter Maresca: I see my name up there, so I’m going to … Mayor Scharff: Peter. Mr. Maresca: … just go ahead and talk. The Honorable Council Members, thank you for this opportunity. I'm Peter Maresca. I'm a 25-year resident at Monroe Drive. When it comes to housing, I'm against growth. Let me amend that. I'm against what I think is bad growth. For example, I'm against ripping up trees and maxing out a lot to the limits of the square footage, the setbacks and sight planes, but I accept that that's legal and that my neighbors could erect a 4,000-square-foot house on a 10,000- square-foot lot on either side of me. I wouldn't like it, but they could do it. It is currently illegal for any of us to erect a 500-square-foot ADU that would keep our trees and our sight lines and (inaudible) total square footage to one-half or two-thirds of that of the many mansions that go up around our neighborhood. This makes no sense to me. There are rules governing construction of ADUs, and well there should be. The rules should make sense and be in accordance with California State law. For an ADU, the current Ordinance requires lots to be oversized for the zone. This makes no sense to me. It's like you go to Disneyland. There's a sign that says you need to be this high to take the ride. You get up to the ride, and they say, "This high but 3 inches." It just makes no sense. I understand that some people are apprehensive about adding housing, fearing that there is going to be strange new people, added cars into the neighborhoods. I don't really share that apprehension. In fact, I welcome ADUs. Actually, they're a rather traditional form of extended family living. It's a positive way, in my view, to gain housing, gain new neighbors, and many of these neighbors will have strong connections to those neighbors we already have. Growth is inevitable, but there should be and will be additional housing in Palo Alto. Why not put some of those decisions involving growth directly into the hands of individual homeowners? Overall, I trust my neighbors more than housing speculators to offer reasonable and aesthetically pleasing solutions to growth in housing. My family's needs along with plain old common sense drive me to call on you to support the amendments from the Planning and Transportation Commission at a minimum and ask you to move with the rest of the forward thinking state to encourage ADUs. I urge you to acknowledge the future and offer Palo Alto residents a choice for living in it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. FINAL MINUTES    Page 55 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Linnea Wickstrom: Now, it's Linnea Wickstrom. Good evening, Council Members. Thank you for all the time and thought you put into all the issues that come before you and the time you put into listening to the community. I live in Menlo Park. I'm a 50-year resident of Palo Alto. You have my email, so I won't repeat all that. I think ADUs have a lot to offer Palo Alto. I think they're low impact; they're distributed rather than concentrated. They're integrated in the neighborhoods. They use private land. They take advantage of a lot of land that already exists in Palo Alto. For instance, in my backyard. There are many people who want this rather than a massive house, which I think the City ought to take advantage of. They're funded by the homeowner rather than the public. I'm here to urge your support for the most liberal possible revision to the City's ADU Ordinance for the sake of the community and for my personal interest. As the parent of a young adult with developmental disabilities, I support the amendments put forward by the Planning and Transportation Commission as well as the proposals in Palo Alto Forward's letter. ADUs are showing up again everywhere and were in previous decades common even in Palo Alto. They are a comparatively low- impact method of providing flexible and affordable housing. I don't want to add 2,000 square feet to my house, which I could do. I don't want to cut the trees, and I don't want to pave the entire front yard. I simply want to add a 500-square-foot cottage in my backyard. I can fit in the neighborhood with an ADU. I would ask you to make this form of housing once again possible here. The sticker that I'm wearing, the sticker that I've been trying to distribute to people, says YIMBY, yes in my backyard. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Elaine Uang to be followed by Randy Popp. Elaine Uang: I actually had a few slides, which I sent over. I don't know if you can cue that up. Thank you again for taking the time. This is a very important issue. I want to echo everything that Peter and Linnea and many others have said in really liberalizing the ADU policies that we have. I just want to remind you that housing is a basic need. It's an environmental, economic, social justice, humanitarian issue. Everybody needs a place to live. ADUs have relatively little impact to the physical community character. They distribute; they don't concentrate any traffic impacts. They give revenue or financial benefits to homeowners and not to developers. I just want to remind you of the intent of the State law, which is really to ensure that accessory dwelling unit Ordinances and all the provisions and matters related to unit size, parking, fees, other requirements are not arbitrary, excessive or burdensome. I think you're going to hear many cases for why people want to do this and why it should be easy. I also just want to echo— I do want to ask you to go beyond the Planning and Transportation Commission's recommendations. While those are good, I think we have an FINAL MINUTES    Page 56 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  opportunity here to do something really powerful and be a leader in ADU reform. I echo Phoebe and Judith's request to allow ADUs on any size of an R-1 lot. From a community design perspective, looking at the diagrams, two smaller structures is actually more compatible with small-scale residential character than one really big house. With ADU size, we should consider increasing the ADU size, especially for larger lots. For parking, this is really important. We need to allow that designated parking spaces be in the front setback. That's where people park. It's where we can keep the fumes to the street, not onsite near neighbors. It allows us to retain sites that (inaudible) pervious surfaces, trees, landscape, open space for the occupants. I'd also encourage you to think about compliance for grandfather ADUs. In the 2015 Colleagues' Memo, I think this was one of the intents of the Colleagues' Memo, to allow the units that already exist to be saved for the public. There are examples. San Francisco has a two-year program to bring building and planning officials together just to evaluate and create a plan to see if they can remain. I think we should take a look at this tonight. Again, ADUs need to be easy to build. We can do this really well. If we do 40 units a year, by 2030 we'll meet 12 percent of our Regional Housing Needs Allocation. We do 80 units a year, we can meet a quarter. We can do this without really compromising the physical character. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Randy Popp to be followed by Mary Jane Marcus. Randy Popp: Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, thank you very much. My name is Randy Popp. I'm both an architect and a resident who owns a lot that is 63 square feet below the minimum size for my zone. Just in summary quickly, Elaine has touched on a number of important points. I have three more that are pretty technical to touch on myself. Just to reiterate, the intent of the recently enacted State Code emphasizes that matters including unit size, parking fees, and other requirements are not so arbitrary, excessive, or burdensome so as to unreasonably restrict the ability of homeowners to create accessory dwelling units. Your job tonight is to make sure that we comply with this mandate. Utility connections are often a hidden but significant cost relative to construction whether underground or overhead. The infrastructure and labor can be costly. While I'm happy for Staff's proposed language for JADUs, the infrastructure and labor involved in utility work can be significant. We need to go a bit farther than just the recommendation to ensure our Public Works Division does not add on additional requirements without proof of necessity. This extends to ADUs as well. When an upgrade is deemed necessary, the cost of requirements per State Code must be relative to this cost of work. Any blanket Public Works requirements must be vetted for consistency with this mandate. It seems to me a very reasonable approach, consistent with the requirements for single ownership of a parcel, would be to allow a homeowner to maintain a single FINAL MINUTES    Page 57 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  service and prorate the cost if they choose. There really is no need for a second service for an ADU. In regard to the approval process, the key here is that it must be ministerial. There is no flexibility about this in regard to the State-mandated language. An entitlement process may not occur, and it is important to recognize this extends to the IR process we currently impose on two-story residential projects. It is clear the spirit of this mandate is to promote efficiency. Plan review could potentially be conducted over the counter to increase productivity and minimize costs. Related to this topic, it's important to reiterate Palo Alto has never had a single-family design review, and this regulation cannot become an excuse to overreach on this topic. The current language describing requirements for door placement, consistency of style or other restrictions must be removed. Consider someone who is intending to renovate their home and builds an ADU first in order to live in it while their home is being built. This type of regulatory bullying is completely counterproductive and inconsistent with our higher priority regulations. I have a couple of really important things here. Mayor Scharff: Nope, sorry. Mr. Popp: Can't do it? Mayor Scharff: Nope, can't do it. Mr. Popp: I'll just leave that up for you. Mayor Scharff: Mary Jane Marcus to be followed by Catherine Garber. Mary Jane Marcus: Hi, everyone. First of all, thanks for showing up every week. I haven't been here in a long time. I was just thinking that you guys spend a lot of nights here working here. Thank you for that. I guess I just want to say two things. One is that whatever we can do get more housing in Palo Alto, especially small housing, not luxury housing, is really worthwhile just for the sake of all the people who bike from Mountain View to go to Stanford, post docs. So many people really struggling, who are living here, want to be living here. I love ADUs because little cottages—I live in College Terrace. People who live in these units often really feel part of the community, sometimes more than living in an apartment building. I think there's a special hominess to ADUs. I just want to make one comment about the lot size. Our place in College Terrace is 4,750 square feet, which is 200 square feet below the minimum lot size. Right now, we have an 800- square-foot house. I don't know how they came up with the minimum lot size years ago, but it seems somewhat arbitrary. If we meet the requirements for lot coverage and we're not doing more than what we're allowed to do, anyone should be allowed to have an accessory unit. We would love to have students live there. We just have one daughter, so we FINAL MINUTES    Page 58 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  don't have a big family. For us to have others share our space with us is a really nice way to have more community. I would just hope that you can make it possible for any lot size to have an accessory dwelling and also for garages to be converted to junior ADUs. I don't know exactly where it is in the agreement, but that's a lot less expensive than having to revamp the house. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Catherine Garber to be followed by Jean Libby. Catherine Garber: Hi. Catherine Garber, resident and architect in Palo Alto. I support the nine very thoughtful recommendations that Palo Alto Forward's Board put forth in the letter to you, supporting the efforts to expand Palo Alto's housing options. Tonight, I want to speak to you about parking. Building ADUs should not be burdened by additional required parking. The notion of one car, one parking space per person is antiquated. With development of ride and car sharing, on-demand bus services, and the development of self-driving cars, mobility as a service is coming. Sooner than we think, the need even to own a car will be a relevant question, I think. Should the Council insist on additional parking for ADUs, then I support the Staff and PTC's recommendation to have only one parking space per unit or one space per bedroom, whichever is greater. Furthermore, if you decide that parking for ADUs is to be required, I think it should be allowed in the front yard setbacks. The City should revise its parking regulations to allow parking spaces located there for ADUs. The regulations should include requirements that help mitigate the visual and environmental impacts. Permeable paving should be utilized, and landscaping including low fencing should be considered to help reduce the visual impacts in these areas. Front setback parking allows side yards to have more permeable surfaces and accommodate more open space and landscaping for the occupants of the ADUs as well as occupants of the main residence. Housing more people is more important than parking more cars. Don't let parking requirements keep us from doing that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Jean Libby to be followed by Richard Stoler. Jean Libby: Hello. I'm Jean Libby. About 18 years ago, my late husband, Ralph, and I converted a third of our 1,700-square-foot home into what you are calling a JADU. It's worked very well for us, I believe. We've done it all legally. We certainly had the proper permits and everything for it. We have rented this space, a third of house, since that time. We decided also that that would be my income. It was objected to by our accountant, who said the man is always the one who's supposed to be listed, but we insisted. I am the manager, I am the CEO, and I am the custodian of this JADU. I hope that you will consider something that we have spent a great deal of FINAL MINUTES    Page 59 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  money on, and that is getting things up to Code. It's not just a matter of putting up a door and collecting the rent. It's not butter and egg money. Getting things up to Code, piping, gas lines, electric, upping your amperage costs a lot of money. You should have permits for the JADUs and all of this, so that we're not putting hotplates onto old wiring. I also have an identity as a senior member of Silicon Valley @Home. They treat me as a partner. I'm not a client, even though I'm a low-income senior. I'm working with them to develop low-income housing, including for myself, for these units. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Richard Stoler to be followed by Judy Kleinberg. Richard Stolee: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Richard Stolee. I've lived in Palo Alto for 55 years. I want to support the approval of ADUs and JAUs. I think it's been a long time coming. Palo Alto has a number of illegal units and approved units. They've always been very useful and helpful to this community. I have a personal story. My daughter, who currently works in Palo Alto but lives in Redwood City with her husband— we've been talking about them living here with us in Palo Alto, but the only way we can do that is to develop an ADU next to our home. The benefit is sharing finances and sharing childcare. ADUs are a big win-win for this community. I just want to summarize four things that I think are really a benefit to our community. One is we're tired of seeing large apartment construction all over the City. This is one way of reducing the need for that kind of construction. Number two, another thing is commuting to Palo Alto for people who live outside of this community. It allows for more housing in this community. Thirdly, multigenerational families can live together and stay in this community where many of us will have to leave because of the cost of housing. Lastly, I think we become a closer community because we can stay and live here long term rather than having to leave this community. I have two things that I'd like you to consider. One is trying to keep the fees down for these units. Secondly, have consideration for historic homes. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Former Mayor Judy Kleinberg. Judy Kleinberg: Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here tonight again to see you because this is such a wonderful topic. This is such an exciting, creative thing that this City is going to be able to do. You might think why is the Chamber of Commerce here, this is about residences. You know we need to solve the jobs/housing imbalance and meet the demand for more housing and housing choices. This is an opportunity for Palo Alto to step up and be as creative and innovative as we know we can be. To add to our housing stock that will meet the diversity of housing needs in our new demographics FINAL MINUTES    Page 60 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  from young workers to seniors to those kids that want to come back and live at home, what I call the re-nesters. We urge you to approve well designed infill development of small units in a way that is compatible with and preserves neighborhood character and appearance while minimizing community impacts. We do believe that you're going to hear an awful lot of details, and the architects in the room and the designers are going to give you all of the particulars about how to tweak this. They're the experts. What I want to say is Palo Alto needs more of what I've learned is called the missing middle, which is a range of housing types that are compatible in scale with single-family homes, that help meet the growing demand for walkable, urban living. ADUs are an excellent tool in our solutions toolbox. Use it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Anita Lusenbrink to be followed by Phyllis Cassel. Anita Lusenbrink: Hi. My name is Anita Lusenbrink. Thank you for giving us all time to express our opinions and concerns. I'm a "yes in my backyard." It's actually my mother's backyard. She bought a house in 1972. When she retired, she converted the garage, which she had never used, into an artist studio, which was also forward planning in case there was a family member or other person that needed housing. She never was able to get the sewer and water connected because of the extensive price. It's just waiting there, perfect. We were stopped by the restrictions. We now have a young adult, her granddaughter, my niece, who you may have heard before—we came last year to speak—that could really benefit from this. This is two sectors of the population, elderly people that need alternatives to housing and income, and then their families, especially people with developmental disabilities that need support from their families and safe neighborhoods, places they can walk, to Downtown and transportation, since very few of them do drive. Elderly people don't drive either. By 2030, one in five adults will be over age 65. I think that probably includes most of us in this room. What is your plan for being able to have enough income and retirement foolproof absolutely? A small house might be just the thing for you or a caregiver or a family member. Also, one in 68 children now being born are on the autistic spectrum. That's something to take into consideration too as family members needing our help. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Phyllis Cassel to be followed by Sandra Slater. Phyllis Cassel: Good evening, Council Members. I want to support the Ordinance, basically the one you have before you. There are three basic reasons. One is privacy, but it turns out to be the opposite of what many FINAL MINUTES    Page 61 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  people talk about privacy, and that is for the people in the family unit. How do I say this nicely? For more intimate behavior, we tend to like privacy. By being able to divide the unit, you can gain more of that. Forget whether you can use a microwave for the rest of your life. You really want privacy. The second is Code compliance. We want these units to meet Code compliance. We have a big demand for housing. People are going to be living in these units. This 1950s and '60s allusion of what was a single-family unit didn't exist before that, and it doesn't now. People live many families in one unit. I have at least four adults in one down the street. I have at least two across the street. There's nothing illegal with that. You can put as many refrigerators and as many rooms as you want. You can put as many stoves in your kitchen as you want; you just can't put them in the bedroom. Some of this is silly. If we divide these units, we give people privacy, and we give them a chance. They should have a standard kitchen in them. The other thing to think about is 450 square feet for an ADU and 500 square feet for a JADU, and you have to have the 500 feet by State law. I can go on forever. Mayor Scharff: Sandra Slater to be followed by Cybele. Sandra Slater: Thank you, Council Members, for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I'm going to actually finish up with Randy Popp's—a couple of his slides relating to the height. Currently, the language limits any ADU to a single story. Going back to the intent of the State law, the State suggests that ADUs should have the same rights as the residents and not be restricted only to one story. It's easy to regulate two-story structure so it doesn't create privacy or daylight plane issues for adjacent parcels. There are a number of suggestions here, but again State Code is clear. Requirements relating to height and setbacks should be consistent with what is generally applicable to residential construction in the zone in which the property is located. This looks a bit technical, and it is. It helps explain the point that a two-story structure within 5 feet of a property line will violate the daylight plane. That same structure shifted to 9 feet 4 inches from the property line will conform. This is what allowed people to build. Additionally, a maximum height of 25 feet will give people flexibility for design. Artificially limiting the height to anything less than that will promote a lack of character and interest, which for so many reasons is most desirable. Typical setbacks in the R-1 for a main residence are only 6 feet or 8 feet from a fence line. You can see how this exceeds the limitations imposed on the main residence. Please be bold tonight in your approach to making changes. We need them desperately. This type of housing is a gentle and distributed impact. I know there are a lot of people here who agree with this and with Randy and Elaine and some of the others. FINAL MINUTES    Page 62 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Cybele LoVuolo-Bhushan: Cybele LoVuolo-Bhushan. I'm here to say that I cannot support the limited square footage for the attached ADU. We have an adult daughter who has disabilities. She loves to cook; it's her main joy in life. She would be limited to a hotplate, microwave. Otherwise, she's using my kitchen, and that doesn't work quite so well as anybody who has adult children could understand on a long-term basis. You can do it sometimes short term, but it really is disruptive. There's a lack of privacy. The living is just not a very good way to live with 500 square feet or 450, which is your recommendation. Additionally, if the limit were raised to the same for the detached, like the 900 square feet, then my husband and I would essentially be downsizing without having to move out of the City. The City would not need senior housing for us. Although, so many people are supporting the present Ordinance, I think you need to look at it again and look at what's really livable for people. Even 450 or 500 square feet is a hotel room. That, you have said, is not the intention of the City, to have units be like a hotel room. There would still be three people living in our house. There's no change in the footprint. There's no change in the number of drivers. We use electric bikes. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Diane Morin to be followed by Eddie Keating. Diane Morin: Honored Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, and Honorable Council Members, I'm here to voice my support for the accessory dwelling unit Ordinance with several amendments. I have lived in Palo Alto for 30 years and owned a home for 25 in Southgate. I'm in my late 60s and live alone. My child lives in New York City but plans to return in the next few years both because she was born here and loves this City and to be near me. My reasons for wanting an ADU are both, therefore, personal and financial. Although, I have no health issues now, I want to ensure that I can live here when I am no longer able to work or it's reduced, my ability, as this is my home and my community. I want my child to live near me, to have an opportunity to do so. I run a business here and want to live near my office. An ADU would make all the difference in the world to me to be able to hang onto my home and continue to live here. I'd like to support the following elements of the proposed draft ADU Ordinance. First, lot size. I have what's termed a standard house but built in the 1950s. I believe it's 5,750 square feet, which is not that big in terms of the Ordinance as we've had until now. I ask that you do not limit ADUs in size as long as the ADUs do not exceed the floor area ratio and are in compliance with State and so forth. Secondly, parking. I'm one person. Why in the world should we increase if I have people living in my house—insist that I put more parking spaces in? Thirdly, utilities. Please allow ADUs and JDUs to have the same requirements and to be allowed on the same meter. I'd also encourage you to make the Amendment that the height could be 25 feet. It shouldn't be a FINAL MINUTES    Page 63 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  ministerial task to determine whether something fits in the neighborhood. It should be up to the person who lives there within some limits. Please recall I'm one of dozens older adults. I asked some of my friends to come here, and they couldn't because they're tired, they're scared, they don't want to. There are many of us. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Edie Keating to be followed by Herb Borock. Edie, I'm sorry. Edie Keating: I support prior speakers' request for flexibility and for letting the FAR and setbacks and design requirements, like the door placement, to be the limits on what gets built and to keep the feel of our beautiful R-1 neighborhoods. Within that, I ask you to go closer to the language of State Bill 1069, I believe it is. That said attached dwelling units can take up to 50 percent—they have to be less than 50 percent, but I interpret that as up to— of the existing unit. People should have that flexibility. They can use that flexibility without having any further impact on their neighbors over having a smaller unit. The other thing is the parking. The language of the bill says allow parking in existing driveways to be counted as required spaces, from SB 1069. The block of Palo Alto I know best in R-1 is Waverley Street near JLS. On that block, nobody has parking that's not in front of their homes. Their driveway is their parking, and that's in the frontage area. If that's not allowed for parking, then you've denied them having an ADU period. Yet, the State law says allow existing driveways to be used. I think you need to loosen that requirement if you're going to comply with the State law. I support the over 30-day rental requirement. I don't support the owner occupancy. The people who are renting a single-family home can make more money if they put an accessory dwelling unit, detached, in the back. They will want to do that. That's a great way to increase housing supply, and they'll be highly incentivized to do it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Herb Borock to be followed by Kate Talbot. Herb Borock: Mayor Scharff and Council Members, the State requirement for allowing accessory and junior accessory dwelling units within existing structures, both residences and accessory structures, is a very simple thing to approve. In terms of size and what's affordable, take a look at the size of the units, for example, at the President Apartments or Alma Place or the Opportunity Center. The idea that people need something that would be already bigger than those units, I don't see the sense in that. In terms of adding additional square footage, I believe you should stay with the current requirement that those additional units, whether attached or detached, should require a lot size in the R-1 district that's 35 percent more than the minimum lot size for the zone. In regard to the 30-day cutoff, the language should match what we have now for the transient occupancy tax. I can't FINAL MINUTES    Page 64 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  remember whether one thing should be less than 30 days or the amount has to be more than 30 days, but the language should track for those. In regard to whether this is something someone could be making money off of or whether it's just something that they need for a family member, Planning and Transportation Commission Member Waldfogel did the calculations of the kinds of rents that would be required to pay for something that complies with the Building Codes. These will not be inexpensive units to rent. As far as owner occupancy, I think it should be owner occupied. In terms of things like parking in the front yard setback, we've heard a number of architects thinking that this would be something to make money off of, but I don't recall when Former Mayor Kleinberg was living in Palo Alto that she would want people in her neighborhood parking in the front yard setback. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Kate Talbot to be followed by Roger L. Kate Talbot: Good evening. I have two children who were born here in Palo Alto, and they have been raised in and around Palo Alto. Both of them are approaching the age where they'll be moving out of my house. One of them is very bright, and he's on his own. No problem. The other has special needs, and he's going to need help finding a place to live. I'm really hoping that you pass this ADU Ordinance so that he can continue to live in this community, which is where he's been raised, amongst the people that he knows. That's about all I have to say, except please make them livable units rather than just units with a hotplate in them. That sounds fairly miserable. Thank you very much. Good night. Mayor Scharff: Good night. Thank you. Roger L. to be followed by Bonnie Miller Stein. Roger L: Thank you for your public service. I'm a resident of Palo Alto for 16 years. I'm also a parent, and I'm coming to you as both. In regards to your consideration of the various rules of the ADUs, I would appreciate it if you would consider my thoughts in regards to parking and the leases. In the parking area, I had read the Ordinance at the State level, and it said tandem parking was an option. I would ask that you consider street parking only for the following reasons. If there's going to be an ADU on the property, I'm imagining more tarmac, more driveway, less green. Also, tandem cars need to back out of their driveways. Please imagine a number of ADU cars backing out, kids bicycling to school. I think there's some risk exposure here that might be solved by street parking. The other thing I'd ask you do consider is, when it comes to the leases, to reconsider the 30- day and consider a 6-month tenure. Within that, it sounds a little bit crazy maybe, but I would ask that you consider the maximum number of last names in the unit be two different last names. Alternatively, you run the FINAL MINUTES    Page 65 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  risk of the Delta house being on one of these ADUs. Five to 600 square feet, a couple of guys works out great if you're drinking beer and you're one of those guys. Not so great if you're within 1,000 feet of their stereo as in the neighborhood. In conclusion, I hope you consider these ideas when you ponder the various Ordinances that go into making the laws. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Bonnie Miller Stein to be followed by Martin Bernstein. Bonnie Miller Stein: Hello, Mayor Scharff, Liz, members of the Council. I've lived in Palo Alto these past 55 years, three-quarters of my life. The thought of having to leave is very unsettling. We have four children. Three are settled here, and the fourth one, who owns a business in this town, cannot afford housing in this town. That's why I'm here, to discuss that. I probably have more than what is needed. I live on a large lot in Crescent Park. We have a two-story construction with tenants. When we bought the house many years ago, the tenants were already in the house. In fact, it's probably too large for these. I think it's 1,300 feet, and I don't know whether you would allow my construction with that. I don't know. Anyway, it's a great comfort to me to know I'll have my family close by as I age in place in Palo Alto. That's very important. I also have been blessed with a new grandchild whose help I can give, to administer to him. I just want to say that I support all the elements of the Ordinance. I wouldn't mind if you stretched them here and there in terms of size. Certainly, I double the people who talked about the microwave arrangements, because that's ridiculous. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Martin Bernstein to be followed by John Kelly. Martin Bernstein: Thank you, Mayor Scharff. As Former Mayor Judy Kleinberg mentioned, architects like to look at details of proposed Ordinances. I'm going to suggest a little cleanup of one of your wordings. If you look on your Packet Page 450, Arabic Numeral 8, Roman Number VI. It's about the middle of the page. It talks about windows, doors there. My suggested cleanup wording is that the 6 feet should be changed to 5 feet. That way you are consistent with the California Fire Code. The Fire Code allows windows to be within 5 feet of property line. These accessory structures are going to be one story since they're that close to the property line, which means there's a 6-foot high fence between that and any neighboring property. To restrict the window to be 6 feet away, not 5 feet away—5 feet away addresses the issue with privacy. That would be my cleanup suggestion, change that 6 feet to 5 feet consistent with Fire Code. It resolves the issue of privacy. The other requirement that's being proposed is actually a recorded deed restriction for owner occupancy. That FINAL MINUTES    Page 66 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  is a very restrictive requirement, and that's a very inflexible requirement. As an Ordinance, I could see that you could put that in, that you want it owner occupied just for the issues that it would help resolve. To have a deed restriction on the property means if there's a family structure that changes or something, how do you change a deed restriction with the registrar for the County of Santa Clara? That's pretty draconian, I believe. At least, you can put that in the Ordinance if you think that's important. Those are my two comments, the cleanup of the Arabic number 8, Roman number VI, change that to 5 feet. That'll still address your privacy issues, and it's consistent with the State Fire Code. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. John Kelly to be followed by Lisa Van Dusen. I don't see John. Lisa Van Dusen. I don't see Lisa. Amy Sung. Amy Sung: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and the members of the Council, good evening. My name is Amy Sung. I've lived in Palo Alto for 17 years. I'm also a realtor. You wonder what is a realtor doing here. I'm here for the home ownerships. Real quickly, I am here tonight to voice my support for the ADUs and the JADUs. I also urge you to adopt the new Ordinance as soon as possible. More importantly, I wanted to ask you to implement and go beyond what the State law say and show that Palo Alto can really lead. I really wanted to call your attention to one aspect that I believe is crucial to the success of the ADU implementation. First of all, Redwood City has a really, really good slogan. They said build small, live large. We in Palo Alto can have our education aspect of that. Most importantly, I really want to make the ADU approval possible, predictable and doable. One way to do this is to have a set of preapproved designs. We have so many experts in our town, that all relevant parties, the architects, the structural engineers, can envision the very best possible designs. It allows our City Planning Department and the Public Works and all the relevant departments to have the opportunity to anticipate preview and then hash out all the design details. I think this is a win-win situation where we have test cases that allow us sneak peek. Thank you. Public Hearing closed at 9:55 P.M. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. That concludes our public speakers. Thank you all very much for speaking tonight and coming. We appreciate it. Now, we will return to Council—it's now 10:00—for Motions, comments, questions and whatever. I don't think … Vice Mayor Kniss: (Inaudible) quick question. Mayor Scharff: No, because then I'd have to let everyone ask a quick question. FINAL MINUTES    Page 67 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: I thought you just asked for questions or comments. Mayor Scharff: If we stick to it, 3 minutes, and we don't abuse it, we can do a 3-minute round of questions. I think that's fine. Maybe we'll just go down the line, starting with Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I only have 3 minutes, so I'll keep it short. The open space ADU changes, it looks like it just got reformatted. Were there any real changes in the open space? Ms. Lee: Thank you. No, we're not proposing any changes actually in any of the zoning districts. We're proposing to maintain FAR, lot coverage requirements, and also the sizes. Council Member DuBois: Could you explain what you meant by parking not required for conversion to ADU? Ms. Lee: Basically State law states that we must allow conversion of existing space, whether it's in the primary structure or an accessory structure. Any conversion would not be required to be parked. Council Member DuBois: To get additional parking or you would have to maintain the current … Ms. Lee: They wouldn't have to provide parking for the new units. Council Member DuBois: What do we mean by manufactured homes? Does that include a mobile home? Is there a definition? Ms. Lee: It refers to the type of construction. Kind of like the Glidehouse. There are basically components of the structure that are built in a factory and brought to the site, rather than actually constructed onsite. Council Member DuBois: It wouldn't be an RV or something? Ms. Lee: No. I did speak to the Building Division about that. For new ADUs, even if they're constructed of manufactured parts, they would have to have a foundation. Council Member DuBois: When we do our Housing Element, we count how many properties we zone to enable. Would change the zoning allow us to count all of these units in our next Housing Element? Ms. Lee: Yes, they would count as moderate units. FINAL MINUTES    Page 68 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member DuBois: Currently, we only count built ADUs, not zoned ADUs. I'm wondering if that would change. Mr. Lait: I think we've gotten credit for what we've produced. I don't know that we would get—that this would count towards satisfying our RHNA obligation by showing that we've produced this much. Council Member DuBois: That's interesting. The only one that doesn't count for zoning counts for being built. The last question I had. Would ADUs fall under Palo Alto's rental rules in terms of requiring to be offered a 1-year least? Mr. Lait: We'll have to take a look at our rent stabilization on that, unless you know. Molly Stump, City Attorney: City Attorney Molly Stump. I'd like to introduce to the Council Eric Philips, who's an associate at the law firm of Goldfarb and Lipman. We use Goldfarb, Eric and his partner, Barb Kautz, to assist us on complex housing matters. We may need to look specifically at our Ordinance unless Eric has a comment now. Eric Phillips, Goldfarb and Lipman Law Firm: When you're regulating ADUs, the statute allows you to restrict ownership. It allows you to require maximum terms of 30-day rentals or longer. Requiring an initial year lease as a general restriction on rental units is likely permitted. We're going to have to look at the precise language of your Ordinance to confirm that. Council Member DuBois: We don't require a year, but I think we require that you be offered the opportunity to sign a 1-year lease. Mr. Phillips: We'll look into that while the questions are going around and get back to you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I actually just want to compliment you guys on a really great job and also PTC for asking really great questions. I don't have any questions. Mayor Scharff: You don't need to speak. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Just a couple of questions reflecting some of the public comments and just wanting to have clarity for all of us and the public both. In ADUs, JADUs or attached ADUs—sorry. I should say in JADUs, attached ADUs or detached ADUs, is there a restriction on the type of kitchen appliances that would be added? FINAL MINUTES    Page 69 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Lee: Thank you. The only restriction would apply to junior accessory dwelling units. That does include a specific maximum size requirements in terms of counters. Mr. Lait: Just off memory, there's a limitation on appliances not requiring more than 120 volts of electricity, no natural gas or propane. Also, there's a maximum size of the sink pipe of 1 1/2 gallons per minute kind of thing, 1 1/2 inches. It relates to the gallons per minute. Those are the limitations on JADUs. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you for clarifying that. Also, in this Ordinance and also under State law, what are the maximum sizes allowed for a JADU or for an attached ADU? Ms. Lee: As proposed, actually currently the maximum size would be 450 for an attached ADU. For JADUs, we're regulated by the State requirements, which is 500 square feet. The State law says that the City can allow up to a maximum of 1,200, but the City has a limit of 450 for attached ADUs. Council Member Wolbach: I'm sorry. Run that by me one more time. The Staff proposal is 450 square feet for attached, correct? Ms. Lee: Our current maximum is 450. We're proposing to continue that. Council Member Wolbach: I understand. For JADUs, what's the maximum size they can be according to State law? Ms. Lee: 500. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I am looking for it in my report but cannot find it. Twice in here it spoke about Architectural Review somewhere in there. You're talking about ministerial review tonight. Correct? Ms. Lee: Yes. We're actually prohibited from requiring architectural or discretionary review as part of our process. We are required to approve it ministerially. Vice Mayor Kniss: Once you have approved it and the neighbors may feel unhappy about it, is there any recourse? Ms. Lee: As long as they're compliant with our Municipal Code, no there isn't. FINAL MINUTES    Page 70 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: I think that answers it. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: A couple of questions. On Packet Page 453, under deed restriction, I don't understand why you'd need a deed restriction that includes a prohibition on the sale of the junior accessory dwelling unit. Unless it's a condominium, you can't sell it anyway. It just seems silly. Is there any reason why that's in there? Ms. Lee: It's just a provision of State law, so we're just including that in our Ordinance. Mayor Scharff: Why would make people put a deed restriction? State law requires that? State law is going to require that if you do a junior accessory—State law says you have to do that? Mr. Lait: Yes. Mayor Scharff: That answers the question. Does State law also say then that it requires owner occupancy or is that something we put in there? Mr. Phillips: For accessory dwelling units or junior accessory dwelling units? Mayor Scharff: These are junior accessory dwelling units I'm looking at. I think the only deed restriction I've seen in the Ordinance applies to junior accessory. Is that correct? Mr. Phillips: There is a deed restriction that would apply to both accessory dwelling units and to junior accessory dwelling units in the Ordinance. In both cases, it would require that there be owner occupancy and that rental terms be at last 30 days when they're offered to the tenants. For junior accessory dwelling units, that is something that's explicitly required in State law. For accessory dwelling units, it's an option that the City has and is allowed to require. If it does want to impose that requirement, it does have to do so by imposing a deed restriction in order for that to continue to be enforceable against the homeowner. Mayor Scharff: Do you know where in the Ordinance it is for accessory dwelling units? I got it obviously for the (inaudible). I just didn't see it. Mr. Lait: Where we have it written? Mayor Scharff: Yeah. Mr. Phillips: I think it's in 18.42.040(a)(9). Mayor Scharff: Could you just tell me what the Packet Page is? FINAL MINUTES    Page 71 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Phillips: Sorry, let me pull my packet up. Mr. Lait: The bottom of Page 450. Mayor Scharff: Got it. Mr. Phillips: It's in "i" for that section. It says the accessory dwelling unit shall not be sold separately from the primary residence (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: I wanted to move into parking. One of the speakers mentioned if they live in a single-family neighborhood, which has the traditional two-car garage and then the driveway goes up to that. It's what, 10 feet or whatever before the garage, whatever the setback is basically, I guess. They wanted to convert that garage into an ADU. Would the driveway area in front of those two-car garages count as uncovered parking or not? That's my last question. Ms. Lee: Thank you. On Packet Page 451, Number 4 at the bottom of the page, we address that. Basically if somebody is proposing to convert a garage, they can provide replacement parking in any configuration on the same lot as the accessory dwelling unit including but not limited to covered spaces, uncovered spaces. Mr. Lait: I would add if that parking is in the front yard setback, the way this is drafted currently you cannot use the front yard setback for required parking. That's a policy call for the Council, though. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Hopefully this will take a lot less than 3 minutes. Is it legal for us to require an ADU occupant not to own a car by deed restrictions or anything? Is there a way to do that? Mr. Phillips: You cannot provide the parking, but there's not a mechanism to say that they can't own a car as a restriction to rent the unit. Council Member Filseth: We can't deed restrict it or anything like that? Mr. Phillips: To not own a car? Council Member Filseth: To not own a car, yeah. Mr. Phillips: There's not really a mechanism to be able to do that. FINAL MINUTES    Page 72 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Filseth: My other question—hopefully the answer won't take more than 3 minutes. On Slide 9 of the presentation, how much of that is State law? It wasn't clear to me. Is it in there? Mayor Scharff: Yeah. Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much. I think it's elsewhere. Where is that? Mayor Scharff: It's a handout. We got a handout at places, I think, which delineates what's in State law and what's not. At least, it seemed that way to me. You're welcome to look at mine. Mr. Lait: If we're … Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Nope. Council Member Fine. Council Member Filseth, sorry. Council Member Filseth: There was some dialog for detached units about limiting restrictions on plumbing and utilities. What are those? Are there some? Ms. Lee: Basically it's just saying that we can't require new connections for new ADUs. Currently, we don't require that. The only time somebody be required to have a new connection is if they—or expand their connection. We don't require that. Council Member Filseth: There's nothing that says you're not allowed to run gas out to it or something like that? Ms. Lee: No. Council Member Filseth: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Actually my question was that same utility hookup question. Mayor Scharff: You're done? Council Member Fine: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. FINAL MINUTES    Page 73 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: Just a couple of questions. It's one that Mayor Scharff brought up. On Packet Page 450, the sale of units. Accessory dwelling units shall not be sold separately from the primary residence. We have a preservation Ordinance that allows lot splits. I just wanted to make sure this isn't in conflict with that. It depends on what you call an accessory unit because some of the existing units—I can think of one that was split— might have qualified as an accessory dwelling unit, certainly not a new one, but it allowed the lot split with a covenant to preserve both units as historic. Is this in conflict with that? Ms. Lee: No, it's not. In those cases, those are two separate properties. For ADUs, those would have to be on the same legal property. Council Member Holman: What I'm saying is those were on one property. The historic Ordinance allows two buildings on the same property can be split into two properties. It starts out as one lot, and then it becomes two lots. Ms. Lee: This would not conflict with that because this is accessory dwelling units—two units on one property. Council Member Holman: That's what I’m saying. We start out with two units on the same property. People are allowed to split that into two properties, so they're each on their own separate parcel. Mr. Lait: I think the distinction there is you're talking about two single- family dwelling units as opposed to a single-family dwelling unit and an ADU. What this would preclude the separation of one of those properties that you're describing from being split in the manner where the ADU is the lone unit on that property. It would require a single-family dwelling Council Member Holman: I guess it depends if we're defining ADU as the particular sizes that are identified here. Like I said, one of these divided was definitely an accessory building. Used as a single-family, but it's definitely the accessory building to the main house. I just want to make sure we're not doing something here that's in conflict. That we're not exempting something. Mr. Lait: We'll do a quick check of the Code to make sure that we're not. Council Member Holman: Are you familiar with the Ordinance I'm talking about? Mr. Lait: I can search for it. It's in the Municipal Code? FINAL MINUTES    Page 74 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: It is. Actually I can give you an address. Mr. Lait: Code Section? Council Member Holman: I can't give you the Code Section. I can give you an address where it happened. Mr. Lait: We can do this. Council Member Holman: Here's the address, if you want that. Mr. Lait: We'll look at the Code Section. Council Member Holman: The other question is—that's one of the addresses but the one where this might apply. Do we currently track how many second units we lose a year to demolition? We haven't been. Have we started doing that? Ms. Lee: No, we don't track the loss of second units. Council Member Holman: I don't know why not. We took a lot of back and forth here. Can I just ask one more question? Mayor Scharff: No, sorry. That was the last answer you asked. We'll have time later to ask as much questions as you want. Council Member Holman: I only had one more. Mayor Scharff: I noticed that Lisa Van Dusen and John walked in. I am going to let them speak because their names were on the list. If you'd like to come and have your 2 minutes, not 3, you can come speak. John Kelly: Thank you very much. I'll try to do it in one. This has been before you so many times. I think at the end of the day there are just a few points which are really clear. The first is our community needs more housing. The second is, as far as I'm concerned, ADUs are probably one of the best ways to provide it. It's way that we can get a lot more housing at relatively low cost and distribute it throughout the City. I think it's also true—if you've read the letter I submitted, you'll see that a lot of the housing inventory exists in north Palo Alto. There have been discussions going back a number of years about whether additional housing impacts would fall more heavily on south Palo Alto versus north Palo Alto. I think this is one that can really work well in north Palo Alto. I want to commend the Staff and the PTC for dealing with an essential issue which is getting rid of the lot size limitation. The 35 percent extra just doesn't make any sense today. It really has to go. The Staff and the PTC got that right. That said, I FINAL MINUTES    Page 75 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  think the Staff got a number of things wrong in how it interpreted and added restrictions on what's very clear under the new State laws. Whatever you do tonight, I would encourage you to make sure that you adopt a final Ordinance which complies with SB 1069 and its companion legislation. It has to do mainly with parking requirements and especially with the definition of public transit. I do not believe that the City Council has the right to change what the State established in terms of what public transit means. I also really encourage you to get rid of the additional parking requirements, to consider parking in front setbacks. Finally, I think Santa Cruz has done a great job with reference designs. I would encourage you to look at that as well. Most importantly, give us ADUs. Make them economical, make them easily built, and make them a form of housing that people throughout Palo Alto can enjoy. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Lisa Van Dusen. Lisa Van Dusen: Good evening, Council Members and Mayor Scharff. Thank you very much. We had dinner guests tonight who were not leaving anytime soon, which we planned when we thought this was on Monday night. Thank you for your accommodation. This is a topic that, I think, whenever I talk with fellow Palo Altans about it, there is a different way that they relate to this topic. It may be as somebody who has space that they want to turn into one or it may be somebody that needs one or knows somebody who needs one. When people start to think about this issue, they invariably start to relate to it in one way or another and in a way that really strikes—pardon the parallel—home in a very powerful way. I think if more people understood what was going on, this Council Chamber would be overflowing. I support what John said. He's done a lot of research on this. It all makes sense to me. This is an exciting opportunity. I have confidence in you all and in our community to be creative and solution oriented to really open the doors to make it possible for more ADUs to be here. ADUs are kind of like trees, where they provide many different facets and many different benefits all in one thing. The State law makes a great, simple way of approaching this. Again, I will not repeat all the things that John and, I'm sure, others have said tonight about—paving the way is the wrong way to say—how to open the way for these to be more readily spread throughout our community in a way that will be good for everyone. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we'll return to Council for questions, comments, Motions. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: First, I want to say a great deal of gratitude for Staff who's put a lot of work into this along with the PTC, and everybody from the community who's weighed in on this, whether it's talking to Council FINAL MINUTES    Page 76 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Members or candidates or coming to speak to us tonight, whether it's sending us letters or being here in person or giving us phone calls. There's been a lot of public input on this. There definitely have been some concerns raised. There's been concerns about things like parking. There's been concerns about not going far enough. The overwhelming response we've heard is that Palo Altans want ADUs. Just some framing thoughts that I wanted to put out there. What's an ADU or a junior accessory dwelling unit as well? It's an opportunity for extended family to live together. It's a chance to have a caretaker or a nanny to live onsite. It's a chance to rent out a small portion of your property to maintain your own space, which is great for people on a fixed income and those who love their home but would like to have someone else living nearby just to make them feel a little bit safer just in case anything happens. It's a chance to downsize and age in place while keeping your own property and your own gardens. It's a chance to bring your family close and keep them close, whether it's a parent or grandparent or an adult child with disabilities. It's a chance for Palo Alto to move closer to meeting our housing requirements as part of the region and our jobs/housing imbalance. To be clear, we have a lot of ADUs in Palo Alto right now, probably a lot more than the City knows about. Others probably even know this too and have had this same experience. When I was knocking on doors when I was running for Council in 2014, I can't tell you how many voters said to me, "I have one of those. Maybe I shouldn't have told you that." There were also a whole lot of people who said, "I wish I could have one of those, but the City makes it impossible and doesn't let me do it. I've got somebody sleeping on my couch," a family member or friend, grad student, whoever. Since I joined the Council, I've really only heard those voices grow and multiply. Let's also be clear about people coming into our neighborhoods. This is already happening. People are living in increasingly cramped and spaces without privacy. This is partly about giving them a chance to find what they consider more dignified living, about having the privacy of their own space. For those who commute into Palo Alto by car now, it wouldn't be a bad thing to let them find a small place to rent and let them bike or walk to work. Of course, they won't all, but a lot will. That's why I led authoring a Colleagues' Memo a couple—what was it, a year or two ago now? It's been a while coming—along with Mayor Scharff and Former Council Member Schmid so that we can really get this issue moving. That was before we knew about what was going to happen with the State law changes. We did this because we heard from Palo Alto residents we want it to be easier to have ADUs. If we have one, we want to be able to bring it into compliance. Council Member Holman is fond of saying zone for what you want. We want ADUs. The State wants us to have ADUs, and the State's mandated that we allow them and has really tied our hands in a lot of ways. I'd like us to recall that our old Comp Plan in 1998 even said we should make it easier to add ADUs. I actually think that the Colleagues' FINAL MINUTES    Page 77 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Memo we wrote called for action that was a lot broader than what we've seen here from Staff. That's fine. We can take this one step at a time. It can be iterative; we can come back next year or the year after, based on what we do tonight, and see how it works and what other changes we need to make. I do want to emphasize that ADUs broaden options for residents to enjoy their property. They don't provide income for developers. I think it's worth keeping in mind that Palo Alto has the highest portion of income going to mortgage of any community like ours in the country. This really is about helping current residents, who are feeling squeezed by space and by finances. Some people would use their ADU as space for extended family. Some would use it for a caretaker. Some would use it as a rental. It's not one or the other; it's all of those. That's what we've always said. We want to make it easier to add ADUs. AS bullish as the State of California and most of us Council, I think, and the community are about ADUs, we do really need to think through a number of complexities. The first area of complexity—they kind of interrelate—are setbacks, height, daylight, and privacy. We don't want our neighbors to have a large ADU looming over our fence without any regard for our privacy. None of us would want that. The key here is to limit the location and the design of two-story ADUs within what we're allowed to do under State law. Another area of concern is around FAR, lot coverage, and lot size. We don't want to see all of the space between our homes in suburban neighborhoods filled in. We don't want to turn all of our single-family neighborhoods into row houses. Row houses are great in some places, but that's not what most of Palo Alto should look like. In most of our neighborhoods, we don't want to see whole properties covered with buildings. We don't want to see our gardens or trees cut down to make way for ADUs or parking, frankly. Lot size has been one of the biggest impediments to new ADUs. Removing this roadblock is a critical step. Parking is interesting. Along with lot size requirements, parking requirements are probably the largest impediment to new ADUs right now. I was inclined, when we were first bringing this up, to provide and push for really strict rules around ADU parking in our more urban neighborhoods and have much looser or no requirements in the suburban neighborhoods, where parking just isn't a problem. The State's really tied our hands on the first part. Because of proximity to transit, our Downtown, Cal. Ave., etc., neighborhoods are more urban neighborhoods. There's really nothing we can do mandate parking for ADUs in those neighborhoods. For the remaining areas, again, parking tends not to be a problem. We end up with this interesting position where the areas where we might potentially be able to mandate parking, there's not really a need. In the areas with the need, we have no option to mandate. Thus, I actually think we should consider what the point might really be of requiring parking in those limited areas where you don't really need to. We do need to think about how much we value parking space in places where we already have enough. We also need FINAL MINUTES    Page 78 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  to think about whether we want to force people to pave over their gardens, their decks or their backyards to add parking spaces. Regarding garages, you can only do so much with a driveway. You can park your car in it, but you can do a whole with a garage. Most Palo Altans already don't use their garages for parking their cars. They've turned them into something else, whether storage for everything but cars or an office or a game room, a home gym, or an illegal ADU as there are so many out there right now. The people of Palo Alto have spoken through their actions. They don't want to be forced to use their garages for cars and cars alone, especially if they have a driveway they can fit their one or two cars. I do think there are a couple of big areas that our Colleagues' Memo mentioned explicitly or implicitly that have not really been addressed here in a substantive way. Those are first steps to bring existing, noncompliant ADUs into compliance. I really think this is a safety issue, which is with us now in the status quo and needs to be addressed. The second area I think we should take up along with the idea of bringing folks into compliance probably in the future is—it was really suggested by the language of the old Comp Plan and cited in the Colleagues' Memo which is to especially have ADUs that might be rented out for benefit to groups in greatest need. With what we're dealing with tonight, I don't think we have enough detail in those areas to really go into those or provide clear direction. Hopefully we can take those up in the future in greater depth. With that, I'd actually like to propose a Motion. To move the Staff recommendation adopting an Ordinance amending Chapter 18, zoning, of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to update Code sections regarding accessory dwelling units or ADUs with the following changes and clarifications: a) require no more than 6-foot side and rear setbacks for ADUs; b) allow ADUs on all residential lot sizes; c) allow an additional 175 square feet of FAR for an ADU but not for two-story ADUs; d) allow an additional 50 square feet of FAR—that's floor area ratio—for a junior accessory dwelling unit, JADU; e) remove lot coverage requirements for ADUs on properties that are no smaller than 10 percent smaller than standard lot sizes; f) limit ADUs to 17 feet high and a single story single-story overlay or SSO neighborhoods, even if the main house is a grandfathered two-story house. Outside of SSO neighborhoods, 25-foot height and two stories are allowed for ADUs, but such ADUs must i) have 12-foot side and rear setbacks, a double setback; and ii) be consistent with daylight plane rules. H) remove design review and requirements because it's inconsistent with State law to have those; i) remove door orientation requirements for ADUs; j) ADUs to have the same parking requirements as JADUs; and k) remove requirements for covered parking on properties with an ADU or JADU. Part 2, Staff to return to Council next year with options and discussion of possible incentives to make ADUs available for moderate or low-income residents, seniors, people with disabilities or public employees. Three, Staff to return next year with options and discussion of mechanisms to bring existing ADUs into FINAL MINUTES    Page 79 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  compliance, including when existing ADUs don't meet even the new standards. Council Member Fine: I'll second that. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to move the Staff recommendation adopting an Ordinance amending Chapter 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to update Code sections regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), with the following changes and clarifications: a. Require no more than 6 feet side and rear setback for ADUs; b. Allow ADUs on all residential lot sizes; c. Allow an additional 175 square feet of FAR for an ADU, but not for a two-story ADU; d. Allow an additional 50 square feet of FAR for a JADU; e. Remove Lot Coverage requirements for ADUs on properties that are no smaller than 10 percent smaller than standard lot sizes; f. Limit ADUs to 17 feet high and single-story in Single Story Overlay (SSO) neighborhoods, even if the main house is a grandfathered 2-story house; g. Outside of SSO neighborhoods, 25 feet height and two stories are allowed for ADUs, but such ADUs must: i. Have 12 foot side and rear setbacks; and ii. Be consistent with Daylight Plane rules; h. Remove design review and requirements; i. Remove door orientation requirements for ADUs; j. ADUs to have the same parking requirements as JADUs; and k. Remove requirements for covered parking on properties with an ADU or JADU. 1. Staff to return to Council next year with options and discussion of possible incentives to make ADUs available for moderate or low FINAL MINUTES    Page 80 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  income residents, seniors, people with disabilities, or public employees. 2. Staff to return next year with options and discussion of mechanisms to bring existing ADUs into compliance, including when existing ADUs do not meet new standards. Mayor Scharff: Do you wish to speak to your Motion? Council Member Wolbach: I'll speak to a couple of things. We've heard from a lot of people tonight saying that the draft Ordinance that was brought before us doesn't go far enough. As the author of the original Colleagues' Memo, I actually agree with that analysis. It's even written in the Staff Report that what's brought before us tonight is essentially a response to State law. We wanted to go in this direction even before the State laws went into place. This was, as I mentioned before, something that Palo Alto residents have really been calling for. A couple of specifics that I'm happy to talk about, that I think are probably important because people are going to maybe raise an eyebrow around them. Removing lot coverage requirements for ADUs on properties that are no smaller than 10 percent smaller than standard lot sizes. I'm suggesting that because we already have FAR requirements. Why have that additional restriction? On the question of just allowing ADUs on all residential lot sizes, let's say you've got a smaller property, and you've got a smaller house and a small garage, and you want to turn your small garage into an ADU, why not? On the height stuff, I do think it's really important that we have some tighter restrictions on two- story ADUs than on single-story ADUs. There are some advantages to two- story ADUs. I think some people have talked about that. For instance, not covering up more yard space. Our hands are tied on some of that by State law as well. To the degree that we're allowed by State law to have greater setbacks for two-story ADUs, I think that would be important. For ADUs having the same parking requirements as JADUs, there's been a lot of debate how you define transit. This cuts through that. There are a couple of other questions and a lot of other ideas. I'd be open to possible amendments regarding them. For instance, there was a suggestion that we allow JADUs to be partially carved out of an existing house. I don't know if Staff has a—if that's allowed under State law, could JADUs be carved only partially out of an existing structure and include new building as well? Mr. Phillips: Under the State law, which is even more prescriptive for the junior ADUs than it is for ADUs, they have to be included in an existing structure and include an existing bedroom. FINAL MINUTES    Page 81 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Wolbach: Is that 100 percent included in the existing structure? Mr. Phillips: Yes, that's correct. Council Member Wolbach: We might need to revisit Line d here. Happy to have your feedback on that. Junior ADUs being restricted in size, you said it was restricted in size to 500 square feet by State law? Mr. Phillips: That's correct. Council Member Wolbach: We can't do junior ADUs that are larger than that, for those who were hoping we would. We should obviously stick with that, I think. Attached ADUs, you said State law allows them up to 1,200 square feet. We're proposing here 450 square feet. I'd be open to possible amendments to expand them to not as large as 1,200 square feet, but possibly a little bit more liberal than the 450. I'd be open to my Colleagues' thoughts on attached ADUs being potentially larger in size. Other ideas that I've heard mentioned include—I just want to make sure I was clear. There is not option currently to have a single utility hookup for the whole property or is that allowed now? Ms. Lee: There's no requirement that they have a separate one. They can have … Council Member Wolbach: We don't need to worry about that issue. Sounds like that's been taken care of. On the question of flexibility for owner occupancy, this one I've kind of wrestled with. That's why I didn't mention it in the Motion. Be happy to hear my Colleagues' thoughts on that. A couple of questions that come up in my mind. If you're a resident in Palo Alto, you have an ADU, and you decide you want to take a sabbatical from your work, and you're gone for a year, are you now in violation of the owner occupancy rule? That's a little worrisome. Some people have talked about maybe we do an owner occupancy requirement for the first 3 years or two out of the first 3 years or something like that. Also, if you have, say, a rental property already, and you wanted to rent it out to a multigenerational family, this would prevent you from doing that. I have mixed feelings about that one but didn't mention it in the Motion because I'm torn on it. I would be happy to hear from Colleagues on that one. There was also discussion by a member of the public about Page 15 of the draft Ordinance, Item 8vi, about changing the distance from 6 feet to 5 feet to match the Fire Code. That's probably something we should do, but happy to hear from Staff, outside counsel, and also from Colleagues on that one. I'd like more clarity about the driveways and front setback. I live in Eichlerville, Palo Verde FINAL MINUTES    Page 82 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  neighborhood. We all have driveways right in front of our garages. Is that considered part of the front setback? Ms. Lee: The front setback is 20 feet. If the garage is built right at the 20 feet, then parking in front of it wouldn't be considered qualifying for required parking. Council Member Wolbach: We should probably add that in. If it's amenable to the seconder of the Motion, I'd like to probably put it with the other parking ones. Where were they? After "K," to add a new line that would "L." It would say required parking for the property may be in the front setback. Mayor Scharff: I think you should say on an existing driveway. Otherwise … Council Member Wolbach: Right, on an existing driveway because we don't want to pave over people's gardens. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add a new Part l. “allow required replacement parking on an existing driveway within the front setback” Mr. Phillips: To clarify the Motion, is it for—since there's a provision in the Motion to remove the parking requirements for the ADU, this would be to allow any replacement parking for the original unit itself that was lost by the conversion of a garage to an ADU. Council Member Wolbach: Right. That's why there's also the bit above about removing the covered parking requirements. Most people don't use their garages for parking now. If somebody wants to convert their garage into an ADU, that's strongly required and promoted by State law. We ought to allow it as well in keeping with State law and a lot of Palo Alto practice right now. We should probably also—if it's okay with the seconder, I'd also like to add the language presented at places by the Planning Director regarding historic buildings. Council Member Fine: I'll accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion “Add the following language to Section 18.42.040 to address potential impacts on historic properties from new detached and attached ADUs: “For properties listed in the Palo Alto Historic Inventory, the California Register of Historical Resources, the National Register of Historic Places, or considered a historic resource after completion of a historic resource evaluation, compliance with the appropriate FINAL MINUTES    Page 83 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Secretary of Interior’s Standards will be required, as determined by the Planning Director.” Council Member Wolbach: If we could add that language as well. I'll leave it at that. I've spoken for long enough. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine as the seconder. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I'm also excited to see this item come before Council. Thank you very much to Staff for their diligent work. Thank you, my fellow ex-PTC Commissioner Greg Tanaka. I also want to thank Mayor Scharff, Former Council Member Schmid and Council Member Wolbach for bringing this forward through the Colleagues' Memo. At the State of the City, the Mayor actually announced he wanted to see a few housing projects this year. What if we had 25 or 30 or 50 mini housing projects this year from an ADU item? At the highest level, I agree with a lot of what has been said in the public, that ADUs are a distributed, low-impact and neighborhood-integrated way to create a lot of much needed housing supply. They can promote multigenerational living, improve family ties, provide housing space for special needs children or seniors, allow our seniors to age in place. They can provide income for homeowners on fixed or moderate incomes. They can meet our RHNA housing obligations. If some other cities have done this, we could do this as well. They can be restricted to below market rate units to help support affordable housing in our City. Finally, this might not be the most politically salient argument. ADUs increase property rights for residents. We're leaving the choice of growth up to each resident in Palo Alto. I think that's really important. Just a few fact points and some data I wanted to share. According to the 2016 National Citizen Survey, over 70 percent of Palo Altans find the cost and availability of housing a very significant issue. Palo Alto as a place to retire, 10 years ago people said 68 percent; today it's down to 50 percent. Some of that may be related to these family tie issues and multigenerational living. Only 6 percent of Palo Alto residents were satisfied with affordability of housing. Only 17 percent were satisfied with the availability of different types of housing. As Cory mentioned earlier, Zillow recently published a report that Palo Alto has the highest housing to income burden of any city in the nation. Think about that for a moment. On average, we spend more of our money on housing than anywhere else in the country, in little old Palo Alto. We're also falling behind other communities which have updated their ADU Codes and are providing new alternatives for their residents, San Rafael, Santa Cruz, Redwood City, Santa Monica, San Jose. The State law may be forcing our hand a bit. I think this is an opportunity for Palo Alto to show that we really do lead. Last note, last night we adopted important protections for residents and the parking issues on their streets. Tonight, I'd encourage my Colleagues to FINAL MINUTES    Page 84 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  support residents and their families living in their homes. I would love to see us pass this tonight. I think this is going far. It's going big, but that's really important given that housing is one of our top priorities. The thing I'd like to ask the maker of the Motion, would you be willing to increase the attached ADUs from 450 to 600? Council Member Wolbach: Yeah. I think I'd be comfortable with that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion a new Part e “increase the maximum size of attached ADUs to 600 square feet” Council Member Fine: With that, I think we can hand it over to the rest of you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Did you want to say something? I was hesitating because it looked like you did. Mr. Lait: Thank you. At the appropriate time, we may have some thoughts about some of the language in here. It looks like "C" might be where we add—going up to 600, is that for attached or detached or both? Council Member Fine: Attached. Our detached are at 900 now, right? Mr. Lait: That's right. Nine hundred for the detached. Council Member Fine: Attached would go—right now they're at 450. We’re moving them up to six. Mr. Lait: "C" for attached ADUs 600 square feet? Council Member Fine: It's actually a different provision. Letter C is allowing an increase in FAR for those ones actually. Additional on top of FAR. This is saying—what I'm proposing is that the max for your attached ADU would be 600. Mr. Lait: "C" is 175 square feet of additional FAR to whatever the district would allow for that particular property. ADUs would be 600 square feet for attached. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Let me first ask the question that I wish—I didn't ask. I wish I had. On Page 9 of the presentation—I think it's somewhere in the Staff Report too—which of those things are State law? I know the car FINAL MINUTES    Page 85 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  share vehicle, I think, is State law, for example. Which are State law and which is us? Mr. Phillips: The maximum parking of one space per unit or one per bedroom is the maximum that's allowed under State law. All parking may be uncovered. No covered parking required is also a requirement imposed by the State law. The exceptions from the parking requirements are also applications of the State law. Conversions to ADU would require no additional parking for the ADU, that's required under the State law. Property located within three-quarters of a mile radius from the Caltrain station is less restrictive than what's in State law. That's a larger radius than is required. Council Member Filseth: That's us, isn't it? Mr. Phillips: That's correct. Council Member Filseth: State Law is half mile. Mr. Phillips: The half mile radius from public transit is required in State law. Property located within the RPP district is discretionary and the City has added here. Property located within an architecturally and historically significant district is required by State law. On-street parking permits is a State law provisions. The established car share vehicle is a State law provision. Council Member Filseth: We said where on-street parking permits are required but not offered to occupant of ADU. Mr. Phillips: It does seem a little counterintuitive. Council Member Filseth: I'm trying to make sure I understand what that means. Mr. Phillips: For example, if there's—when you think through how it applies, it does seem like it's the opposite result of what you might want. What it says is if there's an on-street parking—if you need an on-street parking permit to park in the neighborhood, but it's not made available to the ADU, then there's no parking requirement for that ADU. You can't require off- street parking for that ADU in that circumstance. I can tell you think that's unusual, and I would agree. That's the exact wording from the State law. Council Member Filseth: Thank you very much. That's very helpful. I think ADUs are a logical way for us to add housing in Palo Alto. The Staff work and the PTC work have generally been good on this. As I think about what we're trying to achieve here, there's a big spectrum. Let me start with the FINAL MINUTES    Page 86 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  easy boundaries. Support for extended families, there's not going to be anybody that disagrees that that's a good thing. On the other hand, let me say it this way. I don't think there's general consensus in the community that we should turn R-1 zoning into R-2 zoning. Even if we did, I don't think this is the kind of Ordinance that should do that. For example, what does that? I think it means we shouldn't have people wholesale put up duplexes in R-1 zones. To make a different example, next door to me is a main house and an ADU. It's an absentee landlord; she rents out the main house to one party and the ADU to a second party. They're complete independent. I live in an R-2 zone. This Ordinance shouldn't do that for R-1 zones. Maybe we want to turn R-1 into R-2 but, if we ever do, I don't think this is the way we should do it. We need to design this Ordinance to make that distinction somewhere in between those two points. That's one test on this. The owner occupied clause is very important. That reduces the risk of turning R-1 into R-2. That in turn lets us be quite a bit more liberal with what we allow for ADUs. Some of this stuff, like lot sizes and so forth, yeah. The owner occupied provision lets us be more flexible on that kind of stuff. The one place that we need to be careful about is parking. Some of it makes a lot of sense in the State law, but the covered parking restriction is obsolete anyway, as was pointed out for many reasons. The fact is parking is a huge issue in this town. It has come from the fact that the City basically gave away parking to too much parking in the past. Now, what we have is a situation where there are more people who want street parking and think they should get it than we actually have street parking in town. We need to be really, really careful about adding even to that. I understand the argument that if you're near transit and so forth, you'll have less cars. That’s doesn't mean you're going to have zero cars. It's a sad irony, as Council Member Wolbach pointed out, that the places where it's the biggest problem in this town happen to correlate pretty strongly with the places near transit. We should stick to the State requirements on parking. With that caveat, I do think the PTC suggestion that we measure neighborhood utilization and factor that into parking requirements for ADU is an interesting idea and one worth pursuing. I would propose an Amendment to this that the two discretionary items, that we extend the parking radius to three- quarters of a mile and if it's in an RPP district, which happens to be the ones where we have the worst problems as was pointed out earlier, should be eliminated. I would propose that as an Amendment. Council Member Wolbach: Could you repeat that and point out which page? I want to make sure I'm following what you're saying. Council Member Filseth: I have it on the Staff presentation in front of me. Where is it in the Ordinance? FINAL MINUTES    Page 87 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Wolbach: I've got it there too, so you can point out there. I'll look at that. Council Member Filseth: There's a bullet, property located within .75-mile radius from the Caltrain station and .5 mile radius from bus stops that service 15 minutes. I think we should strike that because it's covered in State law. Vice Mayor Kniss: Just take the whole sentence out? Council Member Filseth: Can we leave the whole sentence or out or do we have to change it to … Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to accept it because it's in State Law and we're writing an Ordinance so that people will only have to look in one place when they're applying and that our Ordinance reflects State Law. Council Member Filseth: I think you shouldn't accept it. We should discuss it and vote on it. We should write it so that it conforms to State Law, that it doesn't exceed State law. Mr. Phillips: To clarify, what you would want to remove is the three-quarter mile radius, which is more permissive than what's required under State law and bring that back into a half mile radius from the Caltrain stations and public transit? Council Member Filseth: I think that's right. Actually, maybe it's simpler than that. Change .75 to .5. Mr. Phillips: Yeah. Then, that is no more permissive than what you're obligated to do under State Law. Council Member Filseth: That's what I think we should do. I think we should strike the line about if it's in an RPP district (crosstalk). Mr. Philips: That would be to strike that altogether. For everyone's reference, that's on Packet Page 451. It's Section 10(iii)(d), and striking that section. Mayor Scharff: That's not State Law. I thought that was for some reason. Mr. Philips: Correct. The RPP was added above and beyond the requirement of State Law. FINAL MINUTES    Page 88 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Wolbach: Council Member Filseth, did I hear you say you don't think I should accept it and we should talk about it and vote on it separately? Council Member Filseth: If you want to accept it, you can accept it. I think there should be some discussion on it. Council Member Wolbach: We should have more discussion about it if you want. I'm not going to accept it as friendly as you suggested. Council Member Filseth: Is there a second? Council Member Holman: Yes (inaudible). AMENDMENT: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to strike Section 10 (iii) (d) from the Ordinance and change 0.75 miles to 0.5 miles in Section 10 (iii) (a). Mayor Scharff: Would you like to speak to your … Council Member Filseth: I have spoken. ADUs are a logical way to proceed. They have a lot of advantages as have been said. We have sufficient safeguards in place with the owner occupied clause that we're not turning it into R-2 neighborhoods. We have a real parking in town, and we should be very cautious on handing out parking. We've done too much of it in the past, and that's got us to where we are. They're going to end up competing with everybody else, the dentists and the Channing House workers and everybody else. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Council Member Filseth has spoken quite adequately to these. Mayor Scharff: I see no lights want to speak to the Amendment, to Council Member Filseth's Amendment. I actually want to speak to Council Member Filseth's Amendment. I agree with all the sentiments that Council Member Filseth just expressed. I am a little—what I gathered from State law is it's actually a little broader on the transit than we have here. It includes bus stops and all that kind of stuff. I'm a little—what Council Member Wolbach said is very true. Our most congested areas are the ones that are closest to transit, that are the ones where parking is the most precious. Yet, when I look at the outer ring that we're changing here, I'm not sure we're gaining much. I'm not sure that's the area where we have—there is a little bit of that outer ring in the RPP district, so we gain a little bit of that. That's FINAL MINUTES    Page 89 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  further from transit there. It's a little hard to say where that big bus depot is, the one where all the buses from San Mateo—where every bus from San Mateo County comes in. How are we going to make the argument that that's not transit? If we draw a ring on that, doesn't that include most of that blue on the RPP? That's really a question for Staff. I'm trying to figure out what we gain by doing this? Council Member Filseth: It's a legitimate question. The three-quarter mile goes heavily into the Professorville district, which is where we've got a problem. Mayor Scharff: I also wanted to address Professorville. Aren't we saying if it's an historic zone they don't need parking anywhere? If that's true … Council Member Filseth: Not all of this is an historic zone. Mayor Scharff: True, not all of Professorville is an historic zone, but a large percentage of it is. That's why we call it Professorville. It'd be helpful to look at that as well. I'm just really wondering if we're gaining anything by doing that. Under your current Motion, I'm wondering where we are. To some extent we're requiring one parking space uncovered. Is that correct? Council Member Filseth: One parking space either covered or uncovered. Mayor Scharff: Covered or uncovered, that's what we're requiring or not? I didn't see any removal of parking requirements in there. Am I missing it, Council Member Wolbach? There's no covered parking. There is no requirement for parking for ADUs period. Mr. Lait: Correct. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth, if there's no parking requirements whatsoever … Council Member Filseth: Where are we? Mayor Scharff: I have to be too obvious. Item Number k, ADUs have the same parking requirements as JDUs and remove requirements (inaudible) properties with an ADU or JDU. Wait, it's covered. If it's the same parking requirements, aren't those Number 1? Where am I confused? Mr. Phillips: The confusion is from the junior accessor dwelling units don't require any additional parking. The amendments that we were just discussing with Council Member Filseth would not be necessary to Council Member Wolbach's proposal because there would be no parking required for any accessory dwelling units. FINAL MINUTES    Page 90 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Filseth: Essentially "k" says no parking requirements at all for ADUs. Part of my Motion is going to be—I'm going to amend my Motion to say eliminate Item k. Mayor Scharff: That's what you want to do, eliminate Item k. Council Member Filseth: Yeah, if the seconder agrees. Council Member Holman: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The prior conversation was assuming that all of those amendments were going to pass. Council Member Filseth, what you're adding is to eliminate "k.' INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER “and to also eliminate Item k from the Motion.” Mayor Scharff: Now, the board lit up. Council Member Filseth: To me, a JDU doesn't seem much different from renting out a bedroom. ADU is a little more—a step beyond that. Unless we can find a way that the ADU and the JDU aren't tied together on this issue, I don't mean to impose parking requirements on JDUs. Mayor Scharff: I'm going to go back to speaking to my—to finish. I'm not sure I understand intellectually what the difference is between renting out a 450-square-foot studio unit and renting out 450 or 500 square feet in your house and in terms of parking requirements. I guess I don't see the intellectual distinction. I'm struggling with this parking issue that Council Member Wolbach did. What I really think we should do is require parking in the most congested areas in the RPP district or not allow people—the best thing would not be allow people to get permits for that. I wanted to get a sense from Staff in the RPP district how you would handle that. Could you do a deed restriction that says you can't have an additional RPP permit for— you only get the RPP permits that your property gets. We've give like four RP permits per property, but you don't get extra ones because you have an—can we just put that in the Ordinance? If so, that sort of gets rid of my concern because we're not—in an RPP district, we're giving four permits per property, and we can always change that to two permits per property if we want. I'm just wondering how we deal with that issue. Mr. Lait: My understanding of the RPP program, the way it work is it's based on an address. For a junior accessory dwelling unit, for instance, they would not have a separate address. They would get the same number of permits that we get. With an accessory dwelling unit, there would be an additional address like 438 1/2, and they would be eligible for RPP. FINAL MINUTES    Page 91 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: Could we take away under this the right to have a separate address? Council Member Fine: Or we just don't allow your ADU to get permits. Mayor Scharff: Can we not allow your ADU to get extra permits just because we give it an address for mail purposes? Mr. Phillips: The State Law doesn't regulate your ability or inability to issue permits for the parking district. If you want to do things that restrict their ability to park, you are able to do that under the State Law. That becomes something you can control through your other Code enforcement mechanisms. Mayor Scharff: I guess I am not going to support Council Member Filseth's Motion. I'm going to suggest that we try and regulate in our congested areas car use by not providing extra permits as opposed to not forcing the parking. Council Member Filseth: Can we do that tonight? Ms. Stump: We're conferring about the interplay between the ADU laws and the Residential Permit Parking authorization in the State Vehicle Code. We had a short colloquy on this—was it only last night? The State Vehicle Code regulates the City's ability to restrict on-street parking. There is this Vehicle Code section allowing for residential permit parking. Our State Attorney General did interpret it recently to not authorize localities to distinguish between housing types when issuing RPP permits. We are not in a position to advise you tonight that we would be able to make that distinction with respect to the ADU units. Council Member Filseth: Is the permit tied to the house or is it to the lot? Ms. Stump: I need to check the language of the State Law, but I believe it just refers to residence. For example, the Attorney General's opinion had to do with folks who lived in multifamily rental housing and jurisdictions that had said that type of housing—residents of that type of housing would not be eligible for residential permit parking. The Attorney General opined in her view that was not consistent with the authority in the State Vehicle Code to set up the RPP districts. Mayor Scharff: I'm going to move on then. I'll come back to that. The lights lit up. You both spoke to your Motions. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: No. FINAL MINUTES    Page 92 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: You don't want to speak to this yet. We're just speaking to the Amendment, and then we can get back to the main Motion. Council Member Holman, you spoke to the Amendment; you're the seconder. Council Member Fine, did you need to speak to the Amendment? No. Council Member Wolbach. No. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to strike Section 10 (iii) (d) from the Ordinance and change 0.75 miles to 0.5 miles in Section 10 (iii) (a) and to also eliminate Item k from the Motion. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote. That fails on a 5-4. AMENDMENT FAILED: 4-5 DuBois, Filseth, Holman, Kou yes Mayor Scharff: Now, to speak to the main Motion. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Getting out of the weeds for a minute and all the details because there are so many details. The devil is always in the details, of course. Thinking back to last fall when several of us sitting up here were running for office, there is no question that the biggest question in this community was about housing. Seventy-four percent of people in the spring and in the summer and in the fall said, "We need more housing, and we need affordable housing." It was the clearest clarion yell that came out of that particular race that I heard. By the end of it, everyone was promising more housing. Tonight, we can actually deliver on a promise. That's what's so different. While we may get muddled in the details of how far we have to be from the railroad station or from the bus stop, the goal of this is to provide more housing. It's form is absolutely straightforward. It's either accessory dwelling units, or it's the junior accessory dwelling unit. I have had requests from friends to stop using ADUs, so I'd love to know if there's another term we can use instead of an ADU. We gave up on granny units, I guess. There must be some other term than ADUs, which is more alphabet stuff. Be thinking about that because there has to be a cottage or something that's a different terminology. I would say yahoo, we are doing something very positive tonight. This is going to be a big relief especially for people who have special needs kids or who have grandparents who are in need of being close by. It has any number of good aspects to it. I grew up in the Boston area and was very familiar with three generations of people living together in actually three-story homes, where people would move around depending on where they were in their life. While this doesn't do that, what it does do is give that great option for—a lot of you out here, I know you are in particular looking for this addition in order to address a FINAL MINUTES    Page 93 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  specific personal problem that you have. I am enthusiastically voting for your Motion, Cory. I think you did a good job crafting it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I'd like to hopefully make a friendly Amendment. It's a recommendation that the PTC made. It's something that might address some of the questions. One of the biggest barriers to ADUs is actually parking. As the conversation we had just previously, parking is still a big deal. That was basically not to count FAR for underground parking. For the property owners who are able to afford it and actually put underground parking, why would we want to—in the spirit of trying to make it easy, why would we want to penalize it? This would help take cars off the street. It's something that we talked about on the PTC, and PTC also recommended it. It's something which would help reduce the parking impacts as ADUs come online. I wanted to see if the maker and the seconder would support it. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to support it, but I'm kind of intrigued. I was pretty strongly leaning against that idea. You're making some interesting comments, but I'm not going to support it. If you can get a second and more support for it, maybe you can convince it. I'm not really inclined. Council Member Fine: Just a comment and a question. I think it is an interesting idea. It's kind of an edge case. We just did dewatering stuff. It would have to be built with a secant wall. To Staff, I thought actually underground garages in residential was currently off the table. Ms. Lee: Yes, in the R-1 zoning districts, it's specifically not allowed for single-family uses. Council Member Fine: I don't think it would matter to say you can count it if you're doing an ADU, because currently it's illegal to build an underground parking garage in R-1. Council Member Tanaka: Is it illegal or is it … (Crosstalk) we had the same question last time. Mr. Lait: Elena's right. Right now, it's currently prohibited. If the direction is to draft policy language that except in these cases it's allowed, then you could do that, if that's what the Council was interested in. Council Member Fine: Cory says he won't accept it. I don't think I could support it at the moment. It is a worthwhile discussion at some point, FINAL MINUTES    Page 94 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  whether we want to explore using underground as a valuable parking resource, but probably not via ADUs. Council Member Tanaka: Do I have a second? It fails then. AMENDMENT: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Council Member XX to not count FAR for underground parking and to allow underground parking. AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: I just wanted to follow up on that, because we're doing that. In our R-2 neighborhoods, do we allow the underground parking or not? The R-2 is pretty much in the urban—do we allow underground parking in R-2? While you're looking that up, we'll go on because there are other people that want to speak. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: A quick comment. The R-2 zones, I live in R-2. There are some other R-2s. They're not urban. They're just sometimes a little larger lots than R-1. Scott Street is R-2, for instance. They're not urban. Historically, the reason that underground parking was not allowed anymore in residential neighborhoods is because of safety. You come out of an underground parking garage, and people who are passing by don't see it. Most especially, the cars coming up out of the underground can't see passersby. It was a safety issue, and that's why they were eliminated. Never the mind character changing effects that they have on neighborhoods. Appreciate the support for the ADUs, not having a better name for them at this point. Appreciate one, two, and three that were added. Two especially because we talk about ADUs and them being affordable. They aren't given the construction costs. I talked to an architect today who's built some. Even converting a garage is basically about $250 a square foot. Building a new ADU is about $350 a square foot. These are not going to be affordable units. Those are thumbnail costs, but these aren't going to be affordable units. They are going to provide some other kinds of housing that we've talked about for in-laws or kids that want to move home, that sort of thing. It's going to provide that kind of housing. I'm supportive of that. We're kidding ourselves if we really think these are going to be affordable units. I do appreciate that two has been added there. Given the discretion of the Mayor earlier, I'm going to ask that the add-ons here be voted on separately. There's only about one of those that I can support. One of them is redundant and already in the Code—in the proposed Ordinance. Mayor Scharff: The answer to that question is let's how much time we have. FINAL MINUTES    Page 95 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: I'm not saying take them one by one. I'm saying if we could even—if we wanted … Mayor Scharff: Let's just continue the conversation. Council Member Holman: If we wanted to spend all night. As the Mayor did earlier, there is the discretion—I'm asking for the discretion—to take these add-ons "A" through "M" and vote on them separately, because I want to be able to support the Ordinance, but I can't support those. There are several of these that—especially at the get-go we have a lot of support for creating ADUs. A lot of these are going to increase impacts and have a very negative effect and impact and reaction from residents. I want this to be a popular Ordinance that we're passing. I don't want it to have the blowback and pushback that a lot of these "A" through "M" are going to provide. I definitely request that we vote on "A" through "M" separately than the rest of the Motion. Did Staff have an answer to the historic lot split Ordinance and why that wouldn't be a conflict? Mr. Lait: The scenario that we described was you have two single-family homes—in the scenario it says … Council Member Holman: It just says two residences. That’s what the Code say—the Ordinance. Mr. Lait: The scenario that was discussed was one residence and an ADU being created pursuant to this Ordinance. The prohibition about being able to separate that lot pursuant to residential chapter that we're looking at. We concluded the language that's proposed in the Ordinance would not preclude the ability to separate that, because you would not have an ADU condition at that point. You would have two separate lots with two primary residences and no ADUs. The resulting condition is that you don't have an accessory dwelling unit, so that provision is not applicable to that standard. Council Member Holman: Is what you're saying that this would only apply to new ADUs? You can't build an ADU and then apply for a lot split. Mr. Lait: I guess what we're saying is that we don't see—the intent of that provision is so that somebody just can't sell off like a condominium unit an ADU. That's the intent of that State provision. That's consistent with how probably most cities would address this, if not all in California anyways. The provision that you're talking about is an incentive where we would want to allow somebody to subdivide a property where they have two primary residences on that lot. We don't see (crosstalk) … FINAL MINUTES    Page 96 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: The Code doesn't talk about primary residences. It says two residences. An ADU is a residence. I'm not trying to argue with you; I'm trying to get clarity. Mr. Lait: We just don't see it as a conflict. One is dealing with accessory dwelling units, and the other one would not fit that criteria. Council Member Holman: At one of the addresses, I'm not sure we would always agree on that. I may come back. I think the Amendment that Council Member Filseth offered may have passed if we took out "eliminate 'K' from the main Motion." Council Member Filseth, do you want to try the Amendment that would eliminate Item K from the main Motion and see if that Amendment would pass? Council Member Filseth: Yeah. If you want to propose it, I'll second it. Council Member Holman: I'll offer as an Amendment the same Amendment that Council Member Filseth had proposed earlier, but take off the last part which is "to eliminate 'K' from the main Motion." Council Member Filseth: No, I wouldn't support that. I misunderstood. Council Member Holman: I think "k" was the reason it didn't pass. It was because of the parking thing. Council Member Filseth: If "k" is there, the rest of it is irrelevant. Council Member Holman: We're changing the radius. Mayor Scharff: It's still irrelevant. Council Member Filseth: It's still irrelevant. There's no parking restrictions. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to strike Section 10 (iii) (d) and change 0.75 miles to 0.5 miles in Section 10 (iii) (a). AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois, you've been patient. You haven't said anything; your light's on. Council Member DuBois: First of all, it is great to see this come to Council. It has been a long time. I actually want to thank the PTC for the rigorous debate. You guys did a pretty good job. I also appreciate all the emails and letters. The Palo Alto Neighborhood's letter was pretty thoughtful. We need FINAL MINUTES    Page 97 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  to approach this in a balanced way. I'm a little concerned about the scope of these amendments and not seeing the legal language. It is a legal Ordinance. It's pretty complicated. Mayor Scharff: Let me just address that, Tom. I actually had the same thought. There would be a second reading, at which point it actually takes three Council Members to pull it if you're unhappy with the language. I'll let Council Member … Ms. Stump: Thank you. City Attorney, Molly Stump. Given the somewhat significant nature of these changes, we would come back with another first reading. We can't put these through on a second reading. We would come back with a first reading. Typically when we get very specific direction, which this is fairly specific, we put that first reading on the Consent Calendar. Assuming that it passed on Consent, we would bring it back for a second reading also on Consent. Council Member DuBois: I did want to address that. We're all looking for ways to encourage housing, encourage ADUs, all the benefits. Nobody is arguing about that. We need to do this in a balanced way. I'm concerned that the scope of some of these changes, some of the potential impacts to privacy in certain size lots. I really thought Staff had a well thought out, balanced proposal. Just to highlight a couple of things. In general, I'm okay with "b," allowing ADUs on all residential lot sizes. We should consider the 6,000-square-foot lot. When you get down to the smaller lot sizes and you couple that with these proposals to add additional FAR. I'm not really sure of the implications of things like the door orientation. Those are the places we're going to be causing the most impacts on neighbors. I have several ideas. I don't know if I should go through all my comments or if I should propose them along the way. If you'd allow me to make some motions and then continue. My Motion here would be that we would allow ADUs on lots— thinking about the 6,000-square-foot lot, we would require it to be 25 percent larger at that size. Basically, we would say lots of 7,200 square feet or larger would be eligible for ADUs. Mayor Scharff: You almost had me when you said you were going to go with the 6,000. Council Member DuBois: I'm saying the 6,000-square-foot lot with the additional FAR is going to create the issue. Council Member Wolbach: I will not accept that as friendly. Council Member DuBois: I don't know if there's a second for that. You second? FINAL MINUTES    Page 98 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to allow detached ADUs on lots 7,200 square feet or larger. Council Member DuBois: The idea would be—junior ADU clearly on any lot. For a separate ADU to require 7,200 square feet or larger, which is still quite a lot of the inventory. Council Member Filseth: Are you going to take questions? If he's got an Amendment … Mayor Scharff: He's got an Amendment. I was going to let him speak to his Amendment. Council Member DuBois: I did. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, do you need to speak to the second? Council Member Kou: Tom said it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: You wanted to speak? Council Member Filseth: I have a question. Is your intent to require 7,200 square feet lots for all ADUs or just ones with sort of large FARs? Council Member DuBois: Detached ADUs. Council Member Filseth: All detached ADUs? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Council Member Filseth: I probably wouldn't support that. Mayor Scharff: Shall we vote on the—does anyone want to speak to the Motion? Let's vote on it. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 DuBois, Holman, Kou yes Council Member DuBois: I do want to speak to the parking. As I understand it, we basically have removed all parking requirements in all zones. Is that correct? It includes open space. It includes—I don't think we've really thought through what that means. The original Staff Motion would have been one parking spot for a detached ADU. Mr. Lait: Just one space per unit or bedroom, whichever is the lesser number. FINAL MINUTES    Page 99 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member DuBois: We spent hours last night talking about parking. I think it's a balanced approach. It's lowering the thresholds in line with State law, but still requiring that one parking spot makes sense. The other part I'm concerned about is the State law says we need to be near a transit priority area, half a mile of a major transit stop. The 15-minute headways make a lot of sense. The San Antonio train station, I don't think meets that criteria. I don't think we're being realistic just including every train stop and bus stop. We should actually change it to just say it has to have 15-minute service and include the train stops. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois, I'll just remind you that unless we change "k"—unless we change "k," it's irrelevant. Council Member DuBois: That would be my Motion. Mayor Scharff: Removing "k" failed already as a Motion. Council Member DuBois: Removing "K" along with (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: I think it's the same Motion. I don't mean to be—I really do think it's the same Motion. I actually would be sympathetic if there was some parking restriction that made sense. It seems to me that State law has said in all congested areas we have to allow no parking. When it gets back to my turn, I'll just tell you that I’m going to suggest—I'm not sure if the City Attorney is going to allow us to do this—in the RPP neighborhoods, where we do have congestion, we have Staff come back. If you do an ADU, you get three permits instead of four. I don't mind if we say 25 percent less permits or something like that. You get fewer permits by building an ADU than you would if you don't or something along those lines. I see something like that to help the congestion. I'm open to other suggestions you may have. I don't think it's helpful in some ways to worry about—in the most congested areas, State law has said our hands are tied. Council Member DuBois: It's the other areas where—say open space. Are we not going to have them provide a parking spot? Do they have to park on the street? Mayor Scharff: They have 10 acres mostly (inaudible) space. Council Member DuBois: The other part of my Motion here is the transit definition specify a 15-minute headway for both bus and train. Council Member Wolbach: I'll not accept that. FINAL MINUTES    Page 100 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member DuBois: We're just being unrealistic considering San Antonio as a place where people won't need cars. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to accept it. The Motion is to say that the San Antonio Caltrain station is not a transit location. I don't think that would—I'm not going to support that concept. Council Member DuBois: I don't know if there's a second for that. Council Member Tanaka: I'll second it. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Tanaka that the transit definition specifies a 15-minute headway Council Member DuBois: The Motion wasn't San Antonio. It's that transit must have a 15-minute headway. Basically you're saying that there are no parking requirements so this doesn't matter. Mayor Scharff: That's what I've been saying. I was almost tempted to vote for it just to make you feel good. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER AND SECONDER Council Member DuBois: My last one on the parking thing on Packet Page 452. I'd like to delete the reference to mechanical automobile lifts. I don't believe we have had a mechanical lift in a commercial district. Mayor Scharff: Where is that? Council Member DuBois: That's at the top of Page 452. Mr. Phillips: That language actually is … Council Member DuBois: Is that State Law? Mr. Phillips: That language is drawn from the State Law. When you have replacement parking, you have to—one of the options that has to be available is the option to use mechanical automobile lift. Whether or not somebody takes advantage of that, you don't have to require them to use that, but it has to be an option (crosstalk). Council Member DuBois: In a residential neighborhood? Mr. Phillips: That's correct. FINAL MINUTES    Page 101 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Wolbach: The State has tied our hands on a lot of this stuff unfortunately. Council Member DuBois: I know we're going to get to … Mayor Scharff: Tom, can I just follow up? That shocked me as well, what they just said. If we're not allowing underground parking—it's a lift up. Mr. Phillips: You'd have stacked—in theory, you would have a driveway- level space and a space above that. In most case, it's prohibitively expensive, but it's an option that under the State law needs to be made available to somebody if they want to propose it. Mayor Scharff: Got it. Sorry to interrupt. Go on. Council Member DuBois: I hope those things are quiet. I would like to understand the proposal from Staff's perspective. I understand we're going to see the language. Changing the setbacks in all zones, thinking about the smaller lots, what's Staff's reaction to that? Mr. Lait: We've not studied it. Where there are narrow lots, then you're bringing—you have the potential for creating moments where people feel like it's a little too crowded for the ADU or living quarters. We have an existing policy where ADUs have been kept within the building area, which necessarily keeps them out of the rear year where people on the other side of the fence might be enjoying their outdoor activities. That's one issue with respect to the setbacks. The other thing we've been talking about here at the desk is Letter H. We don't currently allow two-story accessory dwelling units in the R-1 zone. Our initial concern about that is privacy considerations. Also this balance of allowing these units in residential areas while still maintaining the character of it. It is one that gives us pause. Mayor Scharff: Could you explain that again? What I heard you say is in the R-1 zone, you don't allow two-story ADUs. Mr. Lait: That's right. Two-story accessory structures at all including ADUs. In the open space area and the RE, we do allow for taller structures up to 25 and 30 feet, if I remember correctly, but not in the R-1 or the (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: Is it 17 feet? Mr. Lait: Yes. Mayor Scharff: If that was changed from 17-foot height—I get it. FINAL MINUTES    Page 102 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Lait: The Staff recommendation is 17 feet throughout and without a distinction in the SSO and the other parts of the City. Mayor Scharff: Tom (inaudible). Council Member DuBois: Not yet. What's the implication of removing the lot coverage, "f"? Mr. Lait: That's another one where we haven't studied that as well and is something we'd want to understand more what that could translate to in terms of potential impacts to the size and scale of structures. Again, this could be attached or detached structures. That's something that we've not studied. It may be nothing, but it may be something. We don't know; we've not studied it. Council Member DuBois: The door orientation, was that there for privacy? Mr. Lait: That was there to maintain the residential character of the neighborhoods, so it didn't look like you had a duplex or two units. It was intended to offer a more subtle entry. It would still maintain this pattern of single-family developments that you would expect in the neighborhoods. Council Member DuBois: You were maintaining that? Mr. Lait: We were. The Staff recommendation is even a little more liberal than the current provision, which says it can't be visible at all. We said on the rear half of the lot—based on the PTC's dialog, maybe on the rear half of the lot it won't be as obvious. That was a concession. Getting rid of it is an option as well. Council Member DuBois: I'm going to attempt one more Motion. I think we can get our ADUs without crossing that line and really have some of these impacts on our neighborhoods and their residential character. I'm not really sure why we need to add even additional FAR to existing FAR, which is based on the lot size. My Motion would be to strike Sections c, d, f, j and h. I think Staff has given a lot of thought to what would be compatible and what will fit in with the neighborhoods. Council Member Wolbach: Did you say and "J"? Council Member DuBois: "c," "d," "f," "j," and "h," yes. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to accept that as friendly. We could discuss it, I suppose, if you get a seconder. FINAL MINUTES    Page 103 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to strike Sections c, d, f, j and h from the Motion. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member Holman. Do you want to speak further, Council Member DuBois? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. "c" and "d," where Staff came out, which was sticking to the existing FAR by zone—those FARs have been established for a reason. I'm not sure why we would expand those. The lot coverage, I'm not even sure what those implications are, and Staff isn't either. The door orientation, I don't think these are big barriers. The last one really is the height limit. We have a neighborhood. We haven't allowed two-story accessory structures. It seems like it's just going to cause a lot of Council time listening to people appealing projects when they don't need to. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Appreciate the Motion. It's what Tom said. If you put extra floor area ratio plus the fact I think these are having impacts enough that the Staff is worried about what the result would be. If you're adding floor area ratio and the lot coverage, you're going to end up with a very urban feel, because you're eliminating green space, you're eliminating vegetation quite potentially especially on some of these smaller lots. I think you're really changing the character of the neighborhoods. Some of the interior trees, even though we have protections for our heritage trees, other trees could be taken out. That also changes the canopy in the town. They're really negative impacts on the neighborhood. I repeat what I said earlier. We ought to move forward essentially with what the Staff has recommended plus the one, two and three. I want us to move forward with something the public can accept and not have pushback on it. The 25-foot height limit, a lot of these things that were in here—it applies also to "a." A lot of these are in here because of privacy and neighborhood character. The reason we don't allow living units inside the rear setback is because of privacy. It's not just the height; it's also noise. I'm happy to support this Amendment and ask once again for these to be pulled out separately. Mayor Scharff: Is there anyone else who wants to speak? Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: I'm not going to support this Amendment. "C", essentially this is allowing a small bit of extra square footage for an important but low-impact housing type. If we're going to put housing square footage somewhere, an ADU is a nice place to put it. "D," allowing an extra 50 square feet for a junior ADU, this just gives you a little bit more FINAL MINUTES    Page 104 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  flexibility. One of the speakers mentioned folks who may have to use a wheelchair inside their house. Mayor Scharff: I'm just going to jump in. Staff said—I wanted to get back to that—that we couldn't do that legally. I'm not sure I understand why. I didn't realize the State Law is so restrictive that they actually don't allow you to do more for ADUs. If that's the State Law, then we should just take that out. Council Member DuBois: The ADU is the same size. It's just additional FAR on the lot, right? That's what "c" and "d" are saying. Council Member Fine: "D" is not. "D" should just be extra square footage. Council Member DuBois: It says square foot of FAR. The JDU is the same size. Council Member Fine: It would actually be helpful to get Staff's answer to the Mayor's question on "d." Mayor Scharff: We could do that. We could give an extra 50 feet of FAR to the main house. Mr. Phillips: You can allow larger buildings. The junior ADU itself can't be larger than the size. Mayor Scharff: This is not changing the size on the junior ADU. Mr. Phillips: The JADU would still be limited in square footage, but you would allow more development than would otherwise be allowed on the lot. Council Member Fine: "F," removing the lot coverage requirements in some cases is allowing some of those smaller lots across our City to actually build an ADU. "H," a two-story ADU. I think these are going to be exceptionally rare. There are some good provisions in here to protect residential privacy, 12-foot side and rear setbacks, being consistent with daylight plane rules. I'm not going to add it here, but I would encourage Staff to explore ways to look at special glass types and whether the windows should not be facing property lines, things like that. "J," the door orientation. This is something we toyed with on the Planning Commission. It was a little restrictive. There may not be a reason why an ADU's door may not be able to face the front property line in parallel with the main housing unit. In short, I'm not supporting this Amendment. Mayor Scharff: You want to speak on the main one. Let's just vote on the Amendment. Council Member Wolbach, Tanaka. That fails on a 5-4 vote. FINAL MINUTES    Page 105 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  AMENDMENT FAILED: 4-5 Dubois, Filseth, Holman, Kou yes Council Member DuBois: The last Motion I'd like to make is to add the suggested tree protection Ordinance that Staff mentioned. Mayor Scharff: Do we have a second on that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Say it again, Tom. Council Member Wolbach: Could you or Staff clarify what exactly that means? Council Member DuBois: Staff had the language. Council Member Wolbach: I never saw language on that. Council Member DuBois: It was like no protected tree removed unless dead, dangerous. Ms. Lee: That would be no protected tree shall be removed for the purpose of establishing an accessory dwelling unit unless the tree should be removed because it is dangerous or constitutes a nuisance under Section 8.04.050. Any protected tree removed pursuant to the subsection shall be replaced in compliance with standards in the Tree Technical Manual. Council Member Wolbach: Can I ask how is that different from our existing Ordinance? I didn't mention it earlier when I was talking about things we might add. I thought we already had an Ordinance that did that. How would that be different than …? Mr. Lait: The existing Ordinance does provide opportunities for trees to be removed that may be different than the reasons stipulated here, dead, dangerous our constituting a nuisance. Council Member Wolbach: Again, what are those differences? Mr. Lait: Based on the Municipal Code, under certain conditions—I'll just draw one from memory—if a tree is within the building footprint, it could be removed in the R-1 area, if it's causing the foundation to be—you could still do that in any scenario. You can move that. If it's in the building area, then the tree could be removed. Imagine a lot that's built out with a single- family home. They want to add the attached or detached accessory structure. There's a tree in the way. It causes somebody to think through that design instead of just asking for the permit to remove the tree. FINAL MINUTES    Page 106 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Wolbach: If it wouldn't kill the tree, are they able to move the tree under this proposal? Mr. Lait: I believe the Tree Technical Manual has a process by which one could relocate a tree on the site. Council Member Wolbach: I'm going to look to my seconder, Council Member Fine, on this one. He can make his choice as well. I think I’m actually going to support that Amendment. I think I'm okay with that. Council Member Fine: I think this is pretty good. I guess I'm going to support it. I would like to know what's the nuisance. What constitutes a nuisance? Mr. Lait: I have that in the Code here. It's basically a tree that's not doing well. Council Member Fine: A tree that's in the way of me building an ADU, is that a nuisance? Mr. Lait: That's not a nuisance, no. It's an extraordinary long provision, but I'll just summarize some of the high points. A public nuisance would be any dead, diseased, infested, or dying tree; any tree or shrub on any private property or any street apt to destroy, impair, or otherwise interfere with street improvements, sidewalks, other infrastructure. (Crosstalk). Council Member Fine: That seems fine. I'll accept this too. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Ordinance Section 18.42.040 (a) 9 (xi) Tree Preservation: “No protected tree shall be removed for the purpose of establishing an accessory dwelling unit unless the tree should be removed because it is dead, dangerous or constitutes a nuisance under Section 8.04.050. Any protected tree removed pursuant to this subsection shall be replaced in accordance with the standards it the Tree Technical Manual.” Council Member Tanaka: I didn't realize that mechanical lifts were also mandated by the State. I find that interesting. I went to Amazon to see how much does it cost to get one of these lifts. To my surprise, it's only $2,500 with free shipping and no interest. If you want to get a lift for your house to double your parking, you can pay $2,500 and get a lift. I thought this is quite interesting. We talked about parking in the most congested areas, where ADUs are being encouraged, is of the most concern. I'll make another swing at this. I'm going to propose a slightly different version, which is we allow basement parking for ADUs in these congested areas. FINAL MINUTES    Page 107 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Here's why. First of all, to Council Member Holman's point about safety, the kind of parking I was proposing isn't with the ramps where you have the safety issues. It's with lifts. If you have a lift, it becomes a lot safer. Not just that, it becomes a lot cheaper because you don't have dig a big ramp and a really deep hole for this. We are in a very expensive area in terms of land value. Rather than having cars eat up front yard space, pushing cars onto the street, this is way to allow homeowners to take cars off the street and prevent congestion. The other part is that—you might be thinking this is kind of a rare condition. If it is, then this should have no big impact. If someone wants to spend the money, why not allow them to do that? I'm going to first try it as a friendly Amendment again, which may fail but we'll see. I'm looking to the maker. Any second? AMENDMENT: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Council Member XXX to allow basement parking. AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Council Member Fine: Again, I think this is something to explore on a broader level, like across R-1 if that's what we want to do. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I'd like to find out the protected groups. Are there any laws out there that require a parking space? Would they be considered discriminated against if there wasn't a parking spot for them as a protected group member? Mr. Phillips: Those types of groups are protected in terms of their access to housing. There's not case law that I’m familiar with that relates parking access to access for housing. If you have an ADU that under State law is not allowed to have parking, that would run afoul of … Council Member Kou: Other State Law, right? Mr. Phillips: … other State Laws that promote access to housing—that you can't discriminate based on family status or other protected class. Council Member Kou: That can also open the door for a lawsuit too. Would it? Mr. Phillips: Here, the City has no option in many of these instances to allow parking because the State law has issued a more specific policy removing parking as an option. It would seem that the State's policy is that's not related—it doesn't affect the access to housing such that it would give rise to FINAL MINUTES    Page 108 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  a fair housing claim that way that other sorts of restrictions to the actual housing itself might. Council Member Kou: It wouldn't cause a person not to be able to rent an ADU or JADU because of Item K. It assumes because you're in a transit priority area that you'll be using public transportation. Some of these protected groups may not be able to walk. To say it's a walkable and bike- able or whatever other means, that's taking the assumption of very much on the line of discriminatory. Mr. Phillips: Again, the overarching State policy is towards removing parking and reducing the instances where parking is required. When there's overarching State goals and policies that are being promoted and it's not a facial impact to discriminate against a protected group, then those overarching, legitimate State policies that again are being set at the State level provide a safe harbor for the City. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: I actually would like to strike "h." Council Member DuBois: I'll second. Council Member Wolbach: I can accept it as friendly. With some of the concerns I've heard raised and as I'm thinking about it, I'm open to being convinced. If you get a second, I'll listen. Council Member DuBois: I'll second. Mayor Scharff: I got a second from Tom first. Vice Mayor Kniss: I seconded too. AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to remove Item h from the Motion, “Outside of SSO neighborhoods, 25 feet height and two stories are allowed for ADUs, but such ADUs must: i. Have 12 feet side and rear setbacks; and ii. Be consistent with Daylight Plane rules;” Council Member Wolbach: I want us to go through it, because I want to know if there's a way we could—if there might be a middle ground you might be amenable to as well. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no further lights, let's vote on the board. FINAL MINUTES    Page 109 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member DuBois: (Inaudible) speak to it. Mayor Scharff: I wasn't going to speak to it at all. That passes on an 8-1 vote. AMENDMENT PASSED: 8-1 Fine no Mayor Scharff: I see no—your light was for that. Council Member Wolbach, I'm going to let you. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. There were a couple of things I mentioned earlier that I floated but didn't include. I just wanted to see if maybe we wanted to move on these. I'm actually going to look at my seconder real quick. If I could have Council Member Fine's attention. One is do we want to allow—actually to Staff. Could we allow junior ADUs to add full utilities where they're currently restricted? Mr. Phillips: No. Again, the junior ADUs are restricted such that they're not allowed to have full kitchens … Council Member Wolbach: Under State law? Mr. Phillips: Yeah, under State law. Council Member Wolbach: Let's not worry about that. We heard a discussion about Page 15 of the draft Ordinance, changing "8," "6," Roman Numerals VI, from 6 feet to 5 feet to match the Fire Code. Does Staff want to weigh in on whether that was an oversight or if that was purposefully different or what that would mean? Ms. Lee: The 6 feet was derived through the PTC discussion. I think that just seemed like an appropriate number. There is no Code objection to a change like that. Council Member Wolbach: I'm wondering if this is—I'm kind of glancing to my Colleagues to know is this a controversial thing or is this a cleanup thing if we change that. The question is—I'm inclined to make an Amendment, but I almost don't want it to be a friendly Amendment because there might be an unintended consequence I'm not aware of. I don't want to lose supporters of this Motion by introducing this at last minute. Mayor Scharff: What's your Amendment? Council Member Wolbach: The Amendment would be on Page 15 of the draft Ordinance, change 8vi from 6 feet to 5 feet. That's draft Ordinance Page 15. I'm looking for some guidance from my Colleagues or from Staff FINAL MINUTES    Page 110 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  about what that would look like. If the Chair would allow it, I'd be interested in asking Mr. Bernstein if he wanted to clarify, because he seemed interested. Mayor Scharff: I'm not really interested in going back to the public. I just want a quick Staff response, and then we can vote. Mr. Lait: I'll just say for a principal structure in the R-1 zone, we have a 6- foot setback today. Mayor Scharff: We have a 6-foot setback. Council Member Wolbach: What if there's an existing structure that's already there? This is why I wanted to ask if Mr. Bernstein could come up and give us a 20-second explanation. Mayor Scharff: Mr. Bernstein, a 20-second explanation. Mr. Bernstein: Thank you, Mayor Scharff. The reason I suggested that is a lot of the existing accessory buildings that are allowed by Code are constructed at 5 feet from the property line because that's a fire regulation for combustible walls. If all those existing accessory structures that are now built legally at 5 feet, if the restriction that you cannot have an opening for natural light at that 5-foot wall, that restricts probably two walls of an ADU. If you require windows to be on those other two sides, that could impact the privacy of the main dwelling, especially if it's a non-owner occupied ADU. Even though the owner occupied the main house, that can create some kind of tension. I'd say ADUs that are 5 feet from the property line could allow windows. There's no privacy issues because of one-story ADU is going to have a 6-foot high fence, so there's no privacy issue if you have an opening 5 feet from the property line instead of the 6. That's the basis of my suggestion. Council Member Wolbach: I appreciate the clarification. Staff? Mr. Lait: I would just offer that under State law, the way it's written, conversion of an existing accessory structure would be permitted to occur. The way this Ordinance is drafted the condition that was just described would be one where that opening could occur within 6 feet. Council Member Wolbach: I'm going to drop that question. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member xx to change the language in Section 8 vii. of the Ordinance to FINAL MINUTES    Page 111 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  “There shall be no windows, doors, mechanical equipment, or venting or exhaust systems located within five feet of a property line.” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Council Member Wolbach: I have one other. It's actually going in the opposite direction. To prohibit clear windows or balconies—I thought there was something already in here about this—facing the back or rear setback when facing another residential property if above 6 feet. Basically if you have a window facing your neighbor, it has to be lower than the fence line. Mr. Lait: Building Code regulations about egress and sides (crosstalk). Council Member Wolbach: I'm just looking for a privacy measure here. It might be to … Mayor Scharff: Maybe we should just—it's getting late, Council Member Wolbach. Maybe it's time to stop getting too much in the weeds here. Council Member Wolbach: I heard a lot of concerns about privacy; I wanted to be respectful of those. Council Member Fine: I wouldn't accept this, but I think there is something to be said that windows, glass, whatever above 6 feet, 8 feet should roughly respect our Housing Code for our normal (inaudible). There's something there. Council Member Wolbach: How do we phrase that in a way—it's important. A lot of people are turned by the privacy issue here, and so am I. Mayor Scharff: Staff, what's our current rule? Isn't it frosted glass or something like that? Mr. Lait: There's no current rule on that. What happens is when a two- story home goes through the Individual Review process, Staff typically imposes a condition. Accessory dwelling units will not be subject to the Individual Review process. Mayor Scharff: Aren't all these one story? Council Member Wolbach: They could be higher than 6 feet and one story. Council Member Fine: There's no requirement. If I'm building a single- story, 17-foot home, I can put glass windows up above 6 feet and I can climb up on a ladder inside my living room and look down into my neighbor? FINAL MINUTES    Page 112 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mr. Lait: There's nothing in the Code that would prohibit that. There is the IR standards, if they were applicable. Council Member Fine: That's only for two story. Council Member Wolbach: How about this? Require frosted windows above 6 feet for windows facing … Council Member Fine: That's more restrictive than a single-story home. Mayor Scharff: Why don't we just drop this? Council Member Wolbach: It looks like I don't have a second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member xx to add to the Motion “prohibit clear windows facing the rear and side property lines.” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: One other question. Mr. Lait: That's not going forward? Mayor Scharff: We're dropping it. One other question I've got to understand. We have an owner occupied provision here and the deed restriction I need to understand. Say I go on my sabbatical. When I go on my sabbatical under this, I'm not going to be able to rent my ADU. The question is can I rent my main house. I can, right? Do I have to board up my ADU and not allow—if I rent the main house out, do I have physically lock my ADU and not allow people to have access who rent the main house to both? How does that work? Mr. Phillips: To use the ADU, it has to be owner occupied. The rental restriction—we haven't drafted the covenant that would be placed on the property yet. The rental restriction would apply to the ADU. You could still rent out your main unit. You can't separately rent out the ADU. Mayor Scharff: The question is can I rent out the ADU at the same time I rent the main to the same person or do I have to literally put a padlock on it and leave? My preference would be to allow people to take the whole property, maintain it. Council Member Filseth: You could write the Ordinance to allow that, right? Mr. Phillips: That should be consistent with the State law. FINAL MINUTES    Page 113 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm just going to quickly ask that we direct Staff when they write the Ordinance to allow you to rent your entire property to one tenant. Council Member Wolbach: I would accept that as a friendly Amendment. Without subletting. Mayor Scharff: Without subletting. You probably can't, Tom. Council Member Wolbach: Let's get some language, but I think I'm going to accept it as friendly. It looks like my seconder probably will too. Council Member Fine: I want to see it up there, but yes. Council Member Wolbach: I'm comfortable with that as a friendly Amendment. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER: Direct Staff to revise the Ordinance to allow a property owner to rent both the ADU and principal residence to one tenant without subletting. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to move the Staff recommendation adopting an Ordinance amending Chapter 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to update Code sections regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), with the following changes and clarifications: a. Require no more than 6 foot side and rear setback for ADUs; b. Allow ADUs on all residential lot sizes; c. Allow an additional 175 square feet of FAR for an ADU, but not for a two-story ADU; d. Allow an additional 50 square feet of FAR for a JADU; e. Increase the maximum size of attached ADUs to 600 square feet; f. Remove Lot Coverage requirements for ADUs on properties that are no smaller than 10 percent smaller than standard lot sizes; g. Limit ADUs to 17 feet high and single-story in Single Story Overlay (SSO) neighborhoods, even if the main house is a grandfathered 2-story house; FINAL MINUTES    Page 114 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  h. Remove design review and requirements; i. Remove door orientation requirements for ADUs; j. ADUs to have the same parking requirements as JADUs; and k. Remove requirements for covered parking on properties with an ADU or JADU; and l. Allow required replacement parking on an existing driveway within the front setback; and 1. Add the following language to Section 18.42.040 to address potential impacts on historic properties from new detached and attached ADUs: “For properties listed in the Palo Alto Historic Inventory, the California Register of Historical Resources, the National Register of Historic Places, or considered a historic resource after completion of a historic resource evaluation, compliance with the appropriate Secretary of Interior’s Standards will be required, as determined by the Planning Director.” 2. Add to the Ordinance Section 18.42.040 (a) 9 (xi) Tree Preservation: “No protected tree shall be removed for the purpose of establishing an accessory dwelling unit unless the tree should be removed because it is dead, dangerous or constitutes a nuisance under Section 8.04.050. Any protected tree removed pursuant to this subsection shall be replaced in accordance with the standards it the Tree Technical Manual.” 3. Staff to return to Council next year with options and discussion of possible incentives to make ADUs available for moderate or low income residents, seniors, people with disabilities, or public employees; and 4. Staff to return next year with options and discussion of mechanisms to bring existing ADUs into compliance, including when existing ADUs do not meet new standards; and 5. Direct Staff to revise the Ordinance to allow a property owner to rent both the ADU and principal residence to one tenant without subletting. Mayor Scharff: If we can now vote on the entire Motion. Wait, I did see a bunch of lights light up. I think it's past midnight. I am going to call the question. If there's a procedural issue you want, Council Member Holman. FINAL MINUTES    Page 115 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Council Member Holman: I had previously asked for "A" through "M" to be voted on separately. In the first item, the discretion was applied and something was voted on, like "A" and "B." Mayor Scharff: There's "A" through "L." Council Member Holman: "A" through "L" now, for those to be voted on separately. Mayor Scharff: Let me just figure out—would we vote on "A" through "L" first, and then we vote on the entire Motion, because that's what we need to do? We need to have a vote on the entire Motion. Council Member Holman: From my perspective, we'd vote on the rest of the Motion first so we know if there's support for that. The whole reason I want to separate them is because—you saw that there were four of us that didn’t' support a good number of these. If "A" through "L" gets approved and then we vote on the main Motion, I'm not going to be able to support the main Motion. Mayor Scharff: You already voted against most of those trying to take them out. You already have that on record. Council Member Holman: What I’m saying is I want to be able to vote for the rest of the Motion, and I can't do it if these are in there. Mayor Scharff: Can you make the statement—can I just have the statement? Council Member Holman: No. I really would request that these be voted on separately after the main Motion. Mayor Scharff: Where's the City Attorney? Council Member Holman: You have the discretion to do that. You applied it to yourself earlier. Mayor Scharff: We need to now pass the entire Motion. Council Member Holman has asked that I separate out "A" through "M" and allow her to vote no and suppose Council Member DuBois and Council Member Holman and maybe Council Member Filseth. Is there a way to do that or is there not a simple way to do that? I do think we need the entire Motion to be passed by Council. I can break it up and say let's vote on "A" through "L" right now, and have them vote no, then we could vote no the whole Motion. Don't we have to have a vote that supports the entire Motion as it is? That's the way we normally do it. I've never see us break it up like this. FINAL MINUTES    Page 116 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Stump: Your procedures say if the question contains two or more divisible propositions, each of which is capable of standing as a complete proposition if the others are removed, the presiding officer may and upon request of a member shall divide the same. Mayor Scharff: I'm having trouble dividing it. How would I divide it? Ms. Stump: This does not appear to qualify as divisible, each standing on its own without. I think it's the discretion of the Chair how you wish to structure the vote. Mayor Scharff: I apologize. I wish I could do it. Council Member Holman: You can. Let me make this argument so you can. The Motion and 1, 2, 3, 4 below standalone. They are not reliant on "A" through "L." Mayor Scharff: The "A" through "L" relies on the Motion. I am just going to have people vote on the board. I apologize. If I could break it up simply … Council Member Holman: I'm going to have to vote against it because those are in there. Ms. Stump: Council Members can certainly explain their vote, I think, on the record. Mayor Scharff: I'd be happy to say on the record that Council Member Holman is voting for the Motion minus "A" through "L." I'm happy to have Council Members say that and just do it that way. Council Member Holman: The record's going to show though that it's—I'm going to have to vote no. Mayor Scharff: You can vote no. Council Member Holman: It's going to show it was a 9-0 vote. Mayor Scharff: Voting no is not a bad thing. Council Member Kou: Clarify what we're voting on. You guys are going back and forth, so clarify. Mayor Scharff: Right now what we're doing is we're going to vote on the entire Motion, but I am going to allow Council Members to make a statement that says, "I voted for the Motion, but I did not vote for 'A' through 'L,' or "I did not vote for 'A,' 'D,' 'G,' 'K.'" FINAL MINUTES    Page 117 of 117  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/7/17  Ms. Stump: That one doesn't work actually because then we're not sure what we enacted. I think Council Members can vote no and state for the record that they supported a part of the Motion but voted no because there were objectionable portions. Mayor Scharff: Got it. Vote on the entire Motion. That passes on a 6-3 vote with Council Member DuBois voting no, Council Member Kou abstaining, and Council Member Holman voting no. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 6-2-1 DuBois, Holman no, Kou abstain Mayor Scharff: Does any Council Member want to explain the no vote or not? Council Member DuBois: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Council Member DuBois: It's obvious I support the Motion. I support 2, 3, 4, 5. I actually supported several of the elements. I did not support "A," "C," "D, "F," "I," and "J." Council Member Holman: Same thing. I support the main Motion, but I don't support all the addendums, which are the "A" through "L" or whatever it is now. That's what caused me to vote no. Council Member Filseth: I support the whole thing and the main Motion, but I oppose the provision to eliminate parking requirements on ADUs. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. With that, we're adjourned, and it's only 3 minutes later than last night. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 A.M.