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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-05-15 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT   Page 1 of 88  Special Meeting May 15, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 5:06 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Holman, Kniss arrived at 5:10 P.M., Kou, Scharff, Tanaka joined at 5:09 P.M., Wolbach Participating remotely: DuBois participating from Ohio Living Lake Vista, Conference Room, 44 Heron Circle, Cortland, OH 44410. Participating remotely: Tanaka participating from Washington Hilton Hotel, Embassy Meeting Room, 1919 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009. Absent: Closed Session A. CONFERENCE WITH CITY ATTORNEY Existing Litigation - 1 Matter Authority: Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(1) Buena Vista MHP Residents Association v. City of Palo Alto, et al. Santa Clara County Superior Court, Case No. 115CV284763. Mayor Scharff: Now, I need a Motion to go into Closed Session for a conference with City Attorney. I need a second. Council Member Fine: Second. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to go into Closed Session. Mayor Scharff: Second. All in favor. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 Kniss, Tanaka absent Council went into Closed Session at 5:06 P.M. Council returned from Closed Session at 6:10 P.M. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 2 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff announced no reportable action. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Agenda Item Number 3 was removed from the Consent Calendar. City Manager Comments Mayor Scharff: City Manager Comments James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Do you need to say anything about the absent-but-present Council Members? I just thought of that. Mayor Scharff: Yeah, I probably should. We have two Council Members, Council Member Tanaka and Council Member DuBois, who are appearing remotely. They're on the phone, and they will be participating from different locations. One's in Washington, and the other one is in Ohio. Mr. Keene: Thank you. The first item I have has to do with an upgrading of Downtown infrastructure that will be unfolding in the future. I'm sharing this tonight because on your Consent Calendar is a water main replacement contract that represents the first phase of what will be a larger, multi- departmental infrastructure and street improvement project in the Downtown area. Ultimately, this project will include water and gas pipe replacements, road repaving, traffic signal enhancements, and ultimately the new Downtown parking garage. We're calling the project Upgrade Downtown. On the screen is a flyer and an overall project map that Staff from Utilities, Public Works, Transportation, and Communications have developed as we start outreach to neighborhoods, businesses, and residents about the project. The overall boundaries of the project will primarily be concentrated along Hamilton, University, Everett, and Hawthorne Avenues between Alma and Webster. We'll start next month on Hamilton with water main replacements. The majority of University Avenue construction is planned for 2018, next year. We'll be adding parking enhancements including wayfinding signs and, of course, constructing the Downtown parking garage on Hamilton. Transportation is also adding enhanced traffic signals, upgrading curb ramps to meet current standards, adding new curb extensions, and will be soliciting input about the possibility of bike lanes on University. Public Works will also be repaving a number of streets as part of the Upgrade Downtown project. We anticipate all of the work to be complete by 2020. It is an extensive area. Of course, this first component we'll be doing this summer will be along Hamilton. We're holding a series of open houses where Staff from each of these departments will be available to answer questions on the project. The schedule includes Friday, June 9th, DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 3 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  from 4:00 to 6:00 P.M. at Johnson Park in Downtown North; Tuesday, June 13th, 8:00 A.M. to 9:30 A.M. in the Community Room on the first floor here at City Hall; and Thursday, June 15th, from 11:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. at Lytton Plaza. We'll be getting the word out on all of these upcoming dates, and we'll also be developing a new website at cityofpaloalto.org/upgrade downtown, where people will be able to find all the maps, project descriptions, contract information, and subscribe to receive regular email updates as the project progresses. We've also created a special email address, upgradedowntown@cityofpaloalto.org, and a phone number, 650-329-2DIG, for people to contact us with questions or concerns. There will be a lot more to come on this. The project will start somewhat slowly and build over time. We'll keep the Council and the community well informed in advance. Just a reminder, on Saturday, May 20th, at the Mitchell Park Community Center, a Rail Program community meeting will be held. Our community is invited to participate in the first of what we expect could be several workshops planned to help address longstanding challenges with the four grade crossings on the Caltrain corridor, which runs through Palo Alto. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is making $700 million available for grade crossings in our region, in Santa Clara County. The City has organized a Rail Program to develop plans for addressing traffic, safety, and congestion issues near the City's grade crossings. At the workshop, City Staff will discuss the program's background, past efforts, and issues in the region. Workshop participants will help define the challenges at each grade crossing and provide feedback about viable design alternatives to help prepare the City for the rail corridor of the future. Lunch will be provided. You can find all the information as well as sign up for email updates at our website, cityofpaloalto.org/connectingpaloalto. Affordable Housing Week. The nonprofit Silicon Valley @Home is hosting Affordable Housing Week 2017 in Santa Clara County and kicked off the event with a policy breakfast last Friday. In coordination with event organizers, Mayor Scharff signed a Proclamation declaring May 12th to 19th as Affordable Housing Week, recognizing the successful efforts of SV @Home, the Housing Trust of Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Working Partnerships, and the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Destination Home and other nonprofit agencies working to increase affordable housing opportunities in Santa Clara County were also recognized. City Staff have prepared a one-page summary with various housing statistics and information on City housing programs and policies. The handout is being provided for your information tonight. For those who want to get more involved, there's a full schedule of the events in the county this week including affordable housing tours, workshops, and panels on various housing topics. See the SV @Home website for more information. That's siliconvalleyathome.org/events/affordable-housing-week-2017. For that moment you all have been waiting for, we are set to break ground on the DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 4 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  new processing facility for sewage sludge, that will allow us to decommission the sludge-burning incinerators. Our public is invited to the ceremony on Wednesday, May 24th, at 10:45 A.M. at the Regional Water Quality Control site at 2501 Embarcadero Way on the edge of the Baylands. Tours of the incinerators are available either before or after the brief groundbreaking. As you know, the existing incinerators are the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in Palo Alto. Their discontinuation is an important element of the City's efforts to do its part to control global warming. We expect construction of the new facility will take about 2 years. The Staff and I wanted to give Council a quick update on the status of the Castilleja project, which I know you hear about in public comments almost every week. The school has proposed a new conditional use permit, CUP, to allow an increase in enrollment and is seeking Architectural Review and other approvals for a phased redevelopment of their existing campus including an underground garage, changes to loading and access, and ultimately replacement of classroom buildings. We received the CUP application for this project in mid-2016, and the scoping period for a related Environmental Impact Report, EIR, just ended last week. The purpose of a scoping period is to allow interested agencies and members of the public to offer their thoughts on the potential impacts and alternatives that should be studied in the EIR. Our Staff will be assembling all of the comments we've received during the scoping period and transmitting them to Council in a scoping report next month. The scoping report is for your information only. All of the comments will be taken into consideration as Staff begins work with the EIR consultants on preparation of a Draft EIR. If all goes according to plan, the Draft EIR should be circulated for public review and comments late this year, 2017. A Final EIR, reflecting the comments we receive on the draft, should be available in the spring of 2018. That's the point at which the City Council will receive a recommendation from the Architectural Review Board and the Planning and Transportation Commission and will be asked to make a decision on applications. While the item will take a while to get before the Council, staff and advisory boards will be busy over the next year with multiple hearings, which will start at the HRB and the ARB in August or September. We have a webpage for this project and will keep it updated as new information becomes available. That's probably the best place to go if you'd like a status report from time to time. The web address is cityofpaloalto.org/Castilleja. Bike to Work Day 2017 was a smooth success. Palo Alto has been participating in Bay Area Bike to Work Day for 18 years. This year, more than 2,100 people hopped on their bikes to ride to work. The City hosted four volunteer energizer stations positioned at key commute locations from 6:30 to 9:00 A.M. Rob Robinson's pancakes, which we were repeatedly informed, were vegan, lactose-free, and very tasty. Council Member Filseth and I were there, and we can attest to how delicious they were. They were a big hit at the Wilkie Bike Bridge station. Tom Kabat, DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 5 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  former City Utilities employee, continued in his role as bike doctor and tuned up a number of bikes at the Alma Bike Bridge station, where people were happy to receive the "I Bike Palo Alto" T-shirts that Sylvia Star-Lack passed out. Along with the other stations, the Cal. Ave. and City Hall stations happily greeted cyclists, gave them "Bike to Work Day" bags, provided coffee, coffee cake, and fresh fruit. We've been tracking Bike to Work Day ridership since 2006. The number of cyclists passing just through the Wilkie Way Bridge energizer station broke the record with 86 more riders just at that one location than we had last year. A bunch of our Staff will be out this weekend. This Saturday, May 20th, 2017, from 9:00-noon volunteers and City Staff will be hard at work cleaning out our creeks. To help out and get exact locations, members of our public should go to www.cleanacreek.org to sign up. The City of Palo Alto encourages folks who are interested to help out to choose from either Sites 13 or 14, Matadero or Adobe Creeks. Past volunteers tell us it's a really rewarding way to protect our wildlife and ecosystems from trash and debris. Finally, I would share that flags outside City Hall are at half-mast today. This morning, we held a public ceremony in Cogswell Plaza to honor three of our police officers, who have fallen in the line of duty, at the Palo Alto Police Officers Memorial Grove. Memorial Grove was dedicated in 2014 and is a stand of three massive coast redwood trees in honor of Reserve Officer Lester Cole, Officer Gene Clifton, and Reserve Officer Theodore Brassinga. In 1962, John Kennedy signed a Proclamation, which designated May 15th as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, and the week in which that date falls is National Police Week, a time to honor those law enforcement officers who have fallen in the line of duty. This year, National Police Week begins on May 15th and runs through Sunday, May 21st. Mayor Scharff: If we could just have a short moment of silence for those officers. Thank you. Mr. Keene: Thank you. That concludes my report, Mr. Mayor. Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll move on to Oral Communications. We have a group of six. You'll have 10 minutes. It's Shelly Gordon speaking for the group of six. Shelly Gordon speaking for Andy Zeng, Sue Chow, Bixia Zheng, Tanli Su, and Rachel Loewy: Hello. It's nice to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to present what I'm going to present. I'm here on behalf of the Sierra Club, our local chapter, the Loma Prieta Chapter. I serve on the executive committee, and I've got some of my colleagues here with me DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 6 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  tonight. We're interested in proposing an anti-idling Ordinance. I have met with several of the Council Members, and everybody seems to be open to it, worthy of a discussion. We're hoping, at the end of my remarks, that you'll consider putting this on an Agenda for a future meeting. What do I mean by idling, for those of you who don't always think about idling? Idling is somebody sitting in their car, parked with the engine running, not going anywhere. I'm not talking about sitting at a traffic light or waiting at the railroad tracks for the gate to come up. I'm talking about people sitting, just parked, and reading their phones. I can tell you I got here a little bit early, and I walked around. I counted three people who were doing that. I promise you, once you leave here, you're going to notice it just because I brought it up. You're going to see how many people idle in our community and in the world. Let's see. Some of the data I found shows that 40,000 tons of carbon get emitted every year just from people sitting in their cars with the engines running. They spend $13.4 million on 3.8 million gallons of gas and don't go anywhere. Idling, besides emitting carbon, spews all kinds of particulate matter into the air, gets lodged in our lungs. It doesn't get absorbed; it stays there. For kids, it's really bad. It's really dangerous. Kids suffer from asthma. That's one of the top reasons they're absent from school. In Palo Alto, the hot spots are shopping centers, Midtown— somebody sitting in their car, somebody runs in to get their coffee, the engine's running—Stanford, schools, the public schools. I know kids bike and walk to work pretty much, but there's charter schools, private schools— what's the third one—choice schools. We actually did a study at Hoover School. We had some of the high school students—raise your hand. I asked them to do a study. I asked them to monitor how many parents are picking up their kids at Hoover School, and they counted over 4 different days a total of 162 cars idled for at least a minute; 40 of those cars idled for over 10 minutes. They're just sitting there with the engine running. Not only did they do the monitoring, but they actually made a video. I'm going to ask you to indulge me or us to watch a video—it's 2 1/2 minutes—and then I'll finish up my comments. [Video shown.] I think you can … I'm up for an Academy Award. That was me as the driver. Not that funny. We are actually doing some work with Hoover. We created some pledge cards. The teachers showed the video; they sent the kids home with the pledge cards so they could give it to their parents to sign. It's a slow process, so we could really use your help. I know that our City has a big commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. We think having an anti-idling ordinance could help with that reduction. One of the things I did was I contacted an analyst who works for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. I know Vice Mayor Kniss is Chairman of the Board there. He did a little, I guess—came up with a scenario focusing on parents. What he said was—he did like a hypothetical. He said if 20 parents on a cumulative total are idling for 5 minutes each for DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 7 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  an hour—is that right? Twenty parents idling for 5 minutes each, each day of the school year, basically adds up to about 575 tons of carbon being emitted for the whole year, which is not much. If you take that one scenario and map it onto other scenarios, you'll get a much bigger number. We have 51,000 people here between the ages of 21 and 79; 30,000 of them are probably drivers. You do the math, and it starts to add up. Again, we think it would make a difference in reducing our carbon emissions along with the other things we're doing. A number of cities in the country have adopted anti-idling ordinances, cities in red states, in Utah, Park City, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis. They're not allowed to idle in Minneapolis where the temperature drops below 50 degrees. When people say, "I'm keeping my engine running because it's cold or hot," it's not a really good reason here. One of the things we think this ordinance would serve, in addition to helping reduce our greenhouse gas gases and being a leader in that charge, is to educate people on the fact that they are responsible for carbon emissions. We leave all our lights on in the house. That increases our carbon emissions. We run our engines for no reason. That increases it. It's an opportunity to start a conversation. The people that I talked to in these different cities, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Park City—there are many; New York City is another—said it is an opportunity to educate people. They hand out very few citations, but they educate people. People are surprised to learn that, in fact, when they turn off their engine and restart it, they use less gas and cause less wear and tear on their engines than when they keep the engine running. Most people think the opposite is true. This would support us in being a leader, and it would contribute to our goal, and it would help people to start to wake up and change their behavior. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we have June Klein to be followed by Rob Levitsky. Julie Klein: Good evening. I'm here representing the Kiwanis Club of Palo Alto that has been serving Palo Alto for over 90 years. I'm the co-chair of the Sixth Annual Angel Awards that will be presented on October 19th. We are taking nominations at this point. Our emcee is going to be Dennis Burns, recently retired Chief Burns, who helped present DuJuan Green with the award last year. We're looking for people who have done exceptional work in our community with children and youth. I'm leaving the nominations forms here. I have several that have been printed out. The deadline is June 2nd. If you know anyone who is deserving, please consider turning in an application. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rob Levitsky to be followed by Sea Reddy. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 8 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Rob Levitsky: Last week, I spoke about the six redwood trees at Castilleja, that probably can't be moved successfully. I will defer in the future to Walter Passmore on those, head of Urban Forestry. Today, I'd like to talk about Castilleja's plan to steal or shrink the utility easement that runs under Melville. Twenty-five years ago, the City of Palo Alto gave them the right to use the land above the easement. Now, they want to take the easement. In that easement—let me show you here—are three important sets of pipes. There's fresh water; there's storm water; and there's sewer. One of the most important things the City can do is take care of the safety and health of its citizens. What Castilleja has secretly been doing, Jim, with the aid of several people in the Utilities Department is investigating rerouting the sewer line and rerouting the storm drain line. Up here is a storm drain that you can see on the picture where water regularly comes out during the winter. We have a capacity problem already on the corner of Emerson and Embarcadero. They're proposing to move these pipes up to meet Embarcadero. There is one problem, though, and that's this. Sewage does not flow uphill, and there's a gradient here. They'd have to use a pump. They discussed using a pump, Jim, and they have decided at the moment they won't be using a pump because that's not allowed in Palo Alto. If you did and the pump failed, you would have a neighborhood full of sewage back-up possible. We don't want that to be happening. Castilleja is trying to shrink this 25-foot easement maybe down to 10 feet or 5 feet, 15 feet. This showed up in the last set of documents they had to release last week. Now, about December or so, I started seeing trucks in the neighborhood— that's one of them there—utility trucks not from the City of Palo Alto but people who wouldn't tell me what they were doing. It's only now with the release of these documents—that's the company that was doing it, some environmental thing. Only now do I find out that they're talking to City employees, trying to squeeze the easement so they can put parking down here. They've lost a little bit of space here because they can't move these trees or have to have space to put the trees. Now, they're invading the City utility easement and trying to ask us to give up our easement, which is necessary for the sewer, for the storm drain, for fresh water, and for any future necessities. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Sea Reddy. Sea Reddy: Good evening, Mayor and the City Council and the citizens of Palo Alto. I totally support the Sierra Club member discussion on idling. It's now more irritating when you see cars idled and people are checking their— they want to leave. They put their brake on the car, and they're telling us, somebody else, "I want to take that parking spot." I go to Equinox, and there's always ten people wanting to take a spot. You see them wanting to leave, but they don't leave until 10 minutes after they've checked their DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 9 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  sweet emails. I think we really need to do this thing about idling. What they're telling us is they want to go, but they're not going because they're checking their 14 emails before work. Thank you for bringing that up. The second thing is I'm not very critical of corporations, companies. It comes to me a big irritation when I notice. I've talked to some people there. Bank of America moved from one side to the other side in the Palo Alto Square. There's a company called Pacific Hertz [phonetic] and Properties that manages the property. There's a Bank of America there. They're given three parking spots. They're doing a lot of ground work. What's irritating to me is the Pacific Hertz and Properties takes the closest parking to Bank of America to enter the property on the east side. They have their golf carts sitting there and doing it. A lot of people that have a lot of pride in not getting the handicapped sign walk there slowly, all around it. I think it tells me the insensitivity that they have The same thing with YMCA. When YMCA was closed, they didn't give a damn. There were a lot of citizens in this area, all around Stanford, that wanted that YMCA reopened. I think it's high time for some people that have more influence to go and tell them, nudge them, that this isn't right, for you to please go and look at it. Am I right? I could be all wet. I think it is time. They need to be considerate of people that shop, park, and go to a bank to just do a small transaction. These golf carts are sitting there, right in front of it. They won't allow anybody to park there. They've put cones and all that. I think it's insensitive about all that. The third thing is Greg Tanaka is in DC. Contrary to all the comments that were made about him, I applaud him for being there. It's 9:30 in the evening; he could be in a party somewhere, but he's taking time to be on the Council meeting. There's another Council Member also. I think more importantly is everybody to keep their promise, especially the elected officials. Please tell whoever you meet in DC, "Whatever you stand for, you need to keep your promise." That's what we elected you for. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mr. Reddy: Thanks for letting me speak for a minute. Minutes Approval 1. Approval of Action Minutes for the May 1, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: Now, we need a Motion to approve the Minutes. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: Second. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 10 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to approve the Action Minutes for the May 1, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: All in favor. Greg? Council Member Tanaka: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Yes. Greg and Tom, how'd you vote? Greg? Council Member DuBois: Aye. Mayor Scharff: Aye. Tom? Council Member DuBois: Aye. That was Tom. Mayor Scharff: Did Greg respond? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, he did. Mayor Scharff: That passes unanimously. Karen. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Council Member Holman: I had just a really quick comment about Oral Communications. There's already an anti-idling Colleagues' Memo in the works. Just so people know. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Consent Calendar Mayor Scharff: Now, we move to the Consent Calendar. Our City Manager had some comments on the Consent Calendar. James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. Item Number 4, real quickly, the approval of Amendment Number 1 to the contract with MV Transportation, extending the term for 2 years for $625,000 roughly to operate the Palo Alto Free Shuttle Service. We got a late series of questions from Council Member DuBois that we weren't able to get out in advance. I did want to just quickly read the questions and the answers for the Council, including of course Mr. DuBois, who is listening with us and attending the meeting remotely. Question 1: we continued the recent Council item on the Palo Alto shuttle. When is this item coming back? The Staff's response is it's scheduled to come back in August. Question Number 2: why are we being asked to commit to 2 more years before we've had discussion on the shuttle? The Staff answer is once we receive Council DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 11 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  direction, hopefully in August, and know how much funding is available from VTA and other sources, we will need to issue an RFP to procure services of an operator. While this may not take all of 2 years, it is clear that we need to extend the existing contract, which is the main action this evening in the Consent. That contract ends June 30th, so clearly we're out of contract under any circumstances. Third, what is the ridership of the Midtown shuttle? The Staff response: the plan presented to the Council in April reported an average daily ridership of 276 boardings per day in February of 2016. This is generally better than most other local shuttles in the Bay Area and many VTA routes. An ancillary question from Council Member DuBois: when the general shuttle items come to Council, can you please provide ridership by route, by time of day as we've had on past discussions? The Staff response is yes, we will do that. That's all the clarification I needed to add in advance of your vote on the Consent Calendar. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: We have no public speakers on the Consent Calendar. If we could vote on Items 2 and 4 as Staff has removed Item Number 3. Male: We need a Motion. Council Member Kou: Can I ask a question? Mayor Scharff: Yeah, I guess we do need a Motion. Yes, go ahead. Council Member Kou: On Item Number 2, what are the other areas? It's been going on since 1986 according to the Staff Report. Mayor Scharff: Actually, we don't ask questions about the Consent Calendar. We don't actually. They have to be in writing. You can't do that. I'm sorry, I apologize. I need a Motion to approve the Consent Calendar. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Council Member Wolbach: Second. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to approve Agenda Item Numbers 2 and 4. 2. Approval and Authorization for the City Manager to Execute Contract Number C17167501 With Daleo, Inc. in the Amount of $5,735,538 for Water Main Replacement Project 26, Capital Improvement Program (WS-12001) in the Downtown North, University South, and Old Palo Alto Neighborhoods; and Approval of an Amendment to the FY 2017 Budget in the Amount of $885,976 Along With an Equivalent Decrease in the Water Fund Capital Reserve. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 12 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  3. Adoption of a Resolution Summarily Vacating Public Utility Easement at 144 Kellogg Avenue. 4. Approval of Amendment Number One to Contract Number C14152828 With MV Transportation to Extend the Term for two Years for $625,980 to Operate the Palo Alto Free Shuttle Service on the Existing Crosstown Shuttle Route Until June 2019; and Approval of a Budget Amendment in the General Fund. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. Is that an abstention or a vote no? I know your light's not working properly. Council Member Kou: That's a no. Mayor Scharff: That's recorded as a no. Now, you actually get to make a statement. I'm sorry, I apologize. I'll get used to the fact that two of you are not on the thing. Council Member Tanaka, how did you vote? Council Member Tanaka: I voted yes. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois? Council Member DuBois: Yes. Mayor Scharff: We'll record those as yes votes. MOTION PASSED: 8-1 Kou no Molly Stump, City Attorney: Does it make sense to make a procedural comment about the communication that just occurred? Mr. Keene: Yes. Ms. Stump: The Council's Protocols and Procedures call for Council Members to submit any informational questions, requests for information or technical information, to the Staff through the City Manager well in advance of the meeting. I believe it's the Wednesday … Mr. Keene: By Wednesday of the week before. Ms. Stump: The Protocols say that Staff will attempt to respond. The purpose of that is to allow Council Members to get their questions answered and essentially leave items on the Consent Calendar where the issue is really a desire for some additional piece of information that can be provided in advance of the meeting. Those communications are provided to the public as well, both the Council Member's question and the Staff responses. In this DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 13 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  case, as a courtesy and to keep things moving and flowing, the Manager responded to a very late set of questions from one Council Member. When you get to the meeting, we face a different rule. I think Council Member Kou also had a question. It almost seems like that's the same thing. It's because it's collapsing in time in a way that's not anticipated by the Protocols. The Mayor's comment about not asking questions is because really the Consent Calendar, according to the Protocols, is to be voted on without discussion. If the Council Members feel they do need to have discussion, you're welcome to vote to remove it, place it on Action, and then there can be that more free-flowing dialog. Mr. Keene: If I just might add, an additional factor that plays in the deadline for getting the questions and the answers back out to the Council before the end of the week by Staff is the courtesy deadline for the Council really by the weekend to let me know if there's an intent to pull an item off the agenda. You will have had the benefit of seeing all the questions and getting answers from the Staff that may preclude a desire to pull something off or our failure to answer it adequately may incent you to go ahead. We always like to know in advance if you intend to pull something off. In the event that we're able to take up that item that night, we would want to be sure we would have the Staff available at the meeting, many of whom would not come if their item is just on Consent. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, you have a right to make a statement. You can't ask a question, but you can make a statement or you cannot make a statement. It's up to you. Council Member Kou: It was just a clarifying question, so it doesn't matter. Mayor Scharff: Fair enough. Council Member Holman: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Council Member Holman: I put my light on because I agree with City Attorney—not that I would question you—that there won't be discussion about items on the Consent Calendar. Our prior practice has been, if someone has a clarifying question, those are allowed. We've done that, I think, pretty consistently. That's different than discussion. Ms. Stump: If I could just comment. I think we've done that quite rarely. The reason is because it's difficult to draw a line between a very brief clarifying question and what can become an extensive discussion or multiple questions from multiple Council Members. The Protocols do say there shall DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 14 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  not be discussion on Consent. What Council Members should do is remove an item if they feel they need to discuss it. Otherwise, if you just have technical questions, get them in the Wednesday before. Mayor Scharff: Thank you for that clarification. Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor, let me just add one more thing maybe more so for new Council Members. A couple of years ago, we made a big transition to release the Council packet essentially a week earlier than we had before, with this idea of being sure that the public had a lot of time in which to see the packet. At that point in time, we all had a discussion about that also gives the Council more time to look at things in advance and meet these deadlines. I would just really ask—I know it's a tremendous amount of work for you all to get through the packets and stuff. It's also a lot of work for the Staff to put things together and to be ready. It really does put us on the spot to be adequately supporting you on the fly at the meeting as opposed to getting a question in advance and being sure we answer it fully and appropriately. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Action Items 5. Comprehensive Plan Update: Review of the Draft Natural Environment, Safety, and Business & Economics Elements Recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee. 1. Safety Element Revisions Mayor Scharff: Now, for our first Action Item, our only Action Item. A Comprehensive Plan Update review of the draft Natural Environment, Safety, Business, Economic Elements recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee. Staff, if you want to take it away. Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. I'm Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. I'm joined at the table here by Elaine Costello and Joanna Jensen, who have been working with us on this Comp Plan. We're supported tonight by other Staff in the room, Elena Lee from the Planning Department but also Staff from other City departments who have assisted us with the elements that you're going to be discussing this evening. I know we've been at this for a long time. There are three elements that the Council really hasn't seen since you gave us your direction on vision and goals. The Comp Plan CAC has been working diligently on these, and we are bringing them to you this evening. The CAC worked hard on these; they had subcommittees on each DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 15 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  of these subjects and had the benefit of your direction, also the PTC's recommendations, and a whole bunch of community input, and support from the Staff experts. Elaine and Joanna are going to walk you through the specifics of these three elements, and then we're happy to hear public comments and entertain the Council's questions. Joanna Jensen, PlaceWorks: Thank you, Hillary. As Hillary said, I'm Joanna Jensen with PlaceWorks, the consultant that's supporting the City in the Comp Plan Update. When the Council last saw the Natural Environment Element in its existing 1998 Comp Plan form, the direction was to split this element into two elements in the updated Comp Plan. In your current Natural Environment Element, you see the topics listed on the left with the exception of climate change and climate adaptation. That's a new goal added to reflect current concerns. You also in the existing element have these topics that are listed on the right-hand in the upper safety box. Your current Natural Environment Element also covers hazardous waste, solid waste, and natural hazards. One of the first pieces of direction that we got from the Council on these two elements was to split those three goals off into a new standalone Safety Element. We started with that direction and then took that element through the CAC process, which I'll speak about momentarily. We have a revised version of the Safety Element starting from that Council direction then we reorganized and incorporated those goals into the current draft goal format that you have, which includes community safety, natural hazards, and human-caused threats. Elaine and I will talk a little bit more about the organization of both of those elements, but I wanted to explain the genesis of these two elements. Starting with the Safety Element, the process took place over last fall and winter. We had a series of two CAC subcommittee meetings including both the safety subcommittee and the sustainability subcommittee and three meetings of the full CAC. One thing that was very beneficial to us as Staff and, I think, to the members of the subcommittee was extensive review and participation in the development of this element by departmental experts from the City's Office of Emergency Services, the Palo Alto Police Department, the Palo Alto Fire Department, and the Public Works Department. Excellent input from those Staff really helped us to make sure that this updated Safety Element is coordinating with other very important City initiatives and related plans including the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, which was in formulation in a similar timeframe and recently updated. All of that work culminated in a draft element recommended for your review by the CAC in December. That's what you're going to be taking a look at tonight. That element, as I mentioned earlier, has three goals. The first goal about community safety addresses topics of disaster preparation and response and community awareness of different types of threats involving volunteers and appropriate City Staff in preparing for and responding to emergencies and disasters. The DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 16 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  two remaining goals split up the different types of hazards that the City might face into natural hazards such as earthquakes or floods or wildfires and human-caused threats, things like hazardous materials or cybersecurity. Goal S-3 is also where we address some solid waste generation and solid waste services as another potential type of threat or something that certainly needs to be handled very carefully to protect Palo Alto's environment. I'll just mention that the Council direction originally also suggested that safe water resources might be addressed in the Safety Element. We did consider that as part of the CAC process but ultimately, as Elaine will explain, all of the water-related topics were consolidated in the Natural Environment Element. That's where you have things like water supply as well as water quality and water conservation. Safe water is addressed in the Comp Plan, but that's with the rest of the water policies in the Natural Environment Element. The Safety Element is a required component of the General Plan. State law allows you to organize the required components in whatever way makes the most sense for your community. That's why it was part of the Natural Environment Element in the previous version. Of course, in many communities it's a standalone element, the way it is in the updated draft. We don't have any policy options for you in the Safety Element. As mentioned in your Staff Report, there was really a pretty high degree of CAC consensus on this element so the CAC did not formulate any policy choices. Some of the issues that I just want to mention, that came up during our discussions included new topics spurred by events in the news happening last year including body cameras for police. We worked closely with the Palo Alto Police Department to formulate a new policy that balances the use of new technologies such as body cameras with concerns about privacy and civil liberties. We also updated the TDR incentives program for seismic hazards and earthquake retrofitting to be consistent with the discussions that we had with you on the Land Use Element and focus on any transfer of additional development rights to focus on additional residential square footage rather than nonresidential square footage. We talked quite a bit about flood hazards and mitigation, always a very important topic here in Palo Alto. We added a new program regarding basements in flood hazard zones. Just want to mention here that this policy, S-2.9, is not actually a new policy but a statement of regulation that the City already has on the books in the Municipal Code and is really a requirement of your participation in the FEMA flood insurance program. Of course, considering changing risks due to climate change including changes in sea level rise and groundwater levels that might affect different flooding hazards in Palo Alto in the future, so we added some policies and programs about that. The human-caused threats section includes some policies and programs carried over from your existing Plan on things like hazardous materials and solid waste, but some new topics as well that address hazards related to rail infrastructure and again cybersecurity. One thing to note DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 17 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  about the Safety Element is that there are quite a number of implementation programs in this element. Like many of the elements that you've already reviewed and provided us with direction on, there are still some opportunities for consolidation and minor editing to tighten up the Safety Element programs in general if that is part of your direction this evening. Elaine Costello: I'm Elaine Costello, and I am going to talk about the next element under consideration tonight, which is the Natural Environment Element. This is an element the CAC spent a lot of time on between August and December of 2016. There were four CAC meetings on this element. The natural environment subcommittee and the sustainability subcommittee had another set of—total of four meetings. They recommended the element to you in December of 2016. There were also again a number of—in these elements, we had a number of Staff experts who attended the meetings and helped really work with the CAC and the subcommittees. We had folks from Community Services and Public Works and the Office of Sustainability. This is a big element. It has eight goals. It really was in most ways an update. There's a couple of issues, but in most ways it was updating the existing element, reorganizing it somewhat, and bringing up more contemporary issues. It talks about things like open space, a lot of emphasis on the urban forest as Goal 2, creeks and riparian corridors in Goal 3, water resources. As Joanna said, there was a decision by the CAC, which we think works well, to put all the water policies into this one goal in the Natural Environment Element so that everything, water supply, water quality, recycled water, groundwater, is all in one place, which we think makes it easier to—it'll make it more useful in using the General Plan around the issues of water. Air quality is the next goal. In fact, there are programs in that goal about idling. Under 5.2.3, there are both an educational program about idling and a program about potentially doing an ordinance for fines and fees related to people who idle. That topic was covered, also noise, which is a mandatory element under State law. Some newer issues like a much more extensive discussion of energy and climate change and climate adaptation. Those were the big topics that are covered in the natural environment. There were some issues. The CAC worked really hard on this element. They really came generally to consensus around increasing the references to public health in the natural environment, the benefits to public health of good air quality and good water quality and access to open space, etc. The other thing was looking at open space as a system of connected ecosystems and the importance of that, linking natural areas and pathways, and also seeing natural areas and trees as part of the green infrastructure, areas that help with storm drainage and other—they really provide a function as well as helping public health. Really important in here was protecting and expanding the urban forest. Policy N-2.7 is an aspirational policy about 50 percent tree canopy across the City. The CAC worked really hard to make it DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 18 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  clear that that was aspirational. They thought that goal was valuable to have in the General Plan. There are policies related to basement dewatering, which—we have checked with Public Works—are consistent with the actions the Council has been taking, policies on the S/CAP consistency and airplane noise. One area where there was a difference was about updating the Code to require larger stream setbacks along natural creeks west of Foothill Expressway. The current General Plan talks about a 100- foot setback. There was a recommendation by some CAC members that that be increased to 150 feet on the basis that it would be more protective of the creeks and the vegetation and the wildlife and that other communities in Santa Clara County are doing that. The folks that didn't want to make that change, the members of the CAC, said it's a program that they'd really rather have more discussion with stakeholders before they put a specific number in. As we have made a practice, when there wasn't consensus, we left you with the policy options. That was the only area where there was not consensus. The next element is Business and Economics. This is not a mandatory element under State law. This is an optional element. Once it is adopted by the City Council, it has the same weight as all the other elements. In this case, this was what the CAC picked up in January when they had finished with safety and the natural environment. They worked on it between January and March. They had a subcommittee; the business and economics subcommittee met twice. The CAC also met a couple of times before they recommended this element to you in March. The topics on this element are topics like a thriving economy, compatibility and interdependence, fiscal responsibility, a culture of innovation and business diversity, flexibility, retail and business employment districts. It was very interesting. There was a lively discussion about the relationship between businesses and neighborhoods. From the previous 1998 version of the Comp Plan, there is more focus in this one on mutual interests and cooperation rather than conflict or competition. The needs of neighborhoods really need to be protected, but they don't have to be seen as in conflict with businesses. There was also a lot of interest in the Office of Economic Development and having that be more active. Fiscal responsibility was a brand new goal with the idea that, when the City is fiscally responsible, it's in a position to provide efficient and equitable services to businesses and neighborhoods. There was a very lively discussion; people were really engaged in the issue of business diversity and the idea that there are ways in which small businesses contribute to the community and ways in which larger businesses contribute to the community. The policies of this element reflect the idea that there's a place and locations for both within the community. For example, the Research Park is a good place for the larger businesses. There were really good discussions of the ways in which they both can make a contribution. Although, there was a lot of focus about small, independent retail and local-serving professionals, making sure that DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 19 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  there are places in Palo Alto for those kinds of businesses. Finally, the CAC wanted to make sure there was some real background data about the state of the economy and the issues in the economy. Those are included in the updated narrative and data that's in this element. With that, our next steps are—we are coming to the end. Tomorrow is the CAC final meeting. It's their "wrapping it all up" meeting, and we're going to have cake and a final action on the introduction and governance sections of the Comp Plan. On the 5th, a resolution of thanks to the CAC by the Council. The 12th will be when you review introduction, governance, and implementation chapters for the first time. I think we needed to say somewhere that this is the first time you've seen these three elements. You refer the entire Comp Plan to the Planning and Transportation Commission, knowing that it's going to come back to you after they see it. It isn't the last time you'll see it. The only decision you have to make is, is it okay to send it for their input as well. We have them scheduled for—this is going to be their summer vacation, July, August, and September, working on the Comp Plan. Getting it back to you in October for your final review of their recommendations and certification of the Final EIR and adoption of the updated Comp Plan. The final slide is just what we're recommending tonight. When you have reviewed the other elements, you have said to us, "Please go back and consolidate some programs and eliminate duplication." We've been working on this for almost 2 years. Of course, policies come up and you realize it's in three elements. We're recommending that you ask us to do that again with the Safety Element and the Natural Environment Element because there is some duplication between the Natural Environment Element and community services on park funding and acquisition. You give us guidance on selecting the 100 or 150 feet as the desired stream setback for Program N3.3.1 in the Natural Environment Element, which would be what size of setbacks you want to require along natural creeks west of Foothill Expressway. Let me be clear about that. You aren't actually—this would be a program to update the stream corridor ordinance to set this as a requirement, but it would put in a particular number as the number that should be used in that update. That completes our presentation. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much for that. Do we have any public speakers? Let's go to the public. You'll each have 3 minutes. Our first speaker is Tiffany Griego, to be followed by Mackenzie—I can't actually read it—Mossing. Tiffany Griego: Good evening. My name is Tiffany Griego. I'm managing director of Stanford Research Park. I wanted to come tonight and express my thanks to City Staff and to the citizens advisory group, especially Arthur Keller and Dan Garber, for your diligent work to create a very strong and very well crafted Business and Economics Element. I further appreciate the DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 20 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  value that the City places on Stanford Research Park as an important component of building an economically strong community. One of the cornerstones of Silicon Valley was laid in 1951 when the Varian brothers broke ground as the Stanford Research Park first company. The Research Park was the brainchild of the then-current dean of engineering, Frederick Terman, who envisioned a new kind of collaboration where Stanford could join forces with industry and with the City of Palo Alto to advance shared interests, mutual interests. In creating the Research Park, we agreed to annex lands into Palo Alto so that the City and the community would benefit directly. Today, the City's economic development policy states "the City of Palo Alto has a reputation as a world leader in innovation and as a major employment center. Through the payment of various taxes, many of these companies directly contribute to City revenues and the delivery of needed services and infrastructure in our City. Our primary economic development goal is focused on supporting and attracting the businesses that support and grow our tax base." Towards this goal, Palo Alto, Stanford, and the world- renowned companies in the Research Park have worked together to create a significant source of economic prosperity for the community. For us, this element for the past year has been an occasion to crunch the data that I'm about to share with you. It's also on our website. For example, in 2016 companies in the Research Park generated $45.8 million in total direct tax revenues. Of this $45.8 million, the distribution of the tax revenues was as follows: $7.6 million to Palo Alto, another $14.3 million to Palo Alto Unified School District, $5.3 million to Santa Clara County, and $18.3 million to the State and to other public entities. Like I said, we had occasion to crunch this data, and I'm grateful for that occasion. We've posted it on our website, and I invite you to check our website to learn more about the economic benefits produced by the Research Park. The website URL is www.stanfordresearchpark.com. If you click on the "giving back" link, you'll see some of the data I mentioned, but you'll also learn about the direct spending and retail sales taxes attributable to Research Park employees, employers, and visitors. Also on this "giving back" page, we have included some of the largely untold stories about the other ways in which Research Park companies are deeply invested in our Palo Alto community. Finally, on our main page, please enjoy a new video we've posted, which shows a day in the life of working in Stanford Research Park. Again, thank you so much for valuing Stanford Research Park as part of your Palo Alto community. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mackenzie Mossing to be followed by Shani Kleinhaus. Mackenzie Mossing: Good evening. My name is Mackenzie Mossing, and I represent the Santa Clara County Audubon Society. First, we would like to DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 21 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  congratulate the City of Palo Alto for following a thorough process throughout the planning of the Comprehensive Plan document. Thank you for highlighting Palo Alto's many natural assets in the Natural Environment Element, especially wildlife, habitat, open space, riparian corridors, parks, and the urban forest. We also appreciate the level of thought and consideration that went into producing the regional habitat connection concept map of Palo Alto's parks, trails, natural open space, and recreation areas. We hope this map will serve as a baseline for guiding the creation of a sustainable and resilient landscape that integrates parks, creeks and the urban forest throughout Palo Alto. This afternoon, our organization along with the Sierra Club Committee for Green Foothills, Grassroots Ecology, and California Native Plant Society Santa Clara Valley Chapter submitted comments in support of the City's efforts to protect creeks and riparian ecosystems. We support implementation of Policy N-3.3 to protect the City's creeks from the impacts of future development and preserve their function as habitat connectivity corridors by establishing a range of setback requirements. We see a need to update the City's stream protection ordinance and urge you to support the adoption of a 150-foot setback in open space and rural areas west of Foothill Expressway for better protection of wildlife and native ecosystems and to reduce the risk of flooding while minimizing costly reinforcements. Setbacks should be delineated from the top of the bank or the dripline of riparian vegetation, whichever is wider. Overall, we are pleased to see a document that recognizes nature and wildlife as key attributes of Palo Alto. We hope to see the City achieve its vision of respecting natural resources in a way that sustains the natural environment while protecting our Foothills, Baylands, creeks, parks, wildlife, and open space legacy. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, Shani Kleinhaus to be followed by Bob Moss. Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening, Mayor Scharff, City Council. I'm Shani Kleinhaus. I was on the CAC; I do not speak for the CAC, but I contributed a lot to this element. Also, I work for Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, and I'm a resident of Palo Alto. The 150-foot setback is important for so many reasons. Obviously, to Audubon and other environmental chapters, the ecosystem services and green infrastructure is key. Also, every time we plan and build too close to creeks, there are externalities that come to haunt us. We already see issues with flooding and with having to reinforce and concretize creeks, not only in Palo Alto but everywhere. If you look at what other jurisdictions are doing to a large extent, San Jose just now adopted an ordinance after many years. They put a 100-foot setback and a 300-foot riparian area. In Mountain View North Bayshore where Google and LinkedIn are, they have a habitat overlay zone of 200 feet. Because the area is DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 22 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  already built, they're looking to actually remove some of the buildings near riparian corridors. If you look at the plans that Microsoft has for their future, they're actually removing parking lots and putting riparian setback of 200 feet. It's not impossible to do. It's definitely important in areas that are not yet developed west of the freeways. Lastly, it seems like we have a conflict between the existing General Plan and the ordinance that was adopted. The ordinance calls for 50 feet. The current General Plan calls for 100 feet. The new General Plan will hopefully call for at least 100 and hopefully 150 feet setback. To bring the ordinance to be consistent with the General Plan, I think that should be a very high priority to redo it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Bob Moss to be followed by Don MacDougall. Bob Moss: Thank you, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I think the overall document is pretty good, but it does need a little tweaking here and there. There are still a few things that need to be done to it. The first one is an editorial comment. On Packet Page 147, Program N4.7.4, work with the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Regional Water Quality Control Board. Either the second Regional Water Quality Control Board should be removed entirely or whatever organization is supposed to be there should be put in its place. Editorial but what the heck. Next comment is on Packet Page 193, Policy 5.3.3, support public health by requiring as part of development review property owners and private entities to disclose the presence of contaminated soil or groundwater, identify potential health impacts, and remediate the contamination. That's inadequate. If you have contaminated groundwater, especially under residential properties, you have to protect the people who are living there. In fact, about a year ago, it was discovered that if a woman who is pregnant is exposed to very low levels of TCE, 0.5 to 1 part per billion, for as little as a week, there's a high probability of damage to the fetus. You should be a lot more specific about protecting the population from vapor intrusion from contaminated groundwater and soil. A couple of general comments. In the noise section, the noise problem that we've had from the FAA changing flight patterns to San Francisco airport is glossed over. I'd like to see a very strong statement that the City wants to work with the FAA and other government agencies to remediate the problem we're having with airplane noise and try to get the planes back up where they were before the FAA changed the flight patterns. The last comment I have relates to the generic issue of how do we attack problems which involve a number of different agencies. You talk about getting involved with this agency or that agency or the other agency, but there is no entity named which is going to bring them altogether. You might have a different entity for each type of problem, but I think it's important to say this is the organization which is going to be coordinating this problem. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 23 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Don MacDougall. Don MacDougall: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council Members. I am a current member of the CAC, and I was on the natural environment subcommittee. I'm on the Board of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon. Tonight, I'm simply speaking as a citizen. I want to speak first about the importance of the Natural Environment Element. Right from the beginning of my involvement, I've said that people say Palo Alto is in an interesting position. We're in between the Baylands and the Foothills. I think, in fact, it's important to think that we are in the Baylands and the Foothills. I want to say briefly that I support everything that we have done in the element. I think it was another example of both the effectiveness of the subcommittees and the CAC in general. I do want to comment and I commented today in writing to the CAC about the comment Elaine made when she was talking about the natural environment. She talked about the parks and the connected parks and natural environment and so on. I think the important thing is not to think of them as the connected parks, etc., but to make sure we think about the connection. It's not just the standalone pieces; it's the importance of connecting all of those in many different ways. Obviously, the riparian corridor is part of that, but I think there's more to it. Relative to supporting a letter that was sent to Council today and what the Audubon and others have said, I think the 150-foot setback is an absolute minimum. We are experiencing in Foothills Park right now the necessity of spending millions of dollars to re-channel creeks up there because we didn't look after the creeks previously. Looking after the creeks and the environment around it suggests a minimum of 150 feet. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we'll return to Council. Did Staff have a preference which one we take up first? Did you want safety or natural … Ms. Gitelman: I think we were hoping to start with safety. Mayor Scharff: That's fine. What we're going to do is we're going to have a discussion about safety. After we finish safety, we'll move on to natural environment, and then we'll move on to the business and economics section. We'll do a 10:00 check-in to see where we are. We do probably have time on our agenda if we needed to do business and economics at the next Council meeting. That is a possibility if we were to go too late. That's not an encouragement to go late, but I thought I'd lay that out there. In looking at this, I think the easiest thing to actually do is to put a motion out there approving the safety environment. I think people are going to go through and make individual comments or changes to it on programs, policies, or goals. I will move that we direct Staff to prepare the revised drafts of the Safety Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 24 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  incorporating the following changes: consolidate programs in the Safety Element where feasible to establish a balance between policies and programs similar to other elements. I'm not going to speak to it. Council Member Fine: Second. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member Fine. I am looking for lights. If you want to speak to your second, you can, Council Member Fine, but … MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to prepare a revised draft of the Safety Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission incorporating the following change, consolidate programs in the Safety Element where feasible to establish a balance between policies and programs similar to other elements. Council Member Fine: No. I just want to thank Staff and the CAC for this element. I think it's pretty holistic and well done. I do have a few comments, but happy to support it as is. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, you had your light on first. Council Member Kou: I may be confused on this. Is the airplane noise under safety or under natural environment? Ms. Costello: Natural environment. Council Member Kou: Then I pass. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of questions on the Safety Element. Let me make sure I've got them in order here. I heard public comments regarding Policy S-3.3. This has to do with soil contamination and the results of vapor from that, etc. I was just wondering if Staff wanted to discuss that, weigh in on that. It looks like Staff might be consulting with the public speakers. I'm also happy to wait on that and come back to that. I was curious what—if any member of Staff wanted to weigh in on that one. Ms. Gitelman: I'd just make one comment. That policy is really meant to be read with the policy that precedes it. We generally work with regulatory agencies when it comes to cleanup of hazardous materials and development in areas that have been contaminated. Maybe we could rephrase one or both of those policies to make it clear that as part of development review we don't just disclose the presence of, but we work with the regulatory agencies in assuring that public safety is taken care of as part of the development DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 25 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  process. That would be a good observation or request, to make those two policies a little more clear. Council Member Wolbach: I guess I'm not clear. Is the Staff recommending that we make an amendment or does Public Works have anything to add to what the Planning Director just said? Mayor Scharff: If Public Works would like to come up. Council Member Wolbach: If not, you don't have to. Phil Bobel, Public Works Assistant Director: Phil Bobel, Public Works. Cory coached me a moment ago to make sure that you guys realized that we were working on the vapor intrusion problem that Bob Moss raised. I think a good addition there—I was just checking with Elena—is just to add "vapor intrusion prevention" to 5.33. I don't think anybody's going to object to that. Council Member Wolbach: I've got a couple of others, but I'll suggest an amendment to add "vapor intrusion prevention" to Policy S-3.3 as recommended by Staff. Mayor Scharff: What page is that? Council Member Wolbach: You can see it in the (inaudible) on Packet Page 193. Ms. Gitelman: Council Members, I guess I was hoping you could give us the flexibility to add it either there or in the previous Policy, S-3.2. Council Member Wolbach: In 3.2? Ms. Gitelman: We'll put it in one or the other, but just to have some flexibility. Council Member Wolbach: I would actually—we can change it to add to Policy S-3.2 or 3.3 "vapor intrusion prevention." Mayor Scharff: That would be acceptable to me. Council Member Fine: Acceptable. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy S-3.2 or S- 3.3, ‘vapor intrusion prevention.’” (New Part B) DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 26 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Wolbach: Thank you both for accepting that. I think that's important. I know that Staff has been responding to some community advocates on this issue and improving our policy. I think that's important. I want to mention kudos to Staff for that. Next question. On Packet Page 211, Program S1.7.2 talks about designing the new Public Safety Building. It lists certain goals and standards for what the new Public Safety Building should meet as far as safety standards. I was just curious if those are based on our current plans, if that's best practices, is that something we're already planning for or would that go above and beyond and require modification of our current plan for the Public Safety Building. I just want to be clear on that. Ken Dueker, Emergency Services Director: Hi, there. Good evening. Ken Dueker, I'm the Director of Emergency Services. I'm also here on behalf of Acting Chief of Police Watson, who couldn't be here tonight. Obviously, as you know, the design for the Public Safety Building is currently underway. The General Plan or the policy is, to borrow the phrase, aspirational. By law, the Public Safety Building will be designed to and built to the California Essential Service Facilities Seismic Act of 1986. There are some variables out there that the Public Works Department and the City Manager and others are toying with right now. We're evaluating whether we might add seismic base isolation to the structure. There are obviously rather substantial cost variables to that. The 7.9 magnitude planning number is commonly used in the Bay Area. That's, I think, the bottom line. Council Member Wolbach: You think the 7.9 is reasonable or that's … Mr. Dueker: I think that's a very commonly used number. It would be prudent to use that number. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not necessarily opposed to this. I just wanted greater clarity about it. If it's okay with the Mayor, I think a member of the CAC is interested in also responding to this, Hamilton Hitchings. If it would be okay with the Mayor to call on him? Mayor Scharff: That's fine. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. Hamilton Hitchings: I helped put in the 7.9 number, so I thought I should add some clarification. According to either the Blue Ribbon Infrastructure document or a document that the City did—seismic document on the site for California Ave., 7.9 is the largest size earthquake that the San Andreas fault, which is 5.5 miles away, can generate. That's why the 7.9. The Stanford Hospital is actually built to 8.0. They do use base isolation. Base isolation DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 27 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  isn't always that much more expensive. We didn't want to put in how to do it; we just wanted to put in what essentially the maximum earthquake event could be. The San Andreas fault in theory can generate a 7.9. Council Member Wolbach: I'd be curious to hear … Mayor Scharff: I actually have a follow-up to Ken Dueker. Maybe you could come back, Ken? You said something that I'm curious about. It made a concern. You said that this is aspirational. I guess the concern that Cory seems to be coming up with—I guess I share it—is we're in the process of designing the Public Safety Building. If you're designing it to this, I don't care if it stays. If you're not designing it to this, I don't want to put into the Comp Plan what you're not designing it to, and then we pass the Comp Plan. That just seems the wrong way to approach things. The question I heard asked was are you designing it to this or better. You can obviously design better than the Comp Plan. If you're not, maybe this shouldn't be in here. That's the question. Mr. Dueker: Fair enough. I wasn't trying to be facetious. It's just that the architect is the designer of the building, not us. We're the client. It's being managed by the Public Works Department. I can't give you a direct answer about whether the architect 100 percent for sure is going to end up with a building that is designed to withstand a 7.9. I don't know that answer. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, maybe I can make a suggestion. We could inject the feasibility concept in this program pretty easily with an editorial change. Insert before the second sentence "if feasible, this includes remaining fully operational after … ." I think the idea that we're designing a building to meet the needs of our Public Safety departments is not a question. It's really the subsequent sentence. We could either inject "feasibility" there or we could leave the first sentence by itself. Council Member Wolbach: I think I'd be okay with that as a change. I'd also look to the maker and the seconder of the motion or see if other colleagues want to weigh in on this one. I don't feel too strongly about it, but maybe we should add that language that was suggested by Staff. It would read "if feasible, this includes …" and then the stipulations. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that, I guess. Council Member Fine: I'm fine with that as well. We're kind of struggling in the dark here. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 28 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program S1.7.2, ‘if feasible’ before ‘this includes.’” (New Part C) Mayor Scharff: I'm still not sure it belongs in the Comp Plan, but I'm not sure it matters if we add that language. Tom, I understand you have a comment on this. I'm just going to let you speak to it. Council Member DuBois: I'm sorry. It wasn't on this. I was just letting them know that I'm ready to speak when (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: Got it. Council Member Wolbach: I've got a couple more. Mayor Scharff: Go on, Cory. Council Member Wolbach: I was a little surprised to see a couple of things about TDRs in safety. If you look at Packet Page 215, this is Program S2.6.2. There are two things that surprised me. One was the move of this from the Land Use Element into the Safety Element. That surprised me. The second thing that surprised me was that it said—where is the exact wording? It's as that item continues onto the next page. At the end of that program, it says "revise the TDR ordinance so that transfers of development rights may be used only for residential development on the receiver sites." I'm trying to remember where we had—I thought we had discussed this before. I seem to remember some discussion about this. I'm certainly interested in at least the option of residential development using TDRs, but I don't recall us directing—maybe the CAC on their own had come up with this. I don't recall us previously saying we wanted TDRs to be used exclusively for residential. That's my preference as far as where they would be used, but I don't think we directed that. Am I mis-remembering Council direction previously or was this something Staff or the CAC had come up with? Ms. Gitelman: I'll have to go back and look at the Land Use Element. There is something in the Land Use Element, I believe, about transfer of development rights from historic properties. The City has those two TDR programs, historic and seismic. I think in that case, there was a program that said consider changing the program to require the transferred square footage to be used for residential uses. I can confirm that. If the Council would like something a little more "consider this" rather than "do it," we could make that change here. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 29 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Wolbach: I would suggest saying consider or study or explore at the start of the second sentence. I'm not sure if we're ready to say "only." We might strike the word only as well. I'm not going to make a motion on this one right now. I'll leave that to my Colleagues. Mayor Scharff: Cory, we don't have all night. If you're going to make—if we're going to discuss something, it'd be good if you made the Motion. If you don't want to, you don't have to. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not ready to make a motion on that one because I want to hear from Colleagues first on that. I just wanted to highlight that one. Those are my questions on this (crosstalk). Ms. Gitelman: We did find the land use program. It starts with "explore." Council Member Wolbach: In that case, I'd say let's change—I would make a motion to change Program S2.6.2 to match the comparable program in the Land Use Element to include the word explore at the start of the second sentence. Mayor Scharff: That's fine. Are you sticking with the word only or not? Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to address that. If people want to make that as an amendment, they're welcome to. Mayor Scharff: That's fine with me. Council Member Fine: (inaudible) INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “update Program S2.6.2 to include ‘explore’ in the second sentence.’” (New Part D) Council Member Wolbach: That's it for me. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Mine was along that same line. Could I ask a couple of questions about it? How would it change residential FAR if we were to include transfer of development rights in residential units? How would that be done? Are we talking apartment units? What kind of residential? Ms. Gitelman: It would be for multifamily housing. The idea would be to allow additional FAR. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 30 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: That simply applies to families and so forth. I'm sorry. To condominiums or apartments. Ms. Gitelman: We would have to specify in the Ordinance exactly how it would work. It would take implementation of a new Ordinance. Vice Mayor Kniss: This is somewhat new. This is not what we've done before. Just to call that out. A second question has to do with noise. The noise ordinance is included in the natural environment. It seemed as though there would have been a spot in there for noise as it dealt with safety. Do you know whether or not that was discussed at all? It would seem to me as though noise is a safety hazard as well as what is listed under noise in your natural environment. I'll make a case for it if you'd like me to. Ms. Costello: It's in the natural environment now. We kept it there. There wasn't really any discussion of whether it should have been moved. I think the CAC saw it as part of—as a natural environment issue. Vice Mayor Kniss: When we get to that one, I'll amplify that. It didn't look to me as though you had discussed things that dealt with the public health aspects of gas blowers and so forth, whether or not we discussed planes. At some place in here, we should discuss the public health element of noise, which I didn't see addressed directly. Ms. Costello: There was an attempt to bring public health more into—to have public health come more into the Natural Environment Element, which was part of why noise seemed—it seemed like a good case to keep noise there because of that issue. That was where the health issues went, into natural environment. Noise had been there, but it also seemed like a good thing to keep it there. Vice Mayor Kniss: I saw that you had done that. When we get to that part, I'll make some suggestions as to how we could enhance that since I don't think we really addressed it. It certainly is the kind of issue we hear from people saying, "Those gas blowers are driving me crazy. They're so noisy I shut the windows." I'd like us to at least deal with that public health aspect of it when we get to the natural environment. That's it for now. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Hi. First of all, I think overall this is pretty good. I just had a couple of comments, mostly small. The first one is S-1.3, which is on—if I can find it here. Policy S-1.3 on Page 209. There's a line at the end about Police Department reviewing development plans. S-1.3, new policy. At the end it says "Police Department review of site plans for major DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 31 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  development proposals." We've got a lot of people that review development proposals already. I've just got a question for Staff. Is that a good idea? Is that common? Ms. Gitelman: We're consulting. It sounds like for major projects we do invite a representative of the Police Department to participate in our internal review process. It's by no means a regular occurrence. It does say major projects, so I think it would be subject to some interpretation. Council Member Filseth: We're not mandating it on every project. It could be done on an as-needed basis according to this language. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. We could add "as needed" or something like that. Mayor Scharff: Why don't you add "as needed"? Council Member Filseth: Why don't we add "as needed"? Mayor Scharff: Wait. I've got to ask. Is it good with you? Council Member Fine: Yes. Mayor Scharff: It's fine. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy S-1.3, ‘as needed’ after ‘development proposals.’” (New Part E) Council Member Filseth: I had a question about S-1.9, which is on Packet Page 212. I didn't see anything wrong with this, but it says "Design Palo Alto's infrastructure system to protect the life and safety of residents, ensure resiliency in the face of disaster, and minimize economic loss." This sounds pretty vague and basic to me. I don't know that it adds much as written. The question I was going to ask is, is there something specific that the group was looking for. This is sort of motherhood. Was there something in particular that ought to be more articulated in this one? That's all. Ms. Jensen: I think this is really getting at looking to the future and particularly thinking ahead about the potential impacts of climate change and potentially more catastrophic disasters as the climate changes and things like sea level rise become more intense, for example. Designing the future infrastructure system or improvements to today's infrastructure system needs to take resiliency into account as mentioned here in the policy. I think this was also something that came out of the work or was intended to DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 32 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  reflect and acknowledge the work of the Blue Ribbon Infrastructure Commission. Council Member Filseth: I don't think there's any harm in it the way it is. If that's what you meant, should it have a few words at the end, "minimize economic loss including in context of climate change and sea level rise"? Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. Are you good with it, Adrian? Council Member Fine: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy S-1.9, ‘including in context of climate change and sea level rise.’” (New Part F) Council Member Filseth: Thank you. The last one I wanted to ask about was Program S2.14.3, which is on packet page 221. It's about the Fire Department. It says "review existing costs and contracts to develop a plan for the long-term funding of the Fire Department and appropriate staffing levels at all stations." What does that mean? Eric Nickel, Fire Chief: Good evening. Great question, Council Member Filseth. Eric Nickel, Fire Chief. We're essentially doing that document right now. It's called a Standard of Cover. The Standard of Cover is essentially the Fire Department's contract with the community. It lays out the risk analysis of the community very specific down to the addresses, and then it looks at what resources does the Fire Department have to mitigate that incident on its own as well as mutual or automatic aid. Mayor Scharff: Chief, didn't we do that in 2011? We did a (crosstalk). Mr. Nickel: The Standard of Cover—that was an outside analysis of how the department was staffed and if there were opportunities for consolidations or reductions. It didn't really look specifically at the risk of the community and matching the resources to that risk. It was more along the lines—there were recommendations in there on how to find some efficiencies in the organization. Council Member Filseth: The document you described—I'm sorry. The name was a Standard of … Mr. Nickel: Standard of Cover. Council Member Filseth: Standard of Cover. If that's what you meant, this bullet seems to be talking about a funding plan or something like that. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 33 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Should it focus on Standard of Cover? Should it say "review the Standard of Cover"? Should that be … Mr. Nickel: It does not address the funding piece. No, that's obviously left up to the Council and a policy decision. Mayor Scharff: Chief, maybe you could explain why there's a funding plan for the Fire Department in here and not one for the Police Department or the Planning Department … Council Member Filseth: Community Services. Mayor Scharff: … or Community Services. Why is this different? Mr. Nickel: I wasn't responsible for putting that piece in there. I'll defer to my colleagues over here. Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question? Mayor Scharff: Sure. The question is simply why would we have a funding plan in the Comp Plan for the Fire Department when I don't have one for the Police Department, I don't have one for Planning, I don't have one for Community Services Department, etc. Why is Fire special? We know you think you're special. That's good. We think you're special too. You are special. Ms. Gitelman: As you can tell by Recommendation A there, I think our consensus was at a Staff level that we let this element have a lot more programs than many of the other elements. We can potentially find ways to consolidate and strengthen the program component here. It may mean that this "adequately fund or staff" can be combined with something about the importance of these public safety functions. I don't know how you would put that in a Motion. James Keene, City Manager: I don't think there's anything inappropriate for the Council to redirect on this. I try to refer to it as the General Plan, but we use the term Comprehensive Plan. If it's a Comprehensive Plan, you would think there would be some internal consistency when we're looking at, say, a question of a service and funding. It does strike me that this ought to be a more "across the board" comment in some way as opposed to a specific one. I think the point about it as an outlier is worthwhile. The other way is to just say let's excise that for now. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to get rid of it or keep it? What do you want to do? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 34 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Filseth: I was going to say what if we changed it to "periodically update the Fire Department Standard of Cover document." That authorizes Chief Nickel to do what they want. Chief Nickel: That certainly is appropriate. The only thing I'm wondering— I'm sort of keying in on the word contracts here. Was that put in there to address the Stanford fire contract? I'm okay with that suggestion. That sounds like it would be consistent with the other departments where we're not addressing the funding. Council Member Filseth: I don't think it belongs in the Comp Plan. I think you're right. I think we should leave the Stanford fire contract out of the Comp Plan. Not that it's not important. Who knows how all this is going … Ms. Gitelman: The intention of the program is to support the policy statement above. I think we have programs that do that. Council Member Filseth: I'm good with replacing S2.14.3 with "periodically update the Fire Department's Standard of Cover document." Male: That works for us. Mayor Scharff: Fine with me. Mr. Keene: That's fine. Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much, Chief. Mayor Scharff: Fine with you, Adrian? Council Member Fine: Yeah. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace Program S2.14.3 with, ‘periodically update the Fire Department’s Standards of Cover document.’” (New Part G) Council Member Filseth: That was it for me. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: This goes back to what Council Member Wolbach said about—let's see—Item Number C, adding "if feasible." If we're going to be building a—let me see. I have to go back to it first. If we're going to be designing and building a new Public Safety Building, we would want it to remain fully operational after the 7.9 earthquake. Just as with a fire station, DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 35 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  we want it to be operational as well. Why we would put in an "if feasible" just to let there be room for not doing it to this degree, where it would be operational? I just think that the wording "if feasible" put in there gives the designers wiggle room to not do it up to par. Ms. Gitelman: The comments that were made by our Director of Office of Emergency Services is that we haven't yet gone through this design process with the architect or understood what standard for recovery they are going to build into the structure. We didn't want to prejudge the outcome. Council Member Kou: I guess my concern is if agencies like the medical center—if you have something to add, please. Mr. Bobel: After you. Council Member Kou: If the medical center is building theirs towards an 8.0 as top quality, why we would not want ours to be top quality? After all, we're housing quite a few agencies in there. I think it's a par that we reach for or over. Mr. Bobel: Phil Bobel, Public Works. I just wanted to add I emailed quickly our people in Public Works Engineering that are directly involved with the design to ask about this. They tell me it's more complicated than just a number. We're really designing for a ground acceleration value, a series of values. I don't think you can capture the entire design with a particular number, whether it be 7.9 or 8.0. It's a more complicated situation than that. I think an aspirational goal is fine, but you don't want to tie it to just that number. Council Member Kou: Before you leave, if we're not going to tie it to the 7.9 and say "if feasible," we're still looking to maintain a fully operational building after any sort of disaster event. Correct? Mr. Bobel: Part of the issue is whether it will be fully operational in any event at all. Council Member Kou: I don't like that answer. Mr. Bobel: Like I say, it's more complicated. Council Member Kou: We're spending a lot of money on this building not to be able to have some sort of reassurance … There's no … Mr. Bobel: There's a difference between a goal and a guarantee. As long as it's stated as a goal, I think you're on safe ground. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 36 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mr. Keene: May I just add, having done this before? I don't know what the discussion was about the goal. To provide a building that meets essential service standards, which actually has a range of measures in it, is enough and not have these other components to it. They almost invite disagreement and hairsplitting. The real time to make that is when you make the decisions on the design of the building itself. This is a guide. I don't know what natural disasters—does that include plagues of locusts, floods? I don't know what a moderate terrorist attack is. Council Member Kou: Don't we also have a THIRA that the City has done, that actually states the more prevalent types of threats that we can expect? Won't we go by the THIRA? Mr. Keene: Again, I go back to this idea of the Comp Plan being a general, guiding plan that we get into more detail either through other plans or other specific projects. It does seem we want a guide that's general enough—a program that's stating our intention, but also we don't have to go back and amend the Comp Plan when we want to make a particular decision. I think you'll make those decisions when we get to the decision on the—in one sense, I really don't believe that, however this is, the Council isn't going to make a decision on the Public Safety Building based upon a whole bunch of other issues. You're not necessarily going to go back and say, "What does the Comp Plan tell us we have to do?" I think being general about the outcome that we want to have, whether that's built to an essential service standard, which implies to be able to withstand a major earthquake and remain operational, is better than a particular coefficient at the moment. We may then with our architect be asking them to certify what levels of response they could follow. As Phil was saying, which is really true, unfortunately almost every earthquake we have we find out that ground movement moves a slightly different way and building standards have to be modified. There's no absolute guarantee even on whatever approach we use that it will meet that. We're continuing to learn a lot. I advocate for a little more general here. I think "if feasible" qualifies it a little bit and gives you some wiggle room if that's the way you want to do it. Council Member Kou: I would actually prefer to make an amendment, if I might. Instead of keeping the word "if feasible" we keep what is there right now but take away the "7.9 magnitude." This way we still keep standards on quality … Mayor Scharff: What page are you on? Council Member Kou: This is on 211, Program S17.2. I want to see some standards stated. It is a General Plan, a Comp Plan. With a safety building, DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 37 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  the word safety is in there. We want to make sure that we do have incorporated to this … Mayor Scharff: Just so I understand, Council Member Kou. You want to have "design a new Public Safety Building to meet the needs of the public safety departments and be resilient against known threats and hazards," and end it there? Council Member Kou: No. To continue, "this includes remaining fully operational after a catastrophic earthquake," omitting "(7.9 magnitude)." That's the only thing that's going to be omitted. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Council Member Kou: Yes, thank you. Removing the words "if feasible." Mayor Scharff: I wouldn't accept that. I don't know if there's a second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Kou moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace the Motion Part C with, “remove from Program S1.7.2, ‘7.9 magnitude.’” Council Member Kou: I'm sorry? Mayor Scharff: I wouldn't accept that, so I don't know if there's a second. Council Member Fine: You're just removing the "if feasible" as amended and then also removing the 7.9? Council Member Kou: Yes. Council Member Fine: No. I think it's okay. Mr. Keene: Can I just add something? I think it's really problematic to be designing a public building through the Comp Plan. I think that's the core issue here. The goal is clear. We want it to meet the needs of the departments and resilient against known threats and hazards. I'll be honest with you. If you want to up it up to deal—we've always talked about we want it to meet the essential service standards that imply continuity. For us to have to defend every debate and design about whether it does guard against a natural disaster or a moderate terrorist attack or what is a moderate terrorist attack or crisis, let's design the building when we design the building. Council Member Kou: This entire program needs to come out and go with according to what you said then. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 38 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Do you want to make that as an Amendment? Mr. Keene: I think these … Council Member Kou: If it's wrong to design in a Comprehensive Plan, then we should have different wording in here. Mr. Keene: I think certainly the first sentence is fine. We've already been set along these modes, which is to meet the needs of the departments and be resilient. That's clearly why we're proceeding with this building. Council Member Kou: I would make the amendment of what he said. Mayor Scharff: To design the new Public Safety Building to meet the needs of the public safety departments and be resilient against known threats and hazards. You'll make that Amendment? Council Member Kou: I'll make that Amendment. Mayor Scharff: I will accept that. Council Member Fine: Yeah. AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace the Motion Part C with, “remove from Program S1.7.2, ‘this includes remaining fully operational after a catastrophic (7.9 magnitude) earthquake, other natural disasters, moderate terrorist attack or crisis.’” Council Member Kou: Can I see it? Mayor Scharff: Sure, absolutely. It's just the first sentence. Council Member Filseth: And get rid of the "if feasible." Council Member Wolbach: It's all part of the second sentence anyway. Council Member Kou: "If feasible" is from that second sentence. That's going to be gone. Mr. Keene: "If feasible" would be gone with this proposal. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: A couple of things. On Packet Page 186, Program S262, it's not really clear to me in reading this that there's a good understanding that it's not just a TDR ordinance that we have for seismic DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 39 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  retrofit. We also have a density bonus for seismic retrofit. I don't see that referenced anywhere. I'm just wondering if there's clear understanding that both exist as incentives to rehabilitate seismically hazardous buildings. Do you want to comment on that? Bonuses aren't mentioned anywhere. Ms. Gitelman: You're right. You're clarifying that the bonus square footage can be used on the site as well as transferred elsewhere. That's correct. We could certainly clarify that here. Council Member Holman: What I would suggest on S 262 is "to continue to use a TDR Ordinance and seismic bonus Ordinance for seismic retrofits in the Commercial Downtown (CD) zone," and leave it at that. Again it would be "continue to use"—it could be worded either way, either one first—"a seismic bonus and TDR ordinance for seismic retrofits for eligible structures in the Commercial Downtown (CD) zone." Mayor Scharff: Would you delete the rest of it or would you just end that sentence? Council Member Holman: I would delete the rest of it. Mayor Scharff: I will accept that. Council Member Holman: If we're going to look at revising the TDR ordinance so that TDRs could be used only for residential, that's a separate program. Mayor Scharff: I'm with you. I accept that. Council Member Holman: That becomes a separate program about evaluate and revising the TDR ordinance. I think Council Member Wolbach brought that up earlier. We're just making that a new program. Mayor Scharff: Are you good with that, Council Member Fine? Council Member Fine: I just want to see it written out. I think that's making it a bit more clear. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace Program S2.6.2 with ‘continue to use a seismic bonus and Transferable Development Rights (TDR) Ordinance for seismic retrofits for eligible structures in the Commercial Downtown (CD) zone.’” (New Part H) INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add a program, ‘evaluate DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 40 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) Ordinance so that transferred development rights may be used only for residential development on the receiver sites.’” (New Part I) Council Member Holman: Thank you all. I don't understand the purpose of S263, a sunset for TDRs and seismic. Again, this only refers to transfer obligations. It doesn't say anything about bonus; it only talks about transfers. What is the purpose of this? Ms. Gitelman: This is one of the challenges we've had with the TDR program specifically. There's no deadlines or termination date of the bonus square footage. It becomes a recordkeeping challenge to keep track of bonuses that have been earned and not spent. We're just suggesting some improvements to the way the ordinance is currently crafted. Council Member Holman: Now, I understand. That's helpful. It's more likely that an onsite bonus would be used at the time. Do you think that probably shouldn't be included in here? There's not the need to include that here? Ms. Gitelman: This is really about the transfer. Council Member Holman: Also, there was—did I lose it? It's Program S2.6.1, encourage efforts by individual neighborhood or block-level groups to pool resources for seismic retrofits. How in the world would that ever happen? I don't understand that one at all. Ms. Jensen: This was a suggestion for an idea that came out of CAC. This is just to encourage efforts if individual neighborhoods want to undertake exploring such an effort. Certainly it would be a complex and ambitious effort. This was suggested in the spirit of being creative and working together at the neighborhood level. We added it in for your consideration. Council Member Holman: I appreciate neighborhood efforts, and I appreciate the sentiment behind it. If this is in here, from my perspective and experience it's so infeasible that it could be a huge time sink for Staff. I would ask as an amendment to delete Program S2.6.1. It's on Packet Page 186. Mayor Scharff: That's encourage efforts by individual neighborhoods or block-level groups to pool resources for seismic retrofits? Council Member Holman: Yeah. I don't see how in the world it would ever, ever be feasible for any group. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 41 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to support that. If people want to do it … Is there a second? Council Member Kou: Second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “remove Program S2.6.1.” Mayor Scharff: By Council Member Kou. Do you want to speak to it? Council Member Holman: It will never, ever, ever happen. It's just not feasible in the least. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: What she said. Mayor Scharff: Shall we vote? Does anyone else want to speak to it? Cory, do you want to speak to it? Council Member Wolbach: I just don't see the harm in encouraging it or continuing to explore it. I appreciate that we don't want too much in the Comp Plan that's not feasible. There are some aspirational things here. Mayor Scharff: Let me just quickly ask, before I forget, does Council Member Tanaka want to speak to it? Then, I'm going to ask Council Member DuBois. Council Member Tanaka: Nope, I don't. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois, do you want to speak to it? Council Member DuBois: Yes, specifically 2.6.1. I think there are places like the Green House where people have wanted to pool resources. The way this is worded makes it sound like a block. Multiunit housing is probably the place where it would happen. While I'm on, I wondered if I could speak to 2.6.3 or (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. We're voting on the amendment of Council Member Holman and Council Member Kou. How does Council Members Tanaka and DuBois vote? Council Member Tanaka: I vote against it. Mayor Scharff: No. Council Member DuBois? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 42 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member DuBois: I vote against it as well. Mayor Scharff: That fails on a 6-3 vote with Council Members Kou, Fine, and Holman voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-6 Holman, Fine, Kou yes Council Member Holman: Did you want to let Tom take the next one since he's—I don't know how long he's going to hang in. Did you want to let Tom insert or do you want me to continue? Mayor Scharff: No, Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: On Packet Page 193, it's Program S3.3. It's the one that says "support public health by requiring as part of development review"—this was edited previously, which I support. This comes up all the time with development projects. It seems to me that it should say "support public health by requiring as part of development review the City to identify and property owners' and private entities' disclosure of the presence of contaminated soil and groundwater." Male: (inaudible) Council Member Holman: It's S3.3 on Packet Page 193. "Support public health by requiring as part of development review the City to identify," which would be added and then picking up, "and property owners' and private entities' disclosure of the presence of contaminated soil and groundwater." What I'm doing here is just adding that the City is a participant in identifying these hazards. We have ongoing issues where the applicant is left to do that, and it always ends up being an issue and a question and a concern that the City is not involved in that. It's just left to the property owner. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to accept that. (inaudible) Seeing no second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “add to Policy S-3.3, ‘the City to identify’ after ‘development review.’” AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: Do you have other ones, Council Member Holman? Council Member Holman: I have one more, which would be a new—actually I have two more. On Packet Page 195, Policy S-39, "reduce solid waste generation through requiring increased salvage," which is, I think, already in DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 43 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  our C&D Ordinance. It's just adding the word "requiring increased salvage." Again, I believe that's already in our C&D Ordinance. Male: You're at 3.9? Council Member Holman: 3.9, reduce solid waste generation through requiring. Male: (inaudible) Ms. Gitelman: We do require a certain amount of salvage. Council Member Holman: This says "increased salvage." It doesn't say "complete salvage." It's just making it consistent with our Ordinance. Mayor Scharff: It's an aspirational goal to increase it. I'm trying to understand what you're trying to do. Right now, we have an Ordinance that requires salvage. If we just put the word in through—we want to put— what's the word? You want to put "requiring"? Council Member Holman: Through requiring increased salvage and reuse. Again, it makes the Ordinance and the Comp Plan consistent, and it helps encourage reduced waste. Mayor Scharff: What does Staff think? Ms. Costello: I think it's fine to say "reduce solid waste generation through requiring." The problem with the General Plan is it lasts a long time. If you say "require increased," it means it always has to keep increasing. Mayor Scharff: That's what is confusing me. Ms. Costello: If you want to just clarify what the ordinance says now, you could say "reduce solid waste generation through requiring salvage and reuse of building materials." Council Member Holman: That's fine with me. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that then. Council Member Fine: Yep. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “add to Policy S-3.9, ‘requiring’ after ‘waste generation through.’” DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 44 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Policy S-3.9, ‘increased’ with ‘requiring.’” (New Part J) Council Member Holman: One new policy. It has to do with again C&D. It's something that has been touched on at the Council. If we're going to do a Comprehensive Plan and we're going to look to reduce our solid waste and the impacts of solid waste—I think Council Member Filseth has used these numbers before, some of them anyway. Materials for a 20,000-square-foot commercial building emit 750 tons of CO2. These numbers don't even include transportation impacts typically caused by construction activities and transport of goods. Also, reusing existing homes could make an initial savings of 35 tons of carbon dioxide or CO2 per property by removing a need for the energy locked into new building materials and construction. Over a 50-year period, this means there is almost no difference in the average emissions of new compared with refurbished housing. Well-insulated homes eventually make up for their high embodied energy costs through lower operational CO2, but it takes several decades, in most cases more than 50 years. What I would like to add—I look to Staff to help with the wording. Sorry, I'm losing my voice here—is a new policy that would be "evaluate the CO2 impacts of construction and demolition and consider measures to mitigate those impacts." Mayor Scharff: No, I'm not going to accept that. I'm not going to accept that. Council Member Filseth: I'll second it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add a Policy, ‘evaluate the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) impacts of construction and demolition and consider ways to mitigate those impacts.’” Council Member Holman: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to it? Council Member Holman: Yeah. We talk a great deal in Palo Alto about being leaders, about being on the forefront. We have set lofty goals to try to reduce our greenhouse gas impacts. This is one way that we don't measure. My intention here is not to prohibit new construction. My goal here is if we're going to do an activity, we should measure what the impacts are and account for those. When there is a traffic impact or increased traffic, we have people pay in one way or another, either mitigation TDM program or on rare occasion reduce the size of a project. We make people DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 45 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  accountable. We make developers accountable. The City doesn't even make itself accountable in this regard. I'm just saying if we're going to be a leader in the environmental realm, if we're going to be a leader in CO2 reductions, we need to walk the talk. This is one way we can do it. The language is not strong. It says evaluate, and it says consider. I think it's important to get this on the books and put Palo Alto in the forefront of true impacts of construction. Mayor Scharff: Council Member … Council Member Filseth: I'll be brief. I think the reality is the real issue. It does make a difference. I know there's some discomfort on, if we start doing this, where it might lead someday. Council Member Holman's motion doesn't do anything other than say let's start considering it. This is one of those things that we keep saying, "We know it's a real issue. We ought to look at it someday." It's a real thing, so I think we ought to look at it. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: If it's okay with the Mayor, it looks like Public Works might want to—was going to weigh in on this. I'd be happy to make my comments after Public Works' comments. Mr. Bobel: I just really had more of a question on that one. It would matter to Staff a lot whether the noun is the City doing this or is it the developer doing this? Council Member Holman: I'd look to Staff to help with this. Ms. Gitelman: If I can interject. I think we've had a conversation before, Council Member Holman and I, about some of the complexities of what you're requesting. I think we can work with those. I will just say it would be useful if this were a program and not a policy if it asks the City to investigate ways to evaluate. Right now, the construction traffic, for example, is already in the traffic modeling that happens. We're going to have to figure out a way to separate that out from one part of the analysis and put it in another. There is also a whole host of issues associated with the life cycle costs of construction materials and a debate about how those should be handled in greenhouse gas emission inventory. There's a lot to think about. I'm happy to take that on as a program here. Council Member Holman: I'd be willing to make it a program. Most everything that I've found online and have found actually from references to local people that even came—referrals that came even from our Office of DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 46 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Sustainability, most of these measures don't include transportation costs that you're referencing here. They're mostly pulled out anyway at least in the information that I found. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Amendment, “Policy” with “Program.” Mr. Keene: The Amendment was prefaced by some reading that you were doing that sort of described a larger question out there about thinking about new development versus renovation. I don't know if we have other places in here where we're dealing with the larger question. This seems potentially biased in one direction rather than also thinking about benefits in both of these cases. What are the benefits? Council Member Holman: That's the purpose of this. That's the purpose of this. It says evaluate. What I read talks about what a new building can do compared to what an existing building can do as a couple of sets of examples or three sets of examples. Mr. Keene: It's just the word impacts tends towards the negative. The focus is solely on mitigating those impacts rather than understanding the benefits and what that tradeoff is. Council Member Holman: If you have suggested language, I'm open to it. Mayor Scharff: I think I'll speak to this briefly. This is the concern. We're basically—what Council Member Holman said is if you have a single-family house, you should weigh the benefits of whether or not to tear it down or build a new house. If you want to build a new house instead of tearing it down, then you should basically pay a carbon tax. That's how I read this. I don't think we're ready to pick on one particular thing to input a carbon tax. That's what this really is. We could look at it Citywide. To say we're going to dis-incentivize construction—that's what this is. That's what mitigation means. That's what Council Member Holman said. You want to dis- incentivize new construction because of the carbon impact as opposed to the broader benefits that you look at. The way you do that is—I assume you'd end up with another fee by saying you can't build your single-family house without paying a fee after a complex calculation. I don't think that's (crosstalk). Council Member Holman: That's not what I'm saying. Some buildings are not going to be feasibly environmentally sustainable. I don't like that word always in this regard. Some buildings are just not going to be that. It's not to try to save every building. It's to understand better what our activities DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 47 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  do. Does replacement of a building—is it a positive impact, is it a neutral impact, or is it a negative impact? That's what I'm looking for. Mayor Scharff: Yes, but you … Council Member Holman: We do not now measure in any regard any of those. Mayor Scharff: I understand. What you're talking about measuring is just the CO2 impacts on this, and there is a bunch of reasons. Frankly, what you're going to be telling people who buy a property is, depending on how recently the house they want to tear down on, how recently that has been built, whether or not they can do it or how much it's going to cost them. I think that's a broad undertaking and something we've never done. I don't think now's the time to be putting this in at the last minute, frankly. This is a huge policy change that I don't think we should be going down that road. I think you should be careful about disincentives. I think we should be careful about disincentives to allowing people to do what they want with their single-family homes. I think that's a huge intrusion when people buy something of what they want to do. If we're going to start measuring how they should remodel, how they should renovate, whether or not they should add something, whether or not they should tear something down, I just think that's a huge intrusion into our citizens' lives. I don't think we should be going down that route. Council Member Filseth: I think this is mostly about commercial buildings, not single-family residences. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Thanks. I just wanted to hear from Staff before I weighed in. I appreciate you coming back to me on this. I actually think the issue that's being raised here by Council Members Holman and Filseth—what they're getting at, I think, is a very important sustainability question. The phrase that the City Manager used is the right one. It's about life cycle costs. The Mayor makes a good point as well about—I think the City Manager alluded to it too. There's a question that eventually we should be able to answer. Frankly, in the next few years I'd like us to have a better process for answering that question. When you're constructing something, especially a larger project or a commercial project, or you're making the decision to remodel or build a new one or, if I remodel or build a new one, will it be a higher certification for a green building, LEED certified or whatever, how do the life cycle costs for CO2 get improved by doing a certain kind of remodel versus another kind of remodel versus a tear down and replacement? That is a really important, interesting, but complex DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 48 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  question. For me, the question here is—I really appreciate them raising this. I do think we should get it on the books. The question is where. For me, the question is does it go in the Comp Plan. Is it better in the Comp Plan or is it better in our S/CAP or is it better in our Green Building Code? I'm open to Staff—actually I'd like to ask Staff if they have thoughts about does this seem like something that is being worked on in our S/CAP or Green Building Codes. It seems to me this is more of an S/CAP thing, and it may be an allusion to it or encouragement of it. With maybe slightly softer language, I might be supportive of it. Let me be clear. I'm open to something. I'm not sure I like this language. I'm curious whether we can find something where we can all get on board. I do agree this is important, and I do agree we should start moving towards putting this on the books in some place. Council Member Holman: Responding to that … Council Member Wolbach: My question was for Staff, if this sounds like something that's being explored with our S/CAP or Green Building Codes. Ms. Gitelman: We do have a program in the Natural Environment Element that talks about periodically reviewing the S/CAP and updating the greenhouse gas inventory. It seems to me that the question being posed here is are we appropriately accounting for construction-related impacts in our inventory. Because we have a program that says update that thing, I think we can capture that in that exercise. Maybe if we need to be more specific, we could put that in the S/CAP somewhere. Council Member Wolbach: That's kind of what I'm getting at. I think the phrase life cycle costs is the phrase that we should use. Having some reference to that in someplace, I'd be okay with. I think that would be reasonable. I'm not sure I support this. Mr. Bobel: Phil Bobel. I was just going to answer part of your question. I can't say that that concept is in the S/CAP currently. I don't think it actually is. I'm assuming this evaluation is in an overall general sense, not a project-by-project sense. You were thinking in terms of the overall evaluation as opposed to a project-by-project evaluation. Neither one is, I don't think, currently in the S/CAP. Council Member Wolbach: Just to wrap up my comments quickly. I would be comfortable with some language in the—I think it would have to go in the natural environment, not in the Safety Element. Encouraging studying and developing guidance for evaluating life cycle costs of construction in the S/CAP. The Comp Plan would encourage the S/CAP to tackle that question. That way we'd get it in the Comp Plan, and it would be fully developed in the S/CAP. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 49 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Ms. Gitelman: We did find a program that mentions life cycle costs. It's not specific to construction. It's Program N7.2.2 in the Natural Environment Element, Packet Page 161. Council Member Wolbach: What was it again? Ms. Gitelman: It's Packet Page 161, Program N7.2.2. Council Member Wolbach: What was the Program number again? Sorry. Ms. Gitelman: Packet Page 161, Program N7.2.2 at the bottom of that page. Council Member Wolbach: Actually I think that does address this issue sufficiently. I don't think we need to add it to the Safety Element. I think this is effective and (inaudible) that's in the Comp Plan now. I thought there was something in there. I was trying to remember it. Thanks to Staff for finding that. Mr. Bobel: Phil Bobel. If I could just add one thought. Usually when somebody reads life cycle cost, they're talking about dollar cost. I thought Councilwoman Holman's point was more the life cycle CO2 emissions as opposed to cost. Council Member Wolbach: When we get to natural environment, let's maybe add that to that program. Mr. Keene: I think it's in there. It talks about the production of greenhouse gases and costs over the life of the project. To me, this says the same tone and intention that Council Member Holman had as far as assessing the feasibility, seeing what it looks like. It's expansive. Council Member Wolbach: To sum up, I won't be supporting this amendment. I'm glad it's already there in the natural environment. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: If you get called on last, it makes it easy. I was going to point this out to people about 10 minutes ago. This just about covers the whole thing. Some of us happened to discuss that this afternoon. I think probably, Karen, where you're going on this is what does happen when we take a building down and what happens when we put it up. We've had a number of discussions about the amount of CO2 that's emitted from cement and other kinds of things. I'm not sure whether you can measure that precisely enough to put in a Comp Plan, but I would doubt it. For me, this N7.2.2 covers that precisely as it puts it together, which is talking about—it says the ownership analysis. I'm going to presume from that we really DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 50 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  mean whomever is building this is responsible for giving the information out. Would you guess the same? Would you just nod down there? Mr. Keene: Yeah. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think it's a good point, Karen. I'm glad you brought it up, but for me that covers it. As time goes on, these kinds of things will be measured more and more as our greenhouse gas program in this state is going to get more and more dramatic by 2030. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I think if we're going to be looking at our S/CAP and having link across the board, I think that's important, what Council Member Holman had stated. I think it's very to the point. I would be supporting it. Mayor Scharff: Would Council Member Tanaka like to say anything? Council Member Tanaka: Nope. Mayor Scharff: Did he want to or not? He said no. Council Member DuBois, would you like to say something? Council Member DuBois: No, no additional comments. Mayor Scharff: Everyone has spoken to this. Let's … Council Member Holman: I was going to withdraw the Amendment and say we'll address it under N7.2.2. Mayor Scharff: You're withdrawing the Amendment? Council Member Holman: Yeah. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add a Program, ‘evaluate the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) impacts of construction and demolition and consider ways to mitigate those impacts.’” AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: Anything else, Council Member Holman? Council Member Holman: That was my last one. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 51 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Fine: Just one question. On Packet Page 218, Policy S-2.9, prohibiting new habitable basements in the flood zone, 100-year flood zones. What's our current policy towards that? Ms. Jensen: This is the policy I mentioned that we added, which essentially restates existing requirements that are already in the Municipal Code. FEMA requires the City to have a policy prohibiting habitable basements. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Ms. Jensen: In the flood zone. Council Member Fine: That's it, Mr. Mayor. Others have been addressed by other Council Members. Mayor Scharff: I think everyone here has spoken. Tom's next. Council Member DuBois, do you have something you'd like to say? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Can you guys hear me okay? Male: Yes. Council Member DuBois: First, I wanted to thank Colleagues and Staff for accommodating me remotely. It's the first time I've done this. I appreciate the flexibility. Overall, the element looked pretty good to me. I had one comment on an item that's been mentioned a couple of times, which is the TDRs. Looking at Program 2.6.3 on Page 216, it's already been mentioned about the sunset dates. I thought this was kind of overly specific. I had a question for Hillary. Do we have a review of the seismic policies on an upcoming Council agenda at all? Ms. Gitelman: Actually, Staff in Development Services is working on potential revisions to the seismic ordinance to investigate the potential for requirements for additional risk categories. It's a complicated ordinance. In fact, we're debating whether to bring that through Policy and Services or direct to the Council. I don't know what the current schedule is. There is something about this subject in the works. Council Member DuBois: My proposed Amendment to this would be to end the program sentence after "to encourage seismic retrofits." We would make it more broad that we're going to study the possibility of revising TDR programs to encourage seismic retrofits, and let Staff come with an option about sunsetting as well as any other options at that time. Mayor Scharff: That'd be fine. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 52 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Fine: I'll accept that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “remove from Program S2.6.3, ‘to include sunset dates by which transfer obligations must be fulfilled.’” (New Part K) Council Member DuBois: That's the only thing I had. I would say I'm in the eastern time zone. I'm going to have to drop off at midnight my time, which is 9:00 P.M. your time. If it'd be possible to speak early on the natural environment, I'd appreciate that. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: I'm glad you're so optimistic we'll get to the natural environment by 9:00. Council Member DuBois, before you drop off, I actually would take you out of order and let you speak to it as long as you're not making motions, if you just want to make comments. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: One last thought while we're hopefully winding this one up. Under "I," I don't remember how this happened, who put the word in. It says "evaluate TDR ordinance so that transfer of development rights may be used only for residential development." I would suggest removing the "only." Mayor Scharff: I would accept that. Council Member Fine: Yep. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove from the Motion Part I, “only.” Mayor Scharff: Anything further? Council Member Tanaka, did you want to speak to this? Council Member Tanaka: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: I wasn't clear. Council Member Tanaka: I did. Liz just stole my thunder, which is okay. You guys accepted it, so that's great. Tom already talked about the expiration thing, which is covered. I'm good. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, you already spoke once to this, I think. Right? Is it something short? Council Member Kou: Actually, it's going back to Item C. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 53 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Item C. I'll allow it. Council Member Kou: I just want to make sure—I want to be reassured that this Public Safety Building will have some means of having some quality and some continuation after a disaster. I just want reassurance on that. I'm not sure that I am getting it from just that first three lines. If there's some way that you can help me and reassure me with a second sentence or some stronger language there that will ensure that this is going to be a quality building, then I can sleep better at nights. This is on Packet Page 211, 17.2. I can accept disasters are hard to determine to what magnitude. We're not just cutting through it and just putting up something. Ms. Gitelman: I think that's not our intention. The remaining sentence there does say "design the building to meet the needs of the departments and be resilient against known threats and hazards." There is an intention to design this as an essential facility. I think we understand the policy objective that you're articulating, and that will be accounted for in the design of this building. Mr. Keene: Can I just interject here? Unless I'm mistaken, I don't know why inserting the words essential service standards creates a problem for us in the design of this building. "Design the new Public Safety Building to essential service standards to meet the needs of the public safety departments and be resilient against known threats and hazards." That's very descriptive. It makes it very clear there are some specific criteria attached to that. Mayor Scharff: Would you like to offer that as an Amendment, Council Member Kou? Council Member Kou: I would. Thank you very much, City Manager. I would. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. Adrian? Council Member Fine: I'll accept that too. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion “add to Program S1.7.2, ‘as an essential service building’ after ‘Public Safety building.’” (New Part L) MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to prepare a revised draft of the Safety Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission incorporating the following changes: DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 54 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  A. Consolidate programs in the Safety Element where feasible to establish a balance between policies and programs similar to other elements; and B. Add to Policy S-3.2 or S-3.3, “vapor intrusion prevention;” and C. Remove from Program S1.7.2, “this includes remaining fully operational after a catastrophic (7.9 magnitude) earthquake, other natural disasters, moderate terrorist attack or crisis;” and D. Update Program S2.6.2 to include “explore” in the second sentence; and E. Add to Policy S-1.3, “as needed” after “development proposals;” and F. Add to Policy S-1.9, “including in context of climate change and sea level rise;” and G. Replace Program S2.14.3 with, “periodically update the Fire Department Standards of Cover document;” and H. Replace Program S2.6.2 with “continue to use a seismic bonus and Transferable Development Rights (TDR) Ordinance for seismic retrofits for eligible structures in the Commercial Downtown (CD) zone;” and I. Add a program, “evaluate the Transferable Development Rights (TDR) Ordinance so that transferred development rights may be used for residential development on the receiver sites;” and J. Replace in Policy S-3.9, “increased” with “requiring;” and K. Remove from Program S2.6.3, “to include sunset dates by which transfer obligations must be fulfilled;” and L. Add to Program S1.7.2, “as an essential service building” after “Public Safety building.” Mayor Scharff: If we could now vote on the Motion. Council Member Tanaka, how do you vote? Council Member Tanaka: I vote for it. Mayor Scharff: Did he vote yes or no? Council Member Tanaka: Yes. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 55 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois? Council Member DuBois: I vote yes. Mayor Scharff: That passes unanimously. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 2. Natural Environment Element Revisions Mayor Scharff: Now, we're going to natural environment. On the natural environment, what Staff asked for was—I'll make the motion. Direct Staff to prepare revised drafts of the Natural Environment Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission incorporating the following changes, which was consolidate parking funding and acquisition policies from the Natural Environment Element to the Community Services Element and seek other opportunities to align the elements and reduce redundancies. I'm not going to deal with "C." I think Council Members may want to deal with "C" on their own. We'll make a decision on that. Do I have a second? Vice Mayor Kniss: Second. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to direct Staff to prepare a revised draft of the Natural Environment Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission incorporating the following changes, consolidate park funding and acquisition policies from the Natural Environment Element to the Community Services Element and seek other opportunities to align the elements and reduce redundancies. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to speak to it. You're going to wait until after Tom, if that's all right. Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Tom, would you like to speak to this so you can go to bed? Council Member DuBois: Thank you, Mayor. I'll try to be brief. I had a question on Packet Page 135, development in the open space zone. It looked like we removed the requirement for story poles. Ms. Gitelman: We had trouble hearing you. If you could repeat the question. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 56 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member DuBois: The question was about the removal of story poles and whether there was any discussion at the CAC about that. On Page 135. Ms. Costello: The story poles is in the Ordinance. What the CAC wanted was some of the major concepts that are in the ordinance to also show up in the Comp Plan. They tried to make this shorter and more concise and not repeat everything that's already in the Ordinance, not get too much into the details. Council Member DuBois: That's very helpful. There's no intention to repeal that or (crosstalk)? Ms. Costello: No, no intention to repeal anything in the ordinance. More of an intention to give the big picture policy direction toward the Ordinance, but not have the Comp Plan and the Ordinance saying exactly the same thing. Council Member DuBois: Moving on. I'll say I'm glad to see Policy N-5.2, which is looking at vehicle idling, which we heard about tonight. On N-3.3.1, which is the riparian setback, I support the letter from the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society about a 150-foot setback. I would also support several other things in their letter. I'll let somebody there make a motion about the definition of how the setbacks should be delineated and that clarify the single-family property line, which is the single-family properties east of Foothill Expressway. Other than that, I was pretty happy with this element. Thank you for letting me speak first. I'll stay on here a few more minutes, but I am going to drop off soon. Mayor Scharff: Thanks, Tom. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Are you ready to just head into the mix? Mayor Scharff: I am. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me start out with something that I think actually could be relatively simple, which is to take up "C" first before we take up anything else. That would be the selection of the setback as the desired stream setback. I'm going to move that we make it 150 feet and see if I have support, first of all, from the maker of the motion. Mayor Scharff: You would have my support, but I actually think this is a significant enough issue that we should vote on it and have a discussion about since it was called off in the Staff Report. I think you should get a second. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 57 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: What do you mean by significant? You want to have a discussion now? Mayor Scharff: Yeah, I do. I think it's just an amendment. It needs a second. Council Member Holman: I second. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member Holman. AMENDMENT: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion, “select 150 feet as the desired stream setback metric Program N3.3.1 in the Natural Environment Element about updating the code to require larger stream setbacks along natural creeks west of Foothill Expressway.” Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me speak to it briefly. It's always difficult to decide exactly what the setback should be. When we're looking at this as a very long-term requirement, even longer term this is going to be a setback that we see as desirable. As we continue on, we have no idea what's going to happen next with drought or flood yet again. Because this is a very uncertain environment, meaning in terms of our environment, I'm going to suggest 150 feet would be the desired stream setback metric. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, do you want to speak to your second? Council Member Holman: Yes, in half a second here. It's N3.3.1. I fully support this. As I said earlier about something else, Palo Alto likes to think of itself and it is in so many different ways leaders in environmental stewardship. I think 150 feet is what other cities in the county are doing; it's what the County is doing. I think it's quite appropriate. I take it, Vice Mayor Kniss, when you added that, you're just replacing the word "100 feet" to "150 feet" in 331? Vice Mayor Kniss: As you see it on your sheet of paper or on our recommendations tonight, it gave us that choice. Maybe it didn't give us that choice, but I made the choice, 150. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, do you want to speak to this? Council Member Wolbach: I guess I'm going to listen for a little bit more persuasion. I'm 90 percent of the way there on this one. As a policy matter, if we have to make a decision tonight, I'll support the 150 feet. As a procedural matter, given what came to us was not a strong recommendation DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 58 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  one way or another—I don't want to say a coin toss because it's rather significant. As the Staff Report indicated, a lack of understanding was expressed by CAC members as far as what the costs and benefits of this would be. I think we should explore those. If there is a way to send this to the Planning and Transportation Commission, which last week asked for more homework, I would be interested in that as a process. On the other hand, I recognize that that may have a delaying effect. It is not my intention to prevent this from happening. It's really a question of is this the right place to do it and is this the right procedure or should it go to PTC. I'm not making an amendment. I'm just asking that to my colleagues as an open question. I'm leaning towards supporting it but would like to see it go to PTC if that's possible. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I also struggled with this one. In terms of values, this is the right amendment, but I agree with Council Member Wolbach. I'm not sure this is quite the right process. It seems like this is probably going to be the way we go. Just a comment to Staff. When I was thinking about this—maybe it would still be helpful to go to PTC to see how this would go. This is just desired stream setback. It's for us to look at a diagram looking at the setbacks, the distances, the different zones, current buildout within these areas, where we have open space in these areas. I think it'd be nice to understand at 100 feet how much of that space is covered by urbanized area, at 150 feet what's the percentage and what's the open space that we would be preserving with this desired setback. That's what I want to hear from the rest of my colleagues up here. Mayor Scharff: I'll weigh in briefly. Do we have any streams through the Research Park? We do, right? Ms. Costello: I'm sure there are. Ms. Gitelman: If I can just say a few things about this. Stream setback ordinances can be controversial and difficult for agencies to adopt. I wasn't here when the City adopted their current ordinance, which calls for a 50-foot setback. I can imagine that reopening the ordinance and going to either 100 feet or 150 feet will not be a simple matter. The CAC was interested in putting that planning effort on the radar screen, and that was their intention in including it in this element. This is why we didn't do a whole lot of analysis of these policy choices. My feeling was this program was intended to ask us to do that analysis and start to think about amending the current ordinance. If that isn't clear in the wording here, we'd be open to some changes as well as your direction on which of these goals … DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 59 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Where is the wording on this? Ms. Gitelman: It's Packet Page 142, Program 3.3.1. Mayor Scharff: How would you feel, Vice Mayor Kniss, about adding the word "explore an ordinance to go to 150 feet"? Vice Mayor Kniss: I would be fine with "explore." I also would support Council Member Wolbach's suggestion of going to PTC. I don't know how Karen would feel about that. Council Member Holman: I'd really rather just refer it to the Planning and Transportation Commission. At a bit of a compromise, I'd actually be in favor of just employing the 150 feet since they're only talking about west of Foothill. I don't want to put in here "explore." I think we send it to the Planning and Transportation Commission and see what comes back and then put in the appropriate distance. I'd support 150 feet now as well. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'll continue to support that. If you are feeling uncomfortable and more comfortable with PTC … Mayor Scharff: Were you going to accept the word explore or not? Vice Mayor Kniss: I did. Mayor Scharff: Are you accepting the word explore? Council Member Holman: Not really. Mayor Scharff: Then I'll make the amendment to the Amendment to add the word explore. You'll second it? Vice Mayor Kniss: Second it, yeah. I already made it, didn't I? Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman didn't accept it, so now we have … AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to replace in the Amendment, “select 150” with “explore 150.” Mayor Scharff: Can we just vote on the board on the word explore? Council Member Wolbach: My question is going to be for Staff. What I heard from Staff and what I've heard from members of the community and the CAC on this—I'm a little bit confused about what the intention was of what was brought to us and what the effect of the proposed amendment DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 60 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  would be. Before I vote for this amendment, since there's clearly some division even up here about it, I want to be clear if this amendment would capture what Staff was intending and what the effect would be procedurally in timeline if we did that. I guess my question is how long would it take to— we're talking about updating our ordinance. How long would that take and what would exploring mean? Ms. Gitelman: I think this is consistent with what Shani Kleinhaus said in public comments. The existing Comp Plan has a program like this that says 100 feet that was in place when the City went forward and adopted its current ordinance, which says 50 feet. The Comp Plan CAC, recognizing that, thought we should try this again, let's include a program that calls on us to reevaluate our existing ordinance and potentially expand it. The debate was whether it should stay with 100 feet like in the current Comp Plan or whether it should be expanded to 150 feet. In both cases, it was a desire to have the City at some point reexamine its existing ordinance, which has 50 feet as the setback. Council Member Wolbach: I think that's really the important piece here, actually taking this up, actually going to PTC. PTC has asked for a lot more homework. On the other hand, PTC has to be supported by Staff, and Staff has not asked for a lot more homework. I'm just trying to be sensitive to what that means for (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: That's my intention here. My intention is to say 150 feet may very well be the right number, but there's no Staff work, there's no discussion. If 100 feet is just as good as 150 feet and that's what the science tells us—I don't know what it does—and there's all these costs about where it runs through the people's properties and all these people come forward, it's not transparent to make a big change on an ordinance like 100 to 150 feet even though the ordinance is actually 50. We're going from 50 feet to 150 feet on people's property with no public input really and no one knowing this is happening. We could put it in here at 150 feet, and then we're going to get a whole bunch of people coming out and saying they have problems with it. If we don't do it, we'll then have something that's different in our Comp Plan like we had before. I don't know why they ended up with 50 feet when the Comp Plan said 100 feet. I'm assuming it's because a bunch of people came out. That's the likely—no? You don't think so? You think we just … Vice Mayor Kniss: I think we have changed dramatically through the years on how we look at riparian streams and the need for protection. When that Comp Plan was started, it was 1992. It's going on 30 years ago. There DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 61 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  have been a great many changes in how we look at, as I said, that riparian situation. Mayor Scharff: I don't disagree with you. I'm just saying whether or not it's 100 or 150 feet, we deserve to at least look at it and have some Staff work and make that decision. That's why I said "explore." Vice Mayor Kniss: I don't disagree with that. I'm probably going to hang in there with 150 when the time comes. Some backup information would actually be advantageous. Vice Mayor Kniss: Can we vote on this? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Council Member Holman: I have a question. Mayor Scharff: You had a question. Go on, Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Given that other communities have adopted 150 feet—this is our Comp Plan. It's not an ordinance. Clearly we could potentially adopt something different when it came time to do the ordinance. What have other cities found that they say let's do 150? They didn't seem to find impediments to doing that. Again, this is not an ordinance. This is the Comp Plan, which is the goal. It's the vision. How is it that other communities could do it that we can't? Ms. Gitelman: I've been involved in a stream setback ordinance in the past that was extremely controversial because you're telling property owners that there's a section of their property that they're not going to be able to improve as they may wish to. There are good habitat and ecological reasons for these ordinances, and they're worthy of study. I think if the City studied this again, we might find that 100 or 150 feet was desirable and attainable again. The last time this happened—my colleagues are telling me it was around 2002—the study happened, the ordinance was adopted at 50 feet. Council Member Holman: I was on the Planning Commission when the 50 feet was adopted in the ordinance. There wasn't a big hue and cry unless my memory is totally flawed on that. There wasn't a big hue and cry. There were a handful of people that came, and a handful of people came and supported a larger setback as well. It wasn't a big hue and cry. About the study, again, this is the Comp Plan; it's not the ordinance. We'll have a chance to do the study when it comes to an ordinance. This is our aspiration, to have 150 feet. Vice Mayor Kniss, I supported where you were to begin with, and I still support that direction. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 62 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Anyone else want to speak to this quickly or not? Can we vote? We're only voting on adding the word explore to the amendment. I will ask the guys on the call. Do you guys want to speak to this before we vote? Tanaka, Greg? Council Member Tanaka: I've been having a little bit of trouble knowing what exactly has been voted on. I actually agree with Council Member Wolbach, what he said about sending it to PTC. I expressly don't have enough information on this to really know whether it's right or not. I think let's put them to work. I'm not sure what we're voting on; I can't really see what you guys are—what the motion is. Mayor Scharff: We're voting on right now to add the word explore to the amendment, whether or not to do that. Council Member Tanaka: I can vote on that. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. That's a no. Council Member Tanaka, how do you vote? Council Member Tanaka: I'll vote to add "explore" to the amendment. Mayor Scharff: That passes on a 5-3 vote with Council Member Kou, Filseth, and Holman voting no. Council Member DuBois: Council Member DuBois is still here. Mayor Scharff: You're still here. Council Member DuBois: I'll actually vote yes on "explore." Mayor Scharff: That's 6-3. AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT PASSED: 6-3 Filseth, Holman, Kou no Mayor Scharff: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get rid of you. Text the clerk when you're no longer here. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add to the Motion, “explore 150 feet as the desired stream setback metric for Program N3.3.1 in the Natural Environment Element about updating the code to require larger stream setbacks along natural creeks west of Foothill Expressway.” (New Part B) DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 63 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the main Amendment. Do you want more discussion on that? I didn't think we had more discussion on it. On the 150 feet. We're just voting on your amendment, Karen, on yours and Vice Mayor Kniss' with the word explore. Does anyone else want to speak to that? I didn't mean to rush it through, but I thought we'd had that discussion. Vote on the board. Council Member Tanaka, how do you vote? Council Member Tanaka: Just to be clear, this includes referring it to the PTC? Mayor Scharff: No, it doesn't say anything about sending it to PTC, even though I think there was support for that. Council Member Tanaka: It has the word explore, so I'll support it. Mayor Scharff: Do you say yes, you'll vote for it? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, he did. Council Member Tanaka: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois? Council Member DuBois: Yes. Mayor Scharff: That passes unanimously. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss moved. Vice Mayor Kniss, did you have further things you wanted to … Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, I do. Thanks to the co-chairs who have given some feedback on this. Going to what will be—hang on a second while I get to my notes here. Going to N.6. This is on, depending on which of the packet pages you're looking at, 155. 156 is what I'm looking at, at this point. I'm looking at—this is the one that talks about interior and exterior ambient noise and project design and so forth. It goes through the guidelines for outdoor noise levels and so forth, coming across to noise exposure and so forth. The one that I'm concerned about is protecting the overall community and especially sensitive noise receptors, so forth and so on. Looking at the program, which is below that, it says "continue working to reduce noise impacts created by events and activities taking place in communities adjoining Palo Alto." I would have said "taking place in our own community as well as communities adjoining Palo Alto." Could you indicate why it is put the way it is? Why do we not include Palo Alto? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 64 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Ms. Jensen: The CAC's discussion centered on the whole range of the policies and programs that are elsewhere in this section to regulate noise within Palo Alto. They wanted this program specifically to allude to events that might take place on Stanford campus or at the Shoreline Amphitheatre or other surrounding (crosstalk). Vice Mayor Kniss: I think that's clear. I just want to talk about what I talked about before. Maybe you can show this to me. Where the noise impact from, for example, gas blowers—even though that seems quite narrow, gas blowers have been an issue in this community for 30 years. We continue to outlaw them, and they continue to come back. Council Member DuBois left the meeting at 9:10 P.M. Ms. Jensen: Leaf blowers—I think it's called lawn equipment—is in Policy N- 6.10. There's also a program to evaluate changes to further reduce the impacts of noise. Vice Mayor Kniss: Did you say N-6.7? Ms. Jensen: N6.10 is the policy; the program is N.6.10.1. Vice Mayor Kniss: Very good. I didn't see that. I'm glad to see that. It's good to see that, but I imagine it was probably the same noise ordinance that was in the last Comp Plan. Ms. Jensen: Yes, it's a revision to the program that was in the last Comp Plan. Vice Mayor Kniss: We apparently don't have a great deal of success with it. You crossed out "evaluate changes to the noise ordinance to reduce the impact of leaf blower noise." Was there a reason for that? Ms. Jensen: I think it's kind of an artifact … Vice Mayor Kniss: You think it's included in the previous sentence? Ms. Jensen: Yeah, the way the track changes happen. If you look at the program in 6.10.1, right above that, where it's crossed out it does say "evaluate changes to the noise ordinance to further reduce the impacts of noise from leaf blowers and residential power equipment." We did discuss that concept. It's very much in here. Vice Mayor Kniss: Inherent in this is the allowance of dBs or not? Ms. Jensen: Excuse me? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 65 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: You have that at the very beginning, the dB allowance. Ms. Costello: The Comp Plan doesn't get into the level of detail of exactly decibel levels. Vice Mayor Kniss: No, you did. As you go back at the beginning of this, you definitely have that in here. Ms. Jensen: I thought you were asking about from leaf blowers specifically. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm going to presume, since that's very specific about the dBs, it's addressed to leaf blowers as well. I think it would have to be. Ms. Jensen: It's really just about outdoor noise levels in general. It doesn't get into—the policies of the Comp Plan don't get into specific noise sources, but that is the type of thing that's covered in the Ordinance itself. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm looking at Hillary. You think this is covered? Ms. Gitelman: I do. This element addresses community noise standards. This would fall under that. Vice Mayor Kniss: The even worse one, can we transfer that to airport noise as well? It's not mentioned in here. I'm hesitant to do that because it's differentiated from leaf blowers. Leaf blowers is a very long and probably permanent problem. However, with the airplane noise, that's fairly recent. We still have high hopes that maybe working with Anna Eshoo and the FAA might have some good outcome. I didn't think that needed to be put in there precisely. Those are my questions. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Actually picking up on that, I'm open to tweaks on this. I'd like to propose an amendment to N6.12.2. You can look at packet page 160; that's N6.12.2. It says currently "participate in appropriate public forums to ensure that future activities at airports in the region do not negatively affect noise levels in Palo Alto." I'd suggest a couple of small changes. I'd suggest changing it to "participate in appropriate public forums and engage with other governmental agencies and representatives to ensure that activities at … ." Basically add the words "and engage with other governmental agencies and representatives" between the words "forums" and "to" and remove the word "future." Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's fine. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 66 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N6.12.2, ‘forums to ensure that future activities” with “forums and engage with other governmental agencies and representatives to ensure that activities.” (New Part C) Council Member Wolbach: Thank you for that. A couple of other things. It might be a small thing. Maybe there's a logic behind this that I wasn't aware of. If you look on Packet Page 133, Program N1.7.2, it says currently "protect wildlife"—I agree with most of this—"in public open space areas by improving litter collection, restricting the use of non-recyclable plastics, and prohibiting the feeding of wild and domestic animals in open space and enforcing dog leash laws." That is great except there are three words that I'm questioning and I'd suggest removing, "and domestic animals." If you're hiking with your dog on its leash in one of our open space areas where a dog on a leash is permitted and you give your dog a treat, that is feeding a domestic animal. I would hope we would be okay with that as long as you're not leaving it behind for the wild animals. That would be covered still because it still says "prohibit the feeding of wild … ." Actually, there are only two words I would suggest removing, "and domestic." I want to ask … Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. I want to be able to feed the horse. Council Member Wolbach: I just wanted to ask real quick, before I suggest it as an amendment, Staff and the consultant if there was any discussion about including domestic animals in that. Ms. Jensen: I think this is specifically about feeding stray cats and animals like that. Not a wild animal per se. Council Member Wolbach: Could we change it to "wild and stray"? If it's your own animal, you can feed your own animal. Mayor Scharff: Are we going with feral or are we going with … Council Member Wolbach: How about "wild, feral, or stray"? Mayor Scharff: When cats come to people's houses and want to be fed, are we outlawing that? Council Member Wolbach: That's in open spaces. Mayor Scharff: That's in the open spaces. Council Member Wolbach: It's just in open spaces. I would suggest, instead of "wild and domestic," it would say "wild, feral, and stray." DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 67 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm good with that. Are you good with that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yeah. It's three more words than necessary (inaudible). INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N1.7.2, ‘and domestic’ with ‘feral and stray.’” (New Part D) Council Member Wolbach: Thank you for that. I'm not sure what to make of it, so I'm actually not going to offer an amendment. I just want to highlight it for discussion. On Packet Page 135, Program N1.10.2 has to do with "pursue dedication of undedicated, publicly owned recreation, open space, and conservation areas such as the Renzel Wetlands and the Gamble House and Gardens as public parks to preserve the community-serving purpose of these areas into the future." Let me just ask Staff for now. What would the effect of that be if we pursue that with those examples in particular? What would that mean? What would that change? Ms. Gitelman: I can't speak to those examples specifically, but that's really what we're getting to in "A" above. We address a lot of these issues in the Community Services Element. We're hoping the Council will concur that we should try and consolidate these in one place and reduce the redundancy. Council Member Wolbach: I thought we had talked about this before with community services. I'm fine with "A" as it is then. Those are my comments. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Just two amendments, and I'll see if they get support. On Page 132, Program N1.4.1. It's about periodically reviewing CEQA thresholds of significance. I would remove everything after the word experts. "Periodically review CEQA thresholds of significance … by professionally recognized, scientific experts." I think that's all fine. After that, the Comp Plan lists a bunch of databases and services we should go look at. I think we can trust that to Staff to look at these and others. Just removing everything after the word experts. Mayor Scharff: That's fine with me. Vice Mayor Kniss: Okay. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “remove from Program N1.4.1, ‘sources may include the California Natural Diversity Database, as DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 68 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  updated in accordance with federally and State recognized organizations, including the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as the California Native Plant Society and the Audubon Society.’” (New Part E) Council Member Fine: On Packet Page 147, this is Policy N-4.8, conserve and maintain subsurface water resources by reducing residential basement dewatering and other excavation activities. I would say "by exploring ways to reduce residential basement dewatering," which we're currently doing and implementing. I don't know if we want the Comp Plan to say … Mayor Scharff: You want to add "explore" where? Council Member Fine: "Conserve and maintain subsurface water resources by exploring ways to reduce residential basement dewatering." Mayor Scharff: Good. That's fine with me. Anything else? Council Member Fine: That's all. Mayor Scharff: You're fine with that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yeah. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Policy N-4.8., ‘by reducing’ with ‘by exploring ways to reduce.’” (New Part F) Council Member Fine: I'll check with the Clerk. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Thank you. One is a Staff cleanup that I saw in a communications from Canopy. In the vision statement on packet page 78, on the fourth line, it would say "creeks, parks, urban forest, wildlife, and open space legacy." "Urban forest" apparently was unintentionally omitted. Is that correct? We're making sure that that's in there. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Natural Environment Vision Statement, ‘urban forest’ after ‘creeks, parks.’” (New Part G) Council Member Holman: I was wondering in that vision statement if we could add in the sixth line—it says "provide access to nature and an urban forest will provide ecological and health benefits." DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 69 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Where are you? Council Member Holman: It's in the sixth line in the same vision statement, after "will provide ecological," adding "and health benefits." Mayor Scharff: It's fine with me, but we're looking for Vice Mayor Kniss. Are you good with it? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, I'm fine. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to the Natural Environment Vision Statement, ‘and health’ after ‘provide ecological.’” (New Part H) Council Member Holman: Thank you. On Packet Page—I'm going by the non-redacted—98, again with Program N331, the last sentence there says "within the setback area, provide a border of native riparian vegetation." This says "at least 25 feet along the creek bank." I see in this letter signed by six environmental organizations—it says "at least 40." I think it says 40 to—what does it say? 40 to 150 feet. I'd like to make that 50 feet. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's fine, don't you think? Mayor Scharff: I'm confused. Where are you? Council Member Holman: It's Packet Page 98, Program N331. Mayor Scharff: That's the one we had the long discussion of. Council Member Holman: But in a totally different aspect of it. We never touched on this. It's the very last sentence there, "within the setback area, provide a border of native riparian vegetation at least 25 feet along the creek bank." I'm saying let's make that 50. Mayor Scharff: I have no idea why we'd go from 25 to 50 without Staff weighing in. Council Member Holman: The environmental organizations, again, are saying 40-150 feet. I'm saying let's at least do a minimum of 50. We're just changing 25 to 50. Mayor Scharff: The letter says—what does the—Council Member Wolbach? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 70 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Wolbach: The letter says expand it from 25 to 30. I was actually just going to suggest maybe along with the change earlier that we said "explore," in the idea of exploring something. I'd be fine with that. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think you could perhaps explore a border at 50 feet. Mayor Scharff: Are the environmentalists saying 30 feet or are they saying 50 feet? Council Member Wolbach: This is the letter from the Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Committee for Green Foothills, etc., and it says "please expand the border of native riparian vegetation from a minimum of 25 to 30 feet." Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, would you consider 30 feet since that's what they asked for? Council Member Holman: I'll go with 30 feet. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept 30 feet. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N3.3.1, ‘at least 25 feet’ with ‘at least 30.’” (New Part I) Council Member Holman: Below that, there's a—not quite sure how this was incorporated. It says a single-family property is exempt from the 100-foot setback. Undeveloped parcels west of Foothill Expressway are not exempt and appropriate setbacks and creek conservation (inaudible) should be established. What's the intention here for single-family residences? What's this saying? Ms. Costello: The exemption for the single-family property is in the current Comp Plan. The idea was to have that continue to be an exemption. When this was discussed at the CAC, it was let's just keep the current exemptions. Council Member Holman: The single-family residences are not currently exempt from the 50-foot according to the ordinance that we have in place. Ms. Costello: Yes, they are exempt. I don't know about the ordinance. I know in the Comp Plan, they are exempt. I don't know the ordinance. Somebody … Council Member Holman: I know that single-family is not exempt from the 50-foot. We've had projects come forward. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 71 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Ms. Gitelman: I think there are some exemptions. There's always a kind of property rights concern if you're going to preclude someone with a lot from using a significant portion of their property. There have to be exemptions in any setback ordinance. I don't know exactly what these are. Council Member Holman: There's cause for exemptions at times, but I think we should set a standard. Ms. Costello: It has been my experience that it's pretty standard practice because of this concern with taking away all economic use of the land to have some exemption for single-family. I'm not sure what's currently in the ordinance. Council Member Holman: It's 50 feet. Ms. Costello: Usually there is something so that there is some allowable economic use of the land. Council Member Holman: Are you saying—I didn't see anything else in here for single-family, unless I overlooked it. Ms. Gitelman: Council Member Holman, if you're making the point that this program is way too detailed for a Comp Plan, you're probably right. The exemptions should be in the ordinance rather than in the Comp Plan. What we've tried to do here is build on a previous program, and we haven't necessarily repaired that deficiency. It remains very specific. Ms. Costello: We're just trying to look at the Ordinance. It gets very specific about what's exempt in which zones. I can't figure out really quickly whether they're exempt or not in this area. I think actually, taking up Ms. Gitelman's suggestion, you're recommending that there be a review of this ordinance. I think it may be good to just look at what the exemptions are. Council Member Holman: How do we capture single-family then? If we just say—it says in 331 and it talks about properties that are west of Foothill. If we're silent on single-family residences, does that mean there's no setback? Ms. Gitelman: One idea would be to say "ensure that updates address desired exceptions." Council Member Holman: That still doesn't address that any single-family homes would have a setback this side of Foothill. Ms. Gitelman: I've gotten a little lost. I'm not sure what you're asking. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 72 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Holman: This talks about properties west of Foothill. If we only add language that says make sure any Ordinances address exceptions, then how are we capturing properties on the east side of Foothill? Ms. Costello: There is in here a program, N3.3.2, that says "examine the development of regulations of the stream corridor protection ordinance with stakeholder involvement to establish appropriate setback requirements that reflect varying natural and channelized conditions along creeks east of Foothill Expressway." That was one of the things that the CAC wanted to do, make a more fine-grained distinction than what was in the existing Comp Plan between streams east and west of Foothill. You weren't treating everything as if it's all the same. There's really a big difference between those two areas. That was the goal of the CAC's changes here. There is language to also update the ordinance east of Foothill. The Council could give us direction to look at these as a series of issues, like the treatment of single-family residential properties west of Foothill. Council Member Holman: It's getting a little convoluted here. If I'm hearing correctly, it sounds like—this needs some work. This really needs some work. Ms. Costello: It does need some work. If you get to the next part, not to make this even more complicated, all existing development is considered nonconforming in the next bullet. Council may just want to direct us to rework this to make it clear that you want to explore these issues and that these are the kinds of things that should be looked at as the ordinance is updated instead of trying to develop right here exactly which exemption … Council Member Holman: Just in trying to get clarity, it's getting to be too much. Ms. Costello: It gets really complicated. Council Member Holman: Could we add here to "direct Staff to provide clarifying language for the two bulleted points as part of N331"? Mayor Scharff: Sure. (inaudible). Ms. Costello: Yes, that's fine. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “direct Staff to provide clarity for the last two bullet points in Program N3.3.1.” (New Part J) DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 73 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Holman: Sorry that took so long, but it's confusing. On packet page 2, something that—half a second and we'll get to that—Council Member Kniss is sensitive to. It's on Packet Page 109, noise. I have a question for Staff. Something that comes up in the community a lot—I could say for me personally—is, because noise creates—with every new noise issue, there's a higher level ambient noise level that's created. That's just how noise works. I'm wondering if it would be feasible to establish a maximum ambient noise level in appropriate geographic areas. In other words, the Downtown would have a maximum dB level. California Avenue area would have its maximum dB level. The residential neighborhoods would have a maximum dB level. The exception there would be, of course, during construction it might go higher. Does anyone do that? Ms. Jensen: The way that the noise guidelines work in the General Plan for most communities in California really has to do with compatibility guidelines and the siting of new development. When you're considering different types of new uses in different areas, you'd look at the ambient noise level, what it is, and whether or not that use would fit in that kind of noise environment. You also look at the contribution that a new project would make to the overall noise levels from things like its mechanical equipment, for example. In terms of just general, overall, "here is the noise ambient noise level that shall prevail in a given area everyday" not tied to any specific development program, I'm not aware off the top of my head of other communities that regulate noise in that way. Ms. Gitelman: Just to add to what Joanna indicated, this is an area where State law describes what General Plans should contain, the land use compatibility approach to noise. I would be nervous about going off in a different direction without consulting with the attorneys. Council Member Holman: I'd like to offer an amendment that Planning Staff explore with City Attorney the possibility of establishing maximum dB levels in residential and commercial zones in Palo Alto. We know that the City keeps getting noisier and noisier and noisier. We know that. Council Member Kou: I'll second it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “direct Planning and Community Environment Staff to explore with the City Attorney’s Office implementing maximum decibel (dB) levels in residential and commercial areas. Council Member Holman: I don't think I need to speak to it any further. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 74 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Kou: I think Council Member Holman said everything I needed to say. Mayor Scharff: (inaudible) speak to this? I see no lights. Council Member Tanaka, did you want to speak to this or not? Council Member Tanaka: Nope. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote. Did everyone vote? Council Member Tanaka, how do you vote? Council Member Tanaka: I vote no. Mayor Scharff: That fails on a 4-4. Vice Mayor Kniss: I was supposed to vote no. Mayor Scharff: You were supposed to vote no. Council Member Kniss is changing her vote to no. That fails on a 5-3 vote. AMENDMENT FAILED: 3-5 Filseth, Holman, Kou yes, DuBois absent Council Member Holman: On the next page, 110, Program N633 says "update the noise ordinance as needed." We need to; we're way behind other communities. It says "to provide for a clear interpretation of the regulations to review the appropriateness of existing standards." I would like to change "appropriateness" to "effectiveness of existing standards." Mayor Scharff: Where are you? Council Member Holman: Program N6.3.3 on Packet Page 110, to change the word appropriateness to "effectiveness." Mayor Scharff: That's fine. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's good. Mayor Scharff: That's good. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N6.3.3, ‘appropriateness’ with ‘effectiveness.’” (New Part K) Council Member Holman: Thank you. On Packet page N67, could Staff just say ten words about that policy? Again, it's N67. The reason I ask is because it says "… residential land uses, public open spaces, and public DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 75 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  conservation land should be evaluated in terms of the increase in existing noise levels and potential for adverse community impact regardless of existing background noise levels." Can you help us maybe better understand that one? Ms. Jensen: The majority of this policy is in the existing Comp Plan as previous Policy N-41 as noted here. The revisions here are primarily to emphasize the specific questions that we're looking at for development projects, that are impacts on residential land uses. The CAC added public open space and public conservation land as other important categories of land use on which noise impacts need to be evaluated. Really what this policy is doing is just requiring a certain type of noise impact analysis for individual development projects. Again, this is an existing policy. Council Member Holman: My question about this and maybe concern is that it says "if an area is below the applicable maximum noise guideline, an increase in noise up to the maximum should not necessarily be allowed." My concern is it doesn't seem to have very good guidance or very clear guidance there. Since noise—noise is funny. It bends and refracts and echoes and raises the ambient level. I'm just wondering if there is some other language—I don't have specific language there. If there's something that could give clearer guidance, incremental or something like that. Ms. Jensen: Are you looking at—existing policy, if you look at the redacted version of the element, I know you're looking at the clean version. Council Member Holman: What page is the redacted on? Ms. Jensen: If you look at Packet Page 157. This existing policy was quite lengthier and specific. This was the case with several of the noise policies that we worked on with the CAC. In general, the consensus that the CAC arrived at was to try to keep a lot of the quantitative information about exactly which decibel level for exactly which type of land use, whether it's 24-hour or peak noise or whatever it is, in which type of area in the noise ordinance and not in the Comp Plan, again, with the kind of overall approach that we used throughout the Comp Plan of trying to put the big ideas and the major policy guidance in the Comp Plan and leave the details to the implementing ordinances. Council Member Holman: If we go back to Program N6.33 on the prior page, 110, should we—so this doesn't get lost—add to that "update the noise ordinance to address the specifics previously a part of Policy N-6.7"? Ms. Jensen: I think we actually were attempting to do that with Program N6.7.1, which is right under Policy N-6.7 that you were just asking about. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 76 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  We would add to Program N6.7.1 to update noise impact review procedures in the noise ordinance. Council Member Holman: You're saying, rather than what the City Clerk's writing at my direction, to add to Program N6.7.1—you had good wording. What was that? Ms. Jensen: I just said—I'm also looking to Staff to whether or not this is exactly how the noise impact review procedures work. If they are in the noise ordinance, we could add that to the first line of Program N6.7.1. Is that okay? It would say "update noise impact review procedures in the noise ordinance to address … ." Council Member Holman: In the noise Ordinance, okay. Is that acceptable? Mayor Scharff: That's acceptable. Vice Mayor Kniss: Fine. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program N6.7.1, ‘in the Noise Ordinance’ after ‘review procedures.’” (New Part L) Council Member Holman: A little nit on Packet Page 113. The photo covers the language. Ms. Jensen: We'll certainly clear that up. I apologize. Council Member Holman: Back to where we were earlier. On Packet Page 115, Program N7.2.2, that we—I'll ask Council Member Filseth if he wants to … Mayor Scharff: Which packet page? Council Member Holman: 115, Program N7.2.2. This says "assess the feasibility of using life cycle analysis and total cost of ownership analysis for public and private projects in order to minimize the consumption of energy, the production of greenhouse gases, and costs over the life of the project." I would like to add to that "in order to minimize the consumption of energy, the production of greenhouse gases including the CO2 impacts of construction and demolition … Council Member Filseth: CO2 emissions of (inaudible). DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 77 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Holman: Thank you. Would you state it? I'm getting rundown here. Would you state it, Council Member Filseth, with your mike on? Council Member Filseth: Including the CO2 emissions of construction materials and demolition. Mayor Scharff: I think it's fine. Is it fine with you? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Program N7.2.2, ‘including the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions of construction materials and demolition’ after ‘greenhouse gases.’” (New Part M) Council Member Holman: I think that's it for me. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka, did you have anything? Council Member Tanaka: Nope. I'm good. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: On Packet Page 134, the natural character of the Foothills for the OS zone. I just want to make sure we're not weakening the ordinances on that. I'm sorry. Our Municipal Code. There's a lot of changes over here that seem to be changing our Code. When you cross out the implementation of the site and design process, are you saying that we don't have to have site and design process any more on buildings that get developed up there? Ms. Costello: I'm sorry. You're referring to which Policy Number? Mr. Keene: Policy N-18. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Ms. Costello: We talked about this a little bit earlier. The idea was to bring up not the kind of larger policy goal. Throughout the Comp Plan, we don't try and repeat the—we don't try and embed the ordinance language into policies. The goal here in the Comp Plan, in these changes, was to get the larger policy objectives into the Comp Plan and not be so into the details of the existing ordinance. It doesn't diminish the existing ordinance or change it or make it noncompliant. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 78 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Ms. Jensen: If I could just add to that. If you look at Packet Page 130 between Policy N 1.8 and N-1.9, there's a program that says review and update as needed the open space zoning district. That program has been completed. The district was reviewed, and it was updated. It was updated to do all of these things that are listed on Packet Page 134 and following on Packet Page 135. All of those things are codified in the ordinance now. Because that update has been undertaken, this detailed direction of how to update the ordinance, the CAC felt, could now come out of the Comp Plan. In fact, at one time we talked about maybe we don't need this at all, but the CAC thought it was important to keep, as Elaine said, the overall policy intent behind those ordinance updates. It really just memorializes things have already been adopted and are not changing. Council Member Kou: I understand that. Throughout the conversation on the Comp Plan, it's been about being a little bit more aspirational in the Comp Plan. I'd like to see aspirational in terms of really preserving our open space, OS zones. One of the things that got me going was, in the second bullet from the bottom—it goes on to say "include (inaudible)." It takes out a whole bunch—it crosses out "building lines should follow the lines of the terrain and trees and bushes should appear natural from a distance." That is not referred to anywhere else in this. Is that something that we don't want them to be extending over the terrain? Ms. Jensen: We don't want them to extend over the terrain. That's why it's part of the ordinance to prohibit them from extending over the terrain or to discourage them. I'm not sure of the exact wording of the ordinance. Council Member Kou: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I just wanted to chime on that one too. One of the bullets in here says—it's the same one, Policy N 1.9. There's a restriction that your house not extend above the nearest ridgeline. Is that also in the ordinance? That one figured significantly in a project we looked at. Ms. Jensen: Staff is indicating that is in the ordinance. Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much. Mayor Scharff: I had a few things. I wanted to go back to Council Member Wolbach's concern about pursue dedication of undedicated publicly owned recreation space. Your answer was that's being removed from this or what was the answer? DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 79 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Ms. Gitelman: We have a very similar set of programs and policies in the Community Services Element. Remember we have this aspirational goal for dedicated parkland. One of the ways to address that goal, which is probably unattainable in the long run, is to designate more publicly owned land as parkland. Mayor Scharff: Are you taking this out of here? Are you planning on (crosstalk)? Ms. Gitelman: What we'd like to do is look at the programs and policies and in the Community Services Element and consolidate it there. Mayor Scharff: I'm simply going to make a change here of "explore dedication"—not pursue—"of undedicated, publicly owned, recreation, open space, and conservation areas." That way we're not giving direction on specific ones. There's probably a bunch of them. Do you accept that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N1.10.2, ‘pursue’ with ‘explore’ and remove ‘such as Renzel Wetlands and the Gamble House and Gardens as public parks to preserve the community serving purpose of these areas into the future.’” (New Part N) Mayor Scharff: We'll leave that. Did we do—on N-4.8, which is Packet Page 147, it says "conserve and maintain subsurface by reducing residential basement dewatering." I just want to end it there as opposed to "other excavation activities." Ms. Gitelman: Wasn't there already an Amendment to this? Mayor Scharff: Did we make an Amendment to that already? Ms. Jensen: The previous Amendment says "conserve and maintain subsurface water resources by exploring ways to reduce residential basement dewatering." Mayor Scharff: That's fine. I'll leave it at that. I think Adrian made that one. That's all I had. Council Member Holman, I see your light on again. I hesitate to go another round. Council Member Holman: I apologize. I overlooked one. Mayor Scharff: One. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 80 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Holman: I overlooked one. It's a policy and related program. On Packet Page 93, Policy N-21. This was something that the Council had previously directed, and it got changed. The Council had previously said that the urban forest would be considered infrastructure. My amendment here is to add this language: "recognize the urban forest as infrastructure and use the Urban Forest Master Plan … ." Ms. Jensen: Council Member Holman, if I could just ask whether or not Policy N-2.2 might meet your goals here? Council Member Holman: Not really. It doesn't recognize—yeah, it doesn't. The green infrastructure is support for trees as infrastructure. Again, Policy N-21 is "recognize the urban forest as infrastructure and use the Urban Forest Master Plan" and then continue on. Mayor Scharff: You're at Policy N-21. Council Member Holman: The Council previously said that the urban forest is infrastructure. Mayor Scharff: You want to add the words … Council Member Holman: I would start out Policy N-21—I'd start out that policy with "recognize the urban forest as infrastructure and" and then pick up the rest of it. Vice Mayor Kniss: You did see 2.2, right? Council Member Holman: No, 2.1 Ms. Gitelman: 2.2 was really intended … Council Member Holman: N-21. Ms. Gitelman: If I can just interject. 2.2 was intended to address exactly that direction from Council, recognize the importance of the urban forest as a vital part of the City's green infrastructure network. If you're objecting to "green infrastructure network" instead of just infrastructure, that could be changed. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to accept it. Council Member Holman: I'm not objecting to green infrastructure. I'm just saying our urban forest is in a different level of hierarchy than what 2.2 indicates. That's why I wanted to change Policy 2.1. This is consistent with what the Council did before. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 81 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, I'm not going to accept it. Maybe you can get a second to add the words. Council Member Filseth: I'll second that. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add at the beginning of Policy N-2.1, ‘recognize the Urban Forest as Infrastructure and’ and update Policy N-2.2 in line with this change.” Council Member Holman: Staff was going to say something. Ms. Costello: No. I'll let you guys discuss it. We just need a little clarification. Council Member Holman: Do you want to get the clarification now? Ms. Costello: If we change N.2.1 to recognize the urban forest as infrastructure, I'm assuming the Council would want us to change N 2.2 so there's not this overlap. That's all. Council Member Holman: Yes. Mayor Scharff: What is the practical difference between doing this? Council Member Holman, if you could answer that question please. Council Member Holman: It's hierarchical. As I read N-22, recognize the importance of the urban forest as a vital part of the City's green infrastructure network, it seems to me we're putting it on a different level. Landscaped yards that incorporate habitat and natural systems, as it says here—it seems like we're making them too much on the same plane. The canopy has a much higher level of hierarchy than that. It's much more important at a higher level than our landscape systems. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth, you want to speak to your second? Council Member Filseth: My slant is slightly different than that. I want to make sure I understand it right. When you say that we're going to recognize the urban forest as infrastructure, if I understand what that means, we're putting it on the same level as public safety buildings and transmission corridors and stuff like that. Is that an accurate statement? Council Member Holman: Infrastructure also includes—it does include the Public Safety Building and also includes our community centers and all of those things. I would argue that our … DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 82 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Filseth: The question I wanted to ask is—I don't remember this. If, in fact, the Council directed Staff to define it that way, then we should make sure that it does. I actually don't remember us doing that. Council Member Holman: We did because I offered it, and the Council said yes. The Council agreed. Council Member Filseth: If there's general agreement on the Council (crosstalk) we did that … Mayor Scharff: I don't think there is. Council Member Holman: The other reason I put it out there is because I would argue that if you put a dollar value on … Mayor Scharff: You don't have the floor actually. I don't mean to be rude. Council Member Filseth was speaking to his second. Council Member Filseth: I have a question. What exactly did we agree on? Mayor Scharff: Unless Staff can tell us, I don't think we know. Mr. Keene: Recognize the urban forest as infrastructure. Ms. Gitelman: There was a Motion. I don't remember exactly when. We'd have to research it. It directed us to consider the urban forest as green infrastructure. Council Member Filseth: As green infrastructure or as infrastructure? Council Member Holman: As infrastructure. Ms. Gitelman: I'd have to go back and find the exact Motion. Council Member Holman: It was as infrastructure. Ms. Gitelman: We attempted to follow the Council's direction in this policy in 2.2. I regret that we have disappointed you. Mr. Keene: When we speak of the urban forest, are we talking about only the public trees? Council Member Holman: No. Mr. Keene: Do we have other instances where we apply the term infrastructure to private facilities? Typically we don't. When we're talking DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 83 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  about infrastructure, we're talking about public infrastructure, roads, streets, bridges, buildings. Council Member Holman: If that's what the Staff would be more comfortable with, we could identify it as publicly owned. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, I don't think you have the floor. I think we need to—I don't mind coming back if you want to make some comments, but this is devolving into that. Council Member Filseth, are you done? You can ask Staff questions. Council Member Filseth: I guess what I would like to see us do is be consistent with whatever we directed Staff to do. It sounds like Staff doesn't know what that is right now because they don't have it in front of them and so forth. Is there some way that we could give direction to Staff to revisit the language and make sure it's consistent with what we directed? Mayor Scharff: Only if Council Member Holman is going to rescind her Motion, and that becomes the new Motion. Otherwise, we can't do that. Right now, this is the Motion on the floor. Council Member Filseth: I would ask Council Member Holman if she would rescind her Motion and direct Staff to go … Council Member Holman: I would do that. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Council Member Holman: I'm also looking to the chairs. I don't know if they have memory of this or not. If we should just … Mayor Scharff: The chairs don't have permission to talk just yet. I'm asking … Council Member Holman: If they were indicating that they did, I was going to ask through the Chair if they could speak. I'm not seeing that they have recollection. Council Member Holman: I would move that Council direct Staff to explore what the prior action was taken by Council regarding the urban forest as being infrastructure. Mayor Scharff: Can I help you out here a little bit? What you might say is "direct Staff to ensure that the Comp Plan language is consistent with Council prior direction." DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 84 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Holman: That's fine. Council Member Filseth: That would work really well for me. Council Member Holman: That's fine. Mayor Scharff: I'll accept that. Would you accept that? Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm just looking at the rest of it. Okay. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “direct Staff to ensure the Comprehensive Plan language is consistent with prior Council direction regarding Urban Forest as infrastructure.” (New Part O) Mayor Scharff: Thank you for that. Council Member Holman: Related to that, I said I had two. In the Program 2.1.1 … Mayor Scharff: You said you had one, Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I said I had one and then one that was related to that or under that. That's what I said. Mayor Scharff: There's the take an inch, I'm good. Then, there's the take a mile. Council Member Holman: I said it earlier. I said it earlier. It's the program right under this, Program N2.1.1. "Periodically update the Urban Forest Master Plan and tree protection ordinance to ensure policies and regulations remain relevant," I'm not quite sure what that means. I was going to suggest alternate language. After "regulations," it would say "to ensure policies and regulations set leading standards for tree health practices." Mayor Scharff: Where are you? Council Member Holman: Program N2.1.1, right after what we were just talking about. Periodically update the Urban Forest Master Plan and tree protection ordinance to ensure policies and regulations set leading standards for tree health practices. Mayor Scharff: You just want to add the words "set leading standards for … Council Member Holman: Tree health practices. I don't know what "remaining relevant" even means. DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 85 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with that. Vice Mayor Kniss: Whatever that might mean. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “replace in Program N2.1.1, ‘remain relevant’ with ‘set leading standards for tree health practices.’” (New Part P) Mayor Scharff: Thank you, Council Member Holman. I can't tell if people put their lights for other reasons or during the discussion. I let Council Member Holman speak. I'd let anyone else who needs to speak briefly, if they wish to do it. Seeing no lights—your light was on? Council Member Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm not going to change anything. These are some benign comments, but ones that are important for a variety of reasons. If you look on Packet Page 127, where we talk about air quality, I'm delighted to see it and want to comment on it. This talks about air quality as a regional resource, but I think what that does for most people is call out that air is not ours. The air in the Bay Area obviously circulates dramatically. At the Air Board, what we worry about all the time is just what's mentioned here, the air pollutants, particulate matter, and so forth. As it says, you can't address it by a single city, which is why we have nine Bay Area counties in the Air Board structure. The Air Board now is looking very strongly at additional ways to control greenhouse gases as is consistent with the State and where the State is heading at the same time. Simply to say how pleased I am to see this in here. It mentions low emission alternatives, wood-burning stoves, and so forth. By the way, it calls out avoiding prolonged automobile idling. Just so you're aware that regional bodies make a big difference, whether you're on ABAG or MTC, which I wish we were, or Air Quality. We play a very important part in how we stay healthy and how we continue to provide for a rare resource and attempt to keep it as public healthy as we possibly can. That's my advertisement. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to direct Staff to prepare a revised draft of the Natural Environment Element for referral to the Planning and Transportation Commission incorporating the following changes: A. Consolidate park funding and acquisition policies from the Natural Environment Element to the Community Services Element and seek other opportunities to align the elements and reduce redundancies; and DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 86 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  B. Explore 150 feet as the desired stream setback metric for Program N3.3.1 in the Natural Environment Element about updating the code to require larger stream setbacks along natural creeks west of Foothill Expressway; and C. Replace in Program N6.12.2, “forums to ensure that future activities” with “forums and engage with other governmental agencies and representatives to ensure that activities;” and D. Replace in Program N1.7.2, “and domestic” with “feral and stray;” and E. Remove from Program N1.4.1, “sources may include the California Natural Diversity Database, as updated in accordance with federally- and State recognized organizations, including the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as the California Native Plant Society and the Audubon Society;” and F. Replace in Policy N-4.8., “by reducing” with “by exploring ways to reduce;” and G. Add to Natural Environment Vision Statement, “urban forest” after “creeks, parks;” and H. Add to the Natural Environment Vision Statement, “and health” after “provide ecological;” and I. Replace in Program N3.3.1, “at least 25 feet” with “at least 30;” and J. Direct Staff to provide clarity for the last two bullet points in Program N3.3.1; and K. Replace in Program N6.3.3, “appropriateness” with “effectiveness;” and L. Add to Program N6.7.1, “in the Noise Ordinance” after “review procedures;” and M. Add to Program N7.2.2, “including the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions of construction materials and demolition” after “greenhouse gases;” and N. Replace in Program N1.10.2, “pursue” with “explore” and remove “such as Renzel Wetlands and the Gamble House and Gardens as public parks to preserve the community serving purpose of these areas into the future;” and DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 87 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  O. Direct Staff to ensure the Comprehensive Plan language is consistent with prior Council direction regarding Urban Forest as infrastructure; and P. Replace in Program N2.1.1, “remain relevant” with “set leading standards for tree health practices.” Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. Council Member Tanaka, how did you vote? Council Member Tanaka: I vote yes. Mayor Scharff: That passes on an 8-0 vote with Council Member DuBois absent. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 DuBois absent Council Member Tanaka: Mayor Scharff, I'm going to sign off at 1:06 A.M. here. Mayor Scharff: I think that's fine. I'm going to suggest to the Council—we actually do have a 10:00 check-in—that we not undertake the business and economics until next week. Council Member Tanaka left the meeting at 10:07 P.M. 3. Business and Economics Element Revisions. Mayor Scharff: I'll move that we undertake the business and economics thing at our May 22nd Council meeting. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to continue the Business and Economics Element to the May 22, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board on that. That passes unanimously with Council Member Tanaka and DuBois having signed off. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 DuBois, Tanaka absent Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs None DRAFT ACTION MINUTES    Page 88 of 88  City Council Meeting  Transcript:  5/15/17  Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Scharff: That gets us to Council Comments, Questions. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: In talking about some of the complex motions that we've passed recently on Council relating to land use issues in particular but other items as well with members of the community who are interested, and trying to review them myself, looking through Minutes, it's occurred to me that the Motions as we vote on them are very clear. There's a final text that's very clear, easy to understand. What's available in the Minutes and from the City Clerk is a play-by-play as opposed to the consolidated final Motion. At some point, we should have a conversation about how to make that final Motion more readily available in the Minutes and to the public rather than having to read all of the Motions and Amendments in series. Just something to put on the radar for future conversations. Mayor Scharff: Just briefly one quick comment. Don't throw away your books because you're not getting new ones. We're going to use this for the business and economics. Meeting adjourned. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 10:08 P.M.