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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-05-01 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT   Page 1 of 145  Special Meeting May 1, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 5:08 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Special Orders of the Day 1. Proclamation Recognizing Progress on Byxbee Park. Mayor Scharff: Our first order of the day is a Special Order of the Day. It's a Proclamation recognizing progress on Byxbee Park. Do you want to take it away? Mike Sartor, Public Works Director: Sure. Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I'm Mike Sartor, Public Works Director. Phil Bobel, Assistant Public Works Director, has a short slide show to show. Mayor, I'm not sure if you wanted to read the Proclamation first or show the slide show first. Mayor Scharff: Whatever you would prefer. Mr. Sartor: I was thinking go ahead and do the Proclamation, and then we can follow up with the slide show. Mayor Scharff: Happy to do it. He read the Proclamation into the record. I will say that we have three Proclamations here. It's the last "whereas" that changes, which then thanks both the Public Works zero waste team and the Community Services open space team as well. Would you like me to present those now? Phil Bobel, Public Works Assistant Director: We might, if you don't mind, do it one at a time, and maybe first get our Public Works team up here, if they would. You could present one of the Proclamations to them. Mayor Scharff: Let's do that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 2 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mr. Bobel: Frank Muse [phonetic] is here, Ron Arp is here, and Elise Sbarbori is here, and her new baby is here.. He was not heavily involved, but he is here so bring him on up, Elise. Did I miss anybody? Let's bring up Emily Renzel and Enid Pearson, two former Council Members that were good enough to come tonight. Those are the visionary Council people we had in mind when we wrote the Proclamation. The second group, Mayor, is our Community Services group. Rob is here, and Rich Bicknell is here. Rich, if you'd come on up, and Rob. Kristen is here. Rich is actually retiring in a few months, so it's especially timely for him. Arguably, the most important part of the team is the ones that actually did the work out there. It was done by Tou Bar Equipment Company, which is owned by Charlie Touchatt. We asked Charlie to come up. It was actually the East Palo Alto firm, Mayor. Sergio is here with him. Sergio was the superintendent day to day, out there every day and put up with Frank (inaudible) and all the (inaudible) people. We just have some quick slides that I'll run through. I'm not going to talk about each one. Those of you that have been out there, this is the salient feature right at the top, at the 65-foot level, the inspiration for our team. We call it the Compass Rose. It actually points north, south, east, and west. Maybe future signage will have you pointing at particular things like many such things do. There's a little close-up of our team. The people that aren't here tonight are Chuck Risen on the left, Chuck Muir—we have a lot of Chucks—next to him on the left, and of course front and center is Frank and Ron, and Jose, you may not know, on the right. Elise was featured separately because she has been off with her new baby a lot. This is the photo shoot out there. Here's our ranger team, Daren, Rich, and Mr. Parker. Here's Daren pointing at something he's noticed. That was, of course, a staged shot. It wasn't just Public Works and CSD, though. Here's our purchasing team who helped get the contract with Tou Bar and other contracts. Our attorney team is represented here by Teresa and Janet. The attorneys are an instrumental part of everything we do. You saw a shot that went by—nope. There's Emily and Enid. This is the last day. We closed the landfill in 2011, and here's Emily and Enid out there only too happy to throw that last shovel of dirt on the landfill. This is one of my favorite all-time shots, the two of them smiling away as the last bit of refuse gets covered. Enid, of course, has a bench out there. Emily also has a bench out there. She put a little more political message on hers, so it's not being pictured here. This is how it greened up this year. As you know, we have a lot of features to prevent erosion. This rock bed is one of them. It's done a fantastic job even with this heavy rain year at preventing erosion. Most of it is Frank's design with Ron giving him little hints now and then. In the background you see that we've preserved as many of the art features as we could. That is the Chevrons, an art feature from the early '90s that we preserved. We picked it up, regraded, and put it back down. Here's our fun guy, the burrowing owl. Jose took this picture, a fantastic one. Usually you TRANSCRIPT    Page 3 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  can't see them; they're the same color as the dirt and rocks. This guy ventured out into some vegetation, and Jose captured him on film. Here's a typical day out there with everybody arguing about exactly what to do and having their own hand signals. This is where the trucks are lined up. We talked about one per minute on the heaviest day going in to bring clean soil to put on top of the landfill, grading it. Another art form that was preserved was the pole field. The poles have gotten a little shorter because we had to put dirt around them, but they're still there. Here's our two main guys, Frank and Chuck. There's a plaque to them out there now. it's between them. More arguments between Sergio and Frank. Frank usually won. The second phase—the first phase was in green; it's been there a long time. In the last several years, we've completed the landfill in two other phases. When we opened up that light blue phase, we had a walk; several of our Council people were there. It was a great day. Now this is what the trail system looks like. CSD is finalizing the signs that will go up, showing all the trails, very excited. In the upper right-hand is where that Compass Rose is, the end of that ridgeline. An exciting place to view the surroundings. Here's Ron; I don't know what he's pointing at. Here's Ron again showing another of the storm water control features. Of course, we had to put this netting down to prevent erosion in many areas. That's Chuck. Here's more of our CSD team; Rich pointing at something or other, showing the relatively new signs, about a year old, the interpretive signs that are now out there. This is near the parking lot at the base of Byxbee. Here they are. We had a number of vegetative islands, 16, put in. It's an experiment. These guys chose the plants. We'll see how they do. Rich is retiring, but we can get a hold of him if they all die. To prevent them from all dying in their first several years, of course, they're all native or near native plants. We have eight of these—no, four of these tanks. How many of these tanks we got? Four of these tanks. They are an innovative irrigation system we've put in because we don't have irrigation lines. We have a tank for each of the four vegetative island, and then a pump system to pump the water from the tanks to the plants. Mr. Sartor: Recycled water. Mr. Bobel: Recycled water, of course. Here's Frank on one of the vegetative islands looking things over. This landfill is a living, breathing thing. It's got all kinds of control systems under it that you don't see. It's a got a gas control system to remove the methane. It's got a leachate control system to remove any contaminated water, and the storm water system that we've already talked about. The gas goes to the water quality plant for use in the incinerator, but the incinerator's going to go away. On an interim basis, we'll be flaring it, looking for the next use. This is a new compressor and flare system that we put in place. Here's our guys again, showing off TRANSCRIPT    Page 4 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  another one of their interpretive signs. Jim asked me to point out a couple of other things quickly that are also occurring in the Baylands. This is an older picture. Byxbee Park is that center, light tan area, which is our old landfill. There's a lot of other stuff going on. One of the main things that you've noticed is the golf course is getting rebuilt. Here's our now-retired Senior Engineer who was in charge of the golf course project taking the first shot out there. Nobody told him that you usually waited until there was grass growing, until you did that. It's starting to take shape. Mounds are in place now. We've preserved, of course, the trees that belong in that area. You've noticed in front next to the driving range is a new putting area going in. It's starting to look pretty exciting out front as well. Another thing we've done recently is Frank and Sergio redid part of what we call the Geng Road site where GreenWaste used to be. The baseball folks have installed batting cages out there. That's another great new feature going in at the Baylands. Creek cleanups, May 20th, any of you who want to participate, is the next organized volunteer creek cleanup day. Here are some of our Staff getting stuff that's trapped behind the boom that's difficult for volunteers. Here's my last shot. While we were up there filming, a couple of happy bicyclists came by and said how great our new thing is. Unfortunately, one of them was from Menlo Park, but what the heck. Mike's from Menlo Park. Mayor Scharff: I do want to say thank you to all of you. We do have one public speaker, and I know a couple of Council Members want to speak as well. Emily Renzel. Emily Renzel: Emily Renzel, 1056 Forest Avenue. First of all, I'd like to thank the City Staff who worked so hard on getting this done. It was an enormous job, very complex, much more than you would think. They've done a beautiful job. They've brought a lot of their own creativity to it, which is wonderful. In particular, Frank Muse, the man sitting in the center of that photo, personally designed and built those stone bench walls that are there, that I think are national park quality. They're really quite lovely. We're very fortunate to have that as part of our Byxbee Park completion. Of course, I cannot go away without telling you what was on my bench which is, if any of you are still on the Council in 2021, November 7th, that's when 10 acres of Byxbee Park could again be park dedicated. I hope you will do that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I just want to thank myriad departments, Public Works and Parks and Rec. Just really a great job. It's really an outstanding, beautiful accomplishment. I just had one request. Phil's still back there, I think. Given Phil said the visionary Council Members that he was thinking of TRANSCRIPT    Page 5 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  when the Proclamation was being penned, I'd like to request that any of the images that Emily Renzel and Enid Pearson would like to have that they be forwarded to them, so they can have them for their records and families and such. Just that request of Staff. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I can't say that I ever served with Enid, but I certainly served with Emily. Emily has been persistent and consistent in her support of not only the environment but just this kind of project. Emily may or may not remember, but Ron Anderson, when he ran a long time ago, had this as his prime project. He wanted to see Byxbee Park done. I hope somebody lets him know that, going on 20 years later, finally Byxbee Park is done. It looks absolutely terrific even though, as Cory mentioned to me, it looks like a gigantic sand trap for those who might want to play golf, wherever he was hitting that golf ball. Thank you both for doggedly keeping at this, and especially to all the Staff back there. It's terrific and, I think, unlike what any other city has. Congratulations. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. You just made it, Liz. Council Member Wolbach: I have to clarify, of course, it won't look like a sand trap when it's all done. The new golf course is going to look great. I also just wanted to say thank you to everybody who made this a reality, everybody who's been working on this, former Council Members, community activists, staff, contractors alike. With the new child in the room, I look forward to this being completed so, as that kid starts to walk and to bike, they can go enjoy the trails out there. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Thanks again to Staff for your great job and to Tou Bar and everyone who made this happen. Thank you. Study Session 2. Prescreening of a Proposed Hotel Development at 3200 El Camino Real and Proposed Modification or Elimination of the 50'-0" Special Setback Along Hansen Way. Mayor Scharff: Now, we move on to our next item, which is a prescreening of a proposed hotel development at 3200 El Camino Real and proposed modification or elimination of the 50-foot special setback along Hansen Way. Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director: Thank you, Mayor. Sheldon Ah Sing, contract planner for the City, will present the project. TRANSCRIPT    Page 6 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Sheldon Ah Sing, Contract Planner: Good evening. Sheldon Ah Sing. (inaudible) a presentation for you. The applicant's also here with their presentation. The project overview is an existing two-story motel with 36 guest rooms. It's on a small lot for a commercial, 0.6-acre site. It has a special setback of 50 feet along Hansen Way. The applicant is seeking to redevelop the site and modify it or remove this setback. The proposal is for a four-story hotel with 97 guest rooms and with a two-level parking basement, and is seeking to use a zoning amendment for the setback change. This prescreening was before the Council previously back in April of last year. The comments by the Council last time around was to have a holistic approach to Hansen Way. It also sought some enhanced elevation and perspective drawings to provide more context and compatibility. There was also interest in having as few new vehicular trips as possible for the new square footage that's being added on the site. The Council did request that the project return to the Council. There wasn't a formal vote as there are not for Study Sessions, but the Council did want us to come back. That's why we're here this evening with some updated drawings. For some site characteristics, the site is zoned CS commercial. Surrounding zoning is also CS commercial. There's also an RP, Research Park, zoning in the area as well. The site is flat. It is surrounded by low-intensity type of development, mostly single two-story buildings, and also the research and development buildings are much larger in footprint size. On the site plan here, I do want to note that the right-of-way from the face of the curb is about 19 feet, and that includes a 6-foot sidewalk and 13 feet worth of green space. Where the existing building is now is where that property line is and where that right- of-way begins. That will not be changing. Beyond that is what's being proposed for the setback to be reduced or removed. On the ground floor, what's being proposed—there would be about a 2-foot setback. As you get to the upper floors, there's a little deck, balcony that comes over, and that would be at a zero setback line. This perspective here really shows what is being encroached into. The applicant did provide this in their drawings. It shows an opaque plane that slices through the building. You can see the adjacent building that's existing there now as well. That's where the 50-foot setback line would be. Some previous options that were looked at for Hansen was, one, to reduce the setback to align with that adjacent building, which is about 16 feet; to modify the setback of the variance. That was discussed at length at the previous prescreening, and that was not supported by the Council. Again, this project proposes to have no setback along Hansen. Next steps would be they should file applications for the Architectural Review and a zoning amendment to follow the process if that's something the Council gives direction for. As part of those applications, the City would also conduct the environmental evaluation pursuant to CEQA. Recommended motion is City Council conduct the prescreening review of the applicant's proposal as—really it's the removal or modification of the 50-foot TRANSCRIPT    Page 7 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  special setback. That completes our presentation. We would be happy to answer any questions. The applicant is also here with their presentation. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll come to the applicant. You'll have 10 minutes. Yatin Patel, Hotel Parmani Applicant: Good evening, Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, esteemed Council Members. We stood before you previously and those members seeing this for the first time. I'll be brief so as not to cut into the presentation time. My name is Yatin Patel. I am part of a local family that's done business in Palo Alto since the 1980s. I was raised here, am a product of the local public school system, and along with my wife and 7-month-old son plan to remain in this community my entire life. This community and City, of course, mean a great deal to our entire family. These are our roots and where everything started for us. Also with me today is my uncle, who's a little under the weather but felt it important to come before you tonight, who along with my aunt, father, and mother I admire tremendously for putting us in a position to stand before you this evening. They've worked selflessly to afford myself and my cousins many opportunities to improve upon the foundation they worked so hard to lay. I feel fortunate that they've entrusted me to be our family steward, to navigate the process with the City and community collaboratively. I take the responsibility of assisting to heart. The current hotel was built in the 1940s, and we purchased it from the original owner. We've served countless business travelers of the Research Park and those visiting Stanford over the years. Our location is something that travelers love because it provides easy, walkable access to their offices and the Research Park and walkable, bikeable access to the university. Thank you for your continued consideration of our overcoming a setback—yes, pun intended—in developing our property into something we can sustain and the City can be proud of for what we hope is the next 70-plus years. Our team is here tonight to explain our proposal and assist in your discussion any way we can. With that, let me introduce Randy Popp, who will take you through the presentation. Randy Popp, Architect: Good evening. Nice to be here with all of you again. When we here in April 2016 we had a productive and informative discussion. We heard three things, as Staff told you. Generally, the Council Members at that time were supportive toward the idea of a site-specific zone amendment. There was some discussion, and I'll even suggest some confusion regarding the setback at the site. Prior to any further commitment, a few of the Council Members asked for some massing and aesthetic information. Much of this information is actually covered in the really thorough and informative Staff Report, but here are some key points. TRANSCRIPT    Page 8 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  The existing hotel building is losing viability as a competitive hotel in the marketplace. We have a strong demand for hotel rooms, particularly in this area. Based on TOT data provided by the City finance team, as of today Palo Alto has 77 fewer rooms than it did in June 2005 when Ricki's was still open. In the same 12 years, the demand has grown substantially. This is a great location for a hotel, and that use is consistent with zoning. This change will allow us to improve safety and traffic issues present with the current design. We need this incompatible constraint removed. What we're proposing is a Code-conforming project. We're proposing a project that will increase TOT by $800,000 a year, a total of $1 million. We want to improve safety along El Camino by widening the sidewalk and improving the vehicular ingress/egress, reducing the vehicle miles traveled into the Research Park. There really is minimal or no residential impact. 560 feet to our closest residential neighbor, and that's across a six-lane highway. As usual, we're going to propose all the typical TDM elements that you all expect to see. Let's just dig in. Please, we need you to be clear tonight so that the discussions which follow can be informed by your opinion regarding a site-specific amendment to remove the 50-foot special setback. The zoning for this area was imposed long after the hotel was constructed. I know this is messy, but this is our Zoning Map, and this is where the 50-foot special setback is described. The 50-foot special setback extends through the RP area but, just based on this diagram, you can see this parcel is unique in how it is constrained. The setback, taken from the property line, limits any structure from being built on half of this site. I can only imagine the map makers thought this site might be absorbed into a larger parcel, but we understand now that will not occur. We're not asking for anything more. We just want standard commercial surface zone constraints to apply, and we intend to conform with all of those. Here, let's get into the details; let's clarify the Henson frontage. Sheldon spoke to this briefly, but I prepared this diagram to hopefully pull in the details. This was an area of confusion at our last discussion. The distance to the property line at this site is unusual. Typical of Palo Alto, the property line would be a foot or two back from the sidewalk. In this particular case, it's 19 feet from curb to property line including more than 13 feet of planting area. Just for clarity, from the Mayor to myself right now, that's about 19 feet. That just gives you a sense of how much room that really is. This space will be maintained and even expanded. Only a portion of the building will be on the property line. I'm glad to come back to this information if any of you have further questions. What do we imagine it's going to look like? First, I'll remind you what it looks like today, and then I'll show you what we think the improvement could be. I think this looks fantastic. We are just at the start of a design process. What we're looking at here is pedestrian engagement at the street level, terraces and varied materials at the upper portion, classic base/middle/top differentiation, beautiful surfaces, quality materials, and TRANSCRIPT    Page 9 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  colors that tie into the local character and feel, lush and diverse planting to be maintained by the hotel but located in the public way. This was designed to accentuate the corner with a generous plaza, also a point of discussion, so let's dig a little deeper on that. We've designed the corner in response to comments you provided regarding goals for a plaza and a gentle building frontage. We designed the building to create a response to being a corner parcel with a plaza that is open and inviting. The building is pulled back from how it exists today along El Camino to create a wide, usable sidewalk and planting area consistent with regional goals. It is a deeply terraced building to enhance the compatibility with adjacent structures but looking forward to future development already planned across El Camino and nearby. We expect attractive and durable materials to ensure visual and physical longevity. As I said, it will be fully Code compliant. To summarize, we have two separate and distinct tracks. We will go to the Architectural Review Board for building design. We need your direction regarding the land use, scale, and contextual compatibility to move forward into that process. We will go to the PTC for the zone amendment. We need your direction regarding the approval of a site-specific zone amendment to move forward through that process. Ultimately, we will return to you for overall approval. That concludes our presentation. On behalf of Yatin, his family and all of our team, thank you for your consideration of this project. Mayor Scharff: Do we have any speaker cards? I didn't think so. Now, we return to Council. It's a Study Session. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: A couple of questions of Staff, please. This says that no formal action is requested. The Staff Report does. What are we giving to the ARB in terms of guidance? Mr. Ah Sing: We're trying to get some direction on whether the zoning amendment would be appropriate or some other process. The applicant would follow up with that formal application. Council Member Holman: If you're looking for direction, shouldn't we make a motion? Mr. Lait: The way the City's process is set up in the Zoning Code, prescreenings by definition are a non-actionable forum. It's intended to—in instances where somebody is seeking a text amendment or a significant policy consideration, the Code is set up that we come to the Council for guidance on whether there's interest in entertaining a legislative action as being requested here. If there isn't interest in, at this stage, supporting a legislative change, that has a significant potential impact on the project. That's informative to the applicant as to how they might strategize to go TRANSCRIPT    Page 10 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  forward. We're looking for comments but no specific action. Also, this item will be coming back to the Council, and we want you to be able to participate in those future hearings as well. Council Member Holman: I appreciate this coming back to the Council. The reason I ask those question is because this has been to us once before. It seems like at this point in time we would want more affirmative guidance to the ARB given we've seen this before. Mr. Lait: Last time, there were less diagrams showing the form and the mass of the building. I think that was one of the main items that the Council—it's a challenge in that you don't want to come to the Council at a prescreening with so much information that it looks like the project has been fully baked, and there's not a lot of room for movement in design and setting the mass of the building. On the other hand, if you don't come with enough information, you may not get the kind of guidance to get information about context, compatibility, and things of that nature. I think we fell in the latter category last time where we didn't have enough information about what it might look like. The applicant has gone back, and you saw some of the diagrams they're exploring now for this application. It is, I will say, unusual for a prescreening, at least since I've been here—I haven't heard anybody say otherwise since before—to actually come back to the Council. That was a little bit unusual. Council Member Holman: It is unusual. Mr. Lait: That seemed unusual. Council Member Holman: Appreciate the clarification. I think it'll help all of us maybe as we go forward and through this. A couple of other just clarifying questions, if I could. On packet page 19, it says, "while most CS- zoned lots have only a 6-foot-8 sidewalk, this property has 19-1 between the face of the curb and the property line allowing for a 6-foot sidewalk and a broad landscape buffer." I just want to make sure I'm reading that right. The language reads as though other CS-zoned properties have a 6-foot-8 sidewalk, but this property is only going to have a 6-foot sidewalk with also the setback buffer. Is that correct, it's going to have an even narrower sidewalk? Mr. Lait: Council Member, you mentioned the Packet Page number, can you … Council Member Holman: It's Packet Page 19, the third bullet. Mr. Lait: Can you tell us the page number on the Staff Report? TRANSCRIPT    Page 11 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: Three, 3 of 2C. Mr. Lait: It's the second bullet? Council Member Holman: Third bullet. Mr. Lait: Sheldon is taking a moment to look at this. This is a letter that was submitted from the applicant to the City on March this year. I believe they're laying out some of the reasons why—some of the refinements to the project that they've made. Your question is, is the sidewalk going to be shorter on El Camino or Hansen? Council Member Holman: I'm not exactly clear which side this is. I think it's El Camino. While we have pretty stingy sidewalks anyway, it looks like this sidewalk is even less than our otherwise stingy, 12-foot effective sidewalk projects. Mr. Ah Sing: For the project to be consistent with the design guidelines of South El Camino Real, the sidewalk would be at least 12 feet. I think this may be referring to an extension of what's now 6-feet-8 wrapping on Hansen Way, which would be 6 feet. I don't believe that would be changing there just to maintain the green space. I think, along El Camino Real, there would be a 12-foot sidewalk. Council Member Holman: Maybe I could get clarification, through the Chair, of the architect on that. Mayor Scharff: Sure. Mr. Popp: Thank you. Happy to do that. The existing condition, as it stands today, is there is about 6-foot-1 between face of curb and the building on El Camino. The building is basically on El Camino at this point. Our goal is to create a standard sidewalk and usable sidewalk area with additional planting along El Camino consistent with the Grand Boulevard Guidelines as it wraps around onto Hansen, to conform to the sidewalk that extends up and into the Research Park, which is currently 6 feet wide. We're happy to make whatever adjustments would be necessary as part of the project requirements and would be open to any suggestions about that. Our explanation here really is that there's a generous space between curb and face of property line in this area that doesn't really exist in other areas of Palo Alto. It's very nice. Council Member Holman: Got that, and appreciate that. My comments are—okay to make comment too, at the same time? TRANSCRIPT    Page 12 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Yeah, go right ahead. Council Member Holman: My comments are—I think it is reasonable for this particular site to eliminate the 50-foot special setback. I think that makes sense again for this particular site through a legislative action, not a variance but through a legislative action. I appreciate that the project is set back a bit and that it's terraced and that the plaza is open. My comments to the applicant and to the ARB would be that it would be nice if that plaza was clear and obvious, if that's the intention of the applicant and owner that that plaza would be inviting to the public. My main concern is that this is a corner, and it's a well-utilized corner. From my perspective, while we do have a 12-foot effective sidewalk in our Code, given this is a corner and given we're taking a totally quasi-judicial action in doing the elimination of the setback, we can say—I hope that my colleagues will agree—that the sidewalk at this corner property should be wider than the typical 12-foot effective sidewalk. We want a landing spot for the public. We want a landing spot that's going to be comfortable for people to be able to navigate with strollers, bicycles, whatever. I think the wrap of that corner especially needs to be wider than the typical 12-foot effective sidewalk. The other thing I really do appreciate is, if I didn't say it, that the building is stepped back some too. It helps with the mass and scale and reducing that impact as well. Those are my comments, focusing on the sidewalk there. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no further lights, I guess we're done. Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I'll step in now. Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you, Staff, for the analysis here. I would concur with Council Member Holman. I think the PTC would have the findings for a site-specific zone amendment to eliminate the special setback, particularly given we can't even identify the provenance of that. I'm also persuaded by the area, that 13 feet between the property line and the sidewalk line, does meet some of the goals, which that setback might have been providing currently. In terms of land use, it seems compatible with the land use map and the CS zone. The scale, I think, is actually better suited with the South El Camino Design Guidelines than the current site in terms of taking up more of the street frontage along El Camino. I actually think that's helpful in terms of building that street wall on El Camino. In terms of context, it's a hotel replacing a hotel. It's next to the Research Park. I do appreciate the use of some of the natural materials and, again, concur with Council Member Holman that the terracing and step-backs are actually good. In a way, the vegetation and the terraces that I see here—I don't know if they're finalized—remind me of some of the buildings throughout the Research Park, TRANSCRIPT    Page 13 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  which jives nicely along Hansen there. I guess all of us probably appreciate the hotel taxes it could generate. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I just wanted to address a letter that came in from the general public. Is this asking for a zoning amendment or a variance? I'm a little bit confused. Mr. Ah Sing: It's actually a zoning amendment. Council Member Kou: A zoning amendment. The 50-foot that is existing now does cross over to the next property on Hansen. What the zoning amendment is just asking for is for this particular. It's not going to move over to the other side. Is that a reference point for the other property? Mr. Ah Sing: Yeah, it's only site specific. It's just for this subject property. Council Member Kou: Because it's on the corner, I agree with both Council Member Holman as well as Council Member Fine. I would actually like to see that the sidewalk that is on Hansen to be a little bit wider, perhaps as much as the 12-foot on the El Camino side just because it is an intention for it to be a walkable neighborhood and for guests to be gathering and generating that kind of feeling. That would be particular in my mind. In granting that 50-foot, I was wondering would the height be something that they would consider in lowering. That might be another point that might be of consideration for me. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I don't know if I could maybe get the architect to come back up. I had a question about looking at the landscape, L-1.1 in the plans we got. I'm trying to understand where the public setback is on this diagram. Mr. Popp: Council Member DuBois, is this the plan you're asking about? Council Member DuBois: Yeah, I think that's (crosstalk). Mr. Popp: I'm not sure I have the full version of that in my presentation here. Council Member DuBois: It looks like the hardscape goes pretty close to the sidewalk. Is this supposed to be a green … TRANSCRIPT    Page 14 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mr. Popp: In this particular case at the corner plaza, what we've done—you can see the heavy dashed line over on the left-hand side. This heavy dashed line that's here represents the property line. That extends out to about this point, and then it wraps up and around just behind the sidewalk in this area and then heads up this direction. What we've got in our concept—it really is just a concept at this point—is planting that extends to the property line along Hansen Way. Right at the corner, an element of the plaza paving, the hardscaping, would connect the plaza on the corner to the sidewalk so that people could come and go freely into the plaza. As it transitions back out and around to El Camino, that becomes a landscape buffer between the building and the sidewalk but maintaining that minimum sidewalk dimension that we're required to have along El Camino, a 12-foot usable sidewalk. Council Member DuBois: On the Hansen Way side, you're actually building beyond the property line with hardscape? Mr. Popp: No, not at all, not at all. What we're doing is improving in the space in the public right-of-way the landscape zone. The sidewalk that we've shown here is the current, and what we would propose would be the continuation of the sidewalk dimension. Council Member DuBois: These street trees are in the public right-of-way, is that … Mr. Popp: That's correct. Council Member DuBois: The auto court paving piece is obviously the entrance. Mr. Popp: That would be the ingress/egress to the site. Council Member DuBois: Part of it beyond the trees looks like it goes over the property line. I was a little confused. Mr. Popp: Only in the locations that we need for vehicular access, and then again right at that corner where we're trying to essentially invite the public into the plaza. Council Member DuBois: My comments are primarily around the landscaping plan. The last time this came up, we talked a lot about Palo Alto Square and CPI across the street. In looking at it again, I really appreciate how those properties have land berms that hide the parking and the pavement areas. If there's a way to elevate some of that public landscaping space so it's more of a berm, it would actually hide a lot of the concrete. I'm sorry; it's been a TRANSCRIPT    Page 15 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  while. Did the previous plan align with the adjacent property at 16 feet back or did you explore that at all? Mr. Popp: We had explored that in concept and done internally some building design for that, but it was severely limiting in terms of the potential for the development of a hotel with a double-loaded corridor, which is a pretty consistent and standard design for hotels, so we had to abandon that. Part of why we're asking for the full removal of the 50-foot special setback rather than just partial is just dimensionally it's very hard to get it to work without that. Council Member DuBois: I know in 2013, before I came on Council—maybe it was 2014—there was some interest in expanding sidewalks along El Camino. There was a discussion. I had (inaudible) never come back. To me, like you said, it's an entrance to the Research Park. I think the Research Park itself has nice setbacks, very much looks like a nice collegiate office park. I might disagree a little bit with Council Members Kou and Holman in that I actually think the vehicular flow into the Research Park is important and keeping that pork chop there and allowing turns so that the traffic doesn't back up onto El Camino. I'm kind of torn about actually the width of the sidewalk on El Camino. I don't see it as a particular pedestrian place today. Mr. Popp: Just to make it clear for you, since I hadn't spoken about it. We are maintaining the pork chop and the channelized turn. Council Member DuBois: There was a comment in the Staff Report about removing it. I actually think it's pretty important to flow into the park, and then you've got these massive set-back buildings where it's going to be mostly people driving to the Research Park. Overall, I think you've done a good job on a challenging piece of land. I think the landscaping plan here is going to be pretty important to not make it look like it's all concrete and construction there. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Coming at this from a slightly different direction and some of the things that Staff mentioned as well. This is a particularly important corner, especially as far as the Grand Boulevard and El Camino and so forth. From looking at what the visuals are showing, it certainly improves that area and that corner pretty dramatically. A couple of more specific questions on this. Maybe, Randy, you can answer. Will there be a restaurant, coffee shop, some place in there that can be used by not only those who are staying there but people who might be walking by? Mr. Popp: We haven't gone that far with the discussion about what exactly the hotel will be, whether it's a brand or whether it will be privately TRANSCRIPT    Page 16 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  operated. The family will maintain ownership of the property overall. Currently, the concept is for a hotel with amenities that only serve the guests. The idea that there would be a little café with some coffee service inside for the use of the guests, those types of things, or someone that the guest might bring back with them to the hotel, but not really like a Starbucks in the lobby that people would come and use is just not part of the program at this point. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's something you might want to think about, though. What Council Member Holman said was think about how the plaza or the space that is set aside might be used as well. Mr. Popp: My client is nodding yes. Vice Mayor Kniss: Pardon? Mr. Popp: My client is nodding yes. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think it's how you present to the community that's really going to be important. It looks like it will be quite attractive. It will give an improvement on Hansen, which is a miserable corner right now. If you were to make this—we always talk about walking out on El Camino, which is kind of a fairy tale. We don't really see a lot of people strolling on El Camino. If people are staying here, they may walk down to the restaurant. There are two restaurants in a row, and there's the theater. They could walk along this sidewalk to the theater or something else that's close by, making that attractive. Although, I doubt you'd have many people just dropping in to your coffee shop or restaurant; it would be nice if at least they could do that. I'm looking at the applicant and seeing if he's nodding. I think this is going to make essentially a nice entry to the Research Park there. As has been mentioned by the Staff, calling it a much desired visual enhancement to this prominent intersection, I think, is the truth. I know one of the things you've talked about before is having either a shuttle or bikes that would take people back and forth to the Research Park or in that close-by vicinity. Am I right? Mr. Popp: Correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think that would be important as well, having a bike setup of some kind would be important. Mr. Popp: We've talked about having bikes available for the guests. They can easily get up into the Research Park. I know from discussions that many of the people that stay at this hotel actually walk into the business park. We also are intending to provide a shuttle to transport the guests TRANSCRIPT    Page 17 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  through the Research Park and drop them off and retrieve them when necessary. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think that's important. This is going to be a fairly large hotel, so you'll have a fair number of people coming and going during the day. Those are my comments. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I think I'll generally associate my comments with those of Council Member Holman and Council Member Fine. A couple of additional things and maybe a slight differentiation. When it comes to sidewalks, particularly the sidewalk along Hansen, I will withhold a current position on that and remain—what is the phrase we heard at our retreat— open to persuasion from colleagues and others on what the appropriate sidewalk width should be along Hansen. In particular, I'd like to hear more discussion about that. If and when the project comes back to us for a more formal evaluation, I'll be open to argumentation on that one. Appealing corners and edges are really important in design. I'm not an architect, and I'm not a designer. I don't know how to describe it except as a wave effect, if looked at from above, of the balcony that's currently described here. I understand this is not a finished design and, I'm sure, many things will change before it comes back to us, if it does, in the future. I find that wave design of that second-floor balcony to be a very attractive architectural and design feature. It makes it a softer building. Things like that should be pointed out and appreciated in making El Camino Real a really appealing place. I think we should ask the question, "Why don't people walk more on El Camino Real?" If people are walking out of a hotel—it was discussed by the applicant that their hope is this continues to be a hotel site where people can walk or bike or take a shuttle out of the hotel to their destinations at either Stanford, local business, in the Research Park, etc. I think we want to encourage that. Some of the reasons why people don't walk more on El Camino Real are because of a lack of quality design that makes for a pleasant experience for pedestrians walking and also a lack of destinations. To echo what Vice Mayor Kniss said, whether it's a café, restaurant, bar, whatever, if there is a destination where pedestrians can make it their destination or if they're walking along El Camino and it's a hot day or it's raining, they can pop inside and grab a cup of coffee or something or a bite to eat, that helps improve the general experience of being along El Camino Real for a pedestrian or a bicyclist. I would encourage paying close attention to Vice Mayor Kniss' comments on that as well. For the most part, I do hope that the ARB and the PTC do consider the context which is, as Council Member Fine pointed out, the TOT from this is important for the City budget from hotels in general. This is an appropriate place for a hotel. TRANSCRIPT    Page 18 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  There's a hotel there now. What I've seen so far from the applicant seems reasonable. Again, I hope the ARB and the PTC look at it with an open eye but provide constructive criticism to make sure we do have the best- designed project going forward. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Thanks. Thanks very much for bringing this back to us tonight. Here are what I see as the pros and cons. The pros. First of all, it's a good use of the site. It's a good location for a hotel. Also, as other people have mentioned, this is a really pretty design. It's a big step forward from the really early concept from a year ago. I think this brings the average up in Palo Alto. Cons. That corner right now has a significantly more open character than it would with this. Other people tonight have talked about optimizing the sidewalk treatments to preserve some of that and so forth. If you look at the area, there are big setbacks on basically all the other properties down Hansen Way. The worry is, if we rezone this one, eventually we'll end up rezoning all the others as well, and that will go away. One concern is are we in this process again of making broad policy decisions one tactical decision at a time. That would be the cons. All that said, I recognize the challenges of this property configuration. There's no obvious, easy way to satisfy all the constraints at once. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: I'd also agree that we should eliminate the 50-foot setback on this. It is a really nice design. Greg, did you want to speak? Council Member Tanaka: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Why don't you go before me? Council Member Tanaka: I'll be quick. It's seems to make sense to get rid of the 50-foot setback. For the City, we definitely need the revenue from the TOT. It seems like a good project, but I look forward to seeing the recommendation from the PTC. Mayor Scharff: To pick up where I left off, I'd also say it's really important, the plaza, the pedestrian feel there, the fact that, as Vice Mayor Kniss said, you should have a bar and/or serve coffee and that kind of stuff as well. You want people to be able to go there and sit and have a drink or have a sense that it's usable. I also think that's useful for the Research Park a little bit. There's not many amenities in the Research Park, and this could be something that's walkable for someone to have a cup of coffee or something like that. I also think it would be helpful in terms of not having so many trips. If you have stuff there, people can sit there, and they don't have to go driving just to get that cup of coffee or have a drink or do something like TRANSCRIPT    Page 19 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  that. That's helpful in terms of cutting down trips. I also think the building looks really attractive, at least in the renderings. You've done a fairly nice job with looking at these issues. I also look forward to seeing this hotel getting built. Thanks. With that, I think we're complete with our Study Session. Mr. Popp: Thank you all very much for your time. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Mayor Scharff: I don't think we have any Agenda Changes, Additions, or Deletions. City Manager Comments Mayor Scharff: Now, City Manager comments. James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. Four items to report. The last one you will help me out with, David. First of all, on the sustainability front, I did want to share that Palo Alto was named a Green California Leadership award winner in the Sustainable Community category this week as part of the Green California summit held in Sacramento. We're the only jurisdiction in the state to be recognized in this Sustainable Community category. These awards were established as a forum to recognize outstanding environmental achievements in California government. This particular award is presented to a city or a community that has implemented community-wide sustainability projects and programs. Special attention is given to communities whose programs are creating environmental awareness and action through and across our population including business, government, and private citizens. In more green news, two members of the City Staff, Assistant Public Works Director Phil Bobel and Chief Sustainability Officer Gil Friend, as well as community member Sandra Slater were featured in the leadership series article in the April edition of Sustainable City Network magazine. The article highlights the history of our City's commitment to sustainability as many of the current initiatives and achievements we've achieved over the past years. County Measure A funding for affordable housing. The County of Santa Clara provided City Staff with an opportunity to comment on draft loan program guidelines for Measure A affordable housing funding that was approved by the voters in November. Apparently the County's plan is to pool all of their housing funds into one master over-the-counter loan program. The funding will include the 2016 Measure A housing bond, a No Place Like Home program, and a few other existing county-wide housing funds. City Staff provided some comments on the draft document including a request to include a local preference to ensure an equitable geographic distribution of TRANSCRIPT    Page 20 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  funds and to clarify eligible uses and the amount of funds available. Several other jurisdictions will be providing similar comments to the County via a joint letter. We will stay in contact with these jurisdictions and County staff and keep the Council advised as to when revised guidelines are developed for dissemination. Just a reminder that Saturday, May 6th, is the 95th annual May Fete Children's Parade, which will start at 10:00 a.m. along University Avenue. This year's theme is My Hero Is, and then fill in the blank. Kids as well as some adults too will be dressed as their favorite hero. As part of the fun, the Oaxaca fire chief from our Sister City in Oaxaca is visiting this weekend for the May Fete Parade as well. With the generous support of our City Council and tireless efforts of Neighbors Abroad, two pieces of fire apparatus from the City of Palo Alto are getting ready to head to Oaxaca. To celebrate, Fire Chief Manuel Maza from Oaxaca will attend the parade along with Oaxaca Administrator Marcela Cabrera. In addition, Lupita Vargas, the new president of the committee in Oaxaca, and Maria del Pilar Zamora will also be here. Chief Nickel and Chief Maza will be marching in the parade. There will be a community meet-and-greet at Heritage Park following the parade. Lastly, in that regard, Neighbors Abroad is working to finish raising $6,000 to ship and deliver the two vehicles to Oaxaca. They'll be leaving immediately after the May Fete Parade in order to arrive in Oaxaca by the beginning of June. The last item is part of our Public Art Program. The Truth Booth was outside City Hall on April 19 for a day. We had about 80 people give their version of the truth. Here is a video on this. [video shown] Thanks again to Elise DeMarzo, all of Staff at the Public Arts Program. Just a reminder again, starting on Thursday, June 1st, through Saturday, June 3rd, we're having the Code Art program in Downtown Palo Alto that will have up to eight different pop-up art installations for engagement of the entire community. I certainly urge folks to be sure to come out. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: May I ask the City Manager a question? Mayor Scharff: Sure. Council Member Kou: City Manager, we've received a lot of letters with regards to the Cubberley rental. Can you give us an update on that? I see that, from your note—it says that they're only utilizing it on May 3rd to the 5th, but it's 17 days that they have the tent. Nobody else can use that turf play field? Mayor Keene: Council Member, I don't have the response and the FAQs that Rob de Geus put together. I think he's working on shortening the period for TRANSCRIPT    Page 21 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  the tent certainly being taken down. It is a 2-day event. I think we've provided to the Council and the community both, the best we can, how the impacts of the event are being mitigated. There's no doubt there isn't some impact. I'll be happy to provide the Council with some detailed information on that. Council Member Kou: I just want to make a point in saying that these are community fields. I certainly hope that … Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou … Council Member Kou: … moving forward that we do … Mayor Scharff: … we don't typically make comments. Council Member Kou: … keep it to the community for decisions. Mayor Scharff: We have—Council Member Kou? Council Member Kou: I definitely do not want to see that our—we're going to have conflict with our community. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: We have Council Member Comments at the end of the meeting that we do. That's the appropriate time to do that. Typically, we ask the City Manager on something he's mentioned. Your questions were actually more appropriately asked at Council Member Questions and Comments at the end. That would be the appropriate time to do that. Council Member Kou: I'll remember that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: You're welcome. Vice Mayor Kniss: Referencing something you did talk about, Jim. Do you know who is driving the fire trucks down this time? I know it's been very interesting in the past. Mr. Keene: No, I don't. I have asked that. My understanding is, of course, we typically deliver them to the border, and then there's a crew from Mexico who make the rest of the trip. Vice Mayor Kniss: You presume maybe we're delivering them to the border. Mr. Keene: That's correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: Trying to get over the wall and then into Mexico. TRANSCRIPT    Page 22 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mr. Keene: Yeah, right through it. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Now, we have a couple of speakers from the public. Neva Yarkin to be followed by Sea Reddy. You'll have 3 minutes. Neva Yarkin: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Neva Yarkin, and I live at 133 Churchill Avenue. The new, revised plans for Castilleja parking garage to exit onto Melville and Alma will create a severe gridlock on Alma. The entrance of the garage will come from Embarcadero to Bryant. Part of Embarcadero will be reduced a lane because of traffic going into the garage. Does the City Council think that Alma and Embarcadero need any more traffic? Do you think the citizens of Palo Alto will stand for this? All I can say is for City Council to really look at what is being planned for Castilleja expansion and listen to the people who live in this town. Thank you very much for your time. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Sea Reddy to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Sea Reddy: Good evening, Mayor, the City Council, and citizens of Palo Alto. I think commemorating the 100 days of President Trump, we are commemorating about 120 days of this City Council. I think you're doing a wonderful job. Continue to do the great work that you're doing. We do have opinions, of course. That's always possible. It's healthy to have them. The Council is looking at people's ideas and use. You're doing the best job you can. I've watched you the last 2 or 3 years, and this is the best Council it can be. The second item is we should be proud of Christian McCaffrey. It takes a village to raise a child. Christian McCaffrey and Solomon Thomas were picked to the NFL. We individually don't contribute; we collectively contribute to their success. We wish them continued success. The third item is May 1. May 1 is an international day for labor recognition. We celebrate on May 6th, 7th. We've done that. it's really to honor all the labor, recognizing labor that contribute to our life. I think we should applaud our labor in Palo Alto. There's plenty of people that work 10, 12- hour days and moving their car every 3, 4 hours because we don't have parking. I do think we need to appreciate that. The fourth thing is my concern, the 12-cent tax. Where is Jerry, and where is Marc Berman? They need to oppose it. We didn't elect them to go and have a 12-cent tax added to people that are already working hard. We may be millionaires. There are many, many millionaires, but there are also working people. I think it's unnecessary. It's a project to nowhere. It's going to just put unions ahead of everything and these projects that are not necessary. I think we need to TRANSCRIPT    Page 23 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  revoke that, and we need to ask Jerry and Marc to reconsider their support. Just blind support for democratic process is not needed. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Rob Levitsky. Rita Vrhel: Good evening. I thought The Truth Booth was great. I love the fact that it's traveling all over the world. I just wanted to make a couple of comments on the ADU meeting that was a couple of weeks ago. It was very contentious yet, in some ways, a reasonable expectation of the fact that it's a very important topic. There was, I believe, very little discussion about this in the public. There were no special meetings. I live on Channing. When the eucalyptus trees were taken down at Eleanor Pardee Park, if some of you remember, I think there was almost a year of public meetings and Council meetings. It just went on forever. Nothing happened here on that, even though the State law had just been passed, I think, in January. I think the public was very ill informed or very little informed of it. Also, I don't really feel there is a lot of transparency on the City Council right now. Every one of you, except perhaps Cory—I felt your position wasn't stated clearly when you were running. Everybody else kind of ran under residentialist headlines of slow growth, moderate growth, reasonable growth, we'll take care of the neighborhoods, everything will be protected, we'll expand reasonably, and the City of Palo Alto will look no different than it does now. With the ADU issue, especially with the no design guidelines and the 6-foot setbacks and the no required parking, Palo Alto will change a great deal. The individual who stood up and said who are for ADUs was very disingenuous because all of us are for ADUs if they are handled properly and you do not make Palo Alto into the next San Francisco. I know that there was a letter by Sue Monk asking for civility in discussion of this issue. We all bear responsibility for that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rob Levitsky to be followed by Stephanie Munoz. Rob Levitsky: Nice to see you guys all again. I have a video that's 3 minutes. This is starting at Castilleja. That's right there. We're heading down Kellogg. I'm just going to show you some of the signs because some of you haven't honored us with visiting our group that's opposed to this Castilleja proposal. You can see house after house is against this; although, Castilleja likes to pretend that they have talked to the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is in favor of this parking garage. It is clearly not. While some of you guys were out barbecuing or at the beach this weekend, we were out canvassing the neighborhood yet again to get signatures explicitly saying that we are not in favor of this underground parking garage. We have to do this. It's been exactly 10 months since they first dropped this TRANSCRIPT    Page 24 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  proposal on us. It's going to be many, many more months of our team regularly meeting to try to stop this project, which just will way overwhelm the neighborhood. We are not opposed to the school, but the school, if they want to expand, will probably need to do it somewhere else because the neighborhood can't accept any more of it. I'm not sure why one of those is playing up-side-down. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Stephanie Munoz to be followed by Jim Poppy. Stephanie Munoz: I'm coming to the end of a month that I've spent taking care of the Heart and Home homeless women's shelter. It really does not seem to me that women need to be sheltered only in the winter. Women need to be sheltered because they need to be sheltered, and it's the responsibility of all of us to see that they have some kind of shelter, maybe not five-star, maybe not meals but some kind of shelter where they will be protected. One of the things that mitigates against that is a simple rule that the Council has that I don't think you're emotionally involved and it's just that way. You divide the land up in two ways. One is the floor allowance ratio, how much structure may be on a given portion of land. I think that has made Palo Alto the beautiful City that it is, that there will be so much garden, so many shrubs and flowers with relation to whatever buildings are there. That could be also for a 100-unit apartment building just as well as a single-family home. The 100-unit apartment building could conform to the FAR if it were in the midst or on the side of a park, and the park could be open to the public and would serve very well. If, on the other hand, you insist that there's an arbitrary rule that the land be divided into so many units, look at it from the developer's point of view. Here's the developer; he has money; he has to make a living. If he has only five units instead of ten, he has to make them as big as possible to make a living. That just puts the kibosh on affordable right there. You have to understand and you have to agree, I believe, that people can downsize to smaller units. I have among these women one who is—she was retired. She was in a $1,000 a month apartment, and she was evicted for no reason in particular except that the owner wanted to do something else with the property. She cannot find anything. There isn't anything. I believe it's up to the Council to see that small units are provided and that they suit the aesthetic of Palo Alto, that they have gardens, that they have whatever, but that people be permitted to live in smaller units. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Jim Poppy to be followed by Mary Sylvester. Jim Poppy: Hello. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. My name is Jim Poppy, and I've lived at 135 Melville for 39 years. I'm intimately aware of the issues around the Castilleja development. I lived there when the City TRANSCRIPT    Page 25 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  gifted part of our street to Castilleja, which it's now locked up for Castilleja's use only. Castilleja would like everyone to believe that an underground garage would reduce traffic on neighborhood streets. This is a very misleading statement because there are currently two locations, one on Bryant and one on Kellogg right in front of entry doors to the campus where motorists can efficiently pick up and drop off students. These stations can be approached from several different directions. There are three options for the motorists to exit in any direction that coincides with their route. An underground garage with one entrance and one exit would merely intensify the traffic into three locations, onto Bryant, onto Emerson and Melville, and onto Embarcadero, which apparently they want one lane gifted to them on Embarcadero. With only one option for entry and exit, cars will be lining up and onto Bryant where bicycle traffic safety will be jeopardized as well as other motorists. Once you're into—any motorist who wishes to go in any direction other than east on Embarcadero will be faced with weaving their way back into oncoming traffic, people trying to enter the garage off of Embarcadero, then trying to turn left or right onto Bryant or Waverley or some other street, and then find their way back to whichever route they want to go. This is not merely time spent in the garage versus time spent on on-street parking. This is the entire driver experience. Castilleja claims these times would not be much different, but they're not taking into account the destinations of the motorists. I doubt that the majority of the motorists will want to be traveling east on Embarcadero when they drop off their student. Castilleja has done a good job reducing traffic into and out of the campus, and neighbors are not complaining about the traffic. They're complaining about the 16 years of CUP violations and the increase in enrollment that would cause more traffic and pollution. Castilleja can certainly find another location if they want to expand. They claim that traffic monitors will make sure that motorists exit the garage onto Embarcadero but only at peak times during the school day and for large events. Castilleja is already not reporting many events, and they hold more than 100 events per year plus a summer camp. In effect, about 99 percent of the traffic leaving the garage will have the option of going straight down Melville instead of being dispersed throughout the neighborhood. Once motorists are on Melville, it can take several minutes to make a turn, especially if there's any traffic at all. Cars will be backed up on Melville several times every day all year. This is not just 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Monday through Friday 9 months of the year. This is 24/7. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mary Sylvester to be followed by Arthur Keller. Mary Sylvester: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council. I'm Mary Sylvester. I reside at 135 Melville. I am here joining my colleagues, friends, and family members who are very concerned about the Castilleja TRANSCRIPT    Page 26 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  expansion plans. As you may know, Castilleja submitted revised documents for their expansion plan on Friday, 4/28. We, the immediate neighbors of the school, have studied the school's updated and submitted plans. We remain strongly opposed to the underground garage. This garage will cause increased congestion on Bryant and Emerson Streets due to traffic flow problems as people enter and exit the garage. Additionally, there will be a significant traffic burden on surrounding streets, Melville, Kellogg, and Churchill, resulting from parents and students not wanting to wait for entrance to the parking garage, a rise in safety risks to bicyclists on the Bryant Street boulevard including children that use this safe route for transportation to and from school. Next, we're talking about the removal of two homes from the permanent housing stock in this community at a time we cannot afford that. One of these homes is also a potentially historic site. We're also talking about the removal of protected oaks and redwoods and generally a cumulative, negative impact on our neighborhood, the traffic, the aesthetics, the safety, and the overall environment during and after many years of construction. If the 2000 Conditional Use Permit that Castilleja had approved in 2000, we would not now be debating this. It's been 15 years of permit violations, and now the school is trying to do an end-run around that and submitting a conditional use request along with their expansion plan. We do not support a rise in the student population nor the expansion plan, and most specifically no underground garage. Thank you, and I look forward to your action. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Arthur Keller to be followed by Alison Cormack. Arthur Keller: Thank you. I'm speaking in a private capacity, not in any public capacity. The first thing is I'm speaking to encourage you to make sure there's funding in next year's budget, fiscal 2018, for a coordinated area plan for Fry's Electronics. We want that to be a public plan, not a plan developed by the property owner that we have to react to. That plan, I was told, should start after the Comp Plan is approved. That's going to be happening in months. Before the end of the year, that process should be commenced. The second thing is several years ago I got the Planning Commission to recommend and the Council to adopt Palo Alto's participation in the SAFER Bay Program for sea level rise mitigation and flood protection from tidal flooding. I'm wondering why Palo Alto is behind in that. We haven't seen a report from the JPA, so this seems to be falling down. Make sure that when we do get a report there is funding for an EIR for the alternatives to study for how to deal with tidal flooding as proposed by the SAFER Bay project. Finally, a comment about ADUs. Several years ago, a little over a decade ago, I actually planned to build a project, which I ultimately abandoned, to put an accessory structure in my backyard for a home office. The interesting thing about that is I want to put a bathroom in TRANSCRIPT    Page 27 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  there and a sink in the office itself. I couldn't do that because of the rule that an accessory structure should only have two plumbing fixtures. Now, I can put a bigger home office out there. I can call it an accessory dwelling unit. There's no rule that says I can't use it as a home office. I can make it bigger than I originally planned with the extra FAR, and it's perfectly legal. I wonder what the sense is in that and how you prevent people from using the added square footage for home offices as many people would want to do. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Alison Cormack to be followed by Christian Pease. Alison Cormack: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Council Members, Staff, everybody who came tonight, everybody watching. I just wanted to stop by and remind you all about Cubberley Community Center. The reason I'm here is that I was very excited at the City/School Liaison meeting that both the City Manager and the Superintendent of the School District attended and described a joint RFP that will come before you in the next few months. I just wanted to give you a little heads up about that, remind you it's a 62- year-old building that hasn't been a school for PAUSD in 38 years. I think this is a responsibility that sounds like the City is looking forward to discharging. I understand we only have 8 acres on the City side. This will be challenging to work between the two bodies, but I'm here to ask you to do so. We have plenty of evidence that we can take buildings in south Palo Alto, and the community will support making them wonderful. I look forward to seeing all the work you do on this this year. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Christian Pease, our final speaker. Christian Pease: Good evening. I'll be quite brief. I just also came here to urge you to fund a fully coordinated plan for the Fry's site. Development of Fry's is just over the horizon. This is a tremendous opportunity for Palo Alto. No matter what winds up getting built there, what is really important is the community can say after that process is done it was open and transparent and they were heard. It should be relatively straightforward. One great big piece of land, one owner, one project. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. TRANSCRIPT    Page 28 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Minutes Approval 3. Approval of Action Minutes for the April 11 and 17, 2017 Council Meetings. Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll turn to the Minutes Approval. We have one speaker on the Minutes, Arthur Keller. Arthur Keller: Thank you. The interesting thing is there's a reference to the Minutes about the approval of the change to the impact fees for commercial properties. I heard it discussed that you weren't decreasing the impact fees, but you were raising them to $35 a square foot. It's listed today as a second hearing. Interestingly enough, when you look at the second hearing, that was actually originally a first hearing and then a second hearing. It was originally brought up on a first reading on December 12th, 2016. There was a second hearing on January 9th, 2017, which was then continued to March 27th, 2017. At that time, the Finance Committee recommended $60 a square foot for office and R&D. The PTC had recommended $60 a square foot for office and R&D. The City Council recommended on December 12th, 2016, $60 a square foot, the same $60 a square foot for office and R&D. That was changed to $35 a square foot, a reduction of $25 from the recommended by the Council. That was pulled from the agenda and changed to $35, a reduction of $25. I understand that the amount of square footage we're expecting is 2.4 million square feet additional of that. That's my understanding. At 2.4 million square feet times $25 a square foot, that's $60 million savings for development and $60 million lost for our affordable housing fees. I'm not sure if that math is correct, but it seems to me very simple. $60 million into the pockets of development for 2.4 million square feet, from the pockets of our low-income housing that could go for building hundreds of low-income housing units. I think that was a mistake. Thank you. I just think it's kind of odd that it only refers to what is a second reading. It's kind of weird because it's actually in some sense a third reading on that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, I need a Motion to approve the Minutes. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: Moved by Vice Mayor Kniss. I'll second it. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to approve the Action Minutes for the April 11 and 17, 2017 Council Meetings. Mayor Scharff: If we can vote on the board. That passes unanimously. TRANSCRIPT    Page 29 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Consent Calendar Mayor Scharff: Now, we're at the Consent Calendar. I need a Motion on approval of the Consent Calendar. I'll move the Consent Calendar. You'll second it. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to approve Agenda Item Numbers 4-10. 4. Approval of Seven Separate Contract Amendments With; Forsys Inc., Sierra Infosys, Inc., HPC Heck & Partner Consulting, Inc. dba: HPC America, Techlink Systems, Inc., Quintel-MC, Inc., DGN Technologies, Inc., and Khalid Salman Mohammed for SAP Professional Services in a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $350,000 Annually for all Seven Contracts. 5. Approval of Supplement Number 1 to Amended and Restated Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) Joint Powers Agreement to add the City of Shasta Lake as a NCPA Member. 6. Approval and Authorization for the City Manager to Execute a Master License Agreement for use of City-Controlled Space on Utility Poles and Streetlight Poles and in Conduits With Astound Broadband, LLC, DBA Wave for a Combined Initial and Potential Extension Term of 20 Years. 7. Approval of Contract Amendment Number 2 to Contract Number C16158064 With BKF Engineers for a Time Extension From March 27, 2017 to September 27, 2018 for the Embarcadero Road Corridor Improvements Project (CIP PL-15001). 8. Resolution 9677 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Decommissioning the Storm Drain Oversight Committee on May 31, 2017 and Establishing a New Storm Water Management Oversight Committee.” 9. Ordinance 5411 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Chapter 2.11 of Title 2 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Reauthorize Public, Education, and Government (PEG) Access Fees That Will Apply to AT&T as it Provides Service Under its State Video Franchise (FIRST READING: April 17, 2017 PASSED 9-0).” TRANSCRIPT    Page 30 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  10. Approval of a Contract With BiblioCommons Incorporated for BiblioCommons Service Platform for the Palo Alto City Library for a First Year Cost Not-to-Exceed $173,220, and Full Contract to Last not More Than Three Years (2017-2020) for a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $323,764 and Approval of a Budget Amendment in the Technology Fund. Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Action Items At this time Council heard Agenda Item Numbers 11 and 12 concurrently. 11. Comprehensive Plan Update: City Council Review and Direction Regarding the Revised Draft Transportation Element. 12. Comprehensive Plan Update: City Council Review and Direction Regarding the Revised Draft Land Use and Community Design Element. Mayor Scharff: That brings us to our action items. Our first action item is the Comprehensive Plan Update, the review of the revised draft Transportation Element. We have a Staff presentation. While the Staff's getting organized, I'll say a couple of things on this. As we're doing Items Number 11 and 12 today, I think it's actually quite momentous. If we all recall, this process started in 2006 with the Planning and Transportation Commission starting this in 2008. I'll tell you that the end is in sight, which is after—I can't even do the math anymore. From 2006 to 2017 is 11 years. Tonight, we have the Transportation and Land Use Elements. On May 15th, we're going to do the Natural Environment, Safety and Business Economics part. Business Economics and Commercial Services, I think it is. On June 12th, we're going to do the intro, the governance, and the implementation, and then send it off to the PTC, who is supposed to review it over the summer, come back to us roughly in September. In September, we'll take it up one final time. Then, we will likely pass it in September or October. That is the schedule for the Comp Plan, and that's why I say it's momentous after all these years, in that we are very close to the end. I thought everyone would like to understand the schedule and see where we are on this process. Director Gitelman, are you ready? Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank you, Mayor Scharff. Thank you for that introduction. It is nice to be at this point in the process. I'm Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. I'm joined TRANSCRIPT    Page 31 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  by Elaine Costello, who has been helping us with this project for quite some time now. In addition, we'll be joined momentarily by Joanna Jensen from our consultant, PlaceWorks. Elena Lee and Joshuah Mello are in the audience to help us with questions this evening. As the Mayor mentioned, we're actually trying to do two things tonight. We've separated this into two separate presentations. The first one is the Transportation Element, and the second one is the Land Use Element. We believe that both of the elements in the form they're being presented to you tonight represent really solid work—they have taken a lot of time and effort over the years—first, work by the PTC, and then a whole bunch of community input to the Citizens Advisory Committee. The Citizens Advisory Committee held multiple meetings, both at the full CAC and at subcommittees. Then, the Council has been engaged in the review of these elements previously and given us their comments and direction multiple times on both of these elements. What you see in the packet this evening in both a clean copy and a track-changes copy are elements that are the product of a lot of work. We think, at this point, they're really solid, which is not to say they're 100 percent done either. We hope to get your review and input this evening and then, as the Mayor mentioned, there will be a referral to the PTC. These work products will be back to you towards the end of the year for any final review and changes that the Council wishes to make. With that and with perfect timing, I'm going to hand the presentation over to Joanna to walk through the Transportation Element review process thus far, summary of revisions, and our recommendations. Joanna Jensen, PlaceWorks: Thank you, Hillary. On the next slide, we have an overview of the history of the Transportation Element, kind of its path to date. This is an element that the CAC, of course, worked on extensively through a number of meetings of both the full CAC and a transportation subcommittee. They worked very hard to arrive at consensus on an element to refer to you last July in 2016. We brought that forward in August, and then you had a more detailed discussion of that element—the Council rather—in September 2016. The element that's before you tonight is one that has been revised to reflect those comments that you gave last fall, in September 2016. Of course, we also added planned roadway improvements or infrastructure improvements at that point, part of what we wanted to bring to your attention tonight. In addition, we brought that revised element back in January, as you recall, for a review of both the Transportation Element and the Land Use Element side by side. At that meeting in January, you probably remember that most of the time we spent talking about the Land Use Element, so we didn't have an in-depth discussion of the Transportation Element at that time. It's back before you tonight for a more in-depth discussion. In the interim, we have used that time to go over the programs with Staff and make sure that they're current TRANSCRIPT    Page 32 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  and update some of them to respond to the EIR and its mitigation measures and the supplement to the EIR that was released in February. Tonight, you have the most current and up-to-date version of the Transportation Element including both past Council revisions as well as some recent updates to programs provided by Transportation Staff. Since the last time you saw this, here's a few of the things that we've done. As I mentioned, in response to your September 2016 comments, we have restored the existing policy on parking impacts in terms of parking impacts on neighborhoods adjacent to commercial areas. That's what used to be Policy T-47. We've added some specificity to the TDM requirements and strengthened the wording on support for transportation management authorities. That is an example of something that's also very consistent with mitigation measures in the EIR and the supplement to the EIR. We also responded to Council direction to streamline and refine the element and see if there was some improvements that could be made to both the word and the organization to make it a little bit more readable and user-friendly. As I mentioned, we also added the infrastructure improvements, which are listed both in the element and in your Staff Report. We updated programs in consultation with Transportation Staff. Fortunately, what we found when we started going through these more carefully since January is that a lot of the programs are already underway, and one or two of them had actually been accomplished. We've updated those and, again, we have made some refinements to reflect the EIR and the supplement to the EIR that was published in February. Tonight, we're asking you to take a look at and confirm your support of the list of the transportation infrastructure investments; that's a required part of this element. As you probably recall, both Transportation and Land Use Elements you're looking at tonight are required elements under State law. Specifically in the Transportation Element, one of the things we need to do is provide a specific list of future improvements, and those are supposed to be connected with and supportive of the Land Use Map. This is an important component of both elements here. The other infrastructure improvements that are also important components are those infrastructure projects that will have a direct and significant effect on Palo Alto but are going to be undertaken by other agencies, things like the County Expressway Plan; improvements on 101; of course, Caltrain modernization; BRT bus changes on El Camino Real, etc. There are two categories of infrastructure improvements. Although the City is not responsible for this second list of infrastructure structures by other agencies, we do want to make some clear statements about those projects and the City's support for them or not in the Transportation Element. Finally, this is a chance to look at the Transportation Element before you refer it to PTC, any additional comments that you have on the changes that you see in the element that we've brought back to you since the last time the Council reviewed it in September 2016, and just make sure that we're hitting both the major and any minor TRANSCRIPT    Page 33 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  points that need to be hit. The list on this slide really includes the important ideas that we've tried to capture in the Transportation Element. All of these ideas are things that we've heard dating back to community workshops in 2014 and the summit in 2015. Those ideas have been developed through the CAC process, and you've had your chance to review them as well. We want to make sure we've got these right. Reducing reliance on single occupant vehicles; addressing the first and last mile issue; definitely focusing on traffic congestion and seeing what we can do ameliorate existing congestion and prevent that from getting worse; improving connectivity; addressing impacts to the neighborhoods; meeting parking demand as well as responding to changing parking demand over time, which was something the CAC spent a lot of time talking about and arrived at a consensus for a solution on parking; prioritizing pedestrian and bicycling safety; meeting the needs of transit-dependent communities, which is a new idea in this element; preparing for changes across all modes of transportation, which I think we can see are happening really rapidly even during the time that this element has been in process; and then importantly in terms of the infrastructure improvements prioritizing grade separation and regional cooperation to make these other projects happen. A lot of these ideas are carried over from the existing Transportation Element. They've been refined; many of them have been strengthened. We're very interested in your feedback on how they're shaping up tonight. Ms. Gitelman: This is the schedule that the Mayor reviewed. I don't know that we need to go into any detail, but we are happy to answer questions on next steps. I think Joanna has summarized our recommendations this evening. We, of course, want to hear from the public and from Council. We are available for questions. Mayor Scharff: A couple of things. I just wanted to make clear that while we're starting with transportation, I'm actually calling both items. As Council, let's just talk about transportation, and then we'll move to land use. Since we called it this way in the Staff Report, I wanted to give the public the opportunity to speak on both transportation and land use when you do your public comments. What I was going to do is I was going to go to the public first, and then I was going to come back to Council for a round of comments. I think that just works the best. I know you guys are here and wanting to speak. Do we have the … . What's the confusion? Council Member Holman: Are you saying that members of the public will get to speak twice, once for transportation and once for land use? Mayor Scharff: No, they get to speak once. We're calling both items because they're both—if you look at the agenda and you're a member of the TRANSCRIPT    Page 34 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  public, it says that we're taking this from 7:05 to whatever. I'm allowing the members of the public to speak on both transportation and land use at the same time. I'm calling both items technically, but as a Council, making it easy for us, we're going to start with transportation and then move to land use. Does that make sense to you? Council Member Holman: I understand where you're coming from, but my concern is there are two whopping big considerations. To limit the public to 3 minutes for the combined land use and transportation is not very much opportunity to speak and address their concerns or priorities. Mayor Scharff: Let's see if anyone has any—the only person who wants to speak on both 11 and 12 is Arthur Keller. Let's move forward. The first speaker is Greg Schmid. Greg Schmid: Good evening. I couldn't resist coming and making comments on the Comp Plan. Thanks very much for the opportunity to do so. Tonight's important because you're talking about two key elements, land use and transportation, and the intersection of those two elements of the Comp Plan. To me, the single most important number in the whole of the Comp Plan is the 1.7 million square feet of new commercial growth permitted over the life of the Plan. This is an average annual growth rate, which was two times as high as the actual growth rate in commercial square footage in the monitored area from 1989 to 2015, and it exempts the 1.3- million-square-foot Stanford Medical growth that is currently taking place but not yet occupied. I would note that the traffic impacts are not exempt from the City. It is important to note that the Stanford Medical exemption only came after an agreed upon mitigation. In that mitigation, Stanford Medical has agreed to pay $2.5 million per year to offset the increase of workers of about 2,500. That's $1 million per year per 1,000 workers. The traffic element has many statements in there that identify and support good opportunities for traffic mitigation, but there are no concrete numbers on dollars and there's no clear statement on responsibility for payment. In fact, Policy T-1.24 ends by saying when other sources are unavailable, continue to fund through the General Fund. The Transportation Element should contain a clear statement of the size and scale of the cost of the mitigation and who is responsible. I think it is important that the Transportation Element have such a clear statement. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Arthur Keller to be followed by Hamilton Hitchings. Arthur Keller: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council Members. Firstly, I'm actually speaking on my own behalf, not in any official capacity. I'm TRANSCRIPT    Page 35 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  probably the only one who served on the Planning Commission throughout the whole time of the development of the Comp Plan and served on the CAC as well. I'm not sure whether I get the blame or the credit for this, but I certainly share it with a lot of people. Also, I appreciated the opportunity to work with Staff and the consultants on this. It was a very interesting process and a lot of give and take that was hard fought on the CAC. First, on the Transportation Element. one of the things that we compromised on was that all new development projects should meet parking demand generated by the project consistent with established parking regulations. As demonstrated, parking demand decreases over time. Parking requirements for new construction should decrease. I think that was a good thing that we pretty much achieved unanimous agreement of this on the CAC. I think that's really a good compromise. I noticed that the program underneath it says evaluate the need to update parking standards in the Municipal Code based on local conditions, which is a good idea, different users' needs, and baseline parking need. That's an evaluate. The next sentence under T-5.1.1 is allow the use of parking lifts for office/R&D and multifamily housing as appropriate. No study, no change the ordinance, just allow as appropriate. What does that mean? One of the interesting things about this is we have an electric vehicle charging infrastructure ordinance that basically requires as much as 25 percent or, in fact, most of the parking for multifamily housing to be electric vehicle charging infrastructure compatible. There are no vehicles produced by standard manufacturers that are compatible for charging with parking lifts. I think this needs to be studied as opposed to just considered as an "allow" kind of thing. The second thing I'm going to say is about the Land Use Element. The current Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan in the Community Services and Facilities Element has Program C-7, which is to require an assessment of school impacts prior to the approval of development projects that require legislative acts including General Plan amendments and zoning changes. That's a very reasonable thing. Staff first said it was done, but in fact that should be a policy. It's an ongoing thing that happens whenever you have this. It just happened to be incorrectly written as a program. Then, it was suggested that this be moved from the Community Services Element to the Land Use Element, but somehow it never showed up in the Land Use Element. Since we know that the crown jewel of Palo Alto is not the City government but the schools, we need to think about, in order to foster appropriate dialog between the City—may I continue—and the schools, which is what we should really be coordinating on that. We need to understand the impacts of these developments. This is development projects and legislative changes that are discretionary and the impacts on schools. It doesn't prevent them; it means study them and understand them. We know about SB 50 that was passed, I think, in 1998, 1999. It does not prohibit the use of such studies of legislative changes. It simply prohibits the use in CEQA studies and prohibiting projects based on TRANSCRIPT    Page 36 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  their impacts when you do an ordinary project. It does allow, when there's a legislative change, when there's a discretionary change, for appropriate study of that. I think this program should be reinstated as a policy, perhaps reworded, in the Land Use Element. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Hamilton Hitchings to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Hamilton Hitchings: Even though I'm on the CAC, tonight's comments as usual are my own. I'm very excited about the fact we may actually finish the Comp Plan. Traffic, parking, and affordable housing remain three of the City's top issues for the next 15 years. The vision for an enlightened Palo Alto should be to build new multiunit, affordable housing for folks working in Palo Alto and Stanford, who will continue to work here over the long haul; thus, minimizing SOV trips while maintaining socioeconomic diversity for folks who provide so much to our community but cannot afford to live here. These include teachers, Stanford staff, hospital workers, and City employees. A great example would be some portion of the housing that could be built at SRP or Stanford Shopping Center be below market housing dedicated to Stanford staff. Likewise, below market housing at Churchill or Cubberley for PAUSD teachers. Subsidized housing should be part of every new multiunit project. When up-zoning is granted, it should require an increased percentage of affordable housing. In addition, those Council Members truly committed to affordable housing need to limit office development since new office space built reduces the amount of housing and increases the cost per square foot for that land and the project. Thus, let's address both SOV and affordable housing challenges through smart development. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Grant Dasher. Rita Vrhel: Hello again. I just want to second Council Member Holman's comments about lumping the items together. I've noticed this since the beginning of the year. I had never seen this before in any of the City Council meetings that I've attended. If this is going to continue, then it would be best to just lump everything together when you put out the agenda. What happens, at least for myself—I spend hours putting together 3 minutes of comments. That may not sound like a lot of work to you, but they are. As soon as that yellow light comes on, that means you've got to speak up because you only get one page; you get 3 minutes. It's actually disheartening to prepare to speak twice on two very complex issues, and then come to a meeting and find out that now instead of 3 minutes, you now have 1 1/2 minutes. If there's a way that you could leave the items listed as they are and let people speak to each item, I think you probably would have a happier public. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT    Page 37 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Grant Dasher to be followed by Bob Moss. Grant Dasher: Hello. I'm actually going to avoid talking about some of the more controversial topics in this area. I think I expressed my views on those pretty clearly when this came up in January. I want to instead talk about the parts of the Transportation Element that impact me personally and that I'm looking forward to seeing happening and use those as a frame to encourage the Council to figure out some structure for prioritizing program implementation, which is something that I'm particularly worried about. I live in Midtown, and I drive to work more than I would like, in large part because I work in Mountain View. It's only 3 miles, but I have to cross 101 to get to work. In the summer, I can bike, and I can cross over the Adobe Creek in the underpass. When it's flooded during the winter, I can't. When I first moved here, I was like, "Why is there not a bridge here?" I read and learned about the long saga that is the Adobe Creek bridge project. I'm super excited to see that project is a program that's prioritized in the Comp Plan. Given the past history of the project, I can't say I'm super optimistic about the likelihood that it will be successfully implemented. Similarly, grade separation. I've spent many, many, many minutes waiting to cross over at Charleston during rush hour or at crossings at Mountain View for that matter. Very excited to see grade separation on the Caltrain. I know that one is particularly challenging and complicated. It's probably a higher priority than a lot of the other projects. There's a lot of programs here. I know the programs tend to become just a dumping ground for a lot of people who have a lot of ideas for improving the City. I would really like to figure out if there's an effective way to regularly prioritize those and get the Council to provide specific direction around implementation and us as community members to participate in that process on an ongoing basis. It's not just every 10 years people get to pick their favorite projects for the next 15 years and then just wait for them to go and maybe, possibly get implemented. Similarly on funding. I think it's really important that the funding for these projects be lined up as early as possible at least for the ones that we really think are priorities. I know it's difficult, especially in a community as diverse as ours, to pick which projects are priorities because they're all important. I really think making those hard decisions is one of the few ways to actually get some of those projects rather than none of them. I also want to emphasize that I actually agree with Arthur about the importance of a coordinated area plan for the Fry's site. I think coordinated area plans are a really useful tool. We need one in Fry's; I would like to see in the long term a broader coordinated area plan for the whole Cal. Ave. area and eventually even Downtown. I know that's a massive undertaking to figure out what that would look like probably at a time scale of 50 years. These kinds of plans are really important. We've seen in parts of the City some developer comes and tries to rezone some area of the City, and we TRANSCRIPT    Page 38 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  end up having all sorts of problems. I really would like to encourage increased use of coordinated area plans and prioritization of programs as we move from design to execution. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Our final speaker, Bob Moss. You can speak, Adina, if you wish to. Bob Moss: Thank you, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. The discussion reminded me of a few things that have been touched on very briefly and need more attention. One of them is creating 1.7 million square feet of development is going to generate a tremendous number of jobs. If that's all office space, you're talking about between 10,000 and 12,000 new jobs which, of course, creates traffic problems, demand for parking, demand for housing, greenhouse gas generation. It's going to make a lot of intensification of development worse. It's also going to cut into the retail vitality because, if people can't drive Downtown or to California Avenue because the streets are clogged with people driving to work, they're not going to come down here and shop. They'll go elsewhere. We have to take a careful look at how much and what type of development we're going to allow and exactly where we're going to allow it. At one time, we had limits on where specifically along El Camino we were going to have development. Now, we're just saying the whole area is basically open. That may create problems. I think we have to take a step back and take a very careful look at what we're going to create if we allow this kind of development. One of the things that you have to bear in mind is office rents in Palo Alto are among the highest in the entire world. That means there's a real incentive for office owners and managers to cram as many people into the square feet as they possibly can. They're paying a high rent; get more people in, get more work done. There are a lot of issues creating intensification of use and a desire for more and more where we don't have the capacity to handle it. I think you have to take a very careful look at how all these development issues are going to interact. I don't think we've taken a careful enough look at the interactions, and we haven't taken a careful enough look at the cascading effects. I think it's time to step back and take a very clear, quiet evaluation of what's going to happen if we get the maximum development in Palo Alto. I think it's going to be a much more intense development than we think it's going to be, and it's going to have a lot more negative impacts than we're planning on. It's going to create problems we haven't even foreseen right now. I think we have to pause and take a very careful look at what we're doing. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Adina Levin. TRANSCRIPT    Page 39 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Adina Levin: Good evening. Adina Levin, Friends of Caltrain. I want to make three points as the Council gets to a set of closing decision points on the Comp Plan at this stage, relating to some things that we're seeing not only here in Palo Alto but in other areas of the Peninsula corridor, which is where we focus. The first is to look at the emphasis on area plans that is in this Comp Plan draft and watching how this is done in other cities. The area plans can be extremely helpful in addressing some of the concerns that Bob Moss had mentioned and that have come up in the past. Area plans can be used well to plan for the needs for infrastructure for transportation, for public space, for community benefits for a particular area as opposed to turning that into a negotiation on a development-by-development basis that doesn't feel fair to the community. The community can set the goals for the area and then figure that out driven by the community. Area plans, yea. Second is the trend that we are seeing in the area for housing near jobs and services. The Plan contemplates studying the potential for housing near Stanford Research Park, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford mall. EIRs in areas that are looking to make similar decisions are finding consistently that that results in less vehicle miles traveled per person by giving people less need to drive for key tasks. That is something that's in line with some things that we're seeing elsewhere and is a beneficial thing to include. Lastly with regard to—I see that the Plan asks Council to weigh in, in support of the Page Mill in particular widening. In earlier Council discussion, there were some questions—everyone wants to fix that congestion; the congestion is unacceptable—whether there might be effective alternatives to widening that would get the congestion relief, especially as Stanford has committed to increasing its transportation demand management program. I would ask you if you wanted to work with Stanford to see if there is more than one way to use the money to get the results everyone wants. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we'll come back to Council for a 3-minute round of questions and comments on the Transportation Element. Male: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: No, I was going to let people … Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: The first thing I wanted to say is Staff did a really good job on these two. A lot of good progress since we saw it last in January. I thought you guys really did good work on this. I had one question on transportation, bus rapid transit and mixed flow on El Camino with queue jumping and curbside boarding. I just wanted to make sure I TRANSCRIPT    Page 40 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  understand that there's no lane reduction associated with that. Is that correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. We derived that item from the position the Council took when they reviewed the BRT proposal. If you remember, at that time, the Council said, "We're not supportive of an exclusive lane that would reduce capacity, but we could look at mixed flow." Council Member Filseth: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: I see no other lights. Does no one else have any questions or comments? Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Yes, just two questions. I agree this is a great improvement over the last visit. Thank you for all the effort, and certainly the CAC as well. A couple of quick questions. One of them former Council Member and Vice Mayor Schmid referred to. It seems to be really lite on funding mechanisms and funding approaches. I don't know if Staff wants to address that now or a little bit later. It also seems to be lite on pedestrian. There's a lot of time and energy and effort spent here on how to get people out of cars and TDM and TMA and rideshare and all kinds of other things, which are good. I have no criticism for those, other than to say how do we fund them and how do we ensure in a proactive way that they are effective. If I can find it real quickly, there's—on packet page 285, it talks about curb and sidewalk design. It talks about adding planting pockets and street trees would promote pedestrian use and also provide visual cues to drivers to reduce speed, curb extensions at intersections and crosswalks also slow speeds. I don't see anything that addresses actually sidewalk width and accessibility of the street and the sidewalks and the public rights-of-way for pedestrians. It was referenced earlier by somebody, the Colleagues' Memo that was 2013 or '14 that I was assured several times would be addressed in the Comprehensive Plan. I just don't see it either in Transportation or Land Use Elements. Pedestrians are not getting their full share of consideration here. I wonder about funding because that seems to be not getting good priority. I have a couple of others. If I have 3 minutes, I should stop there. Mayor Scharff: You've got 53 more seconds. Council Member Holman: I have 53 more seconds. LOS, there's not very clear guidance on how it's going to be calculated, what the basis of it is. We've had lots of issues. Every time we review a project, it seems like we have issues about why isn't that an impact. Our LOS thresholds are suspect, I would say, to use maybe a charged word. I'd like to see how we're going to do that. Parking requirements I don't see addressed in here either to analyze and evaluate what current parking requirements really are. The last TRANSCRIPT    Page 41 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  thing that I will throw out there in my last few remaining couple of seconds is, whether it's transportation or land use, it seems like the infrastructure needs to be in place before we enable development and promote development that's going to rely on that infrastructure, if that makes sense. If you have a question about that, I'm happy to answer it. Ms. Gitelman: I think we can provide a response to some of those questions. There is a section in here on bicycling and walking. We've tried to include some policies and programs to address the pedestrian realm. It starts on Packet Page 295 in the clean version. If the Council has any additions or suggestions, that would be terrific. I think we ended up eliminating a program that was specifically related to the Colleagues' Memo based on the Council's Motion the last—the Council's discussion the last time you saw the Land Use Element. We can talk about that further if needed. Also, there is a section in here with policies on funding mechanisms. That's on Packet Page 298 in the clean version. It's in line with policies and programs in the current Comp Plan. It's not going to get super specific; this is a General Plan after all. We're not going to outline costs and specific funding mechanisms, but there are a few policies there. You had a question also about LOS, level of service. There is a policy or actually a policy and a program about retaining significance thresholds for evaluation of projects based on LOS and multimodal LOS as well as VMT. As we mentioned in the Staff Report, we specifically didn't identify what the threshold would be, whether we would change the existing LOS threshold or not. That's something the Council could do in your resolution when you adopt updated CEQA significance thresholds. We just thought it warranted a more in-depth conversation about pros and cons of various choices that you could make in that regard. Council Member Holman: If I could just very quickly respond to that or not, now or later? It's your call. Mayor Scharff: Just take 10 seconds. It's a long thing. Ms. Gitelman: Joanna has one more thing to add if we can slip that in. Ms. Jensen: Thank you. Just briefly, I also wanted to point out that we did hear a lot from the community and from the CAC about the importance of walkability and pedestrian safety and the topics that you're raising. That's addressed, as Hillary said, in the Transportation Element. It also comes up in several places in the Land Use Element. For example, there is a goal, L-9, in land use about public streets and public spaces, with Policy L-9.3 that has specifically some guidance about residential streets. I believe, if I remember correctly, that some of the wording or at least the broad concepts in this TRANSCRIPT    Page 42 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  policy relate to some of the same ideas from the Colleagues' Memo, which we have looked at, in terms of providing and maintaining continuous sidewalks, healthy street trees, benches, and other amenities that promote walking and active transportation. There are several other policies and programs in other goals of the Land Use Element about site design and pedestrian scale and other. They may not say to encourage walking specifically, but they're all about a pedestrian-friendly street environment as another source where those ideas are also reflected. Council Member Holman: I won't make comments now. Mayor Scharff: Let's hold them. Council Member Holman: I'm holding them. That's what I'm saying. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: After looking at the Staff Report and also hearing from a member of the public, Adina Levin, I am concerned as a Council and as a community that we do not include in our Comprehensive Plan support for the widening of Page Mill Road. I just want to make that really clear. Aside from that, I actually think that's it for my questions right now. Let me just ask as a question … Mayor Scharff: You don't have to. It's questions and comments. Council Member Wolbach: I do. I want to get an answer right now if I can. Looking at the Staff Report, looking at Staff Report Page 2, 2A, you are looking for us to indicate whether we support or oppose … Mayor Scharff: We're going to deal with that, but you can … Council Member Wolbach: I just wanted to make sure that you are looking for our direction on that. Ms. Gitelman: One of the specific things we're asking for this evening is for the Council's direction on that list of improvements including that one. Although, I should clarify that based on the Council's direction and response to the County on the Expressway Plan, we included widening to include a new lane provided it was a high occupancy vehicle, HOV, lane during peak periods. That's on the list. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to support having that in the Comp Plan, but we'll take that up when we come back for our next round. Mayor Scharff: Or we won't take it out. Council Member Fine. TRANSCRIPT    Page 43 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mayor. Just following up on Council Member Filseth's comment about BRT. I seem to remember reading a few days ago that VTA has a new pilot project they're looking at doing up and down El Camino. I seem to remember they wanted to do it in a full lane. Is that true? If so, how does … Ms. Gitelman: VTA had circulated an EIR document, and the preferred scenario was in an exclusive lane, which took a lane away from traffic. The Council considered that environmental document and commented that the City was not supportive of that approach but would consider some kind of mixed-flow arrangement. That's what we've included here. Council Member Fine: Thank you. On Number 2H, on Packet Page 253, it talks about Downtown mobility and safety improvements. I think we're all probably supportive of that. I was just wondering if any of those are prioritized by modes, whether we're giving preference to bike, ped, auto. Ms. Gitelman: I can ask Joshuah to respond. Joshuah Mello, Chief Transportation Official: Good evening. Joshuah Mello, Chief Transportation Official. The Downtown mobility and safety improvements are a package of improvements that we're actually working on now, and we'll continue to work on going forward. They include things such as re-timing traffic signals to give leading pedestrian intervals at intersections throughout Downtown; adding handicapped-accessible pedestrian push buttons; pedestrian countdown signals at intersections that currently don't have them; also re-timing all the traffic signals Downtown for motor vehicles; and then assorted curb extensions and improvements to the right-of-way; additional bike parking; and other mobility improvements. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I was just trying to get clarity on which modes those might address. It sounds like a range of them. I would just concur with Council Member Holman. I also had some questions on the funding mechanism stuff. Thank you for the response. I think it would help us and our community going forward if we could beef those up. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: We're all being quite brief tonight, which is not the way we usually are. Interesting. Under the recommendation I'm look at here, you Hillary or your team, as you mention these represent the City's vision for the future. They will need to have funding. I would just once again mention that it would certainly be nice to have a bike bridge over 101, which it would be fun to have it delivered before the Comprehensive Plan is started. I have high hopes for it. I'm going to guess inherent in here—one TRANSCRIPT    Page 44 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  of the things that I hear a lot is about the shuttle and the lack of predictability and needing to know, if you're trying to get out of your car, where is it that you can go. I don't see this in here specifically. I know that you're all aware of that. Josh, is aware of that at the same time. Quickly, again under 2A, I also have difficulty with expanding Oregon/Page Mill. I know we probably don't all agree on that. Even with an HOV lane, I would need some convincing. I'm concerned so many studies show that expanding a highway does very little other than it fills again. That's a perfectly terrible commute; I couldn't agree more. I am not sure that, unless the buses are going to come off the HOV lane on 280, this is going to make a big, long- term difference. Your infrastructure assumptions under 2, which run from A to E, are very good. It's always interesting to see bus rapid transit because, as I recall, we voted no on bus rapid transit. I'm not quite sure why we're saying that's an infrastructure assumption. Can you help me with that? Ms. Gitelman: Again, we drew this from what we understood to be the Council's position on bus rapid transit when it came before you a year or two ago. I think the Council at that time didn't support an exclusive lane that would take capacity away from motor vehicles. The Council was supportive of bus rapid transit if it could be done in mixed flow. We're suggesting—I know there are other parts of the region and the country where bus rapid transit has been implemented without reducing vehicle lanes for cars by using curbside platforms and queue jumping just to give the buses that much of a head start when the light turns green, even in Manhattan on the crosstown streets. Vice Mayor Kniss: We may put it in here, but I have a feeling we'll have a lively discussion about it if it actually happens. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I want to echo Council Member Scharff's comments that we're finally completing the Comp Plan, which feels good. I thought we had voted to support self-driving cars, but I didn't see that anywhere in the Comp Plan. I'm pretty sure we discussed that at a previous session. I agree with the comments on lack of detail on funding and agree with the concern about it coming out of the General Fund. I'm not sure that belongs in the Comp Plan. That seemed overly specific, and that's really a Council prerogative. I do feel like the Transportation Element is still not focused enough on traffic flow. For my colleagues, Liz included, we did discuss in detail the County expressway funding for those improvements. Again, we're talking about Page Mill between Foothill and 280, not all of Page Mill. I was supportive of overall widening, and I was overruled. The focus was on HOV for that area, but it was quite a lengthy discussion. My main TRANSCRIPT    Page 45 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  question at this point was about self-driving cars. Was that in there somewhere and I missed it? Ms. Gitelman: I don't think it's specifically in there. We do have a policy about technological evolution, but it'll take us a minute to find that. I know we spent quite a bit of time talking about technologies as they relate to parking, but there was a suggestion by Council to broaden that policy. We'll put our finger on it. Council Member DuBois: During the life of this Comp Plan, it seems like one of the most transformative changes, and it's pretty absent. Ms. Gitelman: We'll find that policy and get back to you. Council Member DuBois: Overall, I think you've captured several rounds of comments. I have a few detailed things that I may try to give to you later. I think that's it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: In terms of transportation, with regards to enhancing connectivity and also prioritizing pedestrian and bicyclist safety, I hope that we can also explore adding to 1, which is infrastructure investments, the tunnel that is on El Camino between Page Mill and California Avenue, that is closed off right now. It exists, so I'd like to see if we can take another look at it. I think it's something that Council Member Holman has brought up a few times before. That's another way of connecting the east and west and the west to the east. There's another part—did you want to say something, Hillary? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. I just wanted to indicate we did, after Council Member Holman raised that question at one of our last meetings, talk to our colleagues in Public Works about that underpass. It's a pedestrian underpass. They had significant concerns about the condition of the underpass, safety, and also accessibility for people with disabilities. In fact, I even asked them if we could go on a tour sometime. I got agreement that they'd be happy to take me down there sometime after a big rainstorm, so we could wade through the puddles in the tunnel. Anyway, we did look into it, and we found that it would be problematic. Council Member Kou: It's something that is completely going to be considered as not possible to repair or to put any investment into? Ms. Gitelman: I learned just enough to conclude that it would take a significant investment to improve that in some way. TRANSCRIPT    Page 46 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Kou: Also, I would like to also see if there's ways to develop also pathways that are now over—maybe there is a pathway that I have seen between CPI and Barron Park that is on the Santa Clara Water District land. I would love to explore and see if that's a way to get east and west connectivity rather than having to use a complete street on Matadero. More of the east and west transportation of the different modes for now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka, did you want to … No. I'll just briefly say that I concur with Council Member DuBois. I think we had a long discussion regarding the Page Mill—about increasing the lanes from 280 to Foothill on Page Mill. I think we need to do that. The County view is if we don't do that—you're not privy. I don't think we should—when the County gave their explanation, they actually showed all the red lines if we don't do that, what happens, and how bad it gets. I'll be brief. We did have a long discussion, and we got the benefit of having the County here, and we got the benefit of asking questions. I think it would be a mistake. We can't use that Measure B money for other things. That's particularly for the County expressway system. It's not like you can take that money and use it for other things. There's also the whole issue of it backing up on 280, which they need to fix on that issue. On that, I actually am with Council Member DuBois. I actually do think we should have a separate statement and program or policy—probably a policy—in there that says we support self- driving cars in potential. That would be easy enough to direct Staff to put in a policy that does that. I'd be supportive of that. I did want to say that I thought overall Staff did a really good job on this and the CAC and everyone involved. For me at least, for the most part this Transportation Element is pretty good the way it is. Now, we return to Council. Staff's asked us a bunch of questions. I think the easiest way is to break it up a little bit. The first one is the transportation infrastructure investments, which surprisingly enough we generated the most discussion of. The idea is Staff wants us to confirm your support for the following list of infrastructure investments, which is included in the text of the draft Transportation Element. I thought we'd take that up first. Second, we'd go to Number 2, which is please confirm your support for the following list of infrastructure projects, which is the A through E. On 3, basically it's the Transportation Element with the track changes. Staff wants us to confirm our support for them. At that point, if there are any changes to those track changes that we haven't made, either 1 or 2, that would be the opportunity to go into that. I think we should break it up that way. I think it's easier. I think our first thing is to confirm your support for the following list of infrastructure investments. I think the best way to do that is to get a motion out there that says we confirm our support for the following list of infrastructure investments, which is included in the text of the draft Transportation Element below. Then, if TRANSCRIPT    Page 47 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Members want to remove one or have any issues on that, then we can get amendments to that. I'll make that Motion. Council Member Fine: Second. Vice Mayor Kniss: Second. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine seconded it. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 1. Transportation Infrastructure Investments: A. Improvements within existing rights-of-way that provide for traffic calming or relatively small increases in roadway capacity by adding turn lanes or making other intersection adjustments; and B. Full grade separations for automobiles, pedestrians, and bicyclists at Caltrain crossings; and C. Retrofit/improvements to existing grade separated Caltrain crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists at California Avenue and University Avenue; and D. Construction of new pedestrian and bicycle grade separated crossings of Caltrain in South Palo Alto and in North Palo Alto; and E. Pedestrian and bicycle improvements derived from the 2012 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan as amended over time; and F. The United States Route 101/Adobe Creek bicycle and pedestrian bridge; and G. El Camino Real intersection and pedestrian safety/streetscape improvements; and H. Downtown mobility and safety improvements; and I. Geng Road extension to Laura Lane; and J. Middlefield Road corridor improvements. TRANSCRIPT    Page 48 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to speak further to it at this time. I'm just going to let Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Staff, for putting these together. I think this is a nice digestible format. I had my one question about Downtown mobility and safety improvements. Otherwise, I am personally supportive of all of these items here but happy to discuss any of them with my colleagues. Mayor Scharff: That was perfect within my 3 minutes. I see no lights on this. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I also am concerned about the underpass on El Camino Real that was mentioned by Council Member Kou earlier. I understand that there are concerns about safety, and there may be some need for improvements there. It seems like this—if we even want to look at improving it or look at fixing it, this would be the appropriate place to mention that. Sorry. I don't think Letter G captures that sufficiently, unless Staff tells me otherwise. Letter G isn't specifically about improving that underpass under El Camino, is it? Ms. Gitelman: I think you're right it wasn't specifically intended to capture that. If your concern is that not being on this list would preclude us investigating improving that underpass, Council Member DuBois has a good point that we could point to G and say it's within that envelope. We would be able to undertake that if we wanted to. Council Member Wolbach: I would look to the maker and seconder for a friendly amendment to specifically call out existing and potential future underpasses of El Camino Real or at least repairing current inadequate underpasses at El Camino Real. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND THE SECONDER to add to the Motion Part G, “including existing and potential underpasses.” Mayor Scharff: Are you done? Council Member Wolbach: Mm hmm. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I was going to propose exactly what Council Member Wolbach did. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT    Page 49 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 1. Transportation Infrastructure Investments: A. Improvements within existing rights-of-way that provide for traffic calming or relatively small increases in roadway capacity by adding turn lanes or making other intersection adjustments; and B. Full grade separations for automobiles, pedestrians, and bicyclists at Caltrain crossings; and C. Retrofit/improvements to existing grade separated Caltrain crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists at California Avenue and University Avenue; and D. Construction of new pedestrian and bicycle grade separated crossings of Caltrain in South Palo Alto and in North Palo Alto; and E. Pedestrian and bicycle improvements derived from the 2012 Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan as amended over time; and F. The United States Route 101/Adobe Creek bicycle and pedestrian bridge; and G. El Camino Real intersection and pedestrian safety/streetscape improvements including existing and potential underpasses; and H. Downtown mobility and safety improvements; and I. Geng Road extension to Laura Lane; and J. Middlefield Road corridor improvements. Mayor Scharff: I see no lights. Shall we vote on the board? Does anyone want to say anything? Let's vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Let's hope the rest of the evening goes like this. The next one is the transportation infrastructure assumptions, if someone would like to put that out as a motion to confirm our support. TRANSCRIPT    Page 50 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: I'll move that. Council Member Wolbach: I'll second it. Mayor Scharff: Moved by Vice Mayor Kniss and seconded by Council Member Wolbach. Do you want to speak to your motion? Vice Mayor Kniss: I do. I certainly hear there's strong arguments for the funded elements of the County Expressway Plan and support for the HOV lane. I'm going to support the rest of this, but I'd like to have that eliminated. Mayor Scharff: Could we vote on that as a Motion then, as an amendment? Vice Mayor Kniss: We can, sure. Mayor Scharff: Let's put it out there, the Motion, because that was my intent. Let's vote on it as an Amendment. Vice Mayor Kniss: You want to separate it now? Mayor Scharff: Yeah. Vice Mayor Kniss: Go ahead. We made the Motion. I've indicated I don't support it, so you need to do an Amendment, and then we can vote against it or for it. Council Member Wolbach: I would support that as seconder as well. If it needs to be pulled out as a separate Motion, I'm also comfortable with that. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 2. Transportation Infrastructure Assumptions: A. Elements of the County’s Expressway Plan 2040 in or near Palo Alto, including a bicycle/pedestrian trail between Interstate 280 and Foothill Expressway intersection improvements along Oregon Expressway-Page Mill Road between Porter Drive and Hansen Way and at El Camino Real, reconfiguration of the interchange at Interstate 280/Oregon Expressway-Page Mill Road, and an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)/signal system Countywide; and TRANSCRIPT    Page 51 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  B. United States Route 101 southbound improvements from San Antonio Road and Rengstorff Avenue; and C. Caltrain modernization including electrification; and D. Bus rapid transit in mixed flow lanes on El Camino Real using curbside boarding platforms and queue jumping; and E. Improved circulation in the Palo Alto Transit Center, including direct access to El Camino Real for transit vehicles. Mayor Scharff: Let's pull it out as a separate Motion. Why don't you do an Amendment to remove it? Council Member Wolbach: It'd be an Amendment to—do you want to remove the whole one or … Vice Mayor Kniss: Just remove A for discussion. It may have support. In the meantime, I'm going to support the rest. I have some concern about the bus rapid transit and mixed flow. I would say leave it in here, but if it really does get to the point where we're having a discussion about whether the bus will come to Palo Alto, I think at that point we will vote on that again. Those are my comments. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I was looking to see the language up here. I think what we saw up here was different than what we saw in the Staff Report. I just wanted to make sure it was very clear on the exact portion that we wanted to remove, which is the widening Oregon/Page Mill with HOV lanes and to speak to the reason why I think that should be removed. That is an important discussion. We don't have consensus on it yet. If it's going to go in the Comp Plan, I think it should ideally represent consensus. This is one where I just think our Comp Plan should remain silent on that one. We can continue to update our City position outside of the Comprehensive Plan as we learn more. Speaking to the merits for when that happens, we all agree that it is a nightmare commute segment right now, impacting both people coming to or from Palo Alto and Palo Alto residents. Improving congestion along Page Mill Road is absolutely essential. The question is, is it the best method of achieving that congestion reduction and the most cost effective, efficient, rapid and long-term successful way to do it. Although, the County did say that's what we needed to do, when I spoke to the same County officials who presented to us, they said they do not even consider programs such as transportation demand management. That's just TRANSCRIPT    Page 52 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  something that department in the County never even looks at. That's why I think we should pull it out and reserve that for separate discussions. Mayor Scharff: Let's make sure we've got this right. Let's talk to your Amendment, which is really to pull it out. I think that makes it so … Vice Mayor Kniss: It's your amendment. Mayor Scharff: It's the change you wanted to make. Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, the change we wanted (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: What I asked you guys to do was make the Motion to put it on there. What we have is an Amendment to that Motion, which you guys made, which is a little weird. Council Member Wolbach: The second part shouldn't be pulled out. I think we wanted to pull out bicycle and pedestrian trails, just the widening Oregon/Page Mill with high occupancy vehicle lanes. Mayor Scharff: Right. Vice Mayor Kniss: Unless they are one and the same. Council Member Wolbach: That could be separate. Those can be separable. We should … Mayor Scharff: I'll just make the opposite Amendment. Is that easier? I can just do that. We'll make an amendment to put it back, and I'll let Council Member DuBois do that. Do you want to make the Amendment to put it back in? Council Member DuBois: I was hoping we were going (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: You'll second my Amendment to put it back in. That's fine. Let me just make sure we got this right. AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add to the Motion Part A, “widening Oregon Expressway-Page Mill Road with High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and” after “near Palo Alto, including.” Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to this briefly. When the County came here, they went through a large explanation to us of why this is needed. Everyone agrees that this is a really bad section. Council Member Wolbach is correct that the County does not look at other transportation demand management TRANSCRIPT    Page 53 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  projects, and they're not going to. The County expressway money in Measure B is either going to be used for this or it's going to be used for other parts of the expressways. It's not like we can take this money and use it for anything else. We either get the widening or we don't get the widening. If we don't get the widening, then any other solutions to this problem are on us. They're not on the County and not on this money. By running HOV lanes down through here, the most important thing is we provide an ability to have buses that come down, to have shuttles. We have the ability to take off the congestion and solve that problem. I'm actually with Council Member DuBois. You're probably better off actually doing a study and figuring out what is the most efficacious way of doing this in terms of should it be HOV lanes or not. We as a Council looked at this and said to ourselves, "At least with HOV lanes we are reducing single occupancy vehicle trips, and that's a good thing to do." We're encouraging people to commute. That allows people to drive down there and have an incentive to commute together and to run shuttles and other buses that the companies can run and should solve this problem. I think it's a little weird of us, frankly, and inconsistent for us to say we don't support reducing capacity on El Camino because we don't want to run a single bus lane because it reduces traffic capacity, and to say that we should never add traffic capacity because adding traffic capacity is bad. If you didn't have that extra lane on El Camino, then would you say you wouldn't add it? We wouldn't, on the other hand, be willing to get rid of that lane to allow a bus rapid transit system. That's inconsistent approaches in our Comp Plan. We do want this lane. The negative, if we don't put it in the Comp Plan, is we send a message to the County in which they have limited dollars to use for the expressways. There's far more need, as with most things. This money will go to expanding traffic capacity on Lawrence. It'll go for traffic capacity on other expressways, and Palo Alto again will get none of that money, which is what tends to happen. I think it's important we put it in the Comp Plan. Council Member DuBois: Just a few quick comments. Where you ended is actually where I was going to start. I don't think we get to design the County plan. They did a series of public meetings for the new Council Members that weren't on. They showed five or six design options. I believe this also includes Foothill and Arastradero or we talked about that. I'm not sure if it's still in. The scenario where a bicyclist died, he spent a lot of time talking about the configuration of the bike path. My worry is disagreement among us. As Council Member Scharff said, that money's going to go elsewhere. I think it's an area where we really need it. I think it is very unsafe the way cars back up onto 280, onto the freeway itself. It's kind of two arguments here. One, I think we need it. Two, it makes total sense here in the Comp Plan. If we're really split on this, we're just not going to get the money, and it's not going to happen. TRANSCRIPT    Page 54 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Thanks. This is one of those things that transportation technology and programs and practices are changing over time. We all know which future transportation modes and technologies are going to work best in practice, but we can be pretty darn certain that the demand to get workers in and out of the Research Park from the South Bay is going to increase. I can't imagine any transportation mode where having higher capacity on that stretch is actually a negative. Given the County's paying for it, I can't imagine the scenario where Palo Altans are worse off with higher capacity on that stretch of road. Depending on what happens in the transportation world, we may actually be an awful lot better with some of those things that the Mayor mentioned. I think we should have that. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of things. Some of the points that were raised are interesting. Addressing concerns of consistency, safety, and demand are important. Absolutely, no argument on those points. On the question of consistency, I think there is a difference between taking an action to remove a lane of travel and taking an action to add a lane of travel. There's actually consistency there, which is preserving the status quo unless otherwise shown to be necessary and cost effective. I would argue that there is a consistency in saying we don't want to take away completely a lane of travel in El Camino Real, where Council Member Kniss and I have advocated to VTA as well as the rest of the City. There's a consistency between that and not wanting to add to Page Mill because we're talking about preserving the status quo because it's not cost effective. On the safety, absolutely this is a critical safety issue. Wider roads are not safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. The widening of Page Mill Road being tied to the safety improvements of Page Mill Road, I do not think is written in stone and should not be written in stone. We should advocate very clearly that those are severable and importantly severable projects. There are some interim safety improvements in the works for Page Mill Road, but the long-term changes to the Page Mill/Arastradero and 280 intersection are essential for pedestrian and bicyclist safety. I just want to make really clear that that's not what we're talking about with this amendment. On the question of whether this is cost effective, the County officials told us and told me, when I spoke to her in person at the event organized by Supervisor Simitian, it would take tens of thousands of dollars at least to do this, if not over 100,000 to do this. It would take several years of construction work to get it done, during which time traffic would probably be worse on that segment of Page Mill. It would only be effective for about 10 years. You could TRANSCRIPT    Page 55 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  probably say it would only be effective for 10 years out from when you started, so you'd really only have a positive impact for about 7 years or so. As a long-term solution, I really just don't think it's important. I'm happy to be open to persuasion on this one. I just don't think the Comp Plan is the place where we should draw our line in the sand. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: This is a really tough one. I generally agree with Council Member Wolbach on this one. I'm sensitive to the point that he made about widening the road and making pedestrian and bicycle safety less safe or less adequate, I guess you could say. The only thing that would make me—two things would make me persuaded to this, to A that is. One is if, at the end of the first line it says including a … , we add the word "separated" bicycle/pedestrian trail because roadway safety for bicycles and pedestrians is dependent on being separated by a barrier from the vehicular traffic, the larger vehicular traffic. That's one thing that might make me support this. Mayor Scharff: I would accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part A, “separated” before “bicycle/pedestrian trail.” Council Member Holman: Thank you for that, both of you. The other thing that worries me a bit, though, is—again I go back to what Council Member Wolbach said. I'm not sure that we should put this in the Comp Plan because you've heard how much discussion we've had about this tonight. I agree with Vice Mayor Kniss, her comments earlier, about widening a roadway just invites more traffic. That's true; it's been proven over and over and over again. This is such a complicated matter, this particular one is. That said, if we can gain some improvements at 280 and Page Mill, which is horrible, then that might convince me to do that, to support this. I'm not positive this belongs in the Comprehensive Plan as opposed to being a separate discussion. In the Staff Report, it says confirm your support for the following list of infrastructure projects to be constructed by other agencies and that could affect Palo Alto streets during the life of the Comprehensive Plan. I don't know why some of these aren't "consider" or "investigate." I'd feel much more comfortable with "investigate" or "consider." Ms. Gitelman: I don't know if this will help. We really tried to take our cue from prior Council discussions and actions. The Council did discuss the County Expressway Plan after a presentation by County staff and this item specifically, and at the end of the day submitted comments supporting this TRANSCRIPT    Page 56 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  idea of an HOV lane. I think Stanford University submitted a similar comment to the County, that they weren't supportive of widening for widening's sake but, if it was an HOV lane, that would be okay. We were trying to read the tea leaves where the Council had been on this issue and reflect that in the document. It is part of the funded projects with the approval of Measure B. There are funds for the County to do this suite of improvements, but obviously the Council's position on this will be important to how they prioritize their work. Council Member Holman: I certainly respect where you're coming from and trying to, as you say, read the tea leaves of the Council. I absolutely appreciate that. We don't want to—if the money can be well utilized, we don't want to let it go. We also don't want to do a project just because there's money available. We've fallen into that trap before. We don't want to do that. That's what makes this a really complex, complicated matter. The other thing that gives me pause on this is that may be constructed by other agencies and could affect Palo Alto streets. It's a general statement, and the Comprehensive Plan is visionary. I'm not sure it provides the protections for the community with that loose language. I'm still really torn on this. You've heard my comments; you've heard my concerns. I'm still very torn on this. I appreciate getting the word separated added in there. I think it's really important. We're just talking A, right? We're not talking about the whole motion; we're just talking about A. Council Member Wolbach: Actually we're talking about only a few words out of A; we're not even talking about the rest of A. Council Member Holman: Our comments now are to be receiving comments on B, C, D, and E. This is just about A. Council Member Wolbach: Or even the rest of A. Council Member Holman: Just wanted to be clear about that. I'm a little tortured on this one. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I'm also a little tortured, but I'll be brief. I'm probably going to support this. Let me go through a bit of my thinking. The one thing that hasn't been raised here and is actually my main concern is that we're just putting more asphalt up in the hills along Page Mill between the Dish and some other open space. That's there forever. I completely agree building more roads will invite more drivers, but there's a few benefits here I see actually. First of all, some of the 280 interchange TRANSCRIPT    Page 57 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  improvements and the bike and ped trail rely on this widening actually. The new interchange, the new cloverleafs and things up on 280 will rely on this. Vice Mayor Kniss: Those are still in there. Mayor Scharff: Yeah, but you won't get them. Vice Mayor Kniss: You'll get them; you'll get them. Council Member Fine: Maybe. Two, as the Mayor mentioned, this money could go elsewhere. Third—this is probably the most persuasive point for me—Council Member Wolbach mentioned that the County is not currently interested or at least this part of the county is not currently doing TDM or alternative transportation modes. In a way, though, HOV lanes do provide a network benefit to the whole system. If you think about folks commuting into Palo Alto, they have more of an incentive now to carpool rather than driving alone. I'll particularly note that Page Mill here feeds the Research Park. If we expect the Research Park to grow, as Council Member Filseth said, we expect this demand to grow. Perhaps we're catching up in a way here on Page Mill. I think I'm supportive. I do have some worries about bike and ped safety as well as the environmental impacts. It's not a great project. I don't like building more roads, but there's some benefit here. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, if I can? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Ms. Gitelman: If I can quickly interject. Joshuah just informed me that the County believes there's an interrelationship between the widening and the interchange improvements. It'll be hard to do the interchange improvements without the widening. Mayor Scharff: That's what they told me. We don't get one without the other. Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Does the widening also take place at the on-ramp off of 280 coming into Palo Alto? Ms. Gitelman: That's where it starts. Council Member Kou: That's where it starts. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Several things. I don't believe that the County would not go ahead and do some of these improvements. If you remember back to TRANSCRIPT    Page 58 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Oregon Expressway, which was done literally just before I left the County and came back here, they spent 3 years planning, and they really worked hard to accommodate just what we wanted in Palo Alto. While not everyone may be crazy about the eight-way stop at Middlefield and Oregon, it's working reasonably well. They worked so hard with us. They were more than accommodating. Here is my real concern. If we widen the road, we can presume everyone is honest and straightforward and they would not take that HOV lane unless they actually were in a car with two people in it or on a bus. Driving on 101 as often as I do, the HOV lane is as filled as any other lane and certainly not just with people who have two people in the car. Just to call it out plainly, I think you can designate an HOV lane, but you'd want to do it the way they do in LA or other parts where you separate the HOV lane from the other lanes, which we haven't done at this end of California. My second concern with this is that we've been meeting with Stanford Research Park. We've really been pushing TDM, really tried to get them to cut back on the number of vehicles. Now, what we're saying is let's widen the road that goes to the Research Park so they can have more cars after we've been working so carefully with them to say, "Let's cut back on the number of cars that are coming in on Page Mill." Also, all the cars coming down Page Mill are not going to the Stanford Research Park. They're crossing over, and they may be going back in the other direction. Somehow we must think there's a direct route between 280 and Stanford Research Park, and they all stop there. They don't; they continue on. I think we're talking out of both sides of our mouth. We're saying, "It's so important to cut back on traffic. It's so important to have our TDM. We're working hard at it. We are even thinking of how to fund it." Then, we say, "Let's widen the major road that comes in at the southern end of Palo Alto and add yet another lane." Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Perhaps it's a question for Staff. If we were going to include this in the Comprehensive Plan and without just giving—this might apply to some others too—our carte blanche rubberstamp on this, could there be language that would work to say "conceptually concur with"? There's a lot of details that we don't know. We're sitting here tonight trying to conceptually argue this one way or the other. We don't know, as Council Member Fine said, how much is the roadway going to take out of the green space. We don't know some of those details. I don't remember hearing those from the County either. Ms. Gitelman: Thank you for that question. Actually the way the text reads now, it's really just describing these as improvements that are being pursued by other agencies, that will affect us here in Palo Alto. It's not TRANSCRIPT    Page 59 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  indicating unqualified support or any level of commitment on the City's part. It's saying that these are … Council Member Holman: What page are you on? Ms. Gitelman: I'm on Packet Page 279 at the bottom. It says other agencies … are responsible for other projects that will directly affect Palo Alto streets but are not under the jurisdiction of the City specifically and then it lists these. Then, it says these investments would be complemented by local and regional investments in transit and transportation demand management as well as parking supply and parking management. It's more descriptive than anything. Council Member Holman: If it's more descriptive there—I had read that earlier—let me read back up here, earlier. Hang on. If this is just descriptive, why are we struggling so much, acting like the Staff is wanting us to approve these? Will that lead to different language in the Comp Plan as this goes to the Planning Commission, serving to more or less indicate that we are wanting these things? Ms. Gitelman: My Colleagues are pointing out to me packet page 313, where we talk about regional collaboration and coordination. There are policies about engaging in regional transportation planning and advocating for specific improvements such as Caltrain service enhancement, etc., etc. We could clarify any one of these policies if you felt it was necessary to do that. Council Member Holman: If I look at that, say, with Policy T-8.4 on Packet Page 313, it says coordinate with local and regional agencies and Caltrans to support regional efforts to maintain and improve transportation infrastructure in Palo Alto including the Multimodal Transit Center. I guess "coordinate" makes that okay. I'm still a little stuck. Can you get us unstuck or maybe me unstuck? I think I'm not the only one that's tortured here. Elaine Costello, Lead Consultant: If this helps. When we get to land use, you're going to see that a lot more of the decisions are actually in the policies and in the programs. In this case, the policies, which is really what's going to guide here, are very general, and they're 8.1, 8.4, and 8.8 that you could see as applicable to this. It's background information where you get this list. One option is—I just want to be clear about that. You're not adopting a policy in the Comp Plan for these improvements to Page Mill Road. You're listing it as something that's being looked at. We could go in and change the background information to make it even clearer that this is not a commitment because these aren't the local transportation TRANSCRIPT    Page 60 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  improvements. I hope that's helpful to understand that the policy direction is really very general. The background information includes the list. You aren't obligated—this is not a Comp Plan obligation. You would not have to amend the Comp Plan if you did not do this kind of thing. Council Member Holman: You wouldn't consider this as putting this in here—I understand they're not in policies—as programs or … Ms. Costello: We would not look at this as binding. We could easily change wording so that it's clear that this is something that's being considered and would be evaluated over time. We could make that shift in the background information. Council Member Holman: Indicating, which would satisfy all Council Members, that we're open to it, but we need more information. Would that satisfy maker and seconder of the motion? Vice Mayor Kniss: They made the amendment. Mayor Scharff: I don't know, maybe. I have to think about it. I'd have to understand what exact language we're looking at changing. Council Member Holman: Maybe Staff can up with language that they're comfortable with and that would guide us. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Were you done? I didn't mean to cut you off. Council Member Holman: I'm sorry? Mayor Scharff: You were done, right? Council Member Holman: I was done. Just looking to Staff to come up with some wording that might help us all get on board, so to speak. Mayor Scharff: If Staff has that wording, you can let us know after Council Member DuBois has had a chance to … Council Member DuBois: That was a really interesting discussion, because I've been looking for the reference to the Expressway Plan. These motions we're making, I thought they were basically summarizing policies and programs, and we were basically passing sections of the elements as we go through this. This one in particular is not really in there. Is that correct? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. This one and the one that you acted on previously is within the narrative. TRANSCRIPT    Page 61 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member DuBois: Just super quick because I think we've spent way too much time on this one. The whole point of HOV to the Stanford Research Park is that Stanford had run buses to implement their TMA. It makes total sense. It's not to get cars; it's for HOV. You heard from the Research Park their biggest issue is commuters from the south and San Jose. This would be a perfect route to help implement a TMA. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Briefly, I just want to be clear. What we're talking about right now is just the amendment, whether to include the words—talking about where we support things—widening Oregon/Page Mill with high occupancy vehicle lanes. I am open to persuasion on that point; I just don't think we need to include it in the Comp Plan, where it would say we would support elements of the County's Expressway Plan in or near Palo Alto including a bicycle. When we come back to this, we could add "separated bicycle and pedestrian trail between I-280 and (inaudible) expressway intersection improvements along Oregon-Page Mill between Porter and Hansen," etc., "reconfiguration of the interchange at I- 280/Oregon/Page Mill Road. We'd support all of those things and not specifically call out support for the widening. I just think we should remain silent on it rather than giving a big hurrah to the County for this thing, which is a little more controversial. Honestly, I don't think it makes a huge difference one way or another, but I don't think it's worth calling out in our Comp Plan as a positive. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth and Council Member Kou. Council Member Filseth: I just want to comment real briefly on the bike safety issue. We're talking about the stretch of Page Mill that runs between Foothill Expressway and 280. This is kind of a specialty bike route actually. There's not really a lot of bike commuting that goes on, on that stretch. It's mostly people heading for the hills, the Foothills, and Arastradero Road, and so forth. I cycle that stretch all the time. Right now, it's two lanes with a painted bike path on the side. If you compared that with three lanes with a separated bike path, it would be vastly safer than it is right now. Just for me anyway. The major thing is if they restructure the whole overpass so you don't have to cross over Page Mill in the middle of the 280 interchange, which I assume would have to be part of a major construction project, that would make a huge difference too. As somebody who's there, that's what it looks like to me. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. TRANSCRIPT    Page 62 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Kou: Transportation and land use are very intricately linked. Looking at the growth that's going to be coming forward and also Stanford Research Park growing in the next few years potentially, the widening of Oregon/Page Mill is going to be necessary. It does encourage, especially if it's an HOV lane, more carpooling as well as busing. I would actually be in support of looking at that and studying it further or having the County do something with it. Also at that off-ramp, there's constantly a very, very long line trying to come into town. Somewhere, somehow that needs to be relieved. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: On the amendment only. Council Member Holman: Were we not going to wait for the language that Staff was going to use? Mayor Scharff: I wasn't going to accept it, I think. Council Member Holman: You haven't heard it. Mayor Scharff: It's all right. I'm not going to accept it. Council Member Holman: Until this moment, I was just going to say at my next opportunity that I really appreciate the tenor of the Council tonight, until that moment. Until that moment, I really … Mayor Scharff: All right. Let's hear the language. Council Member Holman: … honestly was going to say that. Ms. Gitelman: The suggestion we would make is on Packet Page 279, at the bottom where the sentence currently reads other agencies including Santa Clara County, VTA and Caltrans are responsible for other major roadway projects that will directly affect Palo Alto streets but are not under the jurisdiction of the City specifically, we would add a sentence that says … Mayor Scharff: Wait. You're at packet page what? Ms. Gitelman: 279, at the bottom. The sentence we would add to that introductory paragraph would say, "The City will review these proposals as provided for in the regional collaboration policies contained in this element" or something like that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 63 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I assume that's additional language. Ms. Gitelman: That would be an additional sentence. Mayor Scharff: It'd be an additional sentence that we'd add on Page 279. Where? Vice Mayor Kniss: At the bottom of the page. Ms. Gitelman: Basically it's saying we're going to review the—these are other agencies' projects; we'll review them as provided for in our policies about regional collaboration. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: It would be an addition. It's not instead of the amendment. Vice Mayor Kniss: Added to the Amendment somewhere or not? Ms. Gitelman: It would be after the introductory sentence that's there. Mayor Scharff: Where would it start? Ms. Gitelman: It would go after the jurisdiction of the City. Mayor Scharff: On Packet Page 279. I see it. Council Member Holman: It would get my vote for it. Mayor Scharff: I'm just trying to understand. (inaudible) right now it would be other agencies including Santa Clara County, VTA, and Caltrans, possibly for other major roadway projects that would directly affect Palo Alto streets but are not under the jurisdiction of the City. Then, it would say the City will review these proposals as provided in the regional collaboration policies contained in this element period. I will accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion “add to the Roadway and Intersection Improvements Sub-section, ‘the City will review these proposals as provided for in the regional collaboration policies contained in this Element” after “under the jurisdiction of the City.’” (New Part F) Mayor Scharff: Now, if we could vote on the board. I guess we're unanimous. AMENDMENT PASSED: 9-0 TRANSCRIPT    Page 64 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 2. Transportation Infrastructure Assumptions: A. Elements of the County’s Expressway Plan 2040 in or near Palo Alto, including widening Oregon Expressway-Page Mill Road with High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and a separated bicycle/pedestrian trail between Interstate 280 and Foothill Expressway intersection improvements along Oregon-Page Mill between Porter Drive and Hansen Way and at El Camino Real, reconfiguration of the interchange at Interstate 280/Oregon Expressway-Page Mill Road, and an ITS/signal system Countywide; and B. United States Route 101 southbound improvements from San Antonio Road and Rengstorff Ave.; and C. Caltrain modernization including electrification; and D. Bus rapid transit in mixed flow lanes on El Camino Real using curbside boarding platforms and queue jumping; and E. Improved circulation in the Palo Alto Transit Center, including direct access to El Camino Real for transit vehicles; and F. Add to the Roadway and Intersection Improvements Sub- section, “the City will review these proposals as provided for in the regional collaboration policies contained in this Element” after “under the jurisdiction of the City.” Mayor Scharff: Now, we're back to the main motion. Can we vote on the main motion? I see no lights. That passes unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, for the other Transportation Elements. The Motion should be please confirm support for the track changes in the draft Transportation Element Attachment C. I will move that. Council Member Fine: Second. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member Fine. TRANSCRIPT    Page 65 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: On this one, it's for what they have here through 3, but it's also the opportunity to go through anything in the Transportation Element and suggest any changes you think would be appropriate. I'm not going to speak to this now. Council Member Fine, you want to speak to your Motion? Council Member Fine: Thank you. Once again, I think Staff did a good job of packaging these up together. It's good to hear these are more in the narrative element. The only thing I would perhaps like to change—I look to the maker of the motion—is on Letter F, "meeting parking demand." Would you accept "managing parking demand"? Mayor Scharff: Yes, I will. Council Member Fine: I'd like to make that then. Otherwise, I think these are pretty good. Council Member DuBois just walked out, but we may want to look at Letter I in terms of self-driving cars if interested. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 3. Other Transportation Element Revisions: A. Reducing reliance on single occupant vehicles through Transportation Demand Management (TDM), expansion of the shuttle program, bicycle & pedestrian improvements, and other means; and B. Effective first mile/last mile solutions; and C. Continuing to work to address traffic congestion; and D. Enhancing connectivity; and E. Addressing neighborhood impacts; and F. Managing parking demand and evaluating changing parking needs over time; and G. Prioritizing pedestrian and cyclist safety; and H. Meeting the needs of transit dependent communities; and I. Preparing for technological and societal changes that will affect transportation and parking demand; and J. Prioritizing Caltrain grade separations and regional cooperation. TRANSCRIPT    Page 66 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: A couple of things. Thank you for breaking it out like this. It makes us, I think, be more efficient. On E, I know this is a list and these things are in the … I guess what I'm looking for is—as opposed to addressing neighborhood impacts, I would like to see something like "prioritize avoidance of neighborhood impacts." Hillary has probably heard me say a lot of times I think we rely too much on mitigations and fixes as opposed to avoidance of impacts. I would like to change E to say "prioritize avoidance of neighborhood impacts." Ms. Gitelman: If I can … Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Ms. Gitelman: … interject, Mayor Scharff. I just wanted to bring the Council's attention to the whole section on neighborhood impacts on Packet Page 408. What we're trying to do in this list is just summarize for you what some of the major concepts are that we've tackled in this element with your guidance and with guidance from the CAC. We did spend quite a bit of time putting together these policies and programs, starting on this page, about addressing neighborhood impacts. If there are specific changes or enhancements you'd like to make to those policies, I think that would be more constructive than wordsmithing our summary of what those policies entail. Council Member Holman: The reason I did it this way is because I didn't want to go through and wordsmith all of the programs and such. Again, my focus is trying to avoid impacts as opposed to mitigating impacts and addressing impacts. I'd have to go through and wordsmith a lot of the policies and programs to make that change. It's not new; I've brought it up before. Quite frankly, I think it's what the community is looking for, my opinion of course. Ms. Gitelman: If I can make a suggestion, I'd actually like to draw the Council's attention to the language in Goal T-4. The track changes there are really showing what was done to the original goal that the Council recommended to the CAC. The Council's original goal was protect neighborhood streets that support residential character and provide a range of local transportation options. It could be what you're seeking is to revert to that original language rather than what you see here. I don't know whether that would address your concern, but it would certainly be trending in that direction. TRANSCRIPT    Page 67 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: I'm more in favor of the original language, but I would like to see … Mayor Scharff: The question is do you have a second. I think that's where we are. Council Member Holman: I was wanting to say prioritize avoidance of neighborhood impacts. That's what I'm looking for a second on. Council Member Kou: I'll second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to replace in the Motion Part E, “addressing” with “prioritize avoidance of.” Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, you want to speak? Council Member Holman: Yeah, please. Give me half a second here. I appreciate where the Staff's coming from and yet, when I read through the programs and such, it still seemed like there was a priority on addressing impacts as opposed to avoidance, which would have been more consistent with Goal T-4. That's where I'm coming from. The reason I bring it up here, like I said, is I didn't want to go through and wordsmith all of those. Staff has heard me say before I think we rely too much on mitigations, which is after the fact. Mayor Scharff: Council Member—you've spoken? Council Member Holman: Yeah. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: The wording avoidance gives meaning to ensuring that there's no parking impacts and also speeding impacts, and there is more awareness for safety, etc. I think prioritizing that—what Council Member Holman said—is good for me. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Can I ask a question? Where does this actually go? I shudder to say this, but it seems to me, if we're actually going to do this, we've got to go through the detailed policies and programs. This list doesn't actually appear anywhere. It's sort of broad guidance to you folks, unless somebody else is going to—somebody has to go through and wordsmith these. If it's not us, then maybe it's the CAC or PTC or something like that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 68 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Ms. Gitelman: I think how we would interpret this Motion is direction to Staff to review and revise the programs and policies under Goal T-4 to reflect this nuance. It could be that the amendment, if it was stated that way, would be more clear. Council Member Holman: That's the intention. If the Clerk might pick that up. The objective would be to direct Staff to review the policies and programs to focus on the new wording. I'm not getting this out right. To review policies and programs having to do with neighborhood impacts to, again, prioritize avoidance of neighborhood impacts. I didn't say that well at all. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “review the Policies and Programs under Goal T-4 with the objective of prioritizing avoidance of neighborhood impacts instead of mitigating impacts.” Mayor Scharff: Have you got it? Council Member Holman: I think Staff's going to work on it. Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to this briefly then. I think Staff and the CAC did a good job on T-4. This, while well intentioned, opens it all up again, and Staff will just have to come back to us with more revisions. I don't see anything in particular in T-4 that I have a problem with. I'm going to vote against this. I think we should stick with what T-4 is. If people had a particular concern about something in T-4, that's a different issue. As far as when I read T-4, T-4 is fine. I think it's a real mistake to say to Staff—sometimes I think broad direction is good. As we are closing up and finishing the Comp Plan and getting to the stage where, I'm hopeful, we don't make any more changes after tonight to the Transportation Element, I'd really like us to finish the Transportation Element so Staff can stay on schedule and get done. Telling Staff to broadly go back and look at T-4 with that—we can obviously do that—is not the direction I want to go on this. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I'm sorry. I was waiting for my place in line once we pass this one. Sorry. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the amendment. I see no other lights. That fails on a 6-3 with Council Members DuBois, Kou, and Holman voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 DuBois, Holman, Kou yes Mayor Scharff: Your place in line is back, Council Member Filseth. TRANSCRIPT    Page 69 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Filseth: Sorry. I actually did have a detailed program and policy question. On Packet Page 415, there's T-6.4.3, which says in collaboration with PAUSD provide crossing guards at school crossings that meet established warrants. Is that Track Watch? Is that what that is or is it something different? James Keene, City Manager: That would just be the regular program we have for funding and providing crossing guards at all the intersections around town. That's not Track Watch. Council Member Filseth: What's established warrants? Mayor Scharff: I was wondering that as well. I had no idea what that was. Mr. Keene: It's insider baseball from transportation. Mr. Mello: It is indeed. I'm Josh Mello, the Chief Transportation Official. Established warrants are a method we use to determine whether an intersection warrants a crossing guard or not. It's based on traffic counts and number of pedestrians and bicyclists. Council Member Filseth: I see. Thanks very much. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I have a couple of friendly amendments. I just want to make sure, as a process question for the Mayor, if we had any other minor tweaks or suggestions for the Transportation Element, this would be the time (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: This would be the time. Hopefully we agree tonight on what it should be, and we don't see it again, frankly, until it comes back as the whole thing before we send it to Planning and Transportation. Council Member Wolbach: I have about a half dozen or so Amendments. Should I introduce them one at a time or should I introduce them as a group? Mayor Scharff: I think you should introduce them one at a time. Council Member Wolbach: Hopefully they'll be friendly, and the seconder will be back to hear those. The first one is really minor. It is frankly wordsmithing; I'll admit it. On Packet Page 298, in Program T-1.24.1, this is under funding improvements. I actually think it's a bit too prescriptive, and we should keep it a little bit more flexible. That might mean—I'll just mention what it is. I'd suggest in Program T-1.24.1, in the fourth to fifth TRANSCRIPT    Page 70 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  lines, remove the words "that new development projects must pay to the City." That's not because I'm opposed to new projects paying fees to the City. It's just I think we should keep it a little bit more open. There may be other funding sources as well. I don't want this to be seen as an exclusive list or an exclusive mechanism. I just worry that program will actually limit us too much. Basically, again, just to increase flexibility, my suggestion for a friendly amendment for T-1.24.1 is remove the words "that new development projects must pay to the City." Mayor Scharff: Don't we already have one of these? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah, we actually have four transportation impact fees. We're working on an updated Nexus Study to try and simplify the program. Just to explain the logic here. Policy T-1.24 is broad. It's saying pursue a variety of funding mechanisms. We have a specific program related to the idea of impact fees. That doesn't mean there aren't other funding strategies that would fall under that policy. Council Member Wolbach: Understood absolutely. I really appreciate that. I just want to make sure that a later Council does not misinterpret what we intended here, that we do want to keep it broad. Because what it would say is modify as needed to implement transportation projects and consider new fees for use in reducing roadway congestion, etc. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept it. Council Member Fine: Yep. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “remove from Program T1.24.1, ‘that new development projects must pay to the City.’” (New Part K) Council Member Wolbach: That one's accepted. The next one is, if you look at packet page 300, Program T-2.3.1, which is about incorporating—this is Packet Page 300 or element page T-33, T-2.3.1. This is about incorporating multimodal level of service with our new compliance with SB 743. I would just suggest that we change the—at the end of the second line—word adopt to explore. Again, that's packet page 300. Mayor Scharff: When adopting new CEQA significant thresholds to comply with (inaudible), you would say also explore desired standards to be in multimodal. Council Member Wolbach: Correct. TRANSCRIPT    Page 71 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I'd accept that. Council Member Fine: I'll also accept it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program T2.3.1, “adopt” with “explore.” (New Part L) Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. I was going to suggest on Page 305—I think it was already included by the maker and seconder. I just want to confirm. I was also going to suggest that on Packet Page 305 T-5.1 change the word meet to manage, to manage parking demand. Was that already made? Mayor Scharff: That's fine. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to make sure—that was already done, I think, by the … Mayor Scharff: Right. Council Member Wolbach: You guys already took care of that one, right? I'd also like to suggest also on Page 305 Program T-5.1.2, at the bottom of Packet Page 305 … Mayor Scharff: Yep, I got it. Council Member Wolbach: I'd like to add three words and a comma or two commas if you, like me, believe in Oxford commas. It would read "consider reducing parking requirements for multifamily housing, retail, and restaurant uses." If we're going to consider reducing parking requirements for retail and restaurant uses, I think we should also consider reducing parking requirements for multifamily housing. Just adding the words multifamily housing to that list with retail and restaurant. Mayor Scharff: I'd accept that. Council Member Wolbach: On Packet Page 308, a couple of changes for T- 5.11. The first one, I actually think parking impacts can come from … Mayor Scharff: On T-5.1.2, you can't just say as a word to encourage new businesses. You have to say new businesses and housing. Council Member Wolbach: Let's add that too, as a way to encourage new businesses and housing and the use of alternative modes, at the end of T- 5.1.2. Thank you for that. Actually I was going to suggest multifamily TRANSCRIPT    Page 72 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  housing. Back on T-5.1.2, I would actually put multifamily housing before retail and restaurant uses. I would say consider reducing parking requirements for multifamily housing, retail, and restaurant uses. Also, add multifamily housing after the word new in the second line. You would add it in two places, as the Mayor pointed out, to remain consistent within the sentence. Moving onto the next one. Packet Page 308, Policy T-5.11, I think that … Mayor Scharff: Cory, I actually didn't accept those last changes. Actually, I've got to say, as I'm thinking about this, I would only accept it if it said consider appropriate—I want to get the different concept in there. This could be a little controversial on the Council, I'm thinking. I think this may warrant some discussion. I don't know if people agree. Council Member Wolbach: I'm comfortable with that. Mayor Scharff: If I could just do a little straw poll, if people would like more discussion; if they don't want me to accept this. Council Member Wolbach: I'm fine with it. Mayor Scharff: You'd like a little more discussion. You would too. I'm just thinking this could be a little more controversial. Council Member Wolbach: I'm fine with it being separate as an unfriendly amendment just so we can have discussion about it. Mayor Scharff: I was thinking that because I was watching people's—I'll just say I won't accept it. Council Member Wolbach: I'll make it as a Motion. Hopefully, I get a second for it. That is my proposed Amendment. Do I have a second for it? Council Member Fine: I'll second that. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “add to Program T5.1.2, ‘multi-family housing’ after ‘requirements for’ and after ‘encourage new.’” Council Member Wolbach: To speak to the Motion … Mayor Scharff: Now, you can speak to it. Council Member Wolbach: It's an interesting program. It's a good idea to consider, especially as we do implement and test whether TDM can be effective, as we explore how we can limit access to RPP permits for new TRANSCRIPT    Page 73 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  apartment complexes. If we're going to consider doing this for retail and restaurants, we should absolutely consider doing this for multifamily housing, which we've all said we're supportive of. It doesn't mean we have to do it. It just means if we're considering it for retail and restaurants, let's consider it as well for multifamily housing. It would be an important and complex discussion for the Council in the future, and the PTC. I'm just suggesting we have that conversation at some point in the next 15 years. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine, you want to speak to your second? Council Member Fine: Yeah. First, I do want to frame this. As Council Member Wolbach just mentioned, this is at least allowing the possibility of this to be discussed over the next 15 years. When we think about the purpose of this program, consider reducing parking requirements for retail and restaurant uses, the purpose there is we're saying as a community we value restaurant and retail uses. We want to support them, and thus we're willing to flex on the parking, which is a large cost to those uses. Parking is also a large cost to housing. I believe this Council is supportive of housing. This is one way to enable lower-cost housing, car-lite housing, and at least have it open as an option. We can control it in other ways, whether it's RPP, whether it's title or deed restrictions. This is at least giving us the philosophical base to explore reducing parking requirements for housing, which is one of the best ways to support new housing development. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I would actually support this Motion. I think it should be a separate program. The concept of 5.1.2 was slightly different, about supporting new types of retail business that may not have a traditional parking model. If it did come back to us, it would be confusing to have housing and (crosstalk) services. Mayor Scharff: Are you fine with spreading it out? Council Member Wolbach: I'm fine with changing this Amendment so it would be add a new program. I guess it would be … Mayor Scharff: It would be under where we have all the housing stuff. Council Member Wolbach: It's fine to include it here under … Council Member DuBois: Under 5.1.5 or something. Council Member Wolbach: It could be a new program, T-5.1.5 that would read—just copy and paste the text from T-5.1.2. Where it says retail and TRANSCRIPT    Page 74 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  restaurant uses and where it says businesses, change both of those to multifamily housing. Mayor Scharff: Is that fine with the seconder? Council Member Fine: It is. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “add a new program T5.1.5, ‘consider reducing parking requirements for multi-family uses as a way to encourage new multi-family housing and the use of alternative modes.’” Council Member Wolbach: Thanks for that. I think that's fine. Mayor Scharff: Anyone else want to speak to this? Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: No. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I actually wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it as originally written with retail and restaurant uses. In retail and restaurant, you're talking about the Downtown areas, and there's garages, and there's RPPs in all the surrounding neighborhoods and so forth. The basic principle here is we're saying we want to encourage these things, and parking is a concern. Let's give them parking. You still haven't answered the other side of the question, where is everybody going to park. All the good feelings in the world isn't going to create a place for the cars to go. If you do this, particularly if you do it in neighborhoods, you're basically dooming more and more neighborhoods in the City to have to have RPPs because the overflow is going to go onto the neighborhood streets. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it as originally written. I don't think we should expand it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Just real quickly. I support what Council Member Filseth said. We can only encourage so many things with reduced parking requirements without creating other kinds of issues. We can't use that as the carrot to encourage the kinds of development we want in all areas. I can't support it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I agree also. Here we're trying to encourage retail. The wording is just retail, and it's not saying it's a certain type of retail. It's TRANSCRIPT    Page 75 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  just pushing again the bucket down the road to another neighborhood for impacts. I can't support that one. Mayor Scharff: I'll speak briefly to it. I'm sort of halfway between Council Member Filseth and Council Member Wolbach. I do think we need to look at reducing parking requirements to be appropriate parking requirements but not reducing them where it would put cars in the neighborhoods. I'm not sure this captures this. It should be reducing parking to appropriate for the situation. Would you accept something like that? I'm trying to capture the fact that there are places where our parking requirements are way too high, and the garages are empty. Senior housing, low-income senior housing is right there. However, there's a number of places where, if we reduce the parking requirements, it's going to spill into the neighborhood and cause a problem. I don't want to do that. Council Member Wolbach: Can I offer another suggestion for a change and see if the seconder is okay with it? Mayor Scharff: Yeah, sure. Council Member Wolbach: I think it might capture that and address a lot of the concerns I've heard. At the very end add "where neighborhood impact would be minimized." Would that address the concern that you raise, Mr. Mayor? I could go with your language if you prefer. You could just say where appropriate, but I thought it might be useful to be more specific about what appropriate means. Mayor Scharff: How did you say it? Where the reduction in parking would not impact the neighborhood. Council Member Wolbach: I like that language, where the reduction in parking would not impact the neighborhood. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that then. Council Member Wolbach: I think that addresses the core concern. Again, this is just considering. We're not pushing for it as an actual ordinance or anything. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add at the end of the Amendment, “where reduction in parking would not impact the neighborhood.” Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, did you put your light back on? TRANSCRIPT    Page 76 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: I did. Maybe you'll get everybody on board with it if you'd accept one amendment, if you would change it to read "consider reducing parking requirements for affordable housing projects." Council Member Wolbach: No, because … Council Member Holman: You're shaking your head like you want to keep it at multifamily. Council Member Wolbach: I want to keep it at multifamily because it would apply to market rate or … Council Member Holman: Can't go there. Sorry. Council Member Wolbach: That's fine. I can respect the … AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace in the Amendment, “multi- family” with “affordable.” AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “add a new program T5.1.5, ‘consider reducing parking requirements for multi-family uses as a way to encourage new multi-family housing and the use of alternative modes where reduction in parking would not impact the neighborhood.’” (New Part M) Mayor Scharff: Shall we vote on the board? You're a no; that's fine. That passes on a 6-3 vote with Council Members Kou, Filseth and Holman voting no. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 6-3 Filseth, Holman, Kou no Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, were there … Council Member Wolbach: On Page 308 or, if you're looking at the element, T-41, also on the issue of parking and effect on neighborhoods, looking at Policy T-5.11. I think parking impacts can come from more than just local businesses. They certainly can come from local businesses, but there are other things that can impact parking in residential areas. I'd actually suggest again, to keep it more broad and create more opportunities for addressing and protecting residential areas, removing the words of nearby businesses. It would just say protect residential areas from parking impacts TRANSCRIPT    Page 77 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  full stop. Packet Page 308, right in the middle of the Page, Policy T-5.11. It's a single-sentence policy that currently says protect residential areas from parking impacts of nearby businesses. I would suggest shortening that to protect residential areas from parking impacts. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Does Staff have a concern? Ms. Gitelman: We would recommend that you say something about where the impacts arise from. Residential uses create impacts. We have apartment buildings and single-family homes altogether in a neighborhood in Downtown North, and the apartments' parking demand affects the other residents. Maybe you could say nearby uses if you don't want to say nearby businesses. Council Member Wolbach: That was part of what I was thinking in the shortening. I'm going to be advocating for more apartments in places like Downtown. Everybody knows that's where I stand. I want to make sure we can do that and look for ways to do that in a manner which does protect the neighborhood from parking impacts. We also hear concerns about schools, for instance, Paly and the impact on Southgate from that. Whether it's game day at Stanford or whatever, I want to make sure we're not being exclusive or a future Council doesn't interpret this as being an exclusive list. That's why I'm reluctant to start listing things. It's just simpler to keep it shorter, but I appreciate the Staff's input. Mayor Scharff: Does Staff think that's a mistake? I could go either way. Ms. Gitelman: We would suggest nearby uses instead of nearby businesses. It's a little broader as Council Member Wolbach suggests. Council Member Wolbach: I'm fine with changing it to nearby uses, I guess. That's fine. Would that be okay with the maker and seconder? Council Member Fine: I'm just going to speak to this really quickly. I like nearby uses. Part of the thing I'm thinking about is, as Council Member Wolbach mentioned, Southgate and Paly. As some of us have mentioned, there's the RPP whack-a-mole problem. We set up an RPP in one area, and there's spillover in another area, and they're asking for an RPP. We're kind of regulating these neighborhood parking impacts based on parking as a quality of life. Mayor Scharff: How about "businesses and other nearby uses"? TRANSCRIPT    Page 78 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Wolbach: Absolutely fine. I just want to make sure it's not an exclusive list that's only about business impact because there are other impacts to neighborhood quality of life than parking. Thank you. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “remove from Policy T-5.11, ‘of nearby businesses.’” AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-5.11, ‘and uses’ after ‘of nearby businesses.’” (New Part N) Council Member Wolbach: Getting towards the end of the tunnel here. Also right underneath that in the program that's affiliated with that, Program T- 5.11.1. This is inspired by what we've seen with some local businesses. The dentists, for example, did not feel fully involved in the process of implementing Evergreen Park RPP. I would suggest that we add, after the words coordinate with neighborhood groups, "and local businesses and other stakeholders." Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. Council Member Fine: I'll accept it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program T5.11.1, ‘and local businesses and other stakeholders’ after ‘and neighborhood groups.’” (New Part O) Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. That is it. Thank you for your patience and indulgence on the list. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I only have … Mayor Scharff: Wait, let me just say. If you had your light on months ago, I don't know any more. Council Member Tanaka: I just have one friendly Amendment. That's on Packet Page 412, Policy T-5.6. I just wanted to add two words. I think what this policy is trying to do is capture the fact that land is really expensive in Palo Alto, and misusing surface parking lots doesn't make a lot of sense in this day and age. We had a privilege of reviewing a couple of projects recently. If you look at (inaudible) of a parking structure type of garage, TRANSCRIPT    Page 79 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  only about 11 percent or 12 percent of the structure actually is the car itself. Most of it's stairs, ramps, a lot of other stuff. Palo Alto is a very technology forward City. We should be thinking not just about below-grade (inaudible) parking, which is definitely right in terms of trying to maximize usage of our land, but also mechanized parking. What I want to add is the word, right after below-grade, mechanized parking so that we better utilize the land that we have. Mayor Scharff: What do you want to add? Council Member Tanaka: Mechanized parking. Mayor Scharff: Where? Council Member Tanaka: Right after "below-grade." Strongly encourage the use of below-grade, mechanized parking or structured parking. Mayor Scharff: How would you feel about some milder language like strongly encourage use of below-grade or structured parking and explore mechanized parking? I don't think we've vetted it fully, but I think we want to. Is it in here somewhere? Council Member Tanaka: I couldn't find it. I did a search on it. If you could tell me where it is; I looked for it. I could not find it. Mayor Scharff: You have language on lift parking. You view lift parking as different than mechanized? Council Member Tanaka: It's part of it. Lift parking is just the ones where you lift the car up one, lift one car up. Mechanized parking is more the idea of a puzzle lift, a carousel. There are other versions. The main thing is we're not going to get more land in Palo Alto in general, and it's expensive. Mayor Scharff: I'm happy to explore it. I just don't want to say we … Council Member Tanaka: I'm happy with that. Mayor Scharff: If you're fine with that. Let's see what the Staff (inaudible). Ms. Gitelman: We do have it in Program 5.1.1, Packet Page 410 at the top. We added text, I think at the Council's suggestion, to say allow the use of parking lifts for office/R&D and multifamily housing as appropriate. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with if you want to explore the language on explore mechanized parking. TRANSCRIPT    Page 80 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Tanaka: I'll select them. I'd still like to add it to 5.6. Mayor Scharff: That's what I mean. Strongly encourage the use of below- grade or structured parking and explore mechanized parking instead of surface parking for new developments. Is that okay with Staff? INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-5.6, ‘and explore mechanized parking’ after ‘structured parking.’” (New Part P) Mayor Scharff: Anything else, Greg? Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Now, that we're all warmed up, I think I'll try the same thing. I sent a motion to the City Clerk. I'd like to propose a series of friendly amendments. The first one is—I didn't write down the page numbers—Policy 1.2.4 on funding, the first one under funding improvements. It's packet page 298. Council Member Wolbach: Do you mean 1.24? Council Member DuBois: 1.24, sorry, yes. Packet page 298. Mayor Scharff: That's evaluate transportation funding. Council Member DuBois: I would propose deleting "when other sources aren't available, continue to fund through the General Fund." I just think it's an unusual commitment to have in the Comp Plan. Again, Council could always do that. It just seems out of place to me. Ms. Gitelman: My Colleagues are pointing out that we added that because of a State requirement. Council Member DuBois: That's interesting. I will pull that one back. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “remove from Policy T-1.24, ‘when other sources are unavailable, continue to fund improvements, operations and maintenance through the general fund.’” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Council Member DuBois: I actually don't know the proper number for this, but I wanted to add somewhere like Policy 1.5, encouraging innovation, that we would support self-driving car development and deployment. If there's a better place for that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 81 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Ms. Gitelman: It'd be great if your motion could just direct us to find a place to add a policy on that. We'll find an appropriate location. Council Member DuBois: The Motion would be to add a policy to support—is that okay? Mr. Keene: Autonomous vehicles? Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. Council Member Fine: Just a question there. Are we talking about self- driving cars for personal use or also for trucking, like (crosstalk). Council Member DuBois: I think autonomous vehicles. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add a Policy in support of autonomous vehicle development and deployment.” (New Part Q) Council Member DuBois: On Policy 2.4 … Mayor Scharff: Wait. We accepted it, so do you mind? Go on. Council Member DuBois: Are you ready? Mayor Scharff: I'm ready. Council Member DuBois: This is Packet Page 300. Just a slight wording tweak. When Council passed the adoption of the Complete Streets and the NACTO standards, we added a bit that we'd maintain the ability to customize to the Palo Alto context. I just wanted to add a clause at the end of that policy, 2.4, that would say while tailored to the Palo Alto context. This is something we had already voted on. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry. Where are you? Mr. Keene: Policy T-2.4 on Page 300. Council Member Fine: I assume Palo Alto will do that through the end of time, but I'll accept it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-2.4, ‘while TRANSCRIPT    Page 82 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  maintaining the ability to customize to the Palo Alto context’ after ‘roads in Palo Alto.’” (New Part R) Mayor Scharff: If Staff has any heartburn, do speak up. Mr. Keene: We're looking forward to debating what that means in the future. Council Member DuBois: Policy 5.12.3, Packet Page 308, this is something we've discussed before. It's to provide additional bike parking in City-owned lots and rights-of-way. I just wanted to add "while avoiding removing needed vehicle parking." Mayor Scharff: 5.12.3, you wanted to add what? Council Member DuBois: While avoiding removing needed vehicle parking. Mayor Scharff: I don't think I can. I can't support that. Council Member DuBois: Is there a second to that? Council Member Kou: Second. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion, “add to Program T5.12.3, ‘while avoiding removing needed automobile parking.’” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to it? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. I'd be willing to soften it. Again, if it's an area where parking is very short, we can find other places for bike parking. I think we need to consider the impacts. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your second, Council Member Kou? Council Member Kou: No. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I admire the idea, but the City ought to have the flexibility to decide how to optimize between bike parking and vehicle parking. I worry that if we put this in the Comp Plan, it takes that ability away from the City. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, do you wish to speak to this? TRANSCRIPT    Page 83 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: Just quickly. I could support that except the word vehicle needs to be replaced with automobile because a bicycle is a vehicle from my perspective. Council Member DuBois: Yes. That's fine. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the amendment. That fails on a 6-3 Motion with Council Members DuBois, Kou, and Holman voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 DuBois, Holman, Kou yes Council Member DuBois: Just three more quick ones. Policy 1.14 talks about employee private shuttles or shared shuttle services. This is strongly worded; I'd be happy to soften it. Our goal should be to minimize shuttles from using collectors and local streets. Mayor Scharff: Which one, 295? Council Member DuBois: Policy T-1.14. Mayor Scharff: We should support shuttles frankly. Council Member DuBois: I don't think we should route them through local streets. That's what I was trying to capture. Mayor Scharff: Do you have a second? Council Member DuBois: I don't know. Council Member Holman: I could support that except I have a question for Staff. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-1.14, ‘prevent shuttles from using collector and local streets.’” Mr. Keene: Josh can answer the question. Council Member Holman: Through the Mayor, if that's okay? Mr. Mello: I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question. I was convening with Hillary. Council Member Holman: I have a question for … Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. TRANSCRIPT    Page 84 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: The question is—I can appreciate local streets. I want to comment on collector streets, if you would please. Mr. Mello: First, I'd like to preface my answer by saying that a lot of the time shuttles are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission. We actually don't have authority to direct them to follow our truck routes let alone any other kind of regulation around local streets or collector streets. The question around—collector streets are streets like Colorado and North California where local streets are strictly lower-density, residential streets. Council Member Holman: You're saying we can't require them to stay off local streets? Mr. Mello: Yeah. I recently observed some employee shuttles using Charleston-Arastradero, and I investigated our ability to prohibit that. We actually don't have any authority over a lot of the employee shuttles that are regulated by the CPUC. Council Member DuBois: I'll withdraw that one. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Council Member DuBois: This is my last one. Program T-1.2.2, which is TDM program. As I read this one, I agree with most of it until you get to the third bullet point. There are some really specific targets in SOV reduction. I feel like they came out of thin air. My proposal would be to keep all of the language but delete from the third bullet point. Keep the first sentence, and then delete the rest of the third bullet point. It would read establish a mechanism to monitor success of TDM measures, track the cumulative reduction. That would be it. Mayor Scharff: You want to eliminate these 45, 35? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Keep the first sentence of that bullet point. It describes a mechanism for establishing all this stuff, but it's premature to call out what those percentages are. Ms. Gitelman: If I can interject? Mayor Scharff: Why don't you interject? Ms. Gitelman: This came from an EIR mitigation measure. We actually asked our transportation consultants to tell us what was an achievable but aggressive goal for each of these geographic areas of the City. They came up with these metrics. It's directly from the EIR document. You could TRANSCRIPT    Page 85 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  dispense with the geographic differentiation. It averages to 30 percent Citywide. Council Member DuBois: That helps. I probably should have asked the question first. Knowing there's some justification, I'll withdraw that one as well. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “replace Program T1.2.2 Bullet 3 with, ‘establish a mechanism to monitor the success of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) measures.’” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: Are there more, Tom, or are you done? Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry. Did you want to … Mr. Keene: He's withdrawing it. Mayor Scharff: He's withdrawing it. Has everyone spoken at least once who wants to speak to the main motion or has any Amendments, who hasn't spoken before? The only person who's spoken and wants to speak again is Council Member Holman. I'm going to allow it. Go on. Council Member Holman: I think a lot of us have spoken more than once. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: No, they haven't, not to the main Motion. Council Member Holman: I have a couple of Amendments. I haven't added amendments, I don't think. Mayor Scharff: You started with the Amendments. You were the first person. Council Member Holman: I have one on Packet Page 298. It's one that was touched on previously. It's Policy T-1.24. It says evaluate transportation funding measures periodically … . I would suggest that it should be pursue instead of evaluate. I'm troubled by the word measures because, in my mind, that always looks like bond measure, some kind of ballot measure. I would say pursue transportation funding opportunities periodically for ongoing … . I want it to be more proactive and get the reference to it, in my mind at least. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 86 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Fine: Yeah. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Policy T-1.24, ‘evaluate transportation funding measures’ with ‘pursue transportation funding opportunities.’” (New Part S) Council Member Holman: I have another one on Packet Page 307, which also was touched on before. It's Policy T-5.6. A little bit clarification and a little bit emphasis. It reads strongly encourage the use of below-grade or structured parking instead of surface parking for new developments of all types while minimizing negative impacts. Right now it reads including groundwater and landscaping. It seems to me that should be "on groundwater and landscaping." I would add a period after landscaping and delete the "where feasible." Obviously, if it's impossible, we're not going to require somebody to do it. Mayor Scharff: I think we should have "where feasible," so I won't accept that. Your point is correct, making "impacts on groundwater and landscaping," but it should be "where feasible." "On" is a good idea. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-5.6, ‘on’ after ‘including.’” (New Part T) Council Member Holman: Does Staff have any thought about eliminating— we're not going to require somebody to do something that is impossible. I'm just trying to emphasize and prioritize it. No thought? Ms. Gitelman: It's a word choice. Council Member Holman: I have a question. It probably goes again to Josh. Pardon me if I didn't see it addressed in here. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, are you withdrawing it or replacing it or what are you doing? Council Member Holman: I want "on." Let's put "on" in. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Do you want to say something, Council Member Wolbach? Council Member Wolbach: Yeah. I just wanted to address that. Were you replacing the word including with "on" or adding "on"? Council Member Holman: Replacing "including" with "on." TRANSCRIPT    Page 87 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Wolbach: I would suggest not making that change because there may be other negative impacts. With some of my amendments earlier, I worry about narrowing the breadth of this policy too narrowly. The Staff, consultants, CAC may have intended opportunity to explore other potential negative impacts, which would be (crosstalk). Council Member Holman: How about this then? Including on groundwater and landscaping. Council Member Wolbach: I think that would be a better change. Council Member Holman: That way it's not limiting. I know this is about transportation and that generally we're talking about employees and residents and how we get around, and that sort of thing. I have a question to see if this should be in here or not. I periodically encounter large trucks on residential streets. I followed one the other day because I was behind it anyway. I just followed him to his destination. I asked him, "Why weren't you on Alma?" or "Why was Alma not your means of getting here?" The home he was going to was not very far off Alma on a residential street in Old Palo Alto. He said because Police Staff had told him that his vehicle was too wide for Alma, and that he should be driving on the residential streets. Does that even begin to be feasible or realistic? Is there something we should do in the Comp Plan to address that kind of issue or concern? He was basically saying that the Police Staff told him Alma lanes were too narrow for his commercial vehicle. Mr. Mello: I can investigate that particular instance, but we have fairly strict truck regulations in Palo Alto, as you know. Alma is the designated north- south route as well as El Camino. That's surprising to me. You may want to include something that speaks to increasing enforcement or dedicating more resources to truck enforcement. That information is provided at every turn when they visit the Development Center, when contracts are bid out. Large projects are required to submit logistics plans that show the truck routes to and from the site. I think a lot of them may plead ignorance just to justify the route that they tend to take. Council Member Holman: I would generally think that, except he was so specific. Would Staff care to comment? Do we need to put something in here to further strengthen how commercial vehicles travel through our City? Ms. Gitelman: That's a regulatory issue that we would approach through Code rather than through the Comp Plan. We do have these policies about protecting neighborhoods from neighborhood impacts. We would use that policy framework. TRANSCRIPT    Page 88 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: I'm good with that. One of the other questions I had was answered as I discovered this evening. I think I'm good. Mayor Scharff: I have one thing. Staff raised an issue in their footnote, which says (inaudible) Staff would recommend a slight wording change to say work to protect residential areas. I believe that was in Policy T-5.10. Is that correct? I'm on Packet Page 256, reading Staff's footnote. In the actual part of the Comp Plan, that is where? Ms. Gitelman: I think that is Policy T-5.11, which we've talked about already, on packet page 308. Mayor Scharff: I would do Staff's one which is "work to protect residential areas" as opposed to "protect." Mr. Keene: That's one you already slightly modified. Mayor Scharff: That was to the other uses. Are you good with that? Council Member Fine: I'll accept that. Mayor Scharff: I see no other lights. Council Member Holman: I was going to say could we vote on that. Proactive is better. "Work to protect" is kind of wimpy. Mayor Scharff: Do you have language that you might suggest? Council Member Holman: The language that's there is very good, protect residential areas. Mayor Scharff: I think "work to protect" is better. Council Member Filseth, do you want to address this issue or did you want to … Council Member Filseth: I was going to address this issue. I agree with Council Member Holman. Mayor Scharff: Would you like to take a separate vote and have a discussion? Council Member Filseth: I would. Mayor Scharff: Let's do that. I will make this as an Amendment as opposed to just doing that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 89 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I will speak to it. It's rare. In this whole thing, there's only one thing that Staff asked for. Therefore, I'm going to support Staff on this. It's a matter of being reasonable and realistic as to when things can be done as opposed to—that's a more transparent thing to the public, to be honest about where we are. As I said, it's the only thing Staff's asked for. I think we should do it. Council Member Fine: I'll second that. AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-5.11, ‘work to’ before ‘protect.’” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to say anything further? Council Member Fine: No. I think you've put it well. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I appreciate the logic here but this is the policy. This is what residents want. If you water it down with language "work to," then potentially it means we can say we did a little bit. We did something toward it; we didn't really do it, but we helped a little bit, so we've met the spirit of this. The spirit of this is to want to protect the neighborhoods. That's what residents want. That's the policy. Very clearly we're going to have other policies that we're not in 100 percent accordance with at all times in here. The Comp Plan is full of those. If our policy is to do it, then that should be our policy, not do a little bit and say we're done. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'm just going to offer something that might get some consensus, a potential compromise that we could all agree on. What if it read prioritize efforts to? Would Staff feel that that … Mr. Keene: Prioritize efforts to protect? Council Member Wolbach: Yes. Would Staff feel comfortable with that? Would that still fulfill your objectives and your suggestion and achieve compromise (crosstalk) consensus? Mr. Keene: I don't think that works. One of the issues here is if we're dealing with a new decision, the idea of protecting a residential neighborhood from the impact is clearer and definitely within our purview to fix it. If we were to get a complaint about some preexisting condition, maybe even longstanding, folks would ask us to protect them from it. It may make it a little more difficult for us to solve that problem. The intention TRANSCRIPT    Page 90 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  is to work, but there could be some situations where, to the satisfaction of a particular neighborhood, we just in the current timeframe aren't able to get the solution that completely satisfies them despite our best efforts. Ms. Gitelman: If I can build on that, it's really about timing to us. We've all put a lot of time and effort into these RPP programs that have employee parking permits in them. We don't want to adopt a policy that makes it more difficult to create those structures, where we see ourselves addressing intrusion impacts and, over time, reducing them. Those kinds of programs would be better supported by a policy that introduces a sense of timing. We're going to work to or we're going to prioritize or we're going to do this over time. Council Member Wolbach: I wasn't clear if they did or did not support my suggestion. I'll withdraw it if Staff doesn't support it. Mayor Scharff: I didn't see you picking up any votes. If I heard Council Member Filseth and Council Member Holman saying they would support it because of that, I'm all in, but I'm not seeing that. Council Member Wolbach: I'd pull back if Staff said they didn't want it either. Council Member Filseth: The time aspect is interesting. What we want to avoid is something that's effort based. I thought Council Member Wolbach's suggestion was useful language but still got to the effort-based thing. We want to not be effort-based. It's interesting this comes up. This particular clause and statement was used, which not everybody liked, extensively by the RPP advocates to get as far as we have got. The result, most of us would agree, has been a good result. That was important. There was any amount of time where it was like this is going to be hard and it's going to take a long time. If we could reflect the time issue, that it may not happen overnight, but the policy is to protect the neighborhoods. If we could capture that, that would go a long way towards getting us out of the effort- based zone and into the results-based zone but recognizing (crosstalk) instantaneous. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Council Member Filseth expressed it very well. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Council Member Filseth did a good job with that. I'd add to that that there are some active verbs that are very appropriate in TRANSCRIPT    Page 91 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  the Comp Plan. It's one of the reasons why I changed in one of the other ones, to pursue funding. It's an active thing. In this case, it's protect residential areas. We don't need to evaluate that. We don't need to work towards it. It's a value. These are value statements that we're making here. Policies reflect our values. Protecting residential neighborhoods is a value. It's clearly stated by protect residential areas. When Staff is making evaluations of proposals, projects, policies, whatever, recommendations that come forward to the Council, they can look to this and say one of our policies, one of our values is to protect residential areas. There's no evaluation aspect to it. There's no work towards it. It's just do it. The community is pretty darn clear on that. We've seen, especially during the RPP discussions but otherwise too, whether it's Eichler Design Guidelines, it's protect the residential areas. That's what the community's about. I like the existing language. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth, you had suggested language you wanted to (crosstalk)? Council Member Filseth: I'm trying to think on the fly here of some language. I actually think the timing thing—the language as stated gives the Staff a fair amount of flexibility on timing, as we've seen. I'm still trying to come up with … Specifically on the issue of how long it takes to implement something, it's within the space of the existing language. Staff has flexibility to stage a forward time. Have you got any ideas? Ms. Gitelman: We were just concerned that it's a little too black and white. Maybe you can add a clause at the end. Instead of saying work to, you can add a clause saying protect residential areas from parking impacts of nearby businesses and other uses, recognizing that fully ameliorating existing intrusions will take time. Something. Council Member Filseth: I'd be okay with something like that. Let's see. With nearby business districts—I forgot what the other language was. Recognizing that … Ms. Gitelman: Addressing intrusions from existing uses may take time or will have to happen over time. Council Member Filseth: May take time. I think that's a big step forward. Mr. Keene: What about some existing intrusion so it's not everything? It infers that (crosstalk). Council Member Filseth: That helps too. That's a big step forward from "work to." That makes it much clearer. TRANSCRIPT    Page 92 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “add to Policy T-5.11, ‘recognizing that fully addressing some existing intrusions may take time’ after ‘and uses.’” (New Part U) Mayor Scharff: I guess we still need to vote on it, though. Let's vote on it. Council Member Holman: Can you clarify what we're voting on? There was the language that Council Member Filseth added, and then there's the language you had. What are we voting on? Mayor Scharff: We were voting on the language on the screen. Council Member Holman: Which is? Both of them are up here. Mayor Scharff: You're right. We voted on Council Member Filseth's language, but let's … Male: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: We can. It's of nearby businesses (inaudible) fully addressing some existing intrusions may take time. Is that correct, Staff? Ms. Gitelman: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Do we want to revote or do you feel comfortable that we voted on it? Council Member Holman: I don't know what the vote was. I have no idea. Mayor Scharff: It was unanimous. Council Member Holman: I didn't vote. I'll support this. Mayor Scharff; I'm going to record that as unanimous unless anyone wants to revote. AMENDMENT PASSED: 9-0 Council Member Holman: I'm the only one that knew what I was voting on. For the record. Mr. Keene: It was unanimous before, and it's still unanimous. TRANSCRIPT    Page 93 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 3. Other Transportation Element Revisions: A. Reducing reliance on single occupant vehicles through Transportation Demand Management (TDM), expansion of the shuttle program, bicycle & pedestrian improvements, and other means; and B. Effective first mile/last mile solutions; and C. Continuing to work to address traffic congestion; and D. Enhancing connectivity; and E. Addressing neighborhood impacts; and F. Managing parking demand and evaluating changing parking needs over time; and G. Prioritizing pedestrian and cyclist safety; and H. Meeting the needs of transit dependent communities; and I. Preparing for technological and societal changes that will affect transportation and parking demand; and J. Prioritizing Caltrain grade separations and regional cooperation; and K. Remove from Program T1.24.1, “that new development projects must pay to the City;” and L. Replace in Program T2.3.1, “adopt” with “explore;” and M. Add a new program T5.1.5, “consider reducing parking requirements for multi-family uses as a way to encourage new multi-family housing and the use of alternative modes where reduction in parking would not impact the neighborhood;” and N. Add to Policy T-5.11, “and uses” after “of nearby businesses;” and TRANSCRIPT    Page 94 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  O. Add to Program T5.11.1, “and local businesses and other stakeholders” after “and neighborhood groups;” and P. Add to Policy T-5.6, “and explore mechanized parking” after “structured parking;” and Q. Add a Policy in support of autonomous vehicle development and deployment; and R. Add to Policy T-2.4, “while maintaining the ability to customize to the Palo Alto context” after “roads in Palo Alto;” and S. Replace in Policy T-1.24 , “evaluate transportation funding measures” with “pursue transportation funding opportunities;” and T. Add to Policy T-5.6, “on” after “including;” and U. Add to Policy T-5.11, “recognizing that fully addressing some existing intrusions may take time” after “and uses.” Mayor Scharff: Now, if we could just vote on the main Motion. That passes unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Congratulations, we just finished the Transportation Element. It is now 9:30, and we're going to move on to the—a 5-minute break would be a good idea. I'm with you on the 5-minute break. Council took a break from 9:24 P.M. to 9:33 P.M. Mayor Scharff: We'll start. We're back for the Land Use Element. Hopefully we can move this through. We're going to start the Land Use Element. Are you ready? Ms. Costello: Honorable members of the Council, we have been working on this Land Use and Community Design Element for quite a while. It was recommended by the CAC in September. The Council reviewed it once in November and took no action, made some comments but didn't take any action. We came back with you in January, and you made a series of motions, which are detailed—how we followed up on those motions is detailed in the Staff Report. You did some refinements at your March 20th meeting. We talked about the organization and did some other refinements. At that point, we worked on revising it to incorporate your motions, to update, consolidate, and organize policies and programs. This element is TRANSCRIPT    Page 95 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  actually a step ahead of the Transportation Element. What we're bringing to you tonight is the revised wording based on all your motions. Think of this as has had a lot of work and is quite, we hope, finalized. I'm going to go over it quickly in the interest of time. We can answer any questions, but the Land Use Map and the designations essentially stay the same. The major revisions are the ones that you made motions on in January, which were to establish the cumulative cap of 1.7 million square feet on new office/R&D. You eliminated the Downtown cap and references in the Comp Plan to height limit. You kept it in the Zoning Ordinance. You gave a lot of direction on housing sites, which we have consolidated in one policy, which is Policy 2.4, with a whole list of programs on housing. We retained the policies on preserving—you retained, and we have too, on preserving housing and minimizing displacement. You eliminated the community indicators, and that's reflected in the changes. You added a program to explore increasing hotel FAR. You eliminated a program to prepare a coordinated area plan for South El Camino. You retained policies for ground-floor retail, and we organized them and highlighted them so they don't show up way at the end. There was a question earlier on the Colleagues' Memo. There had been a policy in the land use draft related to wider sidewalks and increasing setbacks, and that was deleted by a motion of the Council. That doesn't show up because it was in there, and it was taken out by the Council. The additional revisions were to consolidate and relocate policies to be more usable; eliminate redundancies with other elements. One of the advantages we had at this point was we have drafts of all the other elements. We had a better sense of where things could fit and be more usable and flow. What we're asking for tonight is that you confirm your support of the track changes that reflect your motions from previous meetings. Staff and consultants have made an effort to make sure that the Transportation and the Land Use Elements are in alignment with each other and with the preferred scenario. We're asking if you—you don't have to actually confirm that. Just to let you know that's been an issue. If you have any issues with that, let us know. You've gone over the next steps, which in this case with the action, which we hope for tonight, you would be done with the Land Use Element. It would then come back to you as it's referred to the Planning Commission. This is the last—you've made motions. We've made the revisions. This is did we do what you want and are you happy with the results or what recommendations for changes would you make. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. I would like to reiterate that. Obviously, we can revote on stuff if people want. I would ask people to use their discretion and not revote on stuff if we can possibly do that. If we've taken the vote, it says what it was there. If you were on the losing side of it, to revote on it, that would be unfortunate. If you want to change your vote and vote differently, that's a different thought. I personally would hope TRANSCRIPT    Page 96 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  we wouldn't do that. What we're going to do is the land use and community design revisions and the alignment part; we take it together. It says please confirm our support for the track changes; that's what Staff asked. I'm going to move that we confirm support for the track changes. Council Member Filseth is going to second the motion, which I just heard. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: Land Use & Community Design Revisions. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to speak to it. I don't know if Council Member Filseth … Council Member Filseth: I'm not either. Mayor Scharff: I saw lights for Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much to Staff. Personally, I'd like to confirm support for most of these changes. The Staff-initiated changes all look good to me. Are we going to go in the same way we did the last item, Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Mm hmm. Council Member Fine: I've got a couple. I'll make them friendly, but I assume some of them will become unfriendly. The first one is Program L- 1.9.2. It's on Page 344. This is one of those we voted on keeping the annual interim office cap as an Ordinance. Right now, it says in the Comp Plan keep it as an ordinance. That program should be struck. It's staying as an Ordinance. That would be to remove Program L-1.9.2. Do you want me to go through all of them or do you want to vote on them one at a time? Mayor Scharff: Let's do one at a time. I was a little confused on that as well. I thought the direction from Council was that would be a separate—it wouldn't be in the Comp Plan. Ms. Gitelman: Thank you. That was the Council's Motion. What we included here was a program just to do what you told us to do. We could still do it if it wasn't a program. Our thought was we have a lot of programs in here talking about what ordinances we should develop in the future. This is just another one of them. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with taking it out, but I don't know what Council Member Filseth thinks. By the way, we are definitely hearing this in September. We were looking at—I was hoping to do it earlier. We had TRANSCRIPT    Page 97 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  talked about it at pre-Council today. When are we going to hear the ordinance? I just wanted to let people know that it is coming to us. Ms. Gitelman: The annual limit discussion? Mayor Scharff: Yes, the annual limit discussion is coming either September or October. Ms. Gitelman: We're going to first come back to you with a discussion and request for direction on some of the key issues, what geographic areas, what numeric values, whether we're using a beauty contest. We'll be back sometime after your break. Council Member Filseth: If I understand what Director Gitelman just explained, this program is an operational mechanism to implement what we agreed on. I have two thoughts. One is given we're likely to deal with it in this calendar year, does it really make sense to be in the Comp Plan? On the other hand, I would like to seek Staff's guidance on how best to address this, given their goal is to execute something we all agreed on. If we strike this out of the Comp Plan, what do we do instead? Ms. Gitelman: I don't think it's a huge difference one way or the other. Whether it's in the Comp Plan, we're committed to bringing something back to you and move forward with something. Council Member Filseth: I'll support it then. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Fine: I have a couple more. Mayor Scharff: We have to get back to this. Did you accept it? You did. Council Member Filseth: Are there people who want to discuss this? Council Member Holman: Yes. Vice Mayor Kniss: I just want to vote. Council Member Filseth: If there's people that want to discuss it, is it going to be a brief discussion? We already did this. I guess I won't accept it. Vice Mayor Kniss: We vote it to take it out of the Comp Plan. Mayor Scharff: He did not accept it, so let's move forward. TRANSCRIPT    Page 98 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Wolbach: I'll second it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add to the Motion, “remove Program L1.9.2.” (New Part A) Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to it? Council Member Fine: Sure. Yes, we did have a somewhat contentious vote over this, but we did agree it would be outside of the Comp Plan, remaining as an ordinance, which it is right now. Staff said it's coming back to us. I don't really see any point in including it in a Comp Plan. We're going to keep this as an ordinance. Council Member Filseth: My inclination is to support … Mayor Scharff: I have to let Council Member Wolbach speak to his second. I apologize. Council Member Wolbach: It was a 5-4 vote to take this out. It shouldn't be here. Frankly, it was a Staff oversight or misinterpretation. I respect and understand why Staff did it the way they did it. This amendment is clarifying what we intended with the motion that was already passed on a 5- 4 vote. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: My inclination is to support it as well. I would like to hear the argument to take it out, assuming it's not just re-voted. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: It wasn't my understanding that we were taking it out. I thought what Staff did here was appropriate. It's just calling out that it's going to be an Ordinance. That seems to be in line with the Motion. With the removal of all the other growth limitation factors, I feel like this is a critical one that we should leave in. It's a good compromise. During the discussion of all the scenarios and the Draft EIR, Staff suggested that we really can't reduce the rate of job growth below a certain limit. In thinking about that after hearing it several times, it just strikes me that we're not really thinking about the role of the Comp Plan the right way. The Comp Plan is the time to refine zoning, to refine FAR. We have programs in here that we all voted on to consider changing some commercial space to residential space, for example. To me, this particular program is one of the few things in here. It's really not a cap; it's just a rate limiter on growth. I'd really ask you guys to consider leaving it in. I hear it's going to come TRANSCRIPT    Page 99 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  back as an Ordinance anyway, but it's a nice compromise that we leave it in the Comp Plan. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Going way back tonight, looking at Page 258, where it says—it's under Table 1. It is B, and it says the annual limit, direct Staff to make permanent the annual limit ordinance of 50,000 square feet separate from the Comprehensive Plan Update. We voted on that. The vote is on the following page. To go back to this, I don't think there's another place in here that we have an ordinance. Am I correct? Do we have any other ordinances in the Comp Plan? Ms. Gitelman: There are many programs that call for the development of zoning ordinances. Vice Mayor Kniss: That calls for the development of an Ordinance. Ms. Gitelman: Just as this does. It just says prepare a new Ordinance basically. Vice Mayor Kniss: This is an existing Ordinance, correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's correct. The program is saying update and extend the Ordinance. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think the vote was pretty clear when we voted on it before. I simply don't see anything else in here that is addressing a current ordinance that was put into place with a great deal of thought and consideration 2 years ago this fall. I really don't feel this belongs in there. I was surprised to see it in there. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I was going to offer an Amendment. Council Member DuBois spoke to it well. It's like the Council majority has—whatever those votes were—eliminated a lot of the growth constraints. As the Mayor has spoken before, having compromise as some of our goals that we want to accomplish this year, including this one and keeping it in the Comprehensive Plan is one of those compromises. As Director Gitelman said, there are several references to ordinances in the Comprehensive Plan already. Mayor Scharff: I appreciate what you guys have said. However, I'm going to vote to remove it because that's what our vote was. Also, we are going to do this this year. If we were going to do this a year or two from now and it could be a different Council or something like that, we should keep it in TRANSCRIPT    Page 100 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  here as a program. Here's something we're actually going to do either before we adopt the Comprehensive Plan or right around the time we adopt the Comprehensive Plan. Since that's going to happen, removing it makes more sense. Let's vote on the board. Vice Mayor Kniss: What's our Motion? Mayor Scharff: The Motion is to remove Program L-1.9.2. Is that correct? That passes on a 6-3 vote with Council Members DuBois, Kou, and Holman voting no. AMENDMENT PASSED: 6-3 DuBois, Holman, Kou no Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I'm just going in chronological order here. On Page 346 of the Staff Report, I'd like to introduce a new program, call it L-2.4.7, explore increasing multifamily housing density near jobs and transit. Vice Mayor Kniss: Second. Were you done? Council Member Fine: Unless it's friendly. Mayor Scharff: It's not. You need a second, and you seconded it. Vice Mayor Kniss: I seconded it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to add to the Motion, “add a new Program L2.4.7, ‘explore increasing multi- family housing density near jobs and transit.’” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your Motion? Council Member Fine: Sure. We have limited land in Palo Alto. One of the best ways to house more people and create more homes and more opportunity in our City, and to be a more inclusive City is through multifamily housing. The best place to do that is through density, particularly near jobs and transit. A kind of signal for me on this one is the Windy Hill property that they're looking at developing at Page Mill and El Camino, where they're looking at doing a project that's equivalent of RM-100 or over. That should be a signal to us that RM-30, RM-40 may be a bit too low. This is at least giving the City the leeway to explore increasing those densities over time in suitable places near jobs and transit. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. TRANSCRIPT    Page 101 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: This is so consistent with what we've been discussing for a long period of time, which is how do you reduce traffic, how do you cut back on parking issues, how do you get cars out of the neighborhood, off the streets, and so forth. The closer you can get the housing density near to jobs and transit, the better we are. I have to think that something very like this was in the previous Comp Plan. Am I right? Ms. Gitelman: I think there are policies like this already in the Housing Element. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think there are. It may be a bit of a duplication, but I'm glad to support it and vote for it. I think it ran pretty much continuously through the last Comp Plan, and it probably is in housing. Mayor Scharff: I'm just going to briefly speak to it as well. What's dawned me is that we need some more zoning categories. The Windy Hill property actually is an example of where we're going to use RM something or other. What are we doing there? Ms. Gitelman: We're coming up with a new overlay of some kind. Mayor Scharff: We've talked about creating density in the Downtown and converting some office density to residential. I'm just not sure this is going to—if we put this in the Comp Plan, is Staff going to go out and explore should we have RM-40 in certain places or RM-60 so you get those smaller units, but you have the same amount of FAR? I'm just not—or are we basically—near jobs and transit in Palo Alto is really broad. Is there a place in Palo Alto where we're not near jobs or near transit? What you really mean is Downtown, California Avenue maybe. Council Member Fine: We could say near the multimodal transit centers. Mayor Scharff: That would be better for me. I think that works better for me for near transit. I understand and I think it's more than explore increasing multifamily housing density. Isn't it exploring mechanisms? Council Member Fine: I think that's fine. As you said … Mayor Scharff: Maybe I'm just being too wordsmithy. Council Member Fine: It could be. As Director Gitelman mentioned, for the property on the VTA site, we're looking at an overlay. Is that really the best way to go about producing this where we want it? Mayor Scharff: I think it's new zoning frankly. TRANSCRIPT    Page 102 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Fine: It could be. It could be an overlay; it could be new zoning; it could be modifying existing zoning. Vice Mayor Kniss: Couldn't that be a good word that sends a message of we need to find other ways to get more housing. If we explore mechanisms, that is an all-purpose word. Council Member Fine: I think we should include the word mechanisms. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Amendment, “mechanisms for” after “explore.” Mayor Scharff: I think that does it, where it's in the appropriate places. I don't want anyone to take and read this and think we should be increasing multifamily density throughout the City. I'm really thinking Downtown and Cal. Ave. Is that our multimodal transit centers? Where we would consider a multimodal … Mr. Keene: We have some existing language in there already (inaudible). Ms. Gitelman: We already have Program L-2.4.1 on the prior page, Packet Page 345. It says amend the Housing Element to eliminate housing sites along San Antonio Road and increase residential densities in Downtown and the California Avenue area to replace potential units from the sites eliminated. It's not exactly the same, but it's getting to the same point. We're talking about increasing densities in these other areas of the City. Council Member Fine: I think I like the Mayor's point about mechanisms. It may be new zoning. It may be overlays. There could be other tools that we're not currently employing. This is putting it in the Comp Plan, giving us the ability to do so. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's fine. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Amendment, “jobs and transit” with “multimodal transit centers.” Mayor Scharff: I guess I'm fine with it. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I understand the concept here. The whole housing thing has had so much discussion and so many involved in it, the CAC and the Housing Element before that and through this whole process. I have to believe that most of what we want to do in housing has been thrashed out and negotiated and compromised on by all the different parties involved, and TRANSCRIPT    Page 103 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  we've arrived at a language. Here we are in the late stages of this. I have to believe that most of the stuff we're going to talk about is in here and has been covered already, and a lot of people have looked at it and smithed it. I hope we're not going to take a left turn and load up stuff from the Council on top of what has already had a massive amount of—housing is probably the single most examined and scrutinized thing we've got in the whole Comp Plan right now. I hope we're not going to start doing headshots or something like that, not that this is necessarily one. I hope that's not the direction we're going to take tonight. We should be in the process, as the Mayor said, of let's close it, let's finish the details as opposed to adding new kinds of broad directions and policies and stuff like that. That's all. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'll be supporting the amendment. I appreciate the comments by Council Member Filseth, but I think this is an important change to make. What we are doing tonight—this is our last chance with this element. Just like we had to do with transportation, where we saw things that were lacking, superfluous, or we wanted to tweak the words, this is our chance to do that. This is important. I would have actually supported something that was broader. I would have actually supported something that was broader. Rather than emphasizing where we would do it, I would have actually suggested where we wouldn't do it. Instead of saying near multimodal transit centers, I would have said outside of R-1 or other low- density zones or R-1 and R-2 zones. I'm not suggesting that as an amendment right now because we've got enough consensus to move forward with this. This excludes Stanford Research Park. This would exclude et cetera. This is an important step as it is. This is actually a compromise, and I think we should support it. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to add to the Motion, “add a new Program L2.4.7, ‘explore mechanisms for increasing multi-family housing density near multimodal transit centers.’” (New Part B) Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the Amendment. That passes on a 5-4 vote with Council Members Wolbach, Kniss, Scharff, Tanaka, and Fine voting yes. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 5-4 DuBois, Filseth, Holman, Kou no Council Member Fine: I think this one will be more supported. On Page 347, L-2.9 is about protecting and preserving retail. I'd like to add "and explore policies to expand retail opportunities." TRANSCRIPT    Page 104 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Female: Where are you? Council Member Fine: This is page 347, L-2.9, preserve ground-floor retail and limit the displacement of existing retail from neighborhood centers and explore policies to expand retail opportunities. Mayor Scharff: Yep (inaudible). INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy L2.9, ‘and explore opportunities to expand retail opportunities.’” (New Part C) Council Member Fine: Let me just go through mine. I've got a few more. On page 348, Program L-3.5.1 is about basement construction and their impacts. I'd like to remove the first bullet point there, evaluate the City's policy of excluding basements from the gross floor area. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “remove from Program L3.5.1, ‘Land use issues. Evaluate the City’s policy of excluding basements from the gross floor area and maximum floor area ratio limits in the zoning ordinance. Consider zoning revisions, including greater setbacks, to limit basement size and increase basement setbacks from adjacent properties.’” (New Part D) Council Member Fine: Thank you, guys. Just a few more, sorry. Remove L- 4.1.1. This is a program on Page 349. Mayor Scharff: Just remove … Council Member Fine: The first bullet point. I'm asking to remove Program L-4.1.1, evaluate the effectiveness of formula retail limits, adopt it for Cal. Ave., and consider whether they should be applied in other centers. Mayor Scharff: What (inaudible)? Council Member Fine: Remove that program. Mayor Scharff: I'm (inaudible) to accept that. Just end it with evaluate effectiveness (inaudible). Council Member Fine: That's fine. L-4.1.1 is simply evaluate the effective of formula retail limits and (inaudible) for Cal. Ave. TRANSCRIPT    Page 105 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Filseth: Do people want to discuss that one? Council Member Holman: Yes. Council Member Filseth: I think we should discuss that one. Mayor Scharff: Okay. Let's discuss it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add to the Motion, “remove from Program 4.1.1, ‘and consider whether these limits should be applied in other Centers. Develop incentives for local small businesses where warranted.’” Council Member Fine: I'll just frame this up; there's a few things. The nature of formula retail is actually pretty distinct here in Palo Alto. A lot of the things, which these formula … Mayor Scharff: It's an Amendment, first of all, for the Clerk's Office, that's made by you, seconded by me then. Council Member Fine: Thank you. A lot of what we think of formula retail doesn't actually apply here in Palo Alto. Businesses like Philz Coffee, like Molly Stone's, some of the bike shops actually qualify as formula retail. While I think it's worthwhile evaluating what has happened on California Avenue with the formula retail ordinance there, I think it should be individually done, whether those should be applied in other centers. I don't see why that is part of the Comp Plan. If an issue arises in other centers with formula retail issues, that should come before Council and the PTC. Mayor Scharff: I basically agree with that. We should evaluate how formula retail issues are doing in Cal. Ave. The jury's out at the moment. I don't think we have enough information. It's the Comp Plan; it's long term. We should evaluate it, but I don't think we should prejudge that we should want to extend it. Frankly, we may want to look at it and say it hasn't helped on Cal. Ave. in which way and we should get rid of it, or we might say it's been a resounding success, and we should change it in this way. I think it should be evaluated, but I don't think we should prejudge that we may want to extend it somewhere else. To be honest, I have a hard time imagining where we'd want to extend it. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I would very strongly encourage retaining this for a few reasons. Read what it says. It says evaluate the effectiveness. It says consider whether these limits should be applied in other—I would say areas rather than centers. A really important part of this, it says develop incentives for local small businesses where warranted. The reason we put TRANSCRIPT    Page 106 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  this in on California Avenue was to try to protect our local, independent businesses because they can't pay as a high a rent as—one of the reasons is they can't pay as high rent as the chain stores can, the big box stores for instance. While some of the businesses that we have are small chains, they fall outside the definition of formula retail. That's who we can have a Philz; that's how we can have a Pete's. Those kinds of businesses aren't affected. They still have the local feel. They still contribute more, which local businesses do. Local businesses contribute more to a local economy. They contribute more very typically to nonprofit efforts, to City efforts. They're much stronger supporters of the community than are formula stores. Eliminating this says we don't care about the local, independent businesses. I think it's a strong statement that we would make by eliminating this. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Again, these just say evaluate and consider. Mayor Scharff: I would be fine with adding back in "develop incentives for local small businesses where warranted." I don't know if Council Member Fine would. Council Member Fine: I would be as well. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove from the Amendment, “develop incentives for local small businesses where warranted.” Mayor Scharff: I wasn't focused on that, but I would agree with you. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: When I heard you speak, Mr. Mayor, I was confused. It sounds like you're actually supporting what's there. I heard you say evaluate the effectiveness. I'm a little confused why you're removing it. Mayor Scharff: I think we should—I was just saying I think we should keep in develop incentives for local small businesses where warranted. That was the sentence at the end of that. All that would change now is we wouldn't consider—the only thing that would be different is we wouldn't put in the Comp Plan that we have to consider whether these limits should be applied in other centers. That's really the only difference, whether or not you think the Comp Plan should say, "Should we consider this? Is this something we have to do?" TRANSCRIPT    Page 107 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member DuBois: But you also removed "evaluating the effectiveness," which I thought you said you supported when you spoke. Mayor Scharff: I want to assess the effectiveness. It's something new we've done. I want to assess the effectiveness of it. What I don't want to do is say we have to decide. Let's assume we decide it's really effective. Then, maybe we will choose to go ahead and assess. If we decide it's totally ineffective, why would we then have to assess whether or not we want … Council Member DuBois: That's why it says consider. Are you just deleting the middle part? Are you keeping the first part? Mayor Scharff: Yes, just the middle part. Council Member DuBois: That's not what the motion says on the screen. I see. Council Member Filseth: It just changed. Council Member DuBois: It's consider; it seems pretty soft. I'm not sure it's worth the time of discussion here. Mayor Scharff: I think that's what Council Member Filseth said. It was worth the time and discussion because Council Member Holman made a good point. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add to the Motion, “remove from Program 4.1.1, ‘and consider whether these limits should be applied in other Centers.’” (New Part E) Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on it. That passes unanimously. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Council Member Fine: One last one. Thank you for your time. I'd like to propose a new program under—it's on Page 351, under Stanford Shopping Center. This is also going on the retail thing a little bit. I'd like to propose a new program, L-4.7.2, explore additional and new types of retail at Stanford Shopping Center. Mayor Scharff: I would be supportive of that, but I think we should discuss it. Council Member Fine: I think it probably needs a bit of wordsmithing. TRANSCRIPT    Page 108 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I think it needs some wordsmithing. Where are we, by the way? Council Member Fine: This is 4.7.2 on Page 351. That's talking about maintaining Stanford as one of the Bay Area's premier regional shopping centers. Vice Mayor Kniss: I have a clarification. Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Vice Mayor Kniss: This is yours, Adrian, right? Explore additional and new types of retail at Stanford Shopping Center? Council Member Fine: Mm hmm. Vice Mayor Kniss: I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Stanford Shopping Center is controlled by Stanford. We might write them a letter or we might drop by, but they are carefully curated as any shopping center is in the United States. I admire your creativity, but it is a rather useless amendment to add to this. Maybe Council Member Tanaka would add to that, who talks a lot about curation and shopping centers. I have friends who have tried to go in there, and you are carefully evaluated. There's a long waiting list. If you're not successful, you leave. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine, I agree Council Member Kniss on that. I actually thought you were going to wordsmith it differently. I thought what you were going to suggest is that we explore adding additional FAR for more retail at Stanford Shopping Center. Was that not your intent? Council Member Fine: Yeah, additional retail. Mayor Scharff: it's exploring adding additional … Council Member Fine: FAR for Stanford there for retail. Mayor Scharff: For new retail. If you're going to expand retail, that's what you mean. Vice Mayor Kniss is correct in that we can't tell Stanford what kind of retail to have. Council Member Fine: Take out the type. Explore adding additional floor area ratio for retail at Stanford Shopping Center. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add to the Motion, “add a new Program 4.7.2, ‘explore adding additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for retail at Stanford Shopping Center.” (New Part F) TRANSCRIPT    Page 109 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: You want to speak to your motion? Council Member Fine: It is important for us to maintain Stanford Shopping Center as a regional shopping center, something that attracts a lot of folks and has unique businesses, like Tesla had their first in-house store there. Stanford Shopping Center is also going to have to change over the years. In the next 15 years, they may need to grow more. If we do support local retail in Palo Alto, that includes the shopping center. This is one way to get that. Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to it briefly. I actually think where Stanford Shopping Center is located, the impacts of adding more retail are far outweighed by the benefits. Number one, we're blessed to have a regional shopping center. When you visit other shopping centers—the shopping center industry, especially regional shopping centers, are very competitive these days. The more of those small shops and boutiques you have, the more competitive your shopping center is and, frankly, the more TOT we get. One of the strong reasons I support this is it provides more TOT to Palo Alto, but also you need your shopping center to grow and to maintain its status as the premier regional center where everyone comes to. We do have ones that we compete with in San Jose. People have a choice. They can drive down Santana Row or they can go to Stanford Shopping Center. I want to give Stanford Shopping Center the ability to grow and compete, if they think it's appropriate. We should explore their ability to grow as a shopping center. I can tell you there are lots and lots of stores that are not going to go into our Downtown or into California Avenue, that are only going to go in Stanford Shopping Center. Given the benefits of the TOT and also … Vice Mayor Kniss: I think you mean sales tax. Mayor Scharff: I mean sales tax; I say TOT. It's getting late. I mean sales tax. Thanks for correcting that. Given the benefits of the sales tax and also maintaining the sales tax revenue we currently get by maintaining our competitive edge, it's worth exploring. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I was going to edit what was there before. Later. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no one else, let's vote on the board. That passes on an 8-1 vote with Council Member Kou … Vice Mayor Kniss: Poor Lydia's light doesn't work. Mayor Scharff: It's a no, though, right? Council Member Kou: It's a no. TRANSCRIPT    Page 110 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: If it's a yellow light, it's a no. That's what I'm assuming. That's why I said with Council Member Kou voting no. AMENDMENT PASSED: 8-1 Kou no Mayor Scharff: I have no lights on the board. Now, I have lights on the board. Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I think last May I heard that there was some question as to whether programming is an allowed use in Downtown—coding is allowed Downtown. Staff has interpreted over the past few years that coding is allowed. This is more of a small cleanup type of thing. We should make it clear that programming, coding, whatever you want to call it, is definitely an allowed use in Downtown Palo Alto. There should be no question. There should be no Wall Street Journal article talking about how Palo Alto doesn't allow coding Downtown from companies like Amazon and others. I just want to make that really clear. If you turn to page L-38, regional centers, Policy L-4.5. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to do it, but I'll make a suggestion here in the clause where it says with a mix of commercial, civic, cultural and recreational and residential uses. In terms of commercial, we could do e.g. as an example coding or technology development or something that makes it clear that this is something we want to actually have Downtown. Mayor Scharff: I wanted to ask Staff if that's a good place to put it or should we just direct you to—how would you like to handle it? Ms. Gitelman: Maybe you could just direct us to address this issue in this section. I don't know whether we'll do it in that policy or another policy. Mayor Scharff: Why don't you just suggest some language that may work for that? Ms. Gitelman: I really don't want to write this language on the fly. If you could give us direction to include technology businesses. Mayor Scharff: Direction to include … Mr. Keene: Put it in the appropriate (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: Direction to allow … Ms. Gitelman: Tech offices. Mayor Scharff: … tech offices in Downtown. TRANSCRIPT    Page 111 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Tanaka: I think what I heard was coding was not allowed in Downtown Palo Alto or something like that. Mayor Scharff: To allow software development in the Downtown. Clarify that software development in Downtown is allowed. Council Member Tanaka: Yes. AMENDMENT: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add to the Motion, “to clarify that software development is allowed Downtown.” (New Part G) Council Member Wolbach: Just to weigh in on this, I would actually suggest, if Staff is looking for greater clarity, we could just add "major commercial center including professional small businesses such as therapists and software development." Just to give a couple of example so we're not just calling out one in particular, but maybe give a couple of examples. Council Member Tanaka: I just want to make it really clear, even if it's not a small business, programming, software development. Council Member Wolbach: We should reverse that. It would be including software developers and professional services. Mayor Scharff: Why don't we just let it be for Staff to clarify that software is allowed Downtown? Council Member Wolbach: I thought they were looking for (inaudible). I misunderstood Staff's request. Mayor Scharff: That's what Staff said, just let … Council Member Tanaka: Is that accepted? Mayor Scharff: I'm going to accept that. I don't know if Council Member Filseth is. That's up to him. Council Member Filseth: I'm not going to accept it. It's a little bit odd. What we're asking Staff to do is come up with some language about allowing software development Downtown. I'm not ready to make that decision. I think there needs to be a bunch more discussion. What kind of software are we talking about? Are you talking about 1,000 people from SAP or are we talking about two people in an office above a coffee shop? I think there's a lot more discussion that needs to be done on that. I wouldn't want to vote up or down on that tonight. What I would think is we ought to have the discussion, and we ought to go through that process of deciding whether TRANSCRIPT    Page 112 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  we're going to do this or not. If that's what the motion triggers, then I would support it. If the motion is we're going to decide we're going to do this, then I'm not going to support it. I'm wondering what the intent here is. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, you were seconding? Council Member Wolbach: It looks like you've already seconded it. Mayor Scharff: I already seconded it? Then, I second it. I'm going to do it correctly and have Council Member Tanaka speak to his motion. Council Member Tanaka: I actually thought this would be a clerical addition. I didn't think that anyone would not believe that we could do software development—it's not an allowed use Downtown because there's so much software development that happens Downtown right now. For me, Palo Alto's well known to be an area where you can do software development especially Downtown. For us to say it's illegal is really odd. I'm surprised people would even debate this. It's (inaudible) of Silicon Valley, and we should allow software development. It would be very weird for us to say we don't want software development in Palo Alto. That's just not right. Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to it briefly. I also agree with Council Member Filseth that it's a little weird, but the reason it's weird is because it was weird that Council Members started talking in the press that software development may not be allowed in the Downtown. I thought that was weird, and then it got picked up on national news and all of that, which I thought was really unfortunate. I think it's probably important that we clarify that, given that people actually seem to think that software development may not be allowed Downtown. We should also point out—I don't remember exactly when it was, but Dell had their headquarters … Vice Mayor Kniss: In the '90s. Mayor Scharff: No, it was earlier. It was in the '80s. It was in the '80s, the early '80s. We've had software development in our Downtown for the '80s, the '90s, 2000, 2010s, for over 40-some years. Staff has had a consistent … Since we're doing the Comprehensive Plan, this came up. I actually agree there's no harm in clarifying it and making it clear that software development is allowed Downtown. Ms. Gitelman: I do have a suggestion about how we can try and meet in the middle on this one. Instead of having a policy statement, it could be a program that says consider whether Zoning Code changes are warranted to recognize Palo Alto's long-term practice of allowing software development Downtown. TRANSCRIPT    Page 113 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I think we should be stronger, that software development is allowed Downtown, and leave it at that somewhere. I don't care how Staff does it, but I want there to be no ambiguity on this issue. I was going to raise it. There is something somewhere in the Comp Plan that made me think there was some ambiguity on it. You don't remember, right? Council Member Filseth: It was the one about regulate the approved uses or something like that. Mayor Scharff: It was like regulate the approved uses Downtown or something. Do you remember where that was? I was going to find that and—here. It was Policy L-1.4, which I was later going to suggest we delete because I wanted to know what it meant. I was going to ask what it meant first. It says regulate land uses in Palo Alto according the land definitions in the element and map. I wasn't sure what that meant. Ms. Gitelman: We were just trying to include a policy that references the land use definitions that are in the text. It's a legal nuance. Mayor Scharff: You need to have that there. Ms. Costello: We need to have that. Mayor Scharff: That has nothing to do with this issue? Ms. Gitelman: That's correct; it does not. Mayor Scharff: I've spoken to it. Now, Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I think you guys are oversimplifying and mischaracterizing a lot of the discussion. It wasn't about coding in Palo Alto. It was about size and scale of business. We have commercial neighborhood zones, which are supposed to have locally serving businesses. We have CS zones, and we also have Research Park. The question is what kind of uses are allowed in what zones. I think it'd be perfectly appropriate to look at our definitions and refer that to Policy and Services. A blanket statement about software development regardless of scale of operation and whether it's a global business located in our Downtown is a different decision. Dell headquarters are always in Massachusetts. They had an administrative office in Palo Alto. I think administrative offices are a permitted use. Right now, it says no produce development, and that includes hardware. We've had some hardware manufacturing Downtown, which is probably not something we want. I think it's totally reasonable to look at our zoning, look at the type of activities we want to have occur in different parts of the City. I just think we're really oversimplifying to say no coding. Some people may TRANSCRIPT    Page 114 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  have characterized it that way. If you read the stories, that really wasn't the discussion. I would not support blanket changes today. I do think Staff's idea was a good one, which was we should look at our zoning definitions and permitted uses. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I actually disagree. While we can have broader discussions about land use policies and we can have—sorry, about land use definitions. There was a lot of discussion in the last year about whether software development is allowed in Downtown Palo Alto at any scale. There was also discussion about size. That's part of why we've had the discussion. We'll continue to have discussions about funding mechanisms and things like that that might be escalated for larger employers. Part of the discussion indeed, as I remember it, was the question of whether software development was allowed in Downtown Palo Alto. It was my clear understanding that that was raised in order to discourage or raise a sense of threat towards software developers in Downtown Palo Alto with an eye towards potentially clarifying or threatening clarifying that software development was not allowed in Downtown Palo Alto. I think this amendment is important, even if it is controversial, to say that the majority of Palo Alto and the majority of this Council does not support the idea that software development in Downtown Palo Alto is outside of allowable business practices where somebody has a business. That doesn't mean that every single property in Downtown Palo Alto should be owned by one single company. That doesn't mean that every type of zoning in Downtown Palo Alto is software development. It doesn't mean every retailer should turn into a software developer. This is a real issue. To say it wasn't a real issue is inaccurate. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'd have to pick up on what Council Member Wolbach is saying. It not only was an issue, but it ran in papers across the country that we didn't want software development. I think businesses may be what you mean. I think software development may be a little too broad. Software development businesses were not going to be allowed Downtown. It was amazing. Every reporter that I knew picked it up at that point. I would think reporters watching it tonight would mention that software development might again be allowed in the Downtown. My recollection is it's never stopped. Thank you, Mayor Scharff, for reminding me that Dell did go back until the '80s. By the '90s, there were a number of software development companies Downtown. They were all located within 2 or 3 blocks of where we're sitting right now. That clarification is needed. As I said, I might add TRANSCRIPT    Page 115 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  the word businesses, but almost anybody can sit in their house Downtown— even Eric Filseth, I'll bet, could just be developing software at his house. I understand the intent exactly, and I support it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Frankly, I couldn't care less what all the news media around the world is talking about. What the point comes down to is that just to open wide for software development with no thought given to how big it could be or what the impacts to Downtown could be. The whole idea behind—I'm glad for the memories for the '80s and the '90s. That's great. What was forgotten there was also that there were all these startups that happened in town. That was the whole intent, to ensure startup has a chance to have their offices here in Downtown and also for smaller companies to also be able to have a standing chance of operating in Downtown when these bigger companies can go over to Stanford Research Park, where there's larger space for them. There isn't as much parking impacts and so forth. We're forgetting also we just went through the Transportation Element, which was long. However, most of the elements in there are not proven yet. They're all based on unproven assumptions so far. You want to go big on land use, then you should go big on transportation as well. Put some teeth behind everything. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I agree with the comments made by Council Members Fine, DuBois, and Kou to this point. Just a little while ago, we made a change to take out "consider whether these limits should be applied to other centers" when we were talking about formula stores. That was just "consider." What we're doing here is putting something in the Comprehensive Plan that makes a large assumption without any limitations, that tech companies belong in our Downtown area with no size limitation. The examples that have been given before about some of the companies, whether by name or not, were small, were scaled. Whether it is a tech company or just to name somebody out of the blue is Walmart. We don't want an unlimited size presence in our Downtown. It's unhealthy. It is unhealthy. For tech jobs, I would say especially, if I can get your attention, it's unhealthy because for the tech jobs there's a jobs multiplier of 4:1. For every tech job, there are four jobs that created. There have been articles written about this. Guess what that does our to housing demand? What are we doing? We're putting ourselves behind the curve yet again with jobs creation as related to our housing needs and our housing demands. I don't think anybody is not supportive of having startup tech companies. When it comes to our Downtown and commercial areas, having them unscaled is TRANSCRIPT    Page 116 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  really detrimental to the community. It's detrimental to our housing stock and housing demands. It's detrimental to the number of jobs that we're creating. Housing prices are related to the number of jobs that we have. It's not just the quality of schools; it's also related to the number of jobs we have that creates the demand on housing. This is a very large step to take with no analysis, no feedback from Staff. I really encourage Council to not take this step tonight. Do it by ordinance separately so we can actually discuss this and its impacts adequately. Mayor Scharff: I have to speak this. This is not step at all. This is just clarifying existing policy of some 40 years. We're not changing anything. Everything is remaining the same. We're just making it—I'm speaking. We're just making it totally clear what the City Attorneys, the Planning Staff, and the City Manager's interpretation of our current rules are and what our Planning Staff's interpretation of the current rules are going back 40 years. The biggest reason to put this in here is some of the pushback we're getting today. This is the current rule. This has always been the current rule. This doesn't deal with issues of scale; it doesn't deal with any of that. We're not having those discussions tonight. All we're doing is we're saying that the existing law in Palo Alto has been and shall continue to be, unless someone changes it, that software development is allowed in the Downtown, which we have always done. We talk about little companies, little companies like Facebook, which were started in Downtown. Really, little companies like Facebook? We should be proud of that. We should be proud of who we are as Palo Alto. We are the center of Silicon Valley and the center of tech. I think it's really important for us to say this, especially after all of the press that we got nationwide. Everywhere you went, people were laughing at us and asking the question, "You're really going to outlaw software development?" It may be an exaggeration, but that's how the press viewed it. When I traveled around the country, that's what people talked about. Council Member—who's next? Did you put your light on? You did. Filseth. Council Member Filseth: The only thing I would say to this is we're sitting here, going this whole issue. The issue is more complex than software or no software. We're sitting here going, "This is a couple of offhand remarks to a couple of reporters, and it got blow out of proportion." I actually don't think that's the case. I think there is some legitimate discussion here and some significant opinion on this topic, and it touches the roles of startups and how long should Facebook stay here or should they go the Research Park and all this kind of stuff. We erred last year by having, as Council Member Wolbach pointed out, a bunch of discussion but not making any decisions. We should make a decision on this. We should follow our process. We should send it to Policy and Services, have them come back with a recommendation and approve it. We should follow our process on this, which is what we do with TRANSCRIPT    Page 117 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  contentious issues, rather than making some kind of sweeping decision at 10:30 at night on a Monday. If we do make a decision tonight, then we should make a very, very narrow one and still take the issue off and go through our process. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Tanaka, for proposing this. Like you, I'm a little surprised that this is so contentious. To Council Member DuBois, Council Member Kou, and Council Member Holman, I agree there are serious issues with size, scale, context, how many of these businesses, what percentage of Downtown they occupy. Those are certainly issues this City is dealing with. I don't think that's what this phrase is getting at. This is actually more of a narrative, affirmative vision, and it's going into our Comp Plan. I'm a little surprised this is so contentious because software development and technology is the life blood of this community. You guys were talking about tech companies here in the '80s. My parents moved here in the last '70s to work in tech companies. I can see somebody in the audience my dad worked with 30 years ago. That's what we do here. I think it actually is really important given the black eye we got for right or for wrong, for hot air or not, that we do affirm this is an important thing. I'm going to make one amendment to the amendment because, frankly, I'm a little surprised it says to clarify that software development is allowed Downtown. I'd say to clarify that software development is allowed in Palo Alto. It's our City. AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace in the Amendment, “Downtown” with “Palo Alto.” AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: I think it's the Downtown issue. Council Member Filseth: It just means Downtown. The issues are all about (crosstalk). Council Member Fine: There are software companies on Cal. Ave. There's software companies on El Camino. There may be some in Midtown. I don't know if you guys will accept it, but that's how I feel. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think there's one in my neighborhood. Mayor Scharff: I think there's one at your house. TRANSCRIPT    Page 118 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Fine: If it's in the residential area, that might be a problem. It's something we should regulate outside of this. Mayor Scharff: I'm happy with Downtown. I think that makes the statement. That's where the issue is. Male: (inaudible) Council Member Fine: Yeah, SRP, Cal. Ave. Council Member Tanaka: I just want to ask maybe the Staff or perhaps the City Attorney. I wasn't actually here when that discussion came up around is coding allowed Downtown. Could that same argument be used that coding would not be allowed in other parts of Palo Alto? There's a lot of software development in Palo Alto in general. I just wanted to understand what is—I didn't quite understand the arguments someone made about why software development or coding is not allowed Downtown. I just want to make sure that cannot be extended to ban software development in the Stanford Research Park, on El Camino, or in other places of the City. Molly Stump, City Attorney: Just to clarify, the discussion did not occur at Council. The views that were reported in the paper were the personal views of an individual Council Member. There was not a discussion at this body. I believe that the issue was related to the technical definition in our Code, which we do think could be clearer and modernized, frankly. The language is somewhat old, and it's due for a refresh. It's the definition of the zoning designation that applies Downtown. Hillary. Ms. Gitelman: If you recall, they are like four different types of office uses as well as research and development uses defined in the Code. One of those uses allowed Downtown we've interpreted to allow software development. Another one of the uses specifies—I don't know if it uses the word software development. Anyway, we're getting kind of deep into the wording of the definitions I don't have in front of me. It had to do with parsing the actual wording of those clauses in the administrative sections of the Code. Council Member Tanaka: Considering the proposed amendment, I just want to make sure that, if we do it the way it stands, that doesn't mean that suddenly Stanford Research Park, you can't do software development there now. I want to make sure it's clear that … Ms. Gitelman: That would not be a consequence of this wording. Council Member Tanaka: I think we're okay. TRANSCRIPT    Page 119 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I guess the question that was really raised is instead of saying Downtown, should we just direct Staff—should we be saying more in office zoning in Palo Alto. Is that more appropriate or should we just leave it at Downtown and the message gets across to Staff? Vice Mayor Kniss: I think Downtown is fine. Ms. Gitelman: I think the issue came up in the context of Downtown. Mayor Scharff: That's what I thought. Downtown's fine. Ms. Gitelman: The alternative would be to include a program. Mayor Scharff: Let's just do it Downtown. I'm good with that. Has everyone spoken who wants to speak? Council Member Wolbach, did you want to speak. Council Member Kou, do you have your light on too? Council Member Kou: I have a question. Council Member Wolbach: I'll wait to hear the question. It might be relevant. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Was this considered in the EIR? The impacts of people, employees, cars, whatever else there is. Ms. Gitelman: This is an issue about how the Code definitions are interpreted or have been interpreted for many years. It's not really an issue that rises to the level of a … Council Member Kou: Of an (crosstalk). Ms. Gitelman: … that would be considered in the EIR. Council Member Wolbach: I don't want to push the issue too much, but I thought Council Member Fine's suggestion might be a valuable one. I do remember hearing some discussion, whether it was public or not, about SRP also being a target for "clamping down" on software development. We might want to suggest something broader to clarify that software development is an allowable office and R&D usage including but not limited to—it is an allowable office and R&D usage. Beyond that, this should be an annual Code cleanup item. I don't think we need to include that as a program in the Comp Plan. TRANSCRIPT    Page 120 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Can we vote on the board? That passes on a 5-4 vote with Council Members Kou, Filseth, and Holman voting no. It is 6, right? With Council Members Kou, Filseth, and Holman voting no. AMENDMENT PASSED: 6-3 Filseth, Holman, Kou no Mayor Scharff: Finish up. Just try not to make it as controversial. Come up with a softball now. Council Member Tanaka: I thought I would try my softball first. I thought that was the easy one. Sorry. I'm not going to talk about the one that's really going to be controversial. I'm actually serious about that. Can Staff just clarify—I've heard that startups are not allowed to start out of houses or residential property. Mayor Scharff: What was the question? Council Member Tanaka: I just want to ask Staff a question. I heard that startups are not allowed to start out of houses in Palo Alto. Like HP garage or like the Facebook house. Can Staff clarify what does the Code say on this? Mr. Keene: I think that's not accurate about startups. I think some of these same discussions about scale and other conditions start to enter in. Ms. Gitelman: The City of Palo Alto has a long history of protecting residential neighborhoods and requiring residential properties to be used for residential use. There are a couple of exceptions; actually, there's one exception which is a home-based business. That does not allow you to have a bunch of employees or customers come to your house. It is a matter of scale. You can only use a small percentage of your house. I forget exactly what the number is. You can't have employees or customers. It tends to preclude anyone except a single entrepreneur coming up with the idea that they're going to take Downtown or to another district of Palo Alto and grow into a business in an office setting. Council Member Tanaka: Palo Alto is kind of known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. In fact, we have a historic plaque where the HP garage is. I was just reading the story about HP. Before they moved out, they had Hewlett and Packard. They were selling oscilloscopes out of the garage. They had, at least according to the HP website, one or two employees at the time. If HP was here today, would they be—could there be a Code enforcement on them or what would happen to Hewlett-Packard if they tried to start in Palo Alto today? TRANSCRIPT    Page 121 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Ms. Gitelman: I would have to do the same research you're describing to determine exactly what use they were conducting to tell you whether it was consistent with our ordinance. Council Member Tanaka: They were trying to develop oscilloscopes. Audio oscillator, I'm corrected. My history is bad. An audio oscillator, an electronic device. Ms. Gitelman: If they had employees and customers and a scale of a use that was not compatible with our home-based business rules, then it would be conflict with our Code, yes. Council Member Tanaka: What about Facebook? They were on Jennifer Lane or something like that. They also started here in Palo Alto out of a house. Would that have been illegal as well? Ms. Gitelman: Again, a single individual in their house can start a business. Council Member Tanaka: I think they had about eight people, if I'm not mistaken. Ms. Gitelman: You cannot employ eight people in your house. Council Member Tanaka: I don't know if any of you guys watch HBO Silicon Valley, maybe not. They had an episode called "Server Space;" it was like last year. They actually talked about how the startup Pied Piper was getting kicked out or trying to get kicked out of their house they were working out of. I'm kind of torn on this. We definitely want to protect residential neighborhood, but the reality is when you have a couple of guys coding in their house, how do you enforce that? That seems like that's incredibly hard to enforce. Not just that, but we've had some of the most iconic companies start out of houses in Palo Alto. What's different with—in the HP example versus Facebook, they had to have people check out their audio oscillator, a physical device. They were actually manufacturing that physical device. With Facebook and software in general, it's all web-based. There's no customers having to go to the house to check out the software. I think there was also a lot of inconsistent enforcement as well. It seems like it's not—can Staff say how many times have they ever enforced someone starting a company out of their house? Ms. Gitelman: We actually have had a number of Code enforcement cases where people are using residential properties for nonresidential use. We consider it a serious violation of our Code. We get complaints, and we initiate enforcement and abate the violation. TRANSCRIPT    Page 122 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Tanaka: Theoretically, we could have shutdown Facebook then. Ms. Gitelman: I'm not going to go back in time and conjecture about Facebook. I'm telling you we have an active Code Enforcement Program. This is a violation we pursue, and we take it seriously. Council Member Tanaka: My last one was more controversial than I thought, but this one is definitely, I know, going to be controversial. I want us to refer to Page 455, Policy L-3.2. The point I'm trying to make here is Palo Alto has been the center of innovation. Some of the greatest companies have started out of Palo Alto. When you start a company, you don't start with millions of dollars in the bank and renting 10,000 square feet in Downtown Palo Alto. That doesn't happen. You start out of your own house. A lot of times it's your own money you're funding the company. My proposed—it may not be a friendly amendment; I'm not sure. My proposed amendment here is to say preserve residential uses from conversion to office and add "except for nascent startups or short-term rentals." Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to accept it, but I know Council Member Filseth will. Council Member Tanaka: I just want to add a short phrase, "preserve residential uses from conversion to office." I don't know if this actually belongs. Basically, what I really want to do is—I think it's important for the life blood of Palo Alto that nascent startups are able to start. If you say you can't—the only way you start this business is you raise millions of dollars and you go rent an office somewhere. There's very few that will actually start. Very few companies can raise millions of dollars from the get-go and rent an office somewhere. If you say that you cannot start out of your house, how many startups are there going to be? There will be very few in Palo Alto. I think it happens already; we know it happens. How can we—I guess I'll look for Staff to figure out where to put that. I thought maybe 3.2, but maybe it's not the best place. I'm open to ideas. Male: (inaudible) clarify your Motion. Council Member Tanaka: My Motion is nascent startups should be able to start out of houses. Mayor Scharff: He's going to need a second for that. Council Member Fine: I'll second this. TRANSCRIPT    Page 123 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  AMENDMENT: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to the Motion, “nascent startups should be able to start in houses.” Vice Mayor Kniss: Could I ask something clarifying? The real question is, I think, what size of startup? It's really about a size thing. If you have four people sitting in a garage somewhere, and they are all over town, I would agree. I don't think a lot of people are going to complain about it. Having seen the Facebook movie, if I'd been one of the neighbors, I might have complained about it. It's very much one of those—it is in part what some neighborhoods are willing to tolerate because it's usually about cars parked there and so forth. "Startups should be able to start in houses" seems a little too prescriptive without something that describes what a startup is. Is it four people or six or eight? Mayor Scharff: I think we need to let him speak to his second. Council Member Fine: I'll be clear. I actually don't expect this to pass here tonight. I don't think there's the votes for it. I think it's important to actually send the signal. I'll speak for Council Member Tanaka and myself. We actually find startups here in Palo Alto are an important part of the City, part of the community, part of our economy. This may be better suited to the business and economics part of the Comp Plan, where we want to look at policies. We may want to look at policies to promote or encourage nascent startups in the City. That said, Vice Mayor Kniss, as you mentioned, there are serious implications for neighborhoods here. I understand why many of you won't support this. I think it is important to open this topic. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I just want to address the question about enforcement. Traditionally, the way it gets enforced is all the neighbors complain about lots of people coming and going at all hours of the night, and people parking all over the street, and noise and stuff like that. I think that's the enforcement, the de facto enforcement answer. On the overall approach, I would be astonished if a majority of Palo Alto residents supported legalizing hacker houses in R-1 neighborhoods. Ms. Gitelman: I feel like I have to say this would be a significant policy change. I'm not sure we could just insert it one section. I think we'd have to look through this whole element, and there would be other things that would have to change. Mayor Scharff: I think the seconder of the Motion had it right when he said it's unlikely to pass, before we get all worked up. Admirable to introduce it. TRANSCRIPT    Page 124 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  If anyone else feels they need to speak to this before we vote on it? Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Just quickly. With due respect, I have to say it isn't just guys that do the startups. It can be guys, gals, whatever. Just an historical point, when Hewlett and Packard were starting in the HP garage, it was Hewlett and Packard, the husbands, and Lucille and—I'm sorry I forget Mrs. Hewlett's first name. It was the … Mayor Scharff: Flora. Council Member Holman: Flora, thank you. It was the four of them, and the employee they had for a very long time was one person, whose name I also forget at the moment. I'm embarrassed that I do. He wasn't there. He was a salesperson who was out in the field. It was a very different dynamic, a very different thing. They didn't have a lot of people coming and going. It was very much a family business and very different than what—Adrian mentioned to me, what about DoorDash. That's very different. People don't support that kind of activity in the neighborhoods. I think the Mayor is correct that it won't pass. I guess you even said it wouldn't. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Was it Council Member Fine suggesting that maybe this best belongs in one of the other elements? Maybe it's appropriate to set this up for a discussion there. I don't think it's going to pass tonight. It's a very interesting concept. Like the discussion on the last item, where people were suggesting changes from the status quo, for people who are concerned about the scale of businesses, the appropriate way to pursue that is by suggesting that there be a change. If this isn't the right place to do it, then a Colleagues' Memo is the right way to do it. I think this is a very interesting concept and worth a real discussion. I'm tempted to support the motion. I still haven't decided. It's an interesting concept, and it should be further explored. Mayor Scharff: I'm going to have to speak just because I have to say—go ahead Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I just want to add one other comment. I think people have covered it, but we're working on housing. From a policy perspective, we're going to say it's just the wrong message. You can rent out your R-1 house as an office. That's not a message we want to propose. Mr. Keene: I thought we were going to try to get through the Land Use Element tonight. TRANSCRIPT    Page 125 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Also, the current Comp Plan has a statement that establishes a City policy, I believe, in intent, and that's to promote—I think Neilson Buchanan also wrote in about this—commerce but not at the expense of residential neighborhoods. I would hope that language is still going to be pretty prevalent in this land use—will be retained in this Land Use Element here. Ms. Gitelman: We can talk about that further when you see the Business and Economics Element. That's where we talk about the relationship between business (crosstalk). Council Member Kou: I hope that it relates and inter-corresponds with each other so that we don't—the linkage is there. Mayor Scharff: I just wanted to briefly say I don't think tonight's the night— it's now 10:50—to be suggesting what I would consider to be a radical, radical departure from what we do in Palo Alto, which is protect our R-1 neighborhoods. I've just got to say that I understand the sentiment, but I do think this would be a major—I don't believe major changes from what we currently do, what we've done for a really long time—I don't know any city that allows businesses in their R-1 neighborhoods beyond what we allow. I hope I don't see a Colleagues' Memo on this. With that, if we could vote on the board. That fails with only Council Members Wolbach voting yes and Tanaka and Fine voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 Fine, Tanaka, Wolbach yes Mayor Scharff: Now, I'm going to clear the board. Council Member Filseth put his light on. Council Member Filseth: Thank you very much. I wanted to suggest—how do I suggest amendments if I'm the seconder of the main motion? Mayor Scharff: You just—I'll turn them all down and we go. Council Member Filseth: I have a short list back on the refinement scale as opposed to … Policy L-1.3 on Packet Page 448 reads promote infill development in the urban service area that is compatible with its surroundings and the overall character of the City to ensure a compact, efficient development pattern. The sentiment is good. We should avoid having the words promote development in the Comp Plan. The intent is to say infill development that gets done in the urban service area should be compatible with its surroundings. I think we should say it that way. TRANSCRIPT    Page 126 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: You just want to get rid of the word promote? Council Member Filseth: I think we should rephrase it. "Infill development in the urban service area should be compatible with" and continue from there—it's surroundings. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to get the … It would start … Council Member Filseth: It would start "infill development in the urban service area should be compatible with … ." I think the Comp Plan itself should neither encourage nor discourage densification. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Does Staff have any concerns? INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Policy L-1.3, ‘promote infill development in the urban service are that is’ with ‘infill development in the urban service area should be.’” (New Part H) Ms. Gitelman: I think it's fine. I think the policy originally was trying to say infill is preferable to sprawl, but the change is fine. Mayor Scharff: Given there's really no sprawl, we're not going … Council Member Filseth: There is no sprawl. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with it. Council Member Filseth: The next one is on the same page. It's also L-1.3, and it's actually in that same bullet. There is some language that was deleted, that says avoid land uses that are overwhelming and unacceptable due to their size and scale. It's also on Packet Page 448, Policy L-1.3. I assume I understand why everybody took it out. One person's overwhelming and unacceptable is somebody else's "this is great." I think it's good guidance. I think we ought to restore that language. I recognize that it's not terribly quantitative. Mayor Scharff: I'm sort of with Staff on this. I don't want to approve any unacceptable and overwhelming developments, but does anyone want to approve overwhelming and unacceptable developments? I don't disagree. I don't want those, but Staff took it out. I think we should have discussion on it. I actually don't care that much, frankly. If everyone wants it, I'm fine with it. I think we should have some discussion. Council Member Kou: I'll second. TRANSCRIPT    Page 127 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  AMENDMENT: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “restore in Policy L-1.3, ‘avoid land uses that are overwhelming and unacceptable due to their size and scale.’” Council Member Filseth: I don't need to speak to it. I've already spoken to it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, did you … Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Sorry, Lydia. Sorry, Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: No problem. I appreciate Staff taking it out. I appreciate that you think it's not needed. It needs to be a reminder to us when we're looking at mass and compatibility and that sort of thing within the City. It's good as a reminder point, and I think we should keep that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I think it should go back to. Here's another reason why besides those that have been stated. On Packet Page 262, at the bottom it says that we voted to restore in the final Comprehensive Plan existing Policy L-6 language about preserving neighborhood character; where possible avoid abrupt changes in scale and density where residential and nonresidential areas and between residential areas of different densities, and to promote compatibility and gradual transitions between land uses. Place zoning districts and boundaries … All of that language speaks to exactly what was deleted and that Council Member Filseth wants to restore. I don't see any issue with wanting to restore that. It's consistent with what the Council voted on and approved last time. To go along with that, I'm not sure why, again consistent with what we voted on and approved last time, the things that are underneath Policy L-1.3 are deleted, like review and change zoning regulations, promote gradual transitions in scale. Those things are deleted. I'm not sure why because all of those were consistent with—maybe they were put someplace else. (crosstalk) Council Member Filseth: Those are someplace else actually. Ms. Costello: Just to clarify, some of these changes were to get rid of redundancy and inconsistent wording. The policy that you just mentioned, avoid abrupt changes in scale, is much easier to use than something that says avoid land uses that are overwhelming and unacceptable. We were looking at the usability when people are reviewing projects. We took some things and moved—we tried to reduce redundancy and things that were TRANSCRIPT    Page 128 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  close but not quite the same because it just creates confusion when you're trying to look at a project and decide whether it's consistent. You might say it doesn't have an abrupt change, but it is sort of overwhelming. That was some of the thinking that went into trying to clean this up and get to areas where you had really a specific thing. Avoiding an abrupt change is much easier for a Staff person doing an interpretation or a member of the community than whatever is overwhelming. That's a lot of what went into taking language and consolidating it and avoiding duplication and going for clarity and trying to say it once. Just to give you some background. Mayor Scharff: Are you finished? Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I think I'm in line with something the Mayor said earlier, if I understood correctly. I don't think anyone is in favor of overwhelming and unacceptably large and out-scaled projects. I just don't think that this particular language is necessary in the Comp Plan. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Just really quickly. Council Member Filseth, I get what you're getting at. I think it's about projects. This actually saying land uses. I'm not really sure what an overwhelming land use is or what avoid a land use because of its size and scale. Council Member Filseth: I think the intent is—I think you're right. I think the intent is project. That would be fine. Council Member Fine: I think we all here agree with you on that. I also respect Staff's logic that it's in the Plan elsewhere, and it's common practice. It's like saying all projects in Palo Alto should go through our Palo Alto process. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Amendment, “land uses” with “projects.” Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman actually convinced me to vote no. You did. I was on the fence; I didn't care. Then, Staff pointed out that it's really not usable because none of us would support that. It becomes whether or not we think that is overwhelming. With the motion that you restored, which was—you moved and seconded, which you just talked about, to restore the final language where possible avoid abrupt changes in scale and density. That captures the overwhelming and all that, so it would be redundant and actually not useful because this language is far more useful than the other language. It's now renumbered as Policy L-67. TRANSCRIPT    Page 129 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “restore in Policy L- 1.3, ‘avoid projects that are overwhelming and unacceptable due to their size and scale.’” Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That fails on a 5-4 vote with Council Members DuBois, Kou, Filseth, and Holman voting yes. It's getting late. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED FAILED: 4-5 DuBois, Filseth, Holman, Kou yes Council Member Filseth: Thank you. Proceeding here, Policy—let's see. Program L-1.3.1 on Page 449. I guess Program L-1.3.1 is the first one on that page. It reads work with neighbors, neighborhood associations, property owners and developers to identify barriers to infill development of below market rate and more affordable market rate housing and remove these barriers. I agree with the spirit. As it reads, it says—you can read it as remove all barriers to all housing development in Palo Alto. I think the community is ready for that. I think we should temper this language by putting the words "as appropriate" or something like that after "remove barriers." Mayor Scharff: You'd say work with neighbors, neighborhood associations, property owners and developers to identify barriers to infill development and more (inaudible) and to remove those barriers as appropriate? Council Member Filseth: As appropriate, yep. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program L-1.3.1, ‘as appropriate’ after ‘remove these barriers.’” (New Part I) Council Member Filseth: Thank you. L-9.6.1 on page 480, a new program that says analyze existing neighborhoods and determine where publicly accessible shared outdoor gathering spaces are below the Citywide average, create new public spaces including public squares, parks, and informal gathering spaces in these neighborhoods. I think the sentiment is right, but the comparison point should not be the Citywide average but be the City standard. The Citywide average might actually be below the City standard. I think we should use the City standard or maybe the City objective or something like that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 130 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: What does Staff suggest? Council Member Filseth: That's a good question. Ms. Gitelman: That will work, City standard. Mayor Scharff: I accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program L9.6.1, ‘citywide average’ with ‘citywide standard.” (New Part J) Council Member Filseth: My last one. In the previous Comp Plan, there was a program in community services about school impacts and the relation to legislative acts. That was in community services. It should be in this Comp Plan, and it probably belongs in land use not in the community services. It reads require an assessment of school impacts prior to the approval of development projects that require legislative acts including General Plan amendments and zoning changes. We should have that, and it's better in land use than it is in community services. I'd love to hear Staff's comments. Ms. Gitelman: We don't remember whether it's in Community Services. If you want to tell us to put it in land use, that's what we'll do. Council Member Filseth: Policy C-7. Ms. Gitelman: You want us to take it out of C-7 and put it here? Council Member Filseth: Yes. Ms. Gitelman: Somewhere to be determined (crosstalk). Council Member Filseth: I'm not sure exactly where. Mayor Scharff: I think we need discussion on that. You need a second. Council Member Kou: I'll second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “move the Policy regarding assessment of school impacts associated with legislative actions from the Community Services Element to the Land Use and Community Design Element.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your Motion? TRANSCRIPT    Page 131 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Filseth: Just briefly. This has been a long topic of discussion, but we had a lot of discussion about the importance of startups in Palo Alto. I'm one of the camp, and there's a sizable number of people that think Palo Alto's main industry is actually raising kids in schools, not just HP and so forth. It's what people care about. It's why people move to the City. To the extent that it's legal, I agree with the CAC group that felt it should be in the Comp Plan. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: This is also something that Arthur Keller brought up earlier tonight, about the schools and its impacts. It's one of the jewels in this community. As Council Member Filseth said, that's why people move here in the first place. I know that for a fact. As Arthur Keller had mentioned, Staff had mentioned that it might be completed. He also said that this should be an ongoing policy in terms of assessing school impacts. I definitely think this one should go into land use. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. A couple of questions for Staff and some comments. Council Member Filseth, are you saying this is currently in the community services chapter of our draft new Plan? Council Member Filseth: My understanding is it's in the 1998 Plan. I'm not sure of the status in the draft new Plan. Council Member Fine: Could Staff clarify that? Is this coming from the '98 Plan or from community services draft? Ms. Gitelman: We're going to have to check. Council Member Fine: Thank you. To the City Attorney, how legal is this? I've heard for a very long time that development projects cannot be considered—you cannot consider school impacts to the effect of a development project. Ms. Stump: Certainly with respect to a particular development application, State law prohibits local governments from considering school impacts in terms of the approval or disapproval of those projects. I will need to get some precise advice to you about the application of that general State policy to legislative items. I would just like to put a marker that, if the Council goes with this, we will do a little bit more work and get you some more specific and concrete advise on that issue. TRANSCRIPT    Page 132 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Fine: Thank you. Do you any of the background of why the State has that policy? Ms. Stump: It's my understand the State policy was put in place at the same time as a major statewide bond was approved. It was essentially part of a package of compromises amongst multiple parties that additional money would be authorized for school construction, but local school districts would have to rest on that and not have additional other requirements to limit development. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Just two comments. One, this almost seems something more like in the wheelhouse of the School District, where we maybe do need to increase our coordination with them and work them on these impacts. Two, I'm frankly kind of worried this could be used to stop developments because of school impacts. That is not welcoming to me. I won't be supporting this. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I understand how it might be thought of as being in the wheelhouse of the School District, but we're the ones that make land use decisions not the School Board, not the School District. My several years of experience—I'm not the City Attorney—are consistent with what the City Attorney says. When it comes to individual development projects, we can't make decisions based on school impacts. I've always been told in the past that—laws can change—when it comes to the broad policies and the Comprehensive Plan, we can consider school impacts. I think it's important to put this in here. City Attorney will come back to us and tell us if we can't. I support the amendment. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Council Member Holman has just clarified what I was going to say. This policy is not saying to evaluate each development project and assess the school impacts. It's a broader legislative action, an assessment in terms of how developments, with an "s," will impact schools. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Council Member Holman and Kou both make good points that I was going to make. The other one I'd make is this is fairly common. Other cities in the Bay Area and elsewhere do this. I'd certainly want to support our schools. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. TRANSCRIPT    Page 133 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Wolbach: Supporting our schools is certainly something we want to do. The question is whether this motion, this amendment is an appropriate and necessary component of our Land Use Element of our Comprehensive Plan in order to support our schools. I'm not going to be supporting the amendment. I appreciate the intent. If it is in our Community Services Element, I'll consider it. Until that one comes back to us, this one I'm going to have to spend a little bit more time thinking about. I'll stay open to persuasion on this. My current thinking on this is that I'm not on Council to prevent people being part of Palo Alto. It's not our job to keep people from coming to Palo Alto, and it's not the School District's job to keep people from attending schools. It's not our job to keep people from attending the schools. Our schools are seeing shrinking enrollment, so I will not be supporting this at this time. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Eric, is this simply that you don't want this in community services, you want it in land use? Is it primarily you just want it to be somewhere? Council Member Filseth: it should be somewhere in the Comp Plan. I assume land use is the right place. It doesn't make sense to put it in community services because you're really talking about land use decisions. I just think it should be in the Comp Plan because it's what people care about in town. As for the sentiment that we don't want to do this because it could be used to stop development or something like that, that sort of implies a priority. Which do you want, development or schools? Vice Mayor Kniss: The real question here is where it goes. I'm not sure it matters whether it's community services or land use. We have always done this. We've always talked about school impacts. We talked about it at City/School the other day. It's somewhat amorphous, but we try to make a guess. Right now, the School District is, as was just mentioned, actually going down in enrollment. Even though the higher levels are in their bubble, the lower levels are not showing that at all. We still have to look at this every single time. I'm just not sure that we need to move it from community services to land use. I'm not sure that makes any great long- term difference. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: The Vice Mayor was asking the question I was going to ask. I didn't understand the different between Community Service Element or land use. What difference does it make? Can Staff comment on that? Is there any difference at all? TRANSCRIPT    Page 134 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Ms. Costello: Unfortunately, we cannot find the latest version of the community services; we didn't bring it with us. I think the suggestion at this point is we should just bring this back. We're really close on land use. We do have a couple of other meetings. This is one thing that we could just bring back where we'd have more clarity on what's where and you could see the actual policy. We feel uncomfortable saying it's not a problem without being better able to tell you what it actually says now. Council Member Tanaka: Generally, it's important that we keep the schools strong. I'm all for that. I'm just trying to understand the difference between keeping it where it was before to moving it. If there's any difference, I don't know. Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Mr. Keene: Could I just second what the Staff was saying about this piece of it. I'm just wondering what your sense is overall as to how far we are through the Land Use Element? Mayor Scharff: I think we're almost done on land use. I was hoping we'd be—I was just promising Vice Mayor Kniss we'll end this one way or another by midnight. I thought we were pretty much done. Filseth's spoken. Fine's spoken. Tanaka's spoken. You've spoken. You've spoken to your amendments; am I wrong? Maybe I'm wrong. I'll take your word for it. Do you have amendments or no? No. You have one more amendment, and you have two questions. I think we're almost done depending on where Council Member Holman is. On this item, I'm watching this 4-4 split on Council. I'll tell you where I am, which is really simple. I would support this. Half the time when a development comes to us, people talk about the schools impacts. We have declining enrollment in our schools. It would be helpful to clarify to the community that this is not going to have a negative impact, and we actually make it easier to get housing approved. I come out the opposite of where you guys were. I'm listening to the City Attorney saying she needs to clarify it. I was going to vote for it with the clear statement that, if we get a negative advice from our City Attorney, I was going to, when this came back to us, reconsider and vote against it. I don't mind putting it off to when they have the information that they asked for, and then we make that one item—I don't want to add a bunch of items— comes back to us when we look at this in June. We look at this June. I was wondering if you'd be all right with that? Council Member Filseth: Yeah. TRANSCRIPT    Page 135 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Maybe we can direct Staff to bring this issue to us in June. Vice Mayor Kniss: Why don't you table it? Mayor Scharff: We'll direct Staff to bring this to us in June. AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “return to Council with additional information pertaining to moving the Policy regarding assessment of school impacts associated with legislative actions from the Community Services Element to the Land Use and Community Design Element.” (New Part K) Council Member Kou: I do want to make a statement now. Mayor Scharff: On this issue? If you want to make your statement on this issue, go ahead. Council Member Kou: Now, I've heard you, Mayor and Vice Mayor as well as Council Member Wolbach say that there's declining enrollment. At the same time from the community, they've told me that Palo Verde, Fairmeadow as well as Escondido kindergarten classes are overflowing. They're actually sending kids to other schools. There is always going to be ups and downs in enrollment. I appreciate the tabling until next time, but I did want to make sure that statement is corrected. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: We're done with that issue. You're done with your issues, right? Council Member DuBois, you had what, two questions? Council Member Kniss, yes. Council Member DuBois: It's getting late. I wondered if Staff could explain on Packet Page 263, at the top there it says two motions failed that resulted in deletion of these policies. I guess my real question is on Packet Page 479. It looks like the El Camino Design Guidelines were deleted. Does that mean the Design Guidelines themselves were deleted? Ms. Costello: Yes. The policy language—hold on just a second. I'm sorry. I do have this. There was a motion which did delete the reference in the General Plan to the use of the El Camino Real Design Guidelines and the issuing of—also the policy about enhancing the pedestrian environment along south El Camino Real, redesign the street to provide a wider sidewalk, increase building setbacks, safe pedestrian crossings at key intersections, trees, etc., consistent with the recommendations of the Grand Boulevard Design Guidelines. They were deleted by Motion. TRANSCRIPT    Page 136 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member DuBois: Does that mean we have no design guidelines on El Camino? Ms. Gitelman: The Design Guidelines still exist and used as advisory when we consider projects. We just took out this specific reference. Council Member DuBois: I'm not sure if that was the intent. That seems kind of shocking. The other one is just a small typo. We just had transportation, bus service come to us a week or two ago. We were talking about five bus services, and then Comp Plan says four. We left out Dumbarton Express. You might want to make it five again. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I just have one suggestion to make. Thank you. If you go to Page 258 of your packet, way at the beginning, this was when we were first giving Council direction on the Land Use Element. On that, it reads Policy L-1.10 would maintain a cumulative cap and so forth. On that one, I can read the whole thing if you want me to. I'm going to suggest that we eliminate Stanford Research Park from this, which is what we have done in the past. Mayor Scharff: We haven't done that in the past. It's been part of the monitored areas. It has. You can ask them. It's been part of the monitored areas. I don't really want to reopen anything like that. If you want to, you can. We've been down that road, and it's part of the monitored areas. Staff can say that. Vice Mayor Kniss: If that's true … Ms. Gitelman: The Research Park has always been a monitored area that was monitored under the cumulative cap in Policy L-8. Vice Mayor Kniss: Then, we'll leave it instead. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: One very short, simple change. I'm a bit worried about being over-prescriptive. I'd like to align one program. It's on Page 355. It's Program L-6.7.1, Packet Page 355. I'd like to align the language with what I proposed in all the things I suggested adding as well in this and transportation. I would just recommend changing the word implement to explore. I'd suggest a change from "implement architectural standards" to "explore architectural standards." I don't think we've drafted them yet. (crosstalk) TRANSCRIPT    Page 137 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Ms. Gitelman: I'm afraid in this instance, this program comes from a mitigation measure in the EIR. We would have a problem watering it down. This is intended to mitigate (crosstalk). Council Member Wolbach: I will withdraw that suggestion. Thank you very much. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “replace in Program L6.7.1, ‘implement’ with ‘explore.’” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: Are you done? Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Last time there was a Motion made and passed. The Motion is on Packet Page 260. It is explore multifamily housing at the Stanford Shopping Center provided adequate parking and vibrant retail is maintained, blah, blah, blah. That is now on packet page 345. It says—it's implementing that. It's allow housing. It's Program L-2.4.2, allow housing on El Camino Real frontage of Stanford Research Park and at Stanford Shopping Center provided that adequate parking and vibrant retail is maintained. I would suggest that there's one other thing we would want to add to that, which is "and no reduction of retail square footage results." I would be adding to that, after "vibrant retail is retained," "and no reduction of retail square footage results." It's consistent with what we did earlier because we're talking about even expanding. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program L2.4.2, ‘and no reduction of retail square footage results’ after ‘retail is maintained.’” (New Part L) Council Member Holman: Got that one. The hotel FAR that came up last time, I just wanted to mention that—currently it's on packet page 350. It is Program L-4.4.1. It says explore increasing hotel FAR from 2.0 to 3.0 on University Avenue and Downtown area and 2.5 in areas outside of Downtown. I just want to suggest to people that we've had some other things come before us tonight that are really large changes. This is a really large change. While I do understand it says explore, that's not lost on me. All the prior discussion has been about reducing the floor area ratio for TRANSCRIPT    Page 138 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  hotels because the 2.0 FAR has served its purpose. By the way, that's a doubling of the 1.0 FAR. I want to say that again. It's a doubling of the 1.0 FAR that's allowed in the CS zone. The only place where that applies is CS. This talks about doing this in either a 2.0 to 3.0 or a 2.5 in all other areas. It's not limited even to any particular zones. I'm just saying that is such a sweeping, sweeping change that it would be smart of us to look at that as a separate ordinance. It's very prescriptive to have this in the Comprehensive Plan anyway. It's talk about specific floor area ratios. It's very prescriptive. Mr. Keene: I thought this was an earlier Council direction. Mayor Scharff: We voted on this. Mr. Keene: It is explore. Council Member Holman: City Manager, can you let us have the dialog please? Mr. Keene: I said it says explore. Council Member Holman: I understand that. I'm saying can you let us have the dialog. Mr. Keene: I was just clarifying that this was … Council Member Holman: I already said that. I'm not trying to be argumentative but trying to close this out as opposed to expanding it. If we're going to be consistent with the other ways that we've addressed things, something like this should be an ordinance and not in the Comprehensive Plan. It's very prescriptive. Mayor Scharff: Anything else? Council Member Holman: Can I get a second on that? Council Member Kou: Second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “remove Program L4.4.1.” Council Member Holman: I've spoken to why I think this needs to be a separate consideration and not this prescriptive in the Comprehensive Plan and how it is potentially very impactful and inconsistent with a lot of the other things we've put in here like avoiding abrupt land use changes and such. That's why I'm bringing it up. TRANSCRIPT    Page 139 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, would you like to speak to your second? Council Member Kou: What Council Holman said. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no lights, we can just vote on the board. Council Member Filseth: Can I just (inaudible)? Mayor Scharff: On the Amendment. A no vote is on the Amendment. Council Member Filseth: Can I ask you a question? Mayor Scharff: Sure. I didn't see your light on. Council Member Filseth: I'm looking at the City Manager here. We voted on this before, right? Mr. Keene: Yes. Mayor Scharff: That fails on a 6-3 vote with Council Members Holman, Kou, and DuBois voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 DuBois, Holman, Kou yes Council Member Holman: I have a new policy. It's consistent with—it's along the same lines of something that I think Council Member Tanaka brought up earlier. That is to explore and potentially support new, creative, and innovative retail in Palo Alto. Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. Just direct staff to put it somewhere. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “explore and potentially support new, creative and innovative retail in Palo Alto.” (New Part M) Council Member Fine: It's similar to Letter C, but I like what you've written as well. Just leave it. Council Member Holman: I had an email exchange with the Director earlier because there was something I didn't find in the Staff Report or in the land use chapter. We had talked about something that came out at the CAC for some reason or other, that we should restore the historic preservation references that are in the current Comprehensive Plan. As a CLG city, a certified local government, we'd be prudent to do so. As we talk about TRANSCRIPT    Page 140 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  compatibility and neighborhood character, it's essential that we have those back in. Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman did raise this to me. It was a comment we received; it wasn't a motion. It was a comment we received in November. It's just kind of a factual correction. We're happy to make that in the next version of this. Council Member Holman: You don't need a motion to that? You'll just … Ms. Gitelman: It wouldn't hurt to just … Council Member Holman: Direct Staff to restore historic preservation policies and goals as Director Gitelman has indicated. Ms. Gitelman: It's just policies. Mayor Scharff: What does that mean? I have no idea what we're talking about. Ms. Gitelman: There were factual statements of how many historic districts we have and … Council Member Holman: That's what you're talking about. Those do need to be in here, but there are also that the CAC had taken out. We had discussed but never—there wasn't any motion or vote about putting back the programs, maybe policies too, that were in the existing Comprehensive Plan. Right now, there's pretty much nothing in reference to historic preservation, and we're a CLG city. Mayor Scharff: It's on L-7? That's where all the stuff on historic resources is? Packet Page 471. Council Member Holman: You're on the edited part, 471. Ms. Gitelman: I apologize, Council Member Holman. I thought you had given us a few corrections to some of the factual statements in here that we would be happy to include. Mayor Scharff: You'll need to make a Motion, Council Member Holman. What do you want to do? Council Member Holman: Staff thought I was referring to the reference to historic districts and such that we have. Is that correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. TRANSCRIPT    Page 141 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Holman: Do you want to provide some language for that? Staff to restore reference to … Ms. Gitelman: Your request was to make sure that the text here was correct in referring to the historic districts and the inventory that we have. We can go back again and look at your comments. They weren't policy changes. Do you want to speak to this? Council Member Holman: Perhaps I err. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “restore references to historic preservation.” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Council Member Holman: The other is a new policy that would be infrastructure goals should be accomplished prior to development that would rely on that infrastructure to be sustainable. It's not worded the best. What I'm trying to get at here is that we play catch-up. We have development, and then we play catch-up on whether we have enough parkland, whether we have the transit opportunities, whether we have the facilities that support development. What I'm trying to do here is get ahead of the development by providing the infrastructure first. Mayor Scharff: No, I'm not going to support that. It dies for lack of a second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “add a Policy, ‘infrastructure goals should be accomplished prior to development that would rely on that infrastructure to be sustainable.’” AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: Are you done? Council Member Holman: I'm done. Mayor Scharff: I just had a very few things. I wanted to ask Staff on Policy L-7.2, Packet Page 472. It says if a proposed development would affect a potential historic resource that has not been evaluated for inclusion in the City's historic resource inventory, consider whether it is eligible for inclusion in the City's inventory prior to issuance of a demolition or alterations permit. It's a new policy. My question is—we had the building on Park come to us, on Park Boulevard. There's the funeral home, I think, that we've looked at TRANSCRIPT    Page 142 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  over on San Antonio or that we're going to be talking about in the EIR. There's that building on El Camino. All those buildings are—the one with the thing you're tearing down or replacing with a modern building, the really large structure. All three of those would be considered historic or possibly historic because they're over 50 years. Is that correct? My question is— they weren't on the historic resource list. Does that mean we then have to do something with buildings that come before us like that? If so, what would we have to do, what would be the procedure if we had this in here as a policy, how would this change things, would there be much delay, would this only occur when there's an EIR involved and there would be no delay? What would this do? Ms. Gitelman: I think what would happen for projects like the ones you've mentioned is exactly what already happens. We do a historic evaluation. An expert evaluates the significance of the building and its integrity, and that factors into our CEQA review. It either is historic or it isn't, and that determines the level of review. Where this policy may go a little farther is it's talking about demolition or alteration permits, not just large-scale developments. In implementing this policy, we may have to look at our types of permits that are currently ministerial and have a carve-out for historic resources. I'll have to think about that some more. Mayor Scharff: For demolition, if someone wants to do that, we'd basically say we need to evaluate this. How long would that take roughly and what would it look at? Ms. Gitelman: It would be using the process we use for larger projects now, conducting an historic resource evaluation. That can be done in 4-6 weeks. Depending on the results of that evaluation, if we find the building to be demolished is historic, then there's a larger (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: If a house is over 50 years old—that would apply to single- family homes, wouldn't it? Ms. Gitelman: Demolition of single-family homes. Mayor Scharff: If people wanted to demolish the home and build a new home and it's over 50 years, they would have to do this? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: What if you wanted to do alterations in a home that was over 50 years, you wanted to add anything, then you didn't have to do this. If you wanted to add an ADU, you want to add anything, you'd have to go through this process, wouldn't you? TRANSCRIPT    Page 143 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Ms. Gitelman: The way this is written, I think you're right. It could be that it's a little broad when it says or alteration permit. That could be qualified. Ms. Jensen: Part of the key here is about the potential historic resource. I do think there could be a first level of analysis to determine—not every home that's over 50 years is automatically a potential historic resource. That's one of the requirements, but there are other requirements in terms of how much integrity remains of the original structure. Maybe alterations have already been done. Mayor Scharff: You'd have to do the historic evaluation. Ms. Jensen: Somebody would at least have to make a first pass to determine whether or not it is a potential historic resource. There's kind of a yes/no flow chart. If it's already been degraded so that it's not a potential historic resource, then it wouldn't fall under this policy. Mayor Scharff: This seem to me to be a big change from where we were, especially on single-family homes. I'd be open to excluding single-family homes, but I actually—I'll just move that we remove it from the Comp Plan. Council Member DuBois: I have a question. It says it's a mitigation measure. Ms. Gitelman: It is a mitigation measure. I think we'd like to consider—I definitely take your point. Mayor Scharff: Can I limit it to not single-family homes then? How could single-family homes be a mitigation measure? Ms. Gitelman: I'll have to go back and look in the EIR. I think we identified a potential impact associated with demolition of historic resources. It wasn't limited to everything except single-family homes. Mayor Scharff: You'll come back. I'll just direct Staff to come back, so I can understand this. I'll put it in Eric's bucket. AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “remove Policy L-7.2.” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: On Policy L-6—this is my final one. Policy L-6.3, which is packet page 469, I think the intent is good. I just think it's a little too—I'd like to change it to "where feasible, encourage bird-friendly design." That's it. TRANSCRIPT    Page 144 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  Council Member Filseth: How about just encourage bird-friendly design? Mayor Scharff: That's fine, encourage bird-friendly design. If you're good with it, I'm good with it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Policy L-6.3, ‘require’ with ‘encourage.’” (New Part N) MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to direct Staff to include in the final Draft of the Comprehensive Plan Update: 4. Land Use & Community Design Revisions. A. Remove Program L1.9.2; and B. Add a new Program L2.4.7, “explore mechanisms for increasing multi-family housing density near multimodal transit centers;” and C. Add to Policy L2.9, “and explore opportunities to expand retail opportunities;” and D. Remove from Program L3.5.1, “Land use issues. Evaluate the City’s policy of excluding basements from the gross floor area and maximum floor area ratio limits in the zoning ordinance. Consider zoning revisions, including greater setbacks, to limit basement size and increase basement setbacks from adjacent properties;” and E. Remove from Program 4.1.1, “and consider whether these limits should be applied in other Centers;” and F. Add a new Program 4.7.2, “explore adding additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for retail at Stanford Shopping Center;” and G. To clarify that software development is allowed Downtown; and H. Replace in Policy L-1.3, “promote infill development in the urban service are that is” with “infill development in the urban service area should be;” and I. Add to Program L-1.3.1, “as appropriate” after “remove these barriers;” and TRANSCRIPT    Page 145 of 145  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/1/17  J. Replace in Program L9.6.1, “citywide average” with “citywide standard;” and K. Return to Council with additional information pertaining to moving the Policy regarding assessment of school impacts associated with legislative actions from the Community Services Element to the Land Use and Community Design Element; and L. Add to Program L2.4.2, “and no reduction of retail square footage results” after “retail is maintained;” and M. Explore and potentially support new, creative and innovative retail in Palo Alto; and N. Replace in Policy L-6.3, “require” with “encourage.” Mayor Scharff: That's it. If we can vote on the main Motion. That passes on an 8-1 vote with Council Member Kou voting no. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-1 Kou no Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs None. Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Scharff: With that, we have Council Member Questions and Comments. Seeing none—just put your lights on. Seeing none, we're adjourned. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:43 P.M.