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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-08-28 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT Page 1 of 107 Special Meeting August 28, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 5:10 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Fine Historic Resources Board: Present: Bernstein, Bower, Bunnenberg, Corey, Kohler, Makinen, Wimmer Absent: Study Session 1. Joint Meeting of the City Council and the Historic Resources Board. Mayor Scharff: Are we doing a Staff presentation first? Amy French, Chief Planning Official: It's a joint effort with our Chair. Mayor Scharff: Take it away. Ms. French: Martin. Martin Bernstein, Historic Resources Board Chair: Hi. Welcome, everybody, to our joint session with City Council and Historic Resources Board. Thank you, Staff. We're going to start off with—we have several members of the Historic Resources Board to make comments to us today. We're going to start off with—I think there's a slide of the first … Thank you. First part of the presentation today will be an addition to discussing some of the issues that come before Historic Resources Board. We're also going to talk about some of the benefits and the privileges and restrictions that the City allows the Historic Board to participate in. First off, the Historic Resources Board is the official body that advises on matters related to historic preservation. The Historical Board also makes recommendations to the Council regarding historic inventory designations. It provides design advice based on the Secretary of Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. For members of the public and other TRANSCRIPT Page 2 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 members in this hall, I'm just going to hold this up. This is a federally published guideline. It talks about standards for rehabilitation of historic structures. There are ten standards that the Historic Resources Board is very well versed in. We get State-mandated training on these issues, so that helps add to our knowledge about any scholarly pursuits we have regarding historic preservation. I'm going to read just one of the ten Standards. This is the Standard that seems to be occupying most of the conversation the Historic Resources Board has when historically significant projects come before us. I'll just read that; it's Standard Number 9. It says: new additions, exterior alterations or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. New work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment. I just want to make one other comment on that. That is the idea of differentiation and compatibility. That is a common topic that comes up before the Historic Resources Board. It's also a common topic that comes up for City Council. There are numerous projects where, for many years, that subject comes up, compatibility and differentiation. I just want to make one comment about that subject. That is the idea of compatibility and differentiation is not considered a subjective material. It's based on scholarly evaluation, but it's not prescriptive. I just want to add one quick comment about the scholarly evaluation that the Historic Resources Board does. That is based on principles of design of massing, proportion, balance, contrast, harmony, texture, scale, and rhythm. Where those could be considered to be subjective items, there's also very scholarly analysis of those things. That could be perhaps a future topic that we get involved in, in some kind of educational format. That is the essence of what we do as a Historic Resources Board when we're looking at Secretary of Interior Standards of Rehabilitation. The other Board role and duties that our Board does and that's important for the City of Palo Alto is the State of California has certified the Historic Resources Board as a Certified Local Government—that's CLG—by the California Office of Historic Preservation. The significance and critical importance of being a CLG or Certified Local Government is it allows the City of Palo Alto to apply for grants for any of the projects that the City Council would like to pursue. That's very important funding. We've had several projects now that grants have been applied for, and then that's been, of course, a great benefit to the City of Palo Alto. Thank you. Ms. French: I'm going to resume. Basically, the purview of the HRB is limited by Palo Alto Municipal Code Chapter 16.49, as on the screen. Next we have just an overview of the past accomplishments and ongoing accomplishments coming up. We did complete the Professorville Guidelines in 2016. We kicked off the Eichler Guidelines as they're making their way through the process. We provided a bullet on the review process using simpler nomenclature for TRANSCRIPT Page 3 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 review. We have our Mills Act program study sessions we've conducted and looking at that now with you tonight briefly. We have the ADU Ordinance that we took a look at as a Board. They've done training, retreats, and formed a couple of subcommittees. Coming up we have website updates we're really eager to launch once the City's framework goes live. We have a preservation conference coming up in May of next year as well as National Preservation Month. We're looking forward to that and participating. We just finished an Eichler community event that was successful, and looking forward to the next steps there. We had an intern this summer. Her name was Gigi Gunther [phonetic]; she did great work, working with Emily Vance, who is in our audience, our Historic Planner. I'll kick it back to Margaret Wimmer, who will be touching base on the Mills Act program discussion. Margaret Wimmer, Historic Resources Board Member: Thank you. In 1972, the Mills Act was started by Senator John Mills to help preserve designated historic properties in the State of California. The Mills Act is a permissive program, which is subject to adaptation by local governments. It offers tax relief to qualified property owners. Currently, the City of Palo Alto has one historic property that benefits from the Mills Act program, which is the Squire House on University Avenue. The City otherwise does not have a program to offer its current residents. As a Board, we really believe that we need to offer incentive programs for people who own historic properties to preserve and protect these landmarks in order to enrich our communities. We would like to work on a modern Mills Act statement that is crafted by our Board and approved by the Council. We'd like to continue working on this and actually make it a viable, usable, and successful program as many other cities in our communities have active Mills Act programs working in their communities to help preserve historic sites. Ms. French: We have another topic the HRB identified as an item to discuss. Board Chair Bernstein: Thank you, Amy. Out in the Baylands, there's the old, former International Telephone and Telegraph structure. For members of the public, there's a newspaper article on the desk. There was an article about that property. The City of Palo Alto is now the owner of the property. Congratulations on new ownership on that. There's also a report by Dames & Moore done a few years ago, that states from the State of California the property is eligible to be on the National—I'm looking for the category here— the National Register of Historic Places. There's a formal report suggesting that. What the Historic Resources Board has discussed is that we are very much in support, unanimously in support, of the City Council as property owner to apply for the National Register listing. That property then could become on the historical tour. If the Council agrees that that's something they'd like to add to the Historical Register, the Historic Resources Board is in TRANSCRIPT Page 4 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 full support of supporting whatever actions you would direct us to do in that direction. For members of the public who may not be familiar with it, it was part of the communications from Japan toward Washington about what's happening in the Pacific. Again, one of the criteria that makes it significant is the world history events. We're fortunate the City of Palo Alto is actually now the owner of that property. Any other comments the Staff would like to make on that? Ms. French: The third topic identified was the modern era context statement. We're considering submitting a grant application as a CLG city to the Office of Historic Preservation. That would be for developing a context statement for the framework for identifying and evaluating resources united by a theme that collectively helps us tell the larger story of a region's development. This is something that we're considering doing. We have a draft prepared that we had not submitted in a prior year and are looking towards that process. Thank you. Board Chair Bernstein: Repeating my comment about the Certified Local Government, if the Council is looking to move that idea forward, we can also then apply for a Certified Local Government grant to help pay for the research that would be needed on that subject. Ms. French: Thank you. Board Chair Bernstein: If there are any comments or questions that either Staff or Council or HRB members would have. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. We have one public speaker. Would you like to speak now or would you like to speak at the end? You can speak now if you want. You'll have 3 minutes. Emily Renzel. Emily Renzel: I'm Emily Renzel, 1056 Forest. I'm a bit concerned about the proposal to designate the transmission building out at ITT as a historic structure. It is old, and it has a significant import in the sense that that was the ship-to-shore communications area, but the 154-acre ITT property, Emily Renzel Wetlands site, was acquired by the City in 1977 with an easement retained by ITT for 36.5 acres for antennas and transmission equipment. The site was park dedicated in 1982. This wetlands site had been used as the ship-to-shore radio signal bounce area since 1921. They used the water of the wetlands to bounce signals over the horizon to ships at sea. In 1999, the last transmissions were made from this site. Radio communications are now mostly done by satellite. In a beneficial use project some years ago, the City restored much of the wetland habitat on this site, and it is now very productive for wildlife. The use of this site is much more important than the facilities located on it. It's important that that historic use be remembered and TRANSCRIPT Page 5 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 honored. That being said, I think the buildings on the site are of significantly less importance. They are utilitarian in nature and not of particular architectural merit. The main transmission building was long ago stripped of all its equipment, and it has been seriously vandalized. It would be costly and impractical to attempt to restore the equipment to reflect the building's original use. This is also a very large building, as you saw from the photo. Because of its remote location in the middle of an important wetland, both access and security make it very difficult to use for other uses. Such uses would require significant roadway, traffic, and parking improvements in the middle of a wetland and wildlife sanctuary. I hope that the City will consider appropriate ways to honor the importance of this site and the history of ship- to-shore communications, but I also hope it can be done in a way that is compatible with its remote wetlands locations. It is the wetlands bounce area that was most significant to this site. Those wetlands should not be jeopardized by the buildings remaining on the site that no longer reflect the use for which they were constructed. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we'll return to Council for questions, comments, etc. Karen. Council Member Holman: As liaison to the HRB, I really want to thank you all for being here tonight. I think you have unanimous attendance, so thank you for that. It doesn't always happen. I've also been appreciative of the work that you've undertaken with Staff support. Could I ask if you would formally introduce the new preservation planner? Ms. French: Yes. Emily Vance in the audience behind Director Gitelman. Mayor Scharff: Welcome, Emily. Council Member Holman: Thank you. Emily's only been here for what, maybe 3 or 4 months? Ms. French: Since May of this year. Council Member Holman: Thank you. Good work and support for Planning Staff that Emily is here. I know that the Mills Act, for instance, has been a topic of conversation with the HRB for quite some time, going back to last year. I would support the HRB looking at ways to practically apply that in Palo Alto. It's a really wonderful tool that's used in—well, across the country, but certainly it's used extensively in the State of California. Palo Alto, as Margaret said, has only one building that has a Mills Act designation on it. There are ways to make it feasible for the City and the property owner to help support preservation of our resources. I would add that there's another building that former Vice Mayor Gregg Schmid was always interested in, and I think it TRANSCRIPT Page 6 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 deserves attention. That's the Fairchild Building on Charleston. It's a responsibility—the CLG or Certified Local Government designation of Palo Alto has been referenced previously, and it's a responsibility of a CLG city to keep their inventory up to date. As a part of that, there are some specific charges that the HRB could take on. I think that Fairchild Building is one. As to the ITT site, I haven't seen or read the Dames & Moore report. I also take to heart the comments by former Council Member Renzel about the ITT site. I think there should be a discussion at the HRB about what would an appropriate designation be, what would the implications be of a designation of the site that would include the building. Sometimes, we have these sixes and sevens. It's like which is more important, the heritage tree or the historic building, and they both are. We usually manage to come up with some kind of reasonable balance for those. I think that would be good. I certainly would support submitting for the CLG grant application. Why would we not want to apply for free money? I would support all of those. Thank you. Appreciate the work of the Board. Mayor Scharff: I see no lights. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Thank you for the presentation. It was put together very well. Thank you, guys, all for serving on the HRB. Just to echo Council Member Holman, it seems like we've been talking about the Mills Act for quite a long time. I just wondered what's the process to bring it to a conclusion. Does anybody have a comment? Board Member Wimmer: Yes. Thank you so much. Actually, one of our Board Members, David Bower, has done some recent research. Unfortunately, he's not feeling the best tonight, but maybe he can speak for a moment on some of his research that he's done. He's brought his research to the Board. We've been talking about the Mills Act ever since I joined the Board. It was one of our topics of conversation in the last joint Council meeting that we had with you, which was 2015 I believe. It's been 2 years. It's been on our list of what we've wanted to talk about. David, maybe you can say a few words hopefully about what your thoughts are as moving it forward. Board Member Bower: The modern Mills Act contracts are very different than the contract that the City currently has with the single contract. These modern contracts are a redirection of property taxes from the typical route to the County, State, and City locales. Instead, they require whatever the homeowner receives as a reduction in a property tax, whatever amount that is—our target is 15,000 a year on these contracts for 10 years. That money has to be spent on preserving the historic property. It's foundation upgrades; it's structural upgrades, things that will ensure these buildings get an extended life, so they can remain an important part of our community TRANSCRIPT Page 7 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 heritage. We have a subcommittee that's been working on this. I've been to at least two seminars put on by the California Preservation Foundation, that have discussed in detail other cities' use of the Mills Act. There are a number of cities in Southern California that have very large Mills Act contracts and still are able to perform all of the duties that they need to as a city. I think what we're trying to do is get together the specific targeted amounts, the duration, the kind of projects that would be required, and then bring that to the Council. Council Member DuBois: Thank you. It would be great to see a schedule and see that really move forward. Jonathan Lait, Planning and Community Environment Assistant Director: Excuse me, Council Member. I'd like to put just a little finer point on it. Clearly, the HRB has done a lot of research into this. We can certainly be available to help and support that effort. To answer your question more specifically, we would need the Council to give us direction to initiate that effort, to do the work to prepare a pilot program, and return to the Council. Right now, we're in this area where there seems to be some interest, but we haven't received formal Council direction to spend the energy in doing that. That would be helpful from a Staff perspective. It probably wouldn't happen here at the Study Session but at another agendized meeting. We can certainly have that agendized discussion in the future. Council Member DuBois: I'd certainly be interested in you guys bringing it to us. I'd support it personally. The ITT park building is an interesting question. Some recognition, maybe some display with an antenna and a plaque; I'm not sure about the building itself. You guys should take a look at it and make a recommendation. The last one, I'm really glad to see the modern era context. I think a lot of the early history of Silicon Valley happened here. Council Member Holman mentioned the Fairchild Building. A lot of the work on the first transistor was done here. We have a bunch of those buildings that are the birth of Silicon Valley, and it would be great to update our historic registry and recognize the important places and the important people that occurred in Palo Alto. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Cory. Council Member Wolbach: Actually, I'm very happy to defer to Board Member Bunnenberg, if she'd like to go first. Beth Bunnenberg, Historic Resources Board Member: I would like to speak a bit more to the IT&T property. Yes, it is in a fine wetland, and Palo Alto is ahead of the game, way ahead of the game, in terms of long-term preservation of that marshland. It seems to me that we could retain the building, not try to recreate any of the equipment or make that work, find TRANSCRIPT Page 8 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 some creative ways of signage and maybe some physical displays of how the sound would resonate on the water and get out to the ships. That would be educational, and also saving the antennas would be an asset for us. Mayor Scharff: Cory. Council Member Wolbach: Actually, first I want to say thank you for all the work that you're doing and thank you very much for the presentation, for joining us this evening. Something that the Chair had mentioned about a future educational discussion, opportunity. If I understood correctly, the idea is that we might at some point in the future schedule an opportunity for the Council in a public session to learn more from either a subset or the entirety of the Board or perhaps from Staff or others about what is really meant by scaling, massing, compatibility, differentiation to make sure that we're all speaking the same language, that we're using these terms, which mean different things in different contexts, but we're using the jargon in the appropriate way as it applies to historic buildings. I just wanted to say that would be a really great idea. The Chair and I have spoken offline about this. It would be a good use of Council time to have that kind of education. Board Chair Bernstein: I'm smiling about that comment, as Cory's mentioning. There's a humorous phrase to say how do you know if it's compatible and all that. You know it when you see it. I can say that takes 2 minutes and 20 years. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think I'm going to need both Beth and Roger to weigh in on this one, maybe Karen too. My recollection—this is on the second slide that you put out. It provides design advice based on the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehab. I'd be interested in knowing if you still think that it's based on that. The reason I'm asking is that we actually have a house on the East Coast that's very old, that was built in 1849. When we added onto it, I was advised at the time that the addition should not look like the original house. I remember it strongly. I don't know if that is still the case or whether or not you get asked about that or not. Ours turned out very well. I'm curious because very often it seems as though people want to duplicate what is already there when it might be historical. I'm interested in any comments any of you might have because I always found that one of the most provocative suggestions that was made by the Secretary of the Interior. Board Chair Bernstein: Roger or Beth or Council Member Holman. Roger Kohler, Historic Resources Board Member: Over the years, if you're an architect here in this town, you've probably worked on many numbers of TRANSCRIPT Page 9 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 homes, and that's a fairly common issue to come up with, what do you do with the new next to the old. There are a lot of different theories of which is best. Generally speaking, I discovered that no matter how hard you try to match the old house, it will never look like the old house. If you leave the shingles on like the picture of the house that has all the shingles in the front, and you add the shingles in the back, they're going to look totally different. It becomes a signal. New windows are different from the old windows. In today's world, it's hard to get windows now that even look old anymore because the requirements for energy calcs are limited. I don't think it's quite as big an issue as you might think. Generally, it becomes fairly obvious where the addition is. As Board Members, we get this a number of different times. In Palo Alto, if it's a registered historic structure, it does end up coming to our Board. We work with the owner and the architect to figure out ways where we can have it blend in, yet be obvious—not really obvious but it's not so exacting. In fact, one of the homes I did for Matt Hennenberg [phonetic]— Heather, 37 years ago she was a baby. We added a second floor to his home. It was a little, one-story home, and now it has a peak. It's one of those houses that they show in Professorville, when the bottom half is old, but the top is brand new. Now, after 30 years of being there, it looks very old. There's a whole blend of different opinions about this. I generally don't think it's too big a deal because most of the time it's pretty obvious when it's been added onto. Mayor Scharff: Sure, go ahead. David Bower, Historic Resources Board Vice Chair: An example that I like to share is the Peninsula Art building across the street from here. There was an addition to that building several years ago. The original part of the building has a heavy dashed stucco finish. To be compatible, the addition also has an exterior stucco finish, but that finish is smooth. That's the differentiation. The compatibility is the same material, but the differentiation is the way in which the new material is applied. You can very clearly see where the old building is and the new building begins. Mayor Scharff: That was actually really helpful. Anyone else want to weigh in on that quickly? Karen. Council Member Holman: I just wanted to acknowledge Vice Mayor Kniss' comment. It is one of the more provocative and sometimes controversial aspects of the Secretary's Standards. As Board Member Bower indicated, it can be done in very tasteful ways and in ways that differentiate the old from the new. You're not trying to replicate the old, and you're not trying to create a jarring effect by differentiating to such an extent either. You're trying to look for that delicate balance where there is an overall pleasing appearance TRANSCRIPT Page 10 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 of the building, of course, while being able to tell what is the original and what is a later addition. I think your example of the Pacific Art League building is a very excellent one. I should add that when the Professorville Guidelines were being developed, that neighborhood spoke up pretty clearly that they wanted differentiation, but they didn't want extreme responses to differentiation. That's where at least the Professorville community stood. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I just want to say I'm very pleased to meet all of you, and thank you for all the work that you do. I especially appreciate you putting together what you hope to do this year and looking for Council approval and Council help and support. I do want to say that a lot of the projects that you have in place, the proposals, are very interesting. I do hope that you do take a look and pursue those and use the CLG grant in order to accomplish that. I hope that we can—I don't know what the process is, but we sure hope that does come along. I also support what Council Member Holman said about the Fairchild. Not having been here when this all started, I do hear that it is the beginnings of the semiconductor business. That's something of value to preserve and to make a history point that we didn't just get to cell phones like this and to all our laptops just like that. Thank you again for your service. Mayor Scharff: I'd also like to thank all of you for your service. It's very much appreciated. I had a couple of questions. First of all on the ITT site, I'm really glad you guys took that up. I look at the Sea Scout building, and I think what a wonderful addition that is to the community and how that's preserved the history, and how it enhances the Baylands. It doesn't detract from it. I don't think it's and/or in terms of preserving the Baylands, preserving the wildlife, treating that respectfully. I think the Sea Scout building does all of that. With that said, I do think it's complicated. There's a question of how much money it would take, how we would rehabilitate it, and all of that. If it was to be destroyed, it can obviously never come back. That's something you have to weigh against it. If you choose not to preserve it, we've lost that history forever. I'm glad that you guys erred on the side of preservation. That's your core function. I would also like to see us, from a Staff perspective—I don't know if that's with the HRB or with Council—really start to think a little bit about how we want to deal with the IT&T site, looking at the different balances of how much it costs, what are the effects on the wetlands out there if we keep it, all those kind of issues that would come forward. I hope at some point we can bring that forward and have a discussion—obviously you guys should start that discussion. You've already done a little bit of it—and have a fuller picture of it. On the Mills Act, I was a little unclear on one issue. On the property taxes that are diverted, are they property taxes of just the City's portion or do they divert the school's portion and the State's portion as well? TRANSCRIPT Page 11 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Board Member Bower: I think it's all—that portion doesn't go to the Tax Assessor's Office. In effect, the 46 percent that the School District would get and the 8 or 9 percent Palo Alto gets would not come to the City. Mayor Scharff: No, that would not come to the City. That was my question. It diverts the School District's portion, the City's portion. Obviously, there's a portion that goes to the State. Board Member Bower: County and State. Mayor Scharff: Does it divert their portion as well? Brandon Corey, Historic Resources Board Member: It diverts all of it. Mayor Scharff: It diverts all of it. That was the question I had. Then, you're in fact leveraging the money that otherwise Palo Alto would only have gotten a small amount of. We're leveraging that. That's a key point, if that's true, of why that would make a lot of sense to leverage it that way. The only thing we'd have to look at a little bit is how much money is it likely to divert from the School District and from us. We want to make sure. It seems like it would be a very little amount from us, frankly, because we only get 9 percent, but the School District could (crosstalk). Board Member Corey: We did do some research on that. One of the things is we—I think David actually put some numbers together for the percentage of the breakdown from the school. We also did talk to the Office of Historic Preservation in California. It's very widespread throughout the state. I don't have the number offhand, but there's over 200 cities that actually have this enacted right now in California. They've never heard of one city that's ever had a problem from school funding being diverted because it's such a small amount in the context. There's only obviously so many properties that it applies to as well. David had some numbers on the breakdown, but I don't know if he has those handy. Mayor Scharff: That'd be great. Go ahead, David. Board Member Bower: Not to get too far in the weeds here. I went into the School District budget. They collected $165.7 million in the '16-'17 tax year, and that's just property taxes. Their total budget is 231 million. By the way, that's for 12,000 students. When I was a senior in high school, there were 15,000 students in the District, and they didn't have anywhere near $231 million. We're talking about a project that might pull 1.5 million away from property tax revenue. Just for the School District, that's slightly more than six-tenths of 1 percent of their tax revenue. TRANSCRIPT Page 12 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: I would say that I'm not sure. I think it's the total dollars that the School District loses; that's how they look at it, and that's how we look at it. I think it's just understanding what the impacts are about it. If Staff brought this to us, I would at least want to see what are the impacts to us, what does it look like with the budget. One of the other things we'd have to ask ourselves is—I'm confused on this too. What properties would be eligible for the Mills Act? Would it be any of our Eichler neighborhoods? Would it be just Professorville and that? How widespread would this be? Board Member Wimmer: The eligible properties have to be listed either on a National Register or on a local register. It can be listed on our own Palo Alto inventory, and it could be subject to some of these benefits. The nice thing about this whole program is that we can tailor it to our own needs. Just because other cities might do it one way, that might not be our Palo Alto solution. We can put limits on it. We can put a timeframe on it. We also believe that we need to offer incentives to people who maintain—a lot of the character of Palo Alto comes from Professorville. What does that come from? That comes from houses that have been here and that have been maintained and that people today can enjoy. We believe that the benefits of such a program will far outweigh any minor tax loss that goes to the schools. We would love to do a pilot program. We would have to find some property owners who are even willing to participate. We don't feel like it's going to be an overwhelming number of properties that will participate. We'll start small and see how it goes. If the schools are crying because they have no money because of the Mills Act, which I doubt, we can tailor it to our own needs. Mayor Scharff: That's very helpful. Did anyone else want to weigh in? Vice Mayor Kniss: I wanted to see how my memory is. As I recall when the Squire House was in the Mills Act, any house that was involved in the Mills Act was required to be open once a year for the public to go through it. Have I made that up or is that true? Board Member Corey: That used to be the case, and they took that out at some point because it was very unpopular. In the '90s if I recall, around that era they took it out. Vice Mayor Kniss: I know the Squire House was open. Too bad. It was a … Board Member Corey: Actually, I think their contract—I don't remember if their contract, because we did review the contract, actually still had that. Of course, it's always (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: We'll need to get Code enforcement on that. TRANSCRIPT Page 13 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Board Member Corey: Of course, it's voluntary. They just took out the requirement to do it as far as keeping interest. Vice Mayor Kniss: No more tours. Mayor Scharff: Anybody else have anything? HRB members have any comments you'd like to make? Did any HRB members just raise their hand? No one on this side. Michael Makinen, Historic Resources Board Member: Endorsing the Mills Act sends a message that this City is really interested in standing behind historic preservation. It's an insult to the whole character of historic preservation when an affluent city like Palo Alto doesn't stand behind the Mills Act when you've got hundreds of other cities in the state. Mayor Scharff: Anyone down here? Go ahead. Board Member Kohler: I just thought I'd chime in here a little bit. I'm looking at the photograph that was in the paper of the site out there. I can envision this being refurbished in a way that probably could be done fairly easily, although, not cheap. Having a central area where school kids could go as a group in here and have some lectures and some things showing how this works and really be out there in the middle of the wetlands itself could be great. You'd have to walk in, no parking, maybe a road to get trucks in occasionally. It could be done very well such that the surrounding area remains pretty much the same. It could be really quite a nice feature. If you've not been out there, it's really quite something. It's kind of overwhelming when you're out there. It's quite a neat area. I would certainly hope that we could figure out a way to keep it. Board Chair Bernstein: Also, I'd like to certainly thank the Council for having us participate in their group session today and to the Staff for helping arrange our calendars to make that happen. We've been waiting for a couple of years, I believe. The HRB is always interested in having these kinds of joint meetings. We find it very useful, very helpful. Hopefully, it's helpful for the members of the public also. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Any other HRB members? Board Member Wimmer: Yes. I just wanted to mention a very exciting event that's going to go on next year. The California Preservation Foundation is having its conference in the City of Palo Alto next year, May 17-20. We're really excited and honored that they would come to our City and have this conference and talking about all sorts of ways to preserve historic buildings. We will find out more about the program, but there are a lot of speakers, a lot TRANSCRIPT Page 14 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 of chances to take classes and become educated on the historic preservation efforts in the state. We're very excited about that, that we are hosting it in our own City. Mayor Scharff: I'll get to you, Karen; don't worry. Beth. Board Member Bunnenberg: We've already had some preliminary meetings with the California Preservation Foundation and made some recommendations and showed them walking tours that have been done. We have docents that can do these tours. We feel like we're ahead and also talked about some interesting venues that they might use around town, like Lucie Stern Center. We're very excited about it. Mayor Scharff: Karen. Council Member Holman: Really happy that the CPF Conference is coming here. They're always fun. They're educational, but they're also really fun. Great tours. The one thing I wanted to mention is if the HRB could consider some other kind of incentive. I've never really put my finger on what the best means to do this would be. The Mills Act, because it's a property tax assist, is good for people who have owned a property a certain amount of time. We have some families, especially in Professorville but in other parts of town too, who are longtime owners. Their property tax basis is very low. A Mills Act isn't going to help them at all. If the HRB, from one Council Member's perspective at least, could look at what kind of incentives could be provided, maybe establishing a fund. I don't know what the answer is. If there could be some exploratory work done to find out what other communities do to support the longtime property owners and support their preservation effort for their homes, those buildings that are important to the community, that would be really helpful. Mayor Scharff: Lydia. I thought you wanted to say something. With that, thank you very much for your service. We really appreciate it. Why don't we take a 5-minute break while we clear the chairs? Council took a break from 5:56 P.M. to 6:01 P.M. 2. 3709 El Camino Real [17PLN-00189]: Request by Palo Alto Housing Corporation for a Prescreening to Construct a Four-story Building With 61 Affordable Housing Units Including a Building Manager Unit; 2,412 Square Feet of Commercial Space; and Additional Amenity Space for use by the Tenants. The Proposal Would Require at Least one of the Following: Comprehensive Plan Amendment, Rezoning, and/or Zoning Text Amendment. Environmental Assessment: Prescreening is not a Project. The Formal Application Will be Subject to California TRANSCRIPT Page 15 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Review. Zoning District: CN (Neighborhood Commercial). Graham Owen, Associate Project Planner: Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, my name is Graham Owen. I'm the Project Planner who's been working with the applicants on the project that you have before you today. This is a prescreening of Palo Alto Housing's proposal to build an affordable housing project on the site. The site's located at the northeast corner of El Camino Real and Wilton Avenue. This would be a four-story, mixed-use building, 48 feet in total height with 61 affordable housing units as well as 2,400 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor. The current comprehensive land use designation and corresponding zoning district for the site are Neighborhood Commercial. The site is also located in a housing inventory site or is a housing inventory site, as identified in the Housing Element of the Comprehensive Plan. The proposal would require a Comprehensive Plan amendment and a rezoning and/or a zoning text amendment as currently proposed. This is a site plan showing the building located, again, at the northeast corner of El Camino Real and Wilton Avenue. The building would be located 12 feet from the front setback or from the front property line along El Camino Real. This is also showing the first floor plan for the building, showing the 2,400 square feet of commercial square footage along the El Camino Corridor as well as some other areas for mechanical and amenity spaces, circulation, those sorts of uses on the ground floor. Access to the site for pedestrians would be off of a lobby located at the entrance along El Camino Real. For vehicles, there would be one entrance off of the alleyway leading down to a subterranean garage as well as a separate entrance off of the alleyway, a little bit closer to the intersection to serve at-grade parking. The applicant has proposed two options for your consideration. Both follow the same plan and massing, but there are differences in materials, articulation, and color for the two facade treatments that are presented today. This slide shows the two facades that are facing the street. The first is along Wilton Avenue, and the second is along El Camino Real. This is the facade on the top that's facing the east, so it'd be facing the adjacent commercial buildings along the block. The bottom facade is facing the alleyway, which is directly adjacent to some multifamily housing across the alleyway. One thing to note on the rear-facing facade is that there are two podium courtyards that are proposed along this facade. This is the second option with the warmer colors, but again following the same basic massing and plan. There are a couple of key considerations that Staff has for your consideration. The first is that the Comprehensive Plan does support the construction of affordable housing. At 61 units, this would present a significant contribution to the City's fair share of the region's housing needs. The second is that there are a number of zoning changes that would be required to implement the proposal, and they're listed here and are also outlined in your Staff Report. With a TRANSCRIPT Page 16 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 formal submittal, we would certainly want to analyze the traffic impacts that stem from this project as well as the other environmental impacts and potential environmental impacts that stem from the development. Also, we would want to ensure that the project is consistent with not only the 1979 El Camino Real Design Guidelines but the 2002 South El Camino Design Guidelines. As mentioned earlier, this project would require a Comprehensive Plan amendment. That amendment is captured in the Comp Plan Update, which is currently under review by the Planning and Transportation Commission. We are focusing for now on the Zoning Ordinance changes that would be required to implement such a proposal. We have outlined three different options. The first option would be to develop a local alternative to the State Density Bonus Ordinance that we have in Section 18.15 of the Municipal Code. This would allow for a higher FAR than what you have on standard CN-zoned sites with no residential density limit for 100-percent affordable projects that are also proposing ground-floor, retail commercial space in transit-served areas. This would also provide access for developers to incentives and concessions that are in 18.15, which is our State Density Bonus law and provide for the relaxing of development standards consistent with Code and with current State law. As I said, this would require an amendment to Section 18.15, and it would offer a significant incentive, not just for the current site but for other affordable housing projects throughout the City. The second option is to develop an affordable housing combining district. This could provide for flexible development standards for 100-percent affordable projects in transit-served areas that also provide ground-floor retail and commercial spaces. This would require a text amendment to Section 18.30, which is the combining district standards, and would also require a rezoning of the site to allow for the ADU, if you want to call it that, or AHA— excuse me, combining district. The third option would be to reconsider the current stay on Planned Community districts and to allow for the site to be rezoned to Planned Community district. Such a rezoning proposal could also be paired with an amendment to limit the application of PC zoned sites to specific uses such as 100-percent affordable projects. This is a prescreening; no formal action is required. Our recommendation is to provide comments on the current proposal. I believe that the applicant is here with a presentation as well so they can dive more into the program. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Come on forward, Candice. Candice Gonzalez, Palo Alto Housing President and CEO: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and City Council Members. Thank you for having us here tonight. I'm Candice Gonzalez, CEO of Palo Alto Housing. Here to help me present tonight are Danny Ross, our Development Manager, and Mike Pyatok, our architect. Why are we here tonight? There's an affordable housing crisis in our region, including in Palo Alto, and we need to react to it. A crisis means it needs TRANSCRIPT Page 17 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 immediate attention. Palo Alto Housing has spent the last several years successfully developing affordable housing in nearby jurisdictions, but we need to do something in our hometown as well. Housing for all income levels is critical to our community. We have thousands of applicants on our combined wait lists with an average unit turnover of 7-8 years. Our workforce and seniors are getting forced out of town. What we are proposing today is a project that is viable given all of our constraints and funding challenges. As you saw, the site is currently zoned CN. This would only allow for 9-12 units plus the retail required on our site. That's a very expensive project that affordable housing funds cannot support. Again, the site is in a prime location; it's on the corner of El Camino and Wilton in the Ventura neighborhood. We were lucky enough to assemble these two parcels over 5 years ago. It's very well-served by the bus line, including VTA 22. Again, here are some existing site photos. Again, it's a prime infill site. As you see, there's a lot of asphalt and underutilized spaces on the site. You will see that our proposal will liven up the El Camino frontage by putting all of the proposed retail along El Camino. This will also get rid of the big curb cut, which will make it safer for pedestrians walking along El Camino. When building affordable housing, we face many, many challenges. Our project often requires 6-12 funding sources. For example, our main funding source, tax credits, limits the construction costs per unit, which then drives the number of units required to make it feasible. Tax credits provide approximately 50-60 percent of our total project funds. Tonight we are looking for direction from Council on three areas of concern. First, are you open to our proposal including the unit range plus or minus some units? Please keep in mind that our designs are very conceptual and will definitely change over time. Second, what zoning would you recommend to make this a feasible project? We are open to any of the options as long as we can find a way to streamline the process so that we can respond to the crisis at hand. We like the idea of utilizing the local alternative to the State Density Bonus Ordinance. We're currently at a 2.0 FAR, but for your consideration we'd be going closer to a 2.5 FAR. Finally, for the retail we would like your feedback on a reduction in the existing retail plus allowing it to be for retail or nonprofit space. If we had to save 100 percent of the retail, it would honestly kill the affordable project, but we're open to a reduction in the retail. Danny Ross, Palo Alto Housing Development Manager: Thank you, Candice. We present to you this evening a proposed affordable housing project of 61 mostly studio apartments with rental rates based on what is affordable to people at 30-60 percent of area median income with up to 25 percent of those units reserved for adults with developmental disabilities. On nearly half-an- acre site, the building would be no taller than 48 feet as designed or under a 50-foot maximum. We would provide residential and commercial parking adequate to meet the need of the site, plenty of bike parking, and just over TRANSCRIPT Page 18 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 2,400 square feet of retail and/or nonprofit space. This summer, we met with several community members and leaders to adapt our proposed project. After an initial yield study and prescreening meeting with City Staff, we worked closely with our architect and have already reduced the unit count and building height. We increased the parking; we eliminated stacker parking; we removed the proposed Palo Alto Housing office space for around 2,400 square feet of retail and/or nonprofit space. We also kept the FAR at or below 2.0. I'd also like to mention that FAR is inclusive of the retail we propose. Our proposed site is very similar to the size and scale of our project that we have currently under construction in Mountain View at 1701 El Camino Real, which is 67 units under just half an acre. That site does have a slightly larger FAR and a lower parking ratio. Further to the north on El Camino Real, our project in unincorporated Redwood City proposes 67 units in one-bedroom apartments on a site that is just slightly over an acre but with a considerably higher FAR and a lower parking ratio. What's there now? Of the less than 5,400 square feet of retail, we have over 1,300 square feet that is vacant. The Euro Mart at 1600 is truly neighborhood-serving retail and is closer to our proposed roughly 2,400 square feet. We are requesting the flexibility to include nonprofit space in the event that retail proves not to be viable or if we partner with a nonprofit tapping into other funding sources. The proposed project is parked at 0.5 stalls per residential unit in accordance with State law and our projected need as supported by our internal portfolio-wide parking study we did this summer and transforms parking data available online. When shared with retail in the evening, our parking ratio jumps to 0.72. With that, I'll turn it over to our architect for some of the design notes. Mike Pyatok, Pyatok Architect: Good evening, members of the Council. I'm Mike Pyatok. With me tonight are the two architects from my office, who have been working closely on this project, Adrianne Steichen and Rachael Davidoff. We looked at a number of new developments along Camino Real that are four stories high, similar to the height that we are proposing this evening. It seems natural that along this major artery that there'd be these gradual increases in residential uses to match the massive job growth that's been occurring in the region. We also noticed that the street trees are really quite beautiful, and they help soften the presence of a four-story building. The trees, the preservation of existing trees, and the addition of new trees is as much a part of this design problem as the buildings themselves. You already heard about the ground floor, the retail across the front, the parking behind. We have a green piece in the back. That's an L-shaped site, so we have another garden back there. The darker trees are the existing trees in the back and on Wilton that we'd work hard to try to preserve. They do help screen the development from neighboring properties. Up on the podium level, we have a garden for recreational and social uses. There will be raised vegetable planters for a vegetable garden. A screen of vertical planting along the edge of that garden TRANSCRIPT Page 19 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 to face the neighboring property. Along the two streets, we start at the top along Wilton. Those two darker green trees are existing now; we'd love to be able to save them and add, of course, several new ones and certainly across Camino Real. This one shows a number of bay windows. There are a variety of ways of really treating the front. We're not committed to any one yet. We want to start working with your team to accomplish a solution that everyone likes. In this one, the bays are no longer there; it's just a bigger, simpler, broader mass across the facade. Finally in a third one, there are bay windows, but they're linked together across the top and the bottom. You've got that simpler look. It's a quieter building, but yet each of the apartments facing Camino can have a bay window with corner windows. It allows them to look up and down the street. On the backside or on the side that faces the neighborhood, you can see how we're stepping the massing. There's only two stories of housing above the garage immediately adjacent to the 2 1/2-story apartment building that's next door across the alley. It also shows how we're robustly planting the alleys to bring greenery to it because it's not very green right now down at the street level. Saving the two trees, as I said, along Wilton and again the two trees in the back, the little, quiet garden area. That's the same treatment, of course, regardless of whatever architecture we develop. We're trying to step down the mass and pull it away from the neighboring properties. I'll end with this. This was a development that we did for Palo Alto Housing just a few years ago. It's right next to a single-family home on Charleston. You can see how we stepped it down from a four-story to three-story and then down to two and even a one-story ingredient with the trellises in the foreground. It's a strategy that we often use where apartment buildings like this are being introduced into areas that are of a slightly lower building height to bring the scale down. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Does that conclude the presentation? Actually, I was just going to do a round of questions from Council Members; then we'll go to the public, and then we'll come back for comments. If you have a question, put your light on. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: A quick question for Staff. How many affordable BMR units do we have in town right now? Do we know? Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: I really don't know off the top of my head. I can certainly look it up. Council Member Filseth: A question for the applicant. It looks to me like it's flush with the sidewalk. Did I read that right? Mr. Pyatok: No, it's setback several feet. The exact amount is—12 feet was requested, and we set it back an additional 5 or so. TRANSCRIPT Page 20 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Filseth: So it's 17 feet from the sidewalk? Mr. Pyatok: From the curb. Back from the sidewalk, it's about 3-5 feet. It varies along that edge. Council Member Filseth: Three to 5 feet from the sidewalk. A question for Staff. We have an open space spec. What's the purpose of that? Mr. Owen: The purpose of the site coverage spec or the open space spec? Council Member Filseth: The open space spec. Mr. Owen: The open space is to provide landscaping area for storm water infiltration, those sorts of things. Site coverage, which is the more controlling development standard in this case—I think they're proposing the courtyards and those sorts of things. Those wouldn't count towards those standards as they currently are in the CN zoning district. Does that answer your question? Council Member Filseth: I think so. The open space, you said, was for storm water coverage. What was the other thing? Mr. Owen: Storm water, landscaping, greenery, those sorts of things. Council Member Filseth: I noticed that some of the open space area on the application was actually for a rooftop terrace or something like that, which probably wouldn't do too much for storm water and landscaping. Mr. Owen: Correct. There are innovative ways of having infiltration in those sorts of areas. For purposes of complying with the open space standard, there are positive site amenities, but they're not getting you towards that open space standard. Council Member Filseth: How about stuff that's on the podium? Would that also be … Mr. Owen: Correct, same interpretation. Council Member Filseth: The same issues with storm water drainage and so forth. Ms. Gitelman: Council Member Filseth, I have an answer to your earlier question. In addition to having more than 1,600 units located in affordable housing projects like this one would be, we have 250 owner-occupied and 460 rental units in our BMR housing program. That's a total of 2,250, something like that. TRANSCRIPT Page 21 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Filseth: 2,250 roughly? Ms. Gitelman: Something like that. Council Member Filseth: Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Perhaps this would, maybe starting with Ms. Gonzalez. As you've looked at this, you considered a number of options that would optimize the State, maximize the number of units. There are certain times when we have talked about going over the 50-foot height limit and for what reason we might go over the 50-foot height limit. I know in an election last year some people said if it was about affordable housing, that might be a consideration. Do you want to talk about—you have not gone over the limit. You have stayed within that parameter that we set a very long time ago. Say a little about the process and how you got to that. Ms. Gonzalez: Over the course of the summer, we met with probably 25-30 different neighbors. We wanted to come in with a project that we think could be feasible and acceptable to the community, so we started to scale down. Initially, we had a 57-foot building that was five stories at 67 units. We scaled that down to accommodate the 50-foot height limit in the City that was very well—a lot of neighbors wanted us to maintain the 50-foot height limit. We agree. We try to maximize every opportunity, maximize the space. There's room to add units as we go taller, but it's definitely a compromise between what we can develop and what's acceptable to the community. Vice Mayor Kniss: Say something about the tradeoffs as you gave up that extra space, square footage. Ms. Gonzalez: The extra space between the 2.0 FAR and the 2.5 FAR, we're giving up some storage space, a little bit of the livability and functionality of the units. They're a little bit smaller. I think we're giving up a mechanical room in the basement. We're losing a bit of the livability by maintaining the 2.0 FAR. If we added to that FAR, then we can add back some room to the units while still respecting the height, staying under the 50-foot height limit. Vice Mayor Kniss: Not that we would in any way say we're like other cities, but give us some examples of housing of this same type that you've seen go into Mountain View, Redwood City, even Menlo Park. Ms. Gonzalez: Our existing project in Mountain View that's under construction right now is five stories, 67 studios. With that project, we actually started a little bit lower in the 50-something-plus range. As time went on, the project TRANSCRIPT Page 22 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 got more and more expensive, but we realized we also didn't need as much parking. City Council encouraged us to go down—to take our parking ratio down to about 0.4 or 0.5. That allowed us to add units to now 67 units. They have a precise plan that we were able to utilize. It was a pretty streamlined process. The same is going on in unincorporated Redwood City where we're going under a new area plan that's allowing a similar FAR, 2.0 to 2.5 FAR. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's important that people know that you met with so many neighbors, that you thought about this very carefully, and that you did come under the 50-foot limit. We've said that out loud, and people are aware of that and simply to get it on the record. Ms. Gonzalez: Yes. We agree we wanted community input early on and every step of the way. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Ms. Gonzalez: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I was just trying to make sure I understand the context and which properties are included. The spa next door would remain. That's a separate lot? Candice is nodding. Ms. Gonzalez: Yes, that's not part of our site. Council Member DuBois: On parking, just so we all know. The Staff Report really wasn't very clear. How many parking spaces would be required even adjusting for the City's affordable housing rules and State density bonuses? Mr. Owen: It remains to be seen. It depends on a couple of things. One of them is the ultimate population intended for the community. The State allows for lower parking requirements for folks with developmental disabilities, for example. It would result in a different count depending on how many— whatever the percentage is. Council Member DuBois: Taking what's described here, I guess? Mr. Owen: If it were 30 of the units, it'd be close to what's currently being proposed at 42. However, you're going to have additional areas that haven't been included in the gross floor area of the site, such as the circulation. Those would need to be assessed with an FAR diagram, which we would get with a formal application. Council Member DuBois: That 42 includes the retail space, right? TRANSCRIPT Page 23 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mr. Owen: Includes the retail space. It doesn't include the circulation areas in the ground floor. Council Member DuBois: Are you saying it'd be 42 for the housing units? Mr. Owen: Forty-two for everything included, but we haven't included the circulation on the ground floor. Council Member DuBois: Do we know what's envisioned for the retail space? Mr. Owen: We could certainly ask the applicant. Ms. Gonzalez: Just one correction. We actually have 44 parking spaces including the retail. Right now we're not sure what's going to go in the retail. We're talking to brokers trying to figure out what's the best fit for that site, for a small parcel. It's a work in progress. Again, we wanted to make it open so that it could be retail or nonprofit space. We just want to ensure the long- term viability of the project. Council Member DuBois: Can you explain that and/or nonprofit? Would that be for use by Palo Alto Housing or would be like a revolving community space for nonprofits? Ms. Gonzalez: Any nonprofit. We're looking into that. We've talked to an art group that wants to house struggling artists, low-income BMR art space. There's different potential there. Some of the nonprofits like an art group can get some BMR funding for the construction of the site as well, for their space. Again, that part is a work in progress. Our main goal is to find some tenants that will help and be viable. Council Member DuBois: You said more retail would kill the project. If we maintain the 6,700 square feet of retail and you rented that at market rates, why wouldn't that make the project more affordable? Ms. Gonzalez: Affordable housing funds can't support the retail and can't fund it. Tax credits won't fund the construction of that site. Right now, we're struggling to rent the site, the buildings at market rate. We're subsidizing the units right now. All the tenants are paying plus or minus $2 a square foot. Council Member DuBois: But they're old; you'd have a new retail space. Ms. Gonzalez: What's that? Council Member DuBois: You're talking about the old, existing buildings versus a brand new retail space, right? TRANSCRIPT Page 24 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Ms. Gonzalez: Yes. We've talked to some of the tenants. They're not sure if they would move back in. Again, we're running our numbers based on about $2 a square foot and trying to be conservative. Council Member DuBois: You don't think if it was a brand new building that rent would be higher? Ms. Gonzalez: No, we don't think so, not from talking to some of the local brokers. Council Member DuBois: Thank you. I had a question about the loading space. Was there any consideration to use the alley near Wilton as the loading space versus El Camino? Mr. Pyatok: You're asking for a loading zone for retail or for residential? Council Member DuBois: I just saw in the report that there would be a loading zone added on El Camino. I was wondering if you looked at putting it in the back on the alleyway. Mr. Pyatok: If there's anything along El Camino, it'd be just a striped curb for temporary parking. Loading and unloading, the trash trucks would be coming up Wilton, and the trash is located back there. There could be temporary unloading on the alleyway because the only people really using the alleyway are residents. It's 20 feet wide so that if a vehicle were parked there for loading and unloading, there's still space to come and go. Council Member DuBois: A question for Hillary and City Attorney. In terms of the options in terms of changing zoning, if the City specifies something for 100-percent affordable housing, can we say that is in lieu of State density bonuses so that we are specifying what we're going to get? Ms. Gitelman: My understanding is we can. In fact, we've already done that with the PTOD zone. We've said that you can either choose the PTOD or the State density bonus, but you can't choose both. We would be doing the same thing. We'd be crafting a local alternative to the State density bonus rules. Council Member DuBois: It wouldn't be in addition to. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. It'd be in lieu of. Council Member DuBois: My last question is really—Council Member Kniss brought up the height. Reading the Staff Report, the height limit here is 35 feet because of the residential. Is that correct? Mr. Owen: That's correct because it's within 150 feet of residential. TRANSCRIPT Page 25 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member DuBois: I just want to make sure everybody's clear that this is over the height limit. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: A question for Staff. It might take you a couple of minutes to look it up unless you know off the top of your head. When was the last time we approved projects for affordable housing of this size or anything even close to this or even half of this? Ms. Gitelman: I think that would have been the Maybell project. I can't think of anything since then. Council Member Wolbach: Since Maybell was overturned, do you know when the last one was prior to that? Ms. Gitelman: It would have predated my tenure here. I think it was one of the ones on Alma Street. Council Member Wolbach: If you're able to find that, please let us know or if (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: Candice probably knows. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) the applicant if you have any … Ms. Gonzalez: The Treehouse was in 2011, and then Eden's, 801 Alma, I think was 2012 or 2013. Council Member Wolbach: We haven't really finished the process of not just as the Council but as a whole community approving an affordable housing complex for about 5 years. That's very interesting. Mayor Scharff: Since 2012. Council Member Wolbach: Yeah, since 2012. I was hoping that the—a question for the applicant. Could you talk more about this issue of your first round and your second round? As you showed on one of your slides—I don't know if you can go back to it—you had the details of the first round and the second round side by side, how you reduced the height, reduced the number of units, reduced the FAR. The site development slide, I was wondering if we could get that one back up again. Site development had two pictures and an arrow and basically bullet points on each side. You reduced it from 67 units to 61 units. Maybe before that. There it is; that's the one. That's the one. You reduced it from 67 to 61 units, went from five stories to four stories, and increased the parking spaces. I want to make sure I really understood what TRANSCRIPT Page 26 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 happened between the first round and the second round since this is the first time we've seen this, and what led you to suggest basically down-zoning—not quite down-zoning but ramping down your expectations and requests for this project. Mr. Ross: The first round was a yield study. We worked with our architect. We were really trying to maximize what we could get out there. We also wanted to move our corporate Palo Alto Housing offices there. We've outgrown where we are today. It was those two factors, so we took it to five stories. We were originally using parking stackers. Our current proposal goes split-level, below ground for half a level and above ground for half a level, to try and minimize costs of a full level underground. What took us from first round to second round prior to meeting with Council was just our community outreach meetings and also our prescreening with Staff. The community really got scared at the five stories. The previous building was broader, had a big centralized courtyard. The idea was to push all the building's height and all the units as close to El Camino as possible. In a previous question, there's some articulation and pushback for landscaping along El Camino. What we're trying to do is focus it right on the corner. Also, how the building steps back as you move along Wilton was in direct response to community members feeling that it was too abrasive to go from this big project over to two-story apartment buildings. It was those concepts that shaped it. We really tried our best to hold the unit count as high as we could. We took an entire level off the building and still kept it at 61 units. I think that's a pretty big accomplishment. What we're presenting is something that we think is viable financially but also with community support. Whereas, the other project didn't have as much community support. That's where we are today. Council Member Wolbach: Just basically to make sure I've understood what you've said, you've already done—what did you say earlier? You've met with 20 neighbors. How many hours do you think you've spent in community outreach so far? Mr. Ross: At least 40 hours, probably more when you count up all the thank- you emails and follow-up and ongoing calls and conversations. It doesn't stop there; we'll continue that with the community. We're very available to anyone. Council Member Wolbach: Just to make sure I've understood you, you've already scaled back your expectations and requests to the City based on around 40 hours or more of community outreach. That's good to hear. I just want to make sure I understood. In this discussion of going from 2.0 to 2.5 FAR, that's to increase the size of the individual units. Was that … TRANSCRIPT Page 27 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mr. Ross: If we could go a little bit … Council Member Wolbach: Separately from this original first round to second round, what you're still hoping is we might consider a 2.5 FAR. Correct? That's to increase the size of the units from—what was it? To what again? Mr. Ross: That's correct. What we did to get to a 2.0 FAR was we reduced the unit sizes. We eliminated spaces in the garage that weren't used to park cars and was counting against our FAR. In terms of the units, they're about 15 feet wide and—I'm probably going to get this wrong. They're at 375 square feet currently. They're 15 feet wide by 27, just under 27 feet. If we could get a couple more feet, it's increased livability for the unit, but it's going to bump up our FAR. Council Member Wolbach: If you can increase the size, is it your hope that people would have longer-term stays there? It would allow people to feel more comfortable staying there long term and provide more community stability. Is that the thought behind it? Mr. Ross: Absolutely, and also furniture placement as our architect had mentioned. It's just more livability. You get a better quality of life and more space in your unit. Council Member Wolbach: It's really about the quality of life for the residents there. Mr. Ross: Absolutely. Council Member Wolbach: Thanks, I appreciate that. Ms. Gitelman: Council Member Wolbach, I do have an answer to your question about the last affordable housing project. We just went to the opening of one on El Camino that was part of the Mayfield Agreement. That's the most recent project. Mayor Scharff: We didn't have to approve that. Ms. Gitelman: We did approve it. It was in the Mayfield Agreement, but it came through the … Mayor Scharff: That was 10 years ago. Ms. Gitelman: … the Council. Mayor Scharff: Council Member not Fine. Council Member Holman. TRANSCRIPT Page 28 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Holman: I am fine, thank you very much. Question for City Attorney. This is a prescreening, but is this also quasi-judicial? Just checking on that. I have a few questions. One is the Staff presentation seemed to indicate that we're looking at approving or recommending—not approving— recommending one of the design concepts here. I did meet with the Housing Corporation. These are just mass and scale models. There's nothing having to do with design having to do with this. Mr. Owen: I apologize if that's how it was presented. Council Member Holman: Maybe it's just how I … Mr. Owen: That was not the case, and that's not what we're recommending. These are just preliminary options that are here for your consideration. Council Member Holman: Those of us who are familiar with Mr. Pyatok's designs know that we can expect something really good. Having to do with— let's go to this one. The financial feasibility of this, what is the threshold for qualifying for federal tax monies? My understanding from a recent meeting but also going back a long time is there has to be a maximum unit cost to be able to qualify for federal funding. What is that threshold? Ms. Gonzalez: Affordable housing finance is super complicated, and the threshold changes every single year. The numbers are a moving target right up 'til construction. This year, for 2017, the allowed cost per unit for a studio is around 207,000 per unit for hard constructions costs and some of the soft costs, so very low. That's where the unit count comes in, the economies of scale come in. Again, tax credit makes up about 50-60 percent of our total funding costs for a project. Council Member Holman: 50-60 percent? Ms. Gonzalez: Yes. Council Member Holman: That's a comment, so I'll save that for later. What's the tenancy mix? This is a two-part question. What is the tenancy mix? I know you've suggested what it might be here, but what is the tenancy mix that you're targeting and how much of that could be prioritizing existing Palo Alto residents? Ms. Gonzalez: We're targeting 30-60 percent of the area median income. Those are people earning between $25,000-$50,000 per year. Again, we wanted to include up to 25 percent of the units for adults with developmental disabilities. With all of our Palo Alto projects with City funding, we allow a live TRANSCRIPT Page 29 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 or work in Palo Alto preference. If you live or work in Palo Alto, you get a preference on the wait list. We can do that again if the City gives us funding. Council Member Holman: What is that? I presume that there are bounds of that preference. Ms. Gonzalez: Could you clarify your question? Council Member Holman: Let's say half the units are asked for. I know this is silly because there will be a line for these. If half the units are spoken for by Palo Alto residents, can you then wait a little bit longer to get the rest of them occupied by Palo Alto residents? I'm just giving that as one example. Ms. Gonzalez: What usually happens is 6 months before a project is done, we start the marketing and lease process. There's a lottery system, so we'll probably get about 1,000 people on the wait list from the lottery system. We go through the whole 1,000 applicants, filling them with people that either live or work in Palo Alto. Almost 100 percent of our projects get filled using that preference. Again, it's up to the City. That's a preference that we've always worked with, with the City. Other cities do it differently. They might have tiers of preference. It could be live in Palo Alto first, work in Palo Alto second, and go down the list. Council Member Holman: These days maybe the priority has changed. I guess I would—that's a comment. I'll save that for later too. I'm sorry for that. Another question for you, Candice, if you would, having to do with the retail square footage or nonprofit. I know you mentioned or maybe Danny mentioned the artist units in Austin. Liz may have been at this League of Cities conference too. In Austin at least, a percentage of the BMR units are set aside for artists. Is that a model that maybe you could follow? Some of the units would be dedicated to artists in residence, if you will. The nonprofit space downstairs could be artist space. That would qualify, if I look to the Attorney and Hillary, for retail. Ms. Gonzalez: We're definitely open to any target population; we could work with the City on that target population and the tiers. Some of it will have to do with the funding sources and the limitations around the preferences allowed, but we're definitely open to it. Council Member Holman: Do you have any notion of people who might be willing to sponsor that kind of function? Ms. Gonzalez: We do. We're talking to a couple of groups right now. TRANSCRIPT Page 30 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Holman: The unit sizes, I don't go very often, but I was at Ikea the other day. Every time I'm there, I look at the models that they have set up for different sized units. The one I was noticing the other day was either 250 or 260 square feet. I didn't really like the way it was set up, but I did see yet again how functional that could be. I guess I don't quite understand the thing about 2 feet wider for these 370 or whatever square foot units could make them more livable. Can you help me understand that better? Ms. Gonzalez: Sure. Mike would love to answer that question. Mr. Pyatok: I visit those displays also. I always chuckle a little bit because they're not abiding by any of the accessibility laws. Council Member Holman: They also have wide wall openings and stuff like that, that are … Mr. Pyatok: The other thing about those unit sizes is they work for very young people who have higher incomes and are very mobile, who might live in them for maybe a year, and they move on. Those market rate developments that have those tiny units have almost 100-percent turnover rate annually. The people we're talking about here are going to be living in it for many years. Every additional square foot helps their comfort level. Council Member Holman: My last question might be for the Staff. We have options on Packet Page 15 or page 7 of the Staff Report. There's an Option 1 that has to do with State Density Bonus Law; Option 2 develop an affordable housing combining district or an overlay district. Three would be to reconsider the current stay on PC zones. These are develop, develop and reconsider. Those don't seem like they would necessarily apply to this project. Is what you're looking for they've demonstrated by bringing this project forward how difficult it is to get an affordable or a BMR project to fit into our current zoning models? Are you saying Staff should go, if the Council directs or so wishes, work on one of these models, and then Palo Alto Housing should come back and apply within one of those models? The affordable housing overlay was brought up in the 2005 Zoning Ordinance. It was one of those things we didn't get to, but I was a big supporter of that at the time. I don't know exactly what we're being asked tonight. Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Holman. We've accepted the proposal and brought it to you for your early feedback on whether this is a proposal that is worth pursuing and identified three different ways that, if the Council thinks this is worth pursuing, we could amend the Code and potentially the Zoning Map to achieve the project that's been articulated. We're looking to you to take your temperature on is this a project that's worth putting the applicant's time and energy into and the Staff's time and energy into. If the TRANSCRIPT Page 31 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 answer to those questions is yes, does the Council have a preference about how we would bring it across the finish line in terms of the way that we would amend the Zoning Ordinance and/or the Zoning Map to accomplish the goal? Council Member Holman: In Option 1 and Option 2—in all three options, are you saying then that it would be these proposals, these develop, develop and consider? Those would be proposals that the Staff would develop and come back with. It isn't something that we would just apply to this one site. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. In each case, we would bring forward a zoning text and/or Map amendment concurrent with this project, but it wouldn't be specific to this project. It could be used for other locations and other projects. Council Member Holman: With an identification of what potentially some of those other locations might be, I would suppose. Ms. Gitelman: If you just think about the third option here, the PC option, it would be very much like that. That's a tool that exists in our Zoning Ordinance. We could amend it or not in the Zoning Ordinance. To us, the Council has to adopt an ordinance to embrace it. You could use it for this project or for another project. The same would be true for Option 2. You could direct us to include some verbiage in the Code that provides for this affordable housing overlay. When a project, this one or another one, comes forward, the Council would have to consider its appropriateness for use of that overlay. The local density bonus alternative is one where you would be creating a significant incentive for 100-percent affordable projects, and you'd put limitations on that. It could be used at any site that could achieve whatever those standards are that we would write in the Code. Council Member Holman: Any of them would have limitations. They'd have to for practical reasons. Ms. Gitelman: Yes. Council Member Holman: I think those are my questions. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: First of all, thank you for moving this project forward for us to talk about tonight. I have just two questions. First question is in the first round, there were 42 parking spaces with stackers. My question is for the second round, if stackers were used, how many parking spaces would there be. I don't know if Staff or the applicant could answer this. TRANSCRIPT Page 32 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Ms. Gitelman: I don't know if the applicant's going to provide a response. I just wanted to say that, as Council Member Holman indicated, we're a long way away from a final or refined design here. These are very gross schematics. I'm sure we could get into the loading issues and the parking issues in much more detail if we move forward. Mr. Ross: On the parking stacker, part of why we got rid of the stackers is the complexity of operations. It's a huge cost impact for an affordable development. We don't have the cash flow from operations that a market rate project would have. The stackers cost $36 per space per month. It doesn't sound like much, but on an affordable project it just doesn't work for us. I'm being told we could potentially add 20 in the basement. Council Member Tanaka: My second question is—I think this is probably more for Staff. How much revenue do we get from the sales tax from the retail properties at its current square footage? Mayor Scharff: From the what, Greg? I couldn't … Council Member Tanaka: The retail property, the sales tax. Ms. Gitelman: I'm afraid I don't know off the top of my head. I'd have to research that and get back to you. Council Member Tanaka: I would be interested in knowing how much sales tax we get from it today and how much would we get from it at the scaled- back retail space. Ms. Gitelman: We could calculate a gross estimate based on your typical retail space by square footage. I just can't do it on the spot, but we can certainly get back to you on that. Council Member Tanaka: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I see that there is transportation nearby. Can you tell me, the 22, how often—what's its frequency? I see that it said it's a robust transportation. What's the frequency there? Mr. Owen: I could look that up real quick and get back to you. Mr. Ross: I actually looked that up before coming tonight. It's roughly 15 minutes during peak hours. It's nearly around-the-clock service. I think the first bus picks up at 3:20 a.m., and then the last one drops off at 3:10 or something like that. It's pretty well served. TRANSCRIPT Page 33 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Kou: Thank you. I have also—I guess you still haven't figured out what is the occupants. When I was speaking to Danny Ross, you mentioned something about these are going to be for people with disabilities as well as for seniors. Correct? Mr. Ross: We looked into a senior population. It's pretty complicated with the tax credits and just all the different rules that get applied. What we learned is that if we did adults with developmental disabilities and seniors, we would be limited to seniors within that group. We thought that was too small of a category, and we wanted to leave that open. That's not to say that seniors couldn't apply to the housing within the program. I'm sure there would be plenty of seniors. At Tree House, we have a pretty mixed, intergenerational group. It's what we expect here as well. Council Member Kou: For that percentage, it's going to be a mixed group. There is a set percentage for the people with disabilities? Mr. Ross: That's correct. Council Member Kou: I hear that you mentioned tax credits for funding. What other funding—the tax credits are federal and state. Correct? Mr. Ross: T-CAC is a federal program that's administered at the state level. Other funding sources would be the City of Palo Alto from the Affordable Housing Fund, potentially Stanford GUP Fund, and County funds potentially. Council Member Kou: City of Palo Alto has funds? Thank you. That's it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thanks. First of all, I'd like to thank you for coming down today and doing this. I had a bunch of questions. I wanted to preface my questions with saying I generally support the project because my questions may sound like I don't. I want to get that out there. My first question really is about the retail. Our Retail Ordinance requires you to put 6,700 square feet back of retail. At least that's the way I read it. Am I wrong on that or not? Mr. Owen: There is some flexibility with regards to which areas get counted. I will say that we did talk with Danny about the exact amount of square footage that's included in that 6,700. The 6,700 that I included in the Staff Report is based on County records. I think Danny was indicating that the leasable area is about 5,300 or so. Once we have a formal submittal with floor plans that show the exact areas, then we can provide an exact figure of what would need to be replaced. TRANSCRIPT Page 34 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Assuming the 5,300 square feet, that's more than the 24- something they wanted. Regardless of what we use here as a vehicle, we would have to address that issue frankly. I'm not okay with just violating our Codes. Ms. Gitelman: Yes, we would have to do that. Mayor Scharff: As we come back—after I speak, we're going to go to the public, and then we're going to come back to Council. One of the most important things we need to do here tonight is give clear direction. As Director Gitelman said, we don't really want you going down the path and then having it not work. If Council Members have strong feelings on things, I really would ask that you say it. I'm just going to use this as an example because it's not really a question. I would say, for instance, that I will not be okay with that 2,500 being nonprofit and not being retail. I would be okay with the difference between the 5,300 and the 2,500 being nonprofit. Not that I'm necessarily going to require that; I'd have to see how our ordinance went. My biggest concern actually is what the retail looks like on the ground floor and that it works and that we actually have retail. When we talk about—when we do our redoing this, I think one of the things this showed me at least is how difficult it is to build housing, frankly, all of this. What I got from all of this is that this project actually violates all of our rules. All of them. It's a 35-foot height limit, as Council Member DuBois said. It's supposed to have probably 5,300 square feet of retail or maybe a little bit less. The maximum density is 20 units per acre. I actually think that's an indictment a little bit of the way we do our zoning for our housing. I'm assuming that this bleeds over in that if you try to bring a market rate project for it, you would also have problems doing this. It would drive a certain type of market rate housing project, which is really large units on this site. One of the things I'm struggling here is, what do we ask the applicant to do in terms of, to your question, what Zoning Code amendments do we make to bring this project forward. We're obviously not going to solve that tonight, and that's what this long preface is about. I would like their project to be able to move forward in an expeditious way. The question is can they apply for the project before we've solved this problem or do we have to solve this problem. You have to come and make the zoning amendments, and then we do it. It struck me that it's hard to apply for a project without the zoning in place. I'm going to say this as well. I suggested we get rid of the PC process in total. I can't remember if I lost that on a 6-3 vote or a 5-4 vote. The argument made against it was a good one. The sole argument against getting rid of the PC process at the time was we should use it for affordable housing projects. I think that's why at least several Council Members up here voted for that. I actually think you should use the PC process. That doesn't mean we shouldn't come back and look at these other things; I think we should, but that's a community discussion. I don't want to TRANSCRIPT Page 35 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 ram through big Zoning Code changes and choose one of these because I'm worried about expediting their project. I say it with some trepidation because I actually would rather have Zoning Code amendments than use a PC process. In this case, what we really want to do is a thoughtful community discussion regarding Zoning Code amendments frankly that apply to affordable housing but also apply to non-affordable housing to allow you to get different types of projects. If we want this project to move forward—I do—I'd like other Council Members to weigh in on this when we come back. If we use a PC process on this, then we can tailor it to this project. As Council Member Wolbach pointed out, we haven't had an affordable housing project since 2011 approved without setting precedent for the rest of the community. A number of you are concerned about precedent and what that looks like—the slippery slope argument—and I am too. I'm concerned that if we choose one of these other things, it'll be done in a manner that's not as thoughtful because we need to do it quickly because they want to move forward quickly. On the other hand, we'll have a big discussion about it, and it'll drag on, and they won't actually get to build a project. I want to see their project go forward, so I'm going to advocate, against part of my better judgment, for the PC process here. We'll come back. Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) comments or questions (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: Right now, we're transitioning, to be honest. You all spoke, and I want you to address this PC issue. That's something on this. The other questions I had were much more—on the architecture, we shouldn't concern ourselves tonight with what you drew or we should? I was unclear about that. Mr. Pyatok: I don't think you should for a couple of reasons. We haven't given it that much thought, and we haven't really worked with you, your Staff, and the community in massaging the architecture, which is really what should happen. This is more a massing and open space decision tonight and numbers of units. Mayor Scharff: The other questions I wanted to ask because I want to set the stage because I think it's really important that you all—that our fellow Council Members answer these questions. What questions do you want each Council Member to address specifically? Candice, I'd like you to say, so you get those answers by individual Council Members to those questions. Ms. Gonzalez: We'd like to know if you're open to our project including the unit count, plus or minus 61. Second, we'd like direction on what zoning to use because we have no idea; we just want to do the project. Third, we want to get your feedback on are you okay with a reduction in the retail space because that's needed to make it a viable project. TRANSCRIPT Page 36 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: What about 2.0 FAR to 2.5 FAR? Ms. Gonzalez: Right now, we can stretch it to 2.35, 2.5 to make it a more livable project. If we are going to go with the local Density Bonus Ordinance, we'd like to stretch that to up to 2.5. Four questions really. Mayor Scharff: We've got roughly 61 units, which is basically 132 units per acre concept. Then, we have the zoning, what mechanism we'll use to get there. Then, we have the 2.0 to 2.5 FAR issue, which is the more livable unit issue. Do we want a 370 unit or a 400 unit roughly? Was there one more? Ms. Gonzalez: Yes, the retail reduction. Mayor Scharff: The retail reduction. You asked another question, I thought. I think the retail component has several questions. I think the first question is are we good with roughly 5,300 to 2,400, right? Ms. Gonzalez: Yes. Mayor Scharff: You also asked the question of could retail be nonprofit space. Ms. Gonzalez: Yes. Retail and/or nonprofit space just to give us a little bit of flexibility when it's time to lease it out. Mayor Scharff: If it was nonprofit space, your intention would be to use that for your own office. Ms. Gonzalez: Probably not. Mayor Scharff: Probably not. Ms. Gonzalez: Probably not. I think 2,400 would be too small for our office. Again, based on neighborhood feedback, they don't want office there. They want it to be retail or other kind of nonprofit space. Mayor Scharff: That's good to know. I think that's my questions. Thanks. Let's go to the public. Beth Minor, City Clerk: Mayor Scharff? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Ms. Minor: There's a whole bunch of other people if you want to use what's on your screen for the names. There are more names than cards you have. TRANSCRIPT Page 37 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Yes, I can see that. Welcome, to the public. You'll each have 2 minutes. The first speaker is Justin Burt—Justine Burt. Sorry, Justine. Justine Burt: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and City Council Members. We need more low-rise, dense housing like this project. Palo Alto has not been adding its fair share of additional housing in the Bay Area. This is causing three externalities that I bet you're aware of, but I just wanted to list them here. One is more people are living in the Central Valley and super commuting in for work. I have a friend who works at NASA and who's about to buy a house 3 hours out in the Central Valley and live in his office Monday through Thursday and only see his 3-year-old son on the weekends. I lived in Fremont for 13 years before we moved here 3 years ago. I understand from friends who live in Fremont that WAYS is now routing Central Valley traffic through Fremont, which is completely congesting the city. All these people who are trying to get away from 680 are now driving through the neighborhoods in Fremont. Finally, Houston may seem far away. The flooding in Houston is half the country away, and yet we're contributing to climate change by not creating more housing here and forcing more people to commute in and create greenhouse gas emissions. In the 1990s, I lived in Austin, Texas. There was a 14-inch rain event in 24 hours in Houston. At the time, it shut down the City and devastated this. This storm is projected to have 3 times the amount of rain. Our housing decisions here in Palo Alto are affecting other communities in Fremont, in the Central Valley, in Houston. Something as little as adding more housing like this would help. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Amie Ashton to be followed by Linnea Wickstrom. Amie Ashton: Hi. I just wanted to come out and support this project tonight. It gives us so much housing bang for our buck. It's just exciting to see, especially given that the folks that would live here would likely be low income and/or disabled seniors. Having them be so close to transit and services and retails is just ideal. I felt like I had a moral imperative to come out and support this project tonight. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Linnea Wickstrom to be followed by Ellen Forbes. Linnea Wickstrom: Good evening, Council Members. I turn up every time there's housing for developmental disabilities under consideration. I was hoping for a little more than 25 percent, but I'm happy to have that because any slot for developmental disabilities is important to those of us who have children in that classification. This looks to me like a prime spot for affordable housing for a lot of lower income people. It's right on El Camino, close to services. The bus runs every 11 minutes all day, which can get people to the train station easily. It has an onsite property manager, which we have TRANSCRIPT Page 38 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 discovered is an important thing for people with developmental disabilities. It looks like it's well thought out. I know the architecture is not finalized in any way, but there's a courtyard, there's a laundry, there's a community room, and so forth. That all to me looks very promising. I want to urge the Council to support this project in every way you can, to use the most liberal FAR, height limit, parking, and density that you can and to go for the most reusable form of zoning for housing in the future. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ellen Forbes to be followed by Maria Marriott. Ellen Forbes: Good evening. I'm Second Vice President of the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto. The League of Women Voters supports City efforts to encourage the development of a subsidized low to moderate and below market rate housing by private nonprofit developers. The League also supports increasing multifamily units with access to public transportation along the transportation corridors. For these reasons, we encourage you to provide positive direction to the nonprofit Palo Alto Housing, PAH, in support of the development of at least 61, small, low-income units on this site. Land appropriate for multi-housing units is scarce in Palo Alto. This site, although small, is a good one for it's on a bus transit corridor, it's near many services, and it's not directly adjacent to single-family homes. We encourage you to remove all regulatory obstacles to this project and make any Zoning Code and Comp Plan changes necessary to optimize the economical development of this project for low-income individuals. This is a special opportunity for the Council to use a PC process for 100-percent affordable housing projects. Please do not impose any requirements on the project that would jeopardize Palo Alto Housing's ability to obtain financing or which would make the project economically infeasible. By ensuring that this affordable housing project can be built economically without over burdensome restrictions, you make a step toward fulfilling one of the Council's five top priorities, housing. In the past, Palo Alto has been a leader in the provision of affordable housing. Now is the time for the Council to put our City back on that track. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Gita Dedick [phonetic] and Gabby Dedick. Maria first, sorry. Maria Marriott: Hi. Hello, members. Thank you for hearing my comments tonight. My name's Maria Marriott. My husband, Mark, and I have had a home in Palo Alto since 1985. My son was born in 1998, and he has autism spectrum disorder. He has gone to elementary school, middle school, graduated from Palo Alto High School. This community is his home. He would really like to be independent, but for him to do that he really needs to stay in his community and have affordable housing. He is currently working a few days a week at Whole Foods. He's practicing living skills like walking to work and biking to work. To take him out of his community and put him somewhere TRANSCRIPT Page 39 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 else, where affordable housing's available, would make him start back at ground zero with learning all of those skills. He's part of this community. He would also lose all of those relationships and friendships with store owners and librarians and teachers over the years that he knows and that know him. He still goes back and visits his elementary school teachers. I really urge you to think about all the members of this community and how important it is to provide for everyone and not just the people who are at the top. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Gita Dedick and Gabby Dedick to be followed by Jan Stokely. Jan Stokley: Good evening. Gita and Gabby had to leave, so I'm jumping the line. I'm Jan Stokley with Housing Choices. We're a nonprofit organization that supports the creation of quality affordable housing for people with developmental disabilities. You've heard from a couple of parents of adults with developmental disabilities already. What I wanted to do was just give you a little bit more picture of the need here in Palo Alto so that you would understand the significance of this project. Basically, we're really asking you to make a stretch to make a difference. The difference is the ability of a growing number of adults with development disabilities here in Palo Alto who are living at home with aging parents. The number of adults with developmental disabilities here in Palo Alto who are still living at home with their parents has doubled in the last decade. There are some demographic reasons for that, and the number is just going to grow in the years ahead. The reality is there are only 40 adults with developmental disabilities who are able to live in their own apartment here in Palo Alto compared to 165 who are living at home with older parents. The reason for that is the lack of affordable housing. There is one property here in Palo Alto called Page Mill Courts that provides 24 units of housing for people with developmental disabilities. There are 16 adults who have managed to wait the 5-7 years on Palo Alto Housing Corp.'s wait list and compete with the larger population to get housed. The number is large, and it's getting bigger, and it's a very vulnerable population at both generations. Finally, I wanted to comment that we have a lot of experience supporting adults with developmental disabilities to live in their own housing. This property would have studio apartments for adults with developmental disabilities. Those would be mostly one person, adult households. Those folks don't drive, and they don't own cars. I hope that helps with the analysis of the parking. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ron Hall to be followed by Winter Dellenbach. Ron Hall: Council, Staff, Ron Hall. I live on Channing. I was born in Palo Alto in the '40s. I've lived most of my life in Palo Alto. Palo Alto during and after the war allowed the subdivision and breakup of larger homes in order to accommodate the workers that were needed here, the soldiers that were TRANSCRIPT Page 40 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 coming back, the people that wanted to stay here. In the '50s, '60s, and '70s, Stanford University housed a great majority of their students in Palo Alto. The City accommodated them; they allowed these various types of affordable housing. In the '70s, the Housing Corporation was formed using bonds, using tax credits, and using the PC. In the PC Ordinance—most of the affordable units in Palo Alto have been developed with a PC. What I want to do is urge the Council to come up with a process not only for this project but for any affordable housing project. The need in the area and the need in Palo Alto is extreme. It's easy to do. All you have to do is commit to do it. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Winter Dellenbach to be followed by Becky Sanders. Winter Dellenbach: I have been an advocate for all BMR projects for decades in this town. I really want to support this project, but I don't support BMR projects or any other projects in a pre-review situation because there's just too much yet to know. I have met with Palo Alto Housing about this project, talked to them on the phone, and been to the site because it's not that far from where I live. I know quite a lot about it, and I have a lot of questions. This is a heavy lift. I'm very sensitive about that. I'm hoping this can be built some way. I'm hoping it can. I have questions; I have concerns. One of the things is I'm really hoping that this doesn't come in under a PC. I think a PC— all this does, Mayor Scharff, is politicize it. If you want a lot of people upset in this town, just bring it in under a PC. That's the last thing we need, a lot of upset around this project because this project deserves not a lot of upset. That just opens a Pandora's box back where we were, offices, R&D, all kinds of other stuff getting attached to a PC. Please don't do that. Retail is easier to think about being an exception to equaling retail if there weren't so many, we weren't losing neighborhood-serving retail through lack of sensible Code enforcement. That is hard. That doesn't go to Palo Alto Housing; that's not their fault. We need to be sure that Code enforcement is doing a good job in saving our retail in that neighborhood. The parking issue, this is good with the adult disabled. If seniors were there, that helps with the parking because parking is going to be an issue there. One last thing I want to say, I know the architect. There is no better architect probably on planet Earth to design this. He's won an award for his affordable housing design, and it is going to be fantastic if this gets built. I hope that this can get worked out one way or another, and that the Ventura neighbors are well served by this project. Let's all work on this. Mayor Scharff: Becky Sanders to be followed by Lenny Siegel. Becky Sanders: Good evening, Council Members. Thank you very much for your service. I'm Becky Sanders; I'm head of the Ventura Neighborhood TRANSCRIPT Page 41 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Association. We haven't had any meetings this summer. We've been on vacation. One of our members did speak to representatives of the development, of PAHC. He did report to them that we are passionate for affordable housing because we ourselves are getting priced out in Ventura. We're ground zero as well. We also have a very strong cultural bias and mix of opinions about massing and scale and height. We have lots of difference of opinion. Please don't think that everyone in Ventura is cool. The height is a real problem for us. I feel concern. They claim it's 150 feet from a residential zone. That's not true. I think it's like 80 feet or something. There are some multiunit buildings right behind it that are two stories high. I think they should be afforded the same accommodations that—oh, my gosh. I'm supposed to sum up. They should not get treated differently because they are not single-family homes. Parking, developmentally disabled people are going to have caregivers and people visiting them. I think that goes with the territory. We have a parking crisis in Ventura right now. A loss of retail, that is our downtown. Maybe a lot of people don't shop in El Camino around there, but that's actually our downtown. That is the biggest concern I've heard, the loss of retail. We're getting kind of ghetto-ized there a little bit or some kind of—that doesn't sound right. Anything else? Playing fast and loose with Building Codes is very tiresome for residents. We just never know what to expect. Thank you very much. Size and massing is a real problem, height, etc. For me, it's not a slam dunk. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Lenny Siegel to be followed by Bob Moss. Lenny Siegel: Good evening. Though I currently serve as Vice Mayor of Mountain View, I'm here speaking as an individual. Where does the Palo Alto Housing Corporation build housing? In Mountain View. You've heard about the project at 1701 El Camino. They've recently procured property near one of our employment centers for two additional projects. I'm here tonight to invite you to join us and return to your history of building affordable housing at a time when all of our communities really need it. We've seen it with all the people commuting great distances, with people who have jobs living in vehicles in our communities. We all need the housing. Again, we invite you to join us in providing it. In addition to the housing being built by Palo Alto Housing in El Camino, nearby there's a recently opened project for the developmentally disabled, 27 units. They don't drive, most of them. Some of them have jobs, and El Camino is the place to be for people around here who don't have cars. It's the best access to transit, local transit, that we have. Unfortunately, that means the property is more expensive. The project at 1701 El Camino, I believe the property cost something like $5 million for half an acre. When you have those kinds of land costs, it affects all of us, of course, but it means you need to have enough units to divide the cost, to be able to finance the projects. Think about what it takes in this high land cost, TRANSCRIPT Page 42 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 housing shortage climate, what you need to provide for our communities. This is the kind of project that our communities need. That's why Mountain View broke ground just a few months ago on a similar project. Our project is targeted half to veterans, but we can do projects for all kinds of populations in Mountain View. We hope you can join us in doing this as well and sending a signal to the builders, not just Palo Alto Housing but other nonprofit developers, that Palo Alto is again open for affordable housing development. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Bob Moss to be followed by Anita Lusebrink. Bob Moss: Thank you, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I have a little different viewpoint on this project. I urge you to deny it as proposed. It violates the Comprehensive Plan, the Zoning Ordinance, the CN Ordinance, and land use requirements for El Camino. I'm very familiar with that because I was one of the people that created the CN zone and the El Camino Design Guidelines. When the Housing Corporation bought this site, they knew what the zoning was. To come in with a project, which is four times the allowed density, four times the allowed FAR—pardon me, six times the allowed density—the allowed density is 20 units. They're coming in with 132. It ignores the fact that it's incompatible with the adjacent (inaudible) and development projects. If they wanted to build housing over the CN zone, that's allowed. They could build 25 or 30 units, and I wouldn't have any problem with that, but keep the ground-floor retail, retail. That's what we need along El Camino. We don't need to use part of the retail space for mail rooms or storage or a lobby. We need it to be retail because that's what we need along El Camino in order to make it a walkable area that the people in the neighborhood can come to and shop. This project is inappropriate. It violates things that we have been doing for decades. It is not what we need or what we want. I hope you're worthy enough to reject it as proposed. Mayor Scharff: Anita Lusebrink to be followed by Stephen Levy. Anita Lusebrink: Good evening. My name is Anita Lusebrink. Just a quick addendum to the last speaker. These are extraordinary times and call for extraordinary measures. I don't think this is really a very typical time to pull back. We really have to think outside the box. I'm representing our Palo Alto- based family in support of the proposed development for 100-percent low- income apartments at 3709 El Camino, which would include a set-aside of some units for people with developmental disabilities. I know it's highly unlikely that many of the people with developmental disabilities will qualify for $30,000-$50,000 a year in income. Part of the developmental disability is that you just can't do quite as much as others. Anyway, most of you have heard our family story before because my niece and I have come here, and TRANSCRIPT Page 43 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 I've come here several times supporting affordable housing. My niece is now 22, and she's living in—she wants to, and we want her to live independently from the family. She's living in San Jose in an apartment with her boyfriend, which is great, but she's afraid to leave the apartment because of the neighborhood. It's downtown San Jose, south of 280. By herself—she goes out with her boyfriend. It's also an hour and a half bus ride to get up here to where our family is. Thank goodness I have a car. I go down and visit her and was helping her clean her apartment actually today. It's pretty clear that she would be better being near a familiar network of relatives and resources and also to safely access public transportation. There are multiple stories of many different people that have developmental disabilities, elderly, and such. We all need to really think outside the box. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Stephen Levy to be followed by Katie Talbot. Stephen Levy: Our daughter, Becky, was a special needs child and adult 20 years ago in our community at the special education program and at Special Olympics. We knew people waiting for the Page Mill Court. It can only be worse now. These are precious opportunities. This is a site that is safe, that allows parents with developmentally disabled or special need adults to have a measure of independence in a community. There will be enough people there. With access to buses and bikes, they can go many places on the El Camino corridor. As the Mayor said, you face some public policy challenges much like you did—I forget—last week or the week before with First Baptist Church. We have a clear community need, a clear public interest. They have reached out to the neighbors as the church did at First Baptist. As the Mayor said, I think it's time to make the zoning positive for this project. Go for the gold; remember the financial constraints. If you load it up with all sorts of things, the project goes away. Respect the economics, and make these people proud that you have given their children a space and the low-income workers a space. Go for the gold. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Katie Talbot to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Katie Talbot: I came to speak strongly in support of this project. As the mother of a developmentally disabled teenager, of which there are a vast number in Palo Alto, I'll get to the numbers in a second. I look forward to the time, since this is my home and this is his home, when he will be able to live independently in an apartment of his own. We are very fortunate that he is developmentally disabled and of limited abilities but able to live on his own. This would be the perfect place to house him, not that I have any hope that he would get in there because he would be one of 400 people with developmental disabilities in Palo Alto who need housing. The need is desperate, and it would serve both the people with disabilities and their TRANSCRIPT Page 44 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 families. It is critically important for both that this housing be generated. Last thing. Thank you, guys, for developing this project. If I was on the City Council, I would certainly vote for it. I'll have to run for office next time. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Rita Vrhel to be followed by Randy Mont-Reynaud. Rita Vrhel: This is really a tough call. What I'm seeing more and more in Palo Alto—I think you'll see it with the VTA parcel coming up fairly soon—is that property is bought when it is zoned for a specific purpose. The zoning is clearly known by all who buy the property. Then, there is a request, which seems to be recurring more and more often, to redo the zoning just for this property. Obviously, the Housing Corp. is serving a good purpose. We're not going to be able to build homes for everyone who has a job in Palo Alto because we have way too many jobs. Certainly, the most vulnerable of our population are best served by an organization such as the Housing Corp. Why are the citizens of Palo Alto put into this no-win situation? I think it's really disingenuous to say we're doing our best, and you only have to do a rezone for us. What about the 20-30 neighbors who are going to be the most impacted and who the Housing Corp. correctly has spoken to and reduced their project? Most of us in the audience are not going to be impacted. I don't know the right answer, but I do feel that a PC project like we have down on Edgewood Plaza, where the builder walked off with all that money and continues not to pay their fines, and we don't yet have a grocery store; although, we're promised one pretty soon, is not the way to go. I don't know what to think. Good luck. Mayor Scharff: Randy Mont-Reynaud to be followed by Rebecca Parker Mankey. Randy Mont-Reynaud: Good evening. Condoleezza Rice is no longer my neighbor; although, once we would borrow a cup of sugar from her when I lived up at the Stanford faculty ghetto for a number of years. Since then, I've been renting in Palo Alto for about 25 years, and I've been on your housing list for much of that time. Mayor Scharff, as you mentioned, reserving or preserving sites for non-affordable housing, surely most of us here would agree that we certainly have enough non-affordable housing in Palo Alto. This is an excellent, replicable model, replicable. Let's give it a chance. I would urge Mayor and Council to move heaven and earth, brick and mortar, and bend whatever rules, height, and zoning to be more in compliance and respond to need and not greed here in Palo Alto. Mr. Moss, regarding your comments about retail being available so neighbors could shop, folks paying the high cost for housing here will be unlikely to have any discretionary income to shop along El Camino. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 45 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Rebecca Parker Mankey. Rebecca Parker Mankey: Hello. I came here, and I am completely ill prepared to speak because I was going to listen. I am a Palo Altan, born and bred, used to spend my allowance at Future Fantasy and, like every good Palo Altan, as I'm sure all of you know and everyone here knows, I have an opinion. Here's my opinion. I live on Ventura; I have lived there for years. I don't really think retail is that important. I'm sorry to contradict people, but we'll just end up with another restaurant that I can't afford. I'd rather have more neighbors. We need housing more than we need restaurants. Let's face it. We can all find somewhere to eat. I also just wanted to say thank you. I think this project is a great idea. We need more housing in Palo Alto, affordable, non-affordable. More people are going to move here, and the only way to go is up. It's simple physics. Thank you. You can tell I'm a little nervous probably. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we'll come back to the Council. Vice Mayor Kniss. Is there somebody else who wanted to speak? Why don't you just come up and speak? Just come on up and speak. Just state your name for the Clerk. Stephanie Munoz: Thank you very much, Mayor Scharff. It may seem superfluous to have one more person up here saying that we need affordable housing and we have to go up and that you will have to insist that large companies provide some housing for their employees because you cannot dump all those workers out on the open market and just force out everybody else from town. I think you could help yourselves by using your privilege or your right to add height or add density in favor of affordable housing and not for the use of more commercial development. I'm sure that there is some number of single seniors in an SRO that could make a profit, not a big profit, or at least pay its own way on a home. I'm working on getting a little model of how beautiful that could be. What I need to tell you is that there's a price to pay for having Palo Alto, ginger peachy, rich, rich, rich. I've been taking the bus, and the worst thing about the bus is at midnight, when the bus gets to Palo Alto, the 22, they make the homeless people who have been riding the bus and have paid—they have a pass—get out in the middle of the night—get up; time to get up; out now—and wait while the bus goes around a little (inaudible). I'm thinking my taxes are paying for just wanton cruelty. It just seems to me that that is unworthy of this town, unworthy of me as a taxpayer and a citizen, and unworthy of all of you. I think you should do something and make them not do that. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss. TRANSCRIPT Page 46 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: Annette, did you want to speak on this? Annette: I did, but I don't think (inaudible). Vice Mayor Kniss: Welcome in any event. Am I on? Mayor Scharff: You are on. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me make a couple of comments and then go backwards. It's very frustrating. Most of you know there was a very lively election last year. There is absolutely no question that the front and center issue of that election was affordability, was housing affordability and housing. No question. It's out there. I still have all the brochures and happened to be looking at them today. The question, then, is how do we get out of the logjam we're in, which is looking at three options in front of us, that talk about how can we discuss zoning without discussing zoning apparently because zoning has become an electrified word. It's one that's difficult to deal with. Having said that, let me go back in time and ask a couple of questions of Planning. Way back when, this is in February 2014. We got a Staff presentation regarding PC district, requesting Council place a timeout on PC projects to allow examination of potential alternatives and so forth and reforms. The report included a brief history of PC districts, the PC zoning procedures, information on one pipeline project, and so forth and so on. As I read it here, I'm going to presume it's still in place. This was the recommendation: defer request for rezoning until the process and requirements, regulation of PC zone in Chapter 18.38 of the Municipal Code are revised, and direct the Staff to return to Council with an analysis, and so forth and so on. Now, I don't recall that much has happened since then. Am I correct? Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Vice Mayor Kniss. I think subsequent to the report that you're reading from we did some work with the Planning and Transportation Commission and did come back to Council with some options. I'd have to research exactly when that was. I could find the Staff Report and get that to you at a later date. Vice Mayor Kniss: That would indicate in some way we are in a timeout. We didn't get rid of PC zoning totally. Ms. Gitelman: That's correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's correct. What we're talking about tonight is a suspended-in-time PC Ordinance. I also recall, talking with previous people who sat here, almost all of our affordable housing in this community is the result of some kind of Planned Community zoning. Would either of you disagree with that? TRANSCRIPT Page 47 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Ms. Gitelman: I think that's correct. I don't have the figures in front of me, but I think that's correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: I may have heard, In fact, former Mayor Burt at one point talk about 80 percent if not higher. That puts us … Mayor Scharff: (inaudible) Alma. Vice Mayor Kniss: Pardon? Mayor Scharff: Except 801 Alma. Vice Mayor Kniss: Except 801 Alma, right. Current Mayor Scharff has corrected me. That's correct. The question is, if we really believe in affordable housing and it needs to be built somewhere, where is that somewhere going to be. Tonight we have an option, apparently not perfect, not what everybody in the neighborhood wants. You've asked us, Candice and others, to respond to this and suggest where we go next. As far as retail space, I'm hearing two things. More people seem to want retail space than not want it. I have a feeling that that's not going to be a hot commodity for retail. There's a Starbucks that's just closed. Maybe they'd like to reopen on El Camino, always a possibility. As far as the 2.5, I could live with that. I really think that's one that you're going to have to move around with as you continue to redesign this. You asked about the zoning. I think that's the issue that I have to address pretty directly. Retail space, FAR, zoning, was there one more question that you guys wanted to have answered? Ms. Gonzalez: If you're comfortable with the unit count, plus or minus 61, plus if it could be retail or nonprofit space. Vice Mayor Kniss: I am fine with retail or nonprofit. I'd be interested in hearing more about what the neighborhood thinks of as an appropriate nonprofit versus a retail. I think those are my answers. If we don't take advantage of what we have before us tonight, we're now looking—we're heading back toward 10 years of not having a project that has been approved for affordable housing in Palo Alto. Even if we were to approve this one, it certainly is a year or two before it's built. Am I correct, Candice? I'm guessing it's in—it's a long time from start to finish on any of our projects. This is just a beginning. I urge my fellow Council Members to look positively at this, to find a way that we can make this happen. We may not make everyone happy. Our goal, I hope, is to make 51 percent happy in such a way that we can actually go forward with it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. TRANSCRIPT Page 48 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Holman: We were at questions earlier, so I didn't thank you for bringing this forward. I do thank you for doing that. I've been a supporter of Palo Alto Housing for many, many years and continue to be so. This is, as some of the speakers indicated, one of those—it's kind of a good versus good proposal. The retail is really important, and I know that presents a challenge. If it was—it's retail or retail like. You can work with City Staff to identify some of the other possibilities there. What you have talked about in terms of art studio, gallery there, could it seems to me satisfy that. What you're looking for is something that really invites the public in, that it's available to the general public to access to be able to shop, get information, be entertained, that sort of thing. It's not specifically retail. I know this one is a bit of a challenge, but I'm also sensitive to the neighborhood. This is not an area that has a lot of retail resources for the neighborhood. It's really important for them. This is their shopping center. That one, I am sensitive to. Could there be a little bit of flexibility of square footage? It kind of opens a Pandora's box, but we'll see. What zoning? I have a question for Staff. If we went for my personal preference, which is the affordable housing combining district, how long would it take Staff to develop that? With any of these, there would have to be some kind of constraints also. In this situation, it's blah, blah, blah. There'd have to be some constraints. How long would it take? I guess a better way to frame it is how soon could Staff come back with an affordable housing overlay. Ms. Gitelman: I think we'll give that some thought. Our expectation is that we could certainly do that concurrently with the processing of this application. In the time it takes Palo Alto Housing to perfect their application, put it on file, and for us to do the analysis and prepare for a hearing on that application, we could be concurrently working on a zoning regime that would allow it to proceed. Council Member Holman: That would be my strong preference, my really very strong preference. The reasons are pretty simple. I hear the arguments about PC. There's one of the people who was arguing about not eliminating it when we were talking about the PC in the past because most of our affordable housing projects have been PCs. One of the reasons, if not the most important reason, for me to support the Option 2 of developing an affordable housing overlay is because there's some element and some aspect of predictability for it for both the applicant and the community. A PC is really a wild card. There are very different requirements for an affordable housing or BMR housing project having to do with parking requirements and densities that could be better addressed in a more—don't want to use the word concrete, but a more refined way than if we went the PC route. That is my strong preference. I guess I have one more question for—if I could ask one more question of the applicant, through the Chair. Could I ask one more question of the applicant? TRANSCRIPT Page 49 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Council Member Holman: Candice, could you answer? If some of us wanted to put priorities in terms of access, could the priorities be live and work in Palo Alto, live in Palo Alto, work in Palo Alto? Is that possible too? Ms. Gonzalez: It is possible. It's really up to the city that's one of our main funding sources. The City can set its preference list. Council Member Holman: Hillary. Ms. Gitelman: We'll have to look at the guidelines that govern our Housing Fund; we could do that concurrent with any request for funding. Council Member Holman: Let me just state that that's my preference. First would be live and work in Palo Alto, then live in Palo Alto currently, and then work in Palo Alto. The density, I have no issue with the density. I have no concerns about that. The floor area ratio, 2.0 is—we have a hard time getting—it's a different kind of project. We have a hard time getting 2.0 hotels to fit in. One of the things I've spoken about with the Housing Corp. for many, many years is I think this community really very much supports affordable housing, BMR housing projects. People also have a right to expect projects and proposals that fit in the context. I have a lot of confidence in your architect. Floor area ratio can look very different if it's in the right hands in terms of the design model. I know it's just like mass and scale of these models. I'd be amenable to a higher FAR if the product was transitional and complementary to the surroundings. In your hands, you could do that. Otherwise, with some other developer and architect I'd probably be saying stick with the 2.0. That's because a lot of our architecture coming forward these days is lacking in creativity and very much too boxy and staid. In your hands, you could make something that would be much more pleasing and acceptable. I know in doing this you've already reached out to the neighborhood that you will work with them in doing this as well. I support what Council Member DuBois said earlier about the loading space. I think it'd be better on the alley. I also, since there were questions earlier, will support some of the studios for artists, but I spoke to that with the gallery and studio space too. Let's see. One other question. Could the units be a mix of developmentally disabled and seniors? Is that a mix that works? Ms. Gonzalez: It doesn't quite work for tax credit purposes because you have to apply for either a 100-percent affordable senior project or a general population, which does allow a little bit of a mix. Again, the general population will be open to seniors as well. TRANSCRIPT Page 50 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Holman: I think that satisfies my comments with one more coming. I would like to suggest to Staff that, if what goes forward is the Option 2 with an affordable housing combining district, the Staff hold a well- publicized community workshop where the public can be involved in the development of those standards, give input on those, and also look for some other locations where the overlay might be applicable. I have a hard time with saying, "We have this overlay, and we're going to stick it over here." Somebody's going to come along, and we're going to stick it over there too without any kind of context or pre-thought about that. Half a second, there was one thing. There was one other thing that was clicking to the top here. I do want to thank you for the community garden. I definitely want to thank you for doing that. It really is a healthy thing. Vice Mayor Kniss and I work on the Healthy City Healthy Community proposal. I think it is absolutely a health thing. It's an enjoyment thing; it's a happiness thing. I absolutely appreciate that. I guess the other thing I was going to mention has slipped out of my head and didn't make it into my notes. I'll have to stop there. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Who wants to go next? Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Everybody wants to wait 'til the end. Thank you, folks, very much for coming in here with this. Let's see. I want to talk a little bit about—we're not asked to do a thumbs up or thumbs down tonight, so I want to talk a little bit about what I like and don't like about it. After that, I want to talk a little bit about—comment on the options. What I really like about this is it's affordable housing. We're not talking about $2,000 a month studios here, micro unit studios. This actually is affordable, so that's good. Too many times we talk about affordable housing; it's not affordable. This actually is; that's good. Let's see. Per Director Gitelman's number, 2,260, it looks like below market rate housing in our City is currently maybe 9 percent of our total City stock, or something like that, but we could use some more. That's good. I like the wait list criteria. That's a positive thing. I want to do things for Palo Altans and people who work here. I do like that it's under 50 feet, but I don't like that it's over 35, if that makes sense. I like that it's got retail. I don't like the reduction, and I concur with the Mayor that it should be retail, not nonprofits. Let's see. What I don't like—RM-120 is basically what we're talking here. I guess that's sort of—it's more like a head scratch. I don't exactly know how to think about RM-120. That's four times denser than anything we've got in town. We should think about that before we do that. Let's see. The height and mass, it's quite a bit bigger than anything else nearby, including the neighborhood behind it. I understand why residents are scratching their head about that too. On the FAR, I don't see how you get beyond 2.0 without actually increasing the height and mass issues. It pretty much covers the whole lot as it is, and it's almost 50 feet high. I do TRANSCRIPT Page 51 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 understand the economic challenges involved around the density. At some level, it's all a tradeoff between how much money can we raise—I'm not saying that's easy. That's very hard, and you folks are wizards at it. How much money we can raise versus the density. The economics would be even better at 100 feet tall and if it had 200 units in it. We're not talking about that. I don't like the height and the mass. The design I understand we're not rendering judgment on, so I won't say much about that other than to say it's a box. There's open questions about the parking. I understand the argument about disabled folks and the target demographic might not use cars. That's sensible; I think there's still questions about it. One of the issues we ought to consider is if and when this comes back what you don't want to do is say, "It's not going to need this much parking," and then it is, and it all ends up in the neighborhood, which already has a parking problem. How this works relative to an RPPP, if there is one in the surrounding neighborhood, is going to be a relevant part of the parking puzzle. I would like to see a project like this here. There are still a fair number of questions on this one. I wish it was two stories or maybe three. I would like to see a project like this here. Again, questions. We heard the neighbors love it. That's probably a little bit premature. One more thing, I'm going to branch a little bit and come back to the options here. As the Mayor pointed out, this breaks basically every Code we have. I'm not quite sure how to deal with that too. We're saying, "It's a special case; our Codes don't matter." Actually, we've got to parse all that. I do want to single out one Code, which is this open space code. The report says it's got 6,800 square feet of open space, which is actually a little bit below the Code requirement, but that's what it's got. Yet, as we heard earlier, something like 70 percent of that space doesn't work as open space, doesn't have the drainage, doesn't do the landscapes. Obviously, Staff knows that. I think our interpretation of "open space" spec in this case is maybe a little too flexible. If the reality is 2,000 square feet of open space, then we ought to say it's 2,000 square feet of open space and make a judgment on that, not redefine other stuff as that. This issue might even possibly come back later this evening when we talk about design exceptions. On options, I personally am uncomfortable with a PC, which is the wild, wild west. We're saying we're going to constrain it very carefully. If we constrain it carefully—this is a very narrow case we're talking about—then it starts to look like some of the other options. We should establish a framework that we can use to apply to other projects like this. That's what we should do. We talked about it as far as back as 2005 apparently, well before my time. That's how we should do this kind of thing. I do understand the "let's just do it" motivation. Frankly, some of that is one of the things that contributed to our City's negative experience with PCs in the past. I would favor the overlay or possibly Option 1. I don't know enough about it. We could do that in concert with a project here and, in fact, these things may even work better if they've got a project guiding TRANSCRIPT Page 52 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 along as opposed to being done in the abstract. That would be my preference. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I just want to say thank you to Palo Alto Housing Corp. I do appreciate greatly the transparent process that you're providing this time around and that you've reached out to the community, at least the community leaders in order to get the assessment of what is acceptable or not. I would like to see more community meetings, inviting the entire community into a meeting to see the plans and to get their feedback on what is acceptable in their neighborhood. I am very encouraged by your architect. I've seen his work. Like one of the speakers said, he's done beautiful work, and he has incorporated buildings into the natural setting and has not made it big and without any nice designs that fit into the community. I would like to see that this project more integrated into the community rather than forcing itself upon the community. I hope that comes along. Of course, I'm very, very pleased to see that this property is not located on a Safe Routes to School street. During the elections, there was a lot of talk about affordable housing. There is the definition of affordable for truly affordable housing which equals the subsidized housing which equals to low-income housing, and there's the affordable. I do appreciate that we adhere to that description, and it is welcomed. I welcome it. I agree that we need more of those affordability housing here, especially that this particular development also includes units for the disabled population. I wish we can see more of it in this development, but I also understand that there's a difficulty there with funding and making it work. I do leave that up to you. I'm glad to see it there, and it really does help with the decision. I also appreciate many of the speakers having spoken about throwing regulations out the window. However, unfortunately I don't have the luxury to do that. We do have to proceed with sort of caution, especially since I can't quite view this particular development as the one and only coming down the queue. There are quite a few. Just taking a quick count, I can tell you that there's about 11 or so that are just south of El Camino on El Camino. I can name those for you. There's 3001 El Camino Real. There's 3200 El Camino Real. There's 3225 El Camino Real, 3265 El Camino Real, 3401 El Camino Real that has had a change. It's a CN zone, which is supposed to be community-serving, but the permit has been changed to a headquarters for a tech office overseas. That's something that we need to ensure that we retain retail within this area. There's also 3585 El Camino Real, 3709 El Camino Real, which is this particular project, 3877 El Camino Real, and there are quite a few others that are off El Camino Real. We have already 441 Page Mill that is starting to be built. There's the Olive Garden site. There's also the VTA site that's coming up, that somebody spoke about earlier. There are plenty of projects coming up along that area, south of El TRANSCRIPT Page 53 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Camino. We can't just look at this particular project and throw out regulations. Not saying that I'm not supportive of it; I am. However, this is something that we have to do with caution. When you asked if I'm open to a project count at 61 units, yes, I can be open to that. Feedback on the retail reduction. I find retail is important. You do have to come up with a creative method. I think I did get some choices when we had a conversation, a meeting, with Danny Ross. Of course, what you've said about the art gallery is another possibility. There is possibility; you just have to be creative to find it. It has to be community-serving, so that's a very important aspect with all the different developments coming up. I didn't even mention the Fry's location. Let me just put that in as well. Increasing the FAR, at this point what you have is already way and beyond. This is something that might be acceptable, but I don't really know if I can accept the higher ones. As for how do we make this happen on zoning, the PC process has been there before. Unfortunately, while there was a lot of benefits to the PC process, it was also pretty much abused and manipulated. At the end of the day, I don't think it served the affordable housing folks any good since it did cause the community to have distrust and have a divide. I would really hope to see in this process that we do come together in an open and transparent way in moving forward, ensuring that we can make this happen. I am open to Option Number 2 by Staff. Thank you. I do look forward to hearing more from you when you come back, especially with a pro forma report showing how you're going to make it happen with the tax credits. I do wish that you did support the development impact fees on the increase so that we could potentially have more funding for you through our Housing Fund, but it is what it is. It would be great if you can come back also when you do come back that you can give us a breakdown on how—I don't know if you can do this. What are your AMI levels for each of the different groups that comes in? If that's possible, it'll be really nice to know. I would really like to see that it is for Palo Altans who do work and can live here. That's some of my preferences. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Thanks again for the presentation. Thank you for bringing forward this proposal for prescreening, so we can take a look at it and provide our comments early on. Thank you all so very much to members of the public who spoke. It's not a scientific sample, I know. If you're able and if you're comfortable, for everybody who is at least tentatively open to this project moving forward, if you could stand or raise your hand if you're comfortable, for anyone in the room who is open to this proposal or enthusiastic about this proposal. Anyone in favor. I see a lot of hands, and I know a lot of people here weren't here to speak on this topic at all. We did hear a couple of people raise oppositional concerns or just concerns that they'd like to see addressed as this moves forward. I do think it's noteworthy that TRANSCRIPT Page 54 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 the vast majority of the comments we've received and that we've heard tonight have been either tentatively or strongly in favor of this project or something even more dense. I'm going to run through the key questions that you asked for our feedback on and then add a couple other thoughts as well. For the process of how we move forward with zoning that would work here, Council Member Filseth talked about a framework. I actually really agree with that. My personal preference would probably be for Option 1 followed by Option 2 and then a more distance third, Option 3. I'm not enthusiastic about using PCs. I campaigned against them. I don't think they're a process that has the trust of the community. I understand the arguments in favor. If we can move forward with developing a local alternative to the State Density Bonus Law that could be applied and we would use that as a framework in the future, that would be preferable. If we did an overlay in a way that's not spot but is more predictable for the community and for future applicants or Palo Alto Housing if they propose another project in the future, that would be preferable over a PC. The PC is my more distant third in preference. I would essentially rank them in the order that they're presented here by Staff, one, two, then three. On the FAR, the 2.5 is just fine. I would be comfortable with higher probably, but that's the ask, 2.5. I would be comfortable with that. When it comes to space on the ground floor and what that's utilized for, I think it was Council Member Holman that talked about—forgive me if I'm misattributing it—wanting to make sure people feel welcome, the public feels like they can participate, adding a place where the community can come, a sense of liveliness. For that reason, I'm open to a lot of flexibility here. Whether it's retail or nonprofit or a mix of the two or allowing flexibility so that the building manager, depending on where the market is at a particular time, can shift some of the space from retail to nonprofit space or back, I'd be fine with that. If there was an option, whether it's directly by Palo Alto Housing or by a nonprofit that's providing it, to have community meeting space that members of the community, community groups could rent out for free or an extremely low price even if it's just an office. A lot of community groups, nonprofits need a place where they can meet once a week or once a month for their board, things like that. That's the kind of thing—just adding that as an example of the kinds of flexibility. I'm not asking for that as a specific demand or expectation. Those are the kinds of things that I'm open to. If it provides something that the community can come to, that's what's most important just to make sure that the street front doesn't feel like a dead space for the public if they're walking. We'd like El Camino to be a more walkable area and a friendly walkable area. When it comes to unit density, 60 units or more is preferable. On the question of what the highest density we have in town is, I can never remember off the top of my head. I don't know if anyone else or Staff has it. I'm trying to remember what the density is of the President Hotel. I'm pretty sure it's more than 60 units an acre. If anyone has that, feel free to throw that out. On this question of whether this breaks the Code, TRANSCRIPT Page 55 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 frankly our Code is broken. We've known that about affordable housing for a while. That's why we spent a lot of time in our Comprehensive Plan discussions talking about what kinds of changes do we want to look for in the future to allow affordable housing to happen in a way that is consistent with the Code. That means how do we change our Codes to enable and encourage more affordable housing. That's something we've been talking about for a while. This project, to me, is merely a reminder of how much we need to prioritize that discussion. That's, again, why I look at Option 1 and Option 2 as my preferences. It's also why—there's at least one Colleagues' Memo, I know, in the works talking about let's move some of this stuff forward. I want to point—changing gears slightly—people to the letter we got from Paul Rudy Schroeder [phonetic]. He was the former property owner; he sold it to Palo Alto Housing. My understanding is he sold it with the hope and expectation it would become affordable housing. He's the guy who runs the coin—I think he runs the coin and stamp shop there. He's enthusiastic about it. That says a lot. He's supportive. I appreciate that he sent that letter in. A couple of comments to Staff. This is important when we're talking about both truly affordable and also more reasonably priced market rate housing. I just want to put out my own expectations of where I see the role of Staff and where the role of Council is, and just trying to make sure we're clear about that. Things I don't expect Staff to try and do. I don't expect Staff to expect a 9-0 vote all the time. I don't expect Staff to keep tough decisions away from the Council just because it might lead to a tough conversation. I definitely don't think Staff would discourage housing. I don't think Staff's role is to discourage dense housing. These are the discussions that come to Council. I don't think it's Staff's role to discourage flexibility in making either affordable or reasonably priced market rate housing pencil out. When somebody comes forward like Palo Alto Housing and says, "Here's what we think would work," I just want to make sure Staff doesn't add roadblocks or discouragement before they come to us with a prescreening. In this case, I really appreciate that the applicant has gone to the community. I do appreciate that you've gone to the community and said, "What are you comfortable with," as an early part of this conversation and that you've scaled back your project in response to the community and you've thought about the various concerns that are important, especially for the neighborhoods, in Ventura across the street. When it comes to transit, there was actually another prescreening that we had earlier this year where I expressed some skepticism and asked some questions about how viable El Camino Real was as a transit-oriented area. I may have been overly critical in my comments at that one. I just want to be clear that I've had a lot of conversations with people about El Camino and learned more about it. I appreciate the applicant talking about what El Camino provides as a transit area. El Camino Real really is one of the best transit spots or ways in the City, and that's very important. As somebody pointed out, this is an easy place to get on a bus and travel linearly up and down the Peninsula, up TRANSCRIPT Page 56 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 and down Palo Alto, or get to a train station. That's very critical especially since not everybody who lives here is going to own a car. When it comes to preferences about who gets priority, I would be hesitant to demand that people applying or to have a high priority for people who work in Palo Alto. The only reason I say that I'm less enthusiastic about that than people who already live in Palo Alto is what about the people who can't work. Either they're retired or they're disabled. I want to make sure those people aren't given a lower priority when it comes to the live/work preferences. Those are my comments on this. I do really support moving this project forward, but I really do also support Staff working to bring forward changes that would not only apply to this project but could be used as a framework for future projects. Again, I think Option 1 is the best probably, maybe followed closely by Option 2, and a distance option would be Option 3. I'm less enthusiastic about that, again. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I think Mayor Scharff said it well probably an hour ago now. I want to support this project. I hope my questions didn't come off as negative. There's just a lot to understand here. Just a side note for Staff. It'd be great, even though it's a Study Session, when these projects come to have some images of not just El Camino but the surrounding neighborhood. I've heard a lot about retail. Retail is important. To me, when we say retail, it doesn't mean traditional goods necessarily. It doesn't have to be a restaurant. I'd really like to see some creativity, if there's a way to preserve the retail space with neighborhood services. I'd love to talk to you guys offline a little bit more just to understand. It sounds like having market rate retail on the first floor may not fall into the way affordable housing is financed. If there's any way to get more creative there, I really think that's going to be the benefit to the neighborhood. It would help preserve affordable housing funds if you could charge for that retail. In general, our CN zone has been under attack. We're losing our neighborhood services. For a lot of the tradeoffs and a lot of the ways we're pushing boundaries, maybe that's the exchange, that we have some locally serving services. Along those lines, RM- 132, whatever this works out to be, is big. I'd be willing to make those tradeoffs if we could get some more of this retail and local services. I would like to see the loading zone in the alley. We're over the height limit. If there's any way you could come down to 40 feet, that would be appreciated. I agree with Council Member Filseth about being clear about open space. The Ventura neighborhood is already lacking in open space. I understand it's a tradeoff we might need to make here for affordable housing. One of the speakers said it pretty well that we want to see a successful project here. It's very early. It's hard to say I support this project without seeing a lot more of the details. I really like the focus on disabled adults. It's something we really need in Palo TRANSCRIPT Page 57 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Alto. I appreciate the approach you guys have taken. It's a very positive way that you guys have reached out to the neighborhood early on. It is putting a pretty urban building in a lower-intensity residential area. You said you were looking at fairly low rents. The buildings there are showing their age. You could really maybe revitalize this street and consider again some more creative approaches and if it's feasible to charge more for rental in the new building. For me, if the project came in pretty close to 40 feet, the retail benefits were solidified, if you can maintain the parking and the housing units at the 2.0 FAR, I think we could get the project done. You've made some good compromises behind some of the differences you probably hear in the community. Mayor Scharff: Tom, I missed it. Did you say 40 feet? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Again, I think it's a good tradeoff. In terms of legal mechanism, I'd actually really like to spend some time with Staff to really understand the pros and the cons of, say, Option 1 and Option 2. Would Option 1 allow ground-floor retail? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. All of these could be crafted to allow or require ground- floor retail. Council Member DuBois: How would Option 1—what are the pros and cons of Option 1? Ms. Gitelman: The local alternative to the State Density Bonus Ordinance is something where we could be creative and come up with something that established a framework that we think would work in a variety of locations in the City, and it wouldn't require a Map change. We would set the parameters for use of this local alternative, and it could be used on this site and then on other sites that met certain criteria when someone was proposing a 100- percent affordable project. It would be a significant incentive for a 100- percent affordable projects. The difference … Council Member DuBois: You say 100 percent, but that would be retail plus … Ms. Gitelman: Plus the ground-floor retail and parking and whatever services are provided for the residents. Council Member DuBois: Would a developer get to choose between State bonuses versus local? Ms. Gitelman: Yes. That would be the idea. This would be significant. If the current zoning allows a 1.0 FAR, this would allow the doubling of that to get TRANSCRIPT Page 58 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 to the 2.0. Whereas, the State Density Bonus is a 30-percent bonus, and it's usually done by the unit count. Council Member DuBois: It would be no size of dwelling units, just stick to the FAR? You could have as many units as you want. Ms. Gitelman: We would have to develop this framework if it's something the Council is interested in. Council Member DuBois: What are the pros and the cons to a combining district? Ms. Gitelman: The combining district is similar. We could write it any way that we like. It would be something that, when a future project comes along or for this project, you would not only have to adopt the text change to create the overlay zone, but you'd each time, like a PC, have to amend the Map. It would require an ordinance any time someone wanted to use it. We could achieve the same results. It's just in the future it's a little more process for a 100-percent affordable project. Council Member DuBois: We wouldn't update the Zoning Map and create overlays ahead of time? Ms. Gitelman: We could try and do it ahead of time or a project could come in and they could propose it like a PC. Council Member DuBois: How would it work with other overlays? Could you combine multiple overlays or you would choose one? Ms. Gitelman: Yes. We would have to work that out in the drafting, but you can have multiple overlays. Council Member DuBois: Based on what I've heard, I'm interested in Option 2. If you guys came back, it'd need to be really clear what the interactions are. It'd be simpler if you couldn't really stack up a bunch of different overlays; you just picked one, and that was the one you worked with. I agree with my colleagues who suggested that maybe we should avoid the PC zone. I don't want to see another project fail from community concerns. I really think we need to find a real winner of a project and get the community behind it. Again, I would lean towards Option 2. I just want to say I appreciate Palo Alto Housing Corp.'s approach, again. I think you've been sensitive, you've listened to the neighborhood; and you came back with a good compromise. I hope that continues, and we can get this project built. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. TRANSCRIPT Page 59 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Tanaka: Let me just echo the comments my fellow Council Members have made. Thank you to Palo Alto Housing Corporation for your work on this. I know it's hard. I know it's something that you're trying to make happen. Housing is a critical topic for the City as well as for the State. Thank you for trying to invest in Palo Alto. That's actually very important. To go through the questions that you asked. In terms of unit count, given that affordable housing is a pretty big challenge, we should have more units, not less. Unit count right now is fine, but I would be even more comfortable with more. The question is how do you get more. I like what you did with the studios, the micro units. That's the trend. Not everyone needs a 3,000- square-foot house to live in. Smaller units make a lot of sense especially given the aging population and also the kind of demographic that you're serving. I would be in favor of having more units by making them smaller, perhaps even smaller than they are now. That would be a good direction. Given the demographics, they may not need as much parking as typical units. That's something that would be good. The other thing I was thinking about in terms of unit count is—I understand the issue with retail in terms of it doesn't pay for the development as much. Several of my colleagues here have mentioned that there wasn't completely community buy-in. There's a lot but maybe not complete. Retail helps provide some of that benefit. If you take that way, if it becomes nonprofit office space, the surrounding community or the nearby community doesn't really get any benefit out of that. It's just a lot of density. Retail is actually a very important piece to keep there. From the budget from the City, we could certainly use the sales tax. From the viewpoint of the community in terms of having something that could service the community, having that retail space is very important. The question is how do you get there. Obviously, the economics don't make sense. For that matter, also the parking rate. How could we get more parking? If you had stackers, you'd get 20 more spaces, but the economics don't work. I understand that. The point made earlier that it's hard to load more stuff on this project and expect it to work, it probably wouldn't work. One thought I had was, if you have more units, perhaps instead of having to have all of the below market rate or affordable, maybe some of them could be market rate and can help fund the project. If you have more units, what you could do is—more smaller units— perhaps you could use that to help subsidize retail. You could help use that to subsidize parking stackers so that the community could win. This project wouldn't be quite so under-parked; the impacts would be less. Also, the other piece that I think is really important is diversity. It's not necessarily good to have all one type of demographic in one place. Having diversity is actually really important. Having it mixed in terms of people of different income levels would be really good. Diversity is a really good thing. To make it totally low income also is not necessarily a good thing. Having some diversity, mixing it up a bit, using that to fund some of the parking stackers, using it to fund more of the retail space so that the community doesn't lose this retail space would TRANSCRIPT Page 60 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 be a way to help make this more of a win. It's really easy for us to say no. Obviously this doesn't meet a lot of the Code requirements. The real key for us is to figure out how to make this a yes, how to get to yes. It's too easy to say no. This would be a good investment for the community to have. The question is how do we get there. In terms of process, getting community buy- in is going to be super critical here in order to make this project a success. Given all the things that are (inaudible) time on Council, we only have so much time to work with the developer, work with Staff, work with the community. My proposal on this—what has to happen is we have to figure out how to shape this project so that the community—when I say the community I mean the people that live nearby—buys into this, that it economically works out for the Palo Alto Housing Corporation. That's going to take a lot of time. One of my suggestions here to make this possible would be to, I would say, empower our Planning Commission to work with the developer, work with the community closely, to go through the iterations, go through the detail, nitty- gritty conversations that we can't necessarily do here on Council. Rather than for us to try to take this on, we should try to empower our Commission to do this. We're trying to make a good thing happen here. The question is how do we make the ends meet. How do we make it work economically? How do we make it work for the community? For us to try to engineer it ourselves here on the dais with all the—this is just the first item by the way, or second item. We have a bunch more to go through today. That's my proposal. We should tap the Planning Commission. They're eager to take this on. They are well equipped and skilled to do this. Mayor Scharff: I have a bunch of comments, but we're actually going to take a short break to listen to one oral communication. Annette Fazzino is here with her children, and her children need to go to bed. Annette, come up and say what you wish to say. Annette Fazzino: Thank you so much. They are pretty tired and a little starved too. I'm here tonight with my new friends, Herc Kwan and Jerry Fan. We're here prematurely I understand, but we wanted to talk a little bit about the cell phone towers that are going on light poles and telephone poles. I came home the other day and found a notice steps away from my house about this issue and about the proposed cell phone towers. We're concerned for a number of reasons. I'll let my more techy colleagues, friends talk about it. Mostly in a nutshell we're concerned about the aesthetics, the noise that emanates from them, and lastly the radiation that comes through those cell towers. I'll let my new friends take over. Herc Kwan: We all have the same common cause. We have little kids at our house. I have a 5-year-old and 7-year-old. Their rooms face right at the poles that would be installing that antenna. I'm very concerned. I actually TRANSCRIPT Page 61 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 have a doctorate in electrical engineering. I actually know about EM waves and all these things. I actually worked on Bluetooth in the late '90s, so I know that there are lawsuits in Germany talking about EM wave going to your brain and all that with tumors. I'm actually very concerned about these things. Jerry Fan: Hi, I'm Jerry. This is my first time at any City Council, so I apologize if I commit any faux pas. My name is Jerry Fan, and I live in Barron Park. I wanted to speak about Verizon's proposed additional cellular antennas. Personally, I have a special needs son. He's about 4. He's been known to have life-threatening seizures when he's exposed to low hums, similar to the ones that will be coming from these antennas. One of the proposed antennas in Barron Park is literally 20 feet away from his bedroom. That's the number one concern that I have. When we look at—I actually read this entire architectural review. I looked through all the response. I was curious why so many of our residents are actually proponents of it. I understand their concern. They want better cell coverage. When you actually look at the email responses, all the positive ones, all the ones that are for, are coming in a form email. At the bottom of the email—they all come from Verizon. What that tells me, because I do this as a profession—I'm a product manager for an internet company, and I help marketing run campaigns. I know what they probably did was send an email campaign to all their customers in Palo Alto with a very easy to fill form, collecting only responses that support this initiative, which means it's not an accurate representation of what our City's residents actually want. If you look at all the ones that are against, these are all organically, self-generated, voluntary efforts, like us today, to say no. At the end of the day, we will actually remember the decisions of the City Council far more than somebody who just clicked a button to say yes on something that they may not even understand the positive impacts. Thanks. Ms. Fazzino: Thank you so much for taking us out of turn tonight. I really appreciate it. Mayor Scharff: Happy to do it. Thank you very much for coming. Back to this item. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's your turn. Mayor Scharff: Yeah, I know it's my turn. I've got my head back in the game. As I stated earlier on the four questions, the retail is important. I think you've heard that from a lot of Council Members. On the FAR, my view of it is the height does make a difference. If you're sticking within that 50-foot height limit, going the extra FAR with a good designer—Council Member Holman really alluded to that as well. If you have a good design, I don't think it makes TRANSCRIPT Page 62 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 a difference and impacts anyone frankly. We really have to focus as a group. We are saying to people this will probably be the house for probably the rest of your life. People wait on really long waiting lists to get in this. I just recently went over to—what is it—Colorado Park. The residents had been there—some of them had been there—you opened that in '72. A huge number of the residents had been there since '72. Once you move into one of these places, you can't move anywhere else because you can't find affordable housing. What I'm really thinking—I don't mean this negatively against anyone—is it actually would be mean-spirited of the Council to say to people, "You could have a more comfortable home at 400 square feet." There's a huge difference between 350, 370 and 400 square feet to live in. 400 square feet is far from luxurious as a home for the long term. As you pointed out, most people live in 400 square feet for a very short period of time, and then they move onto something else. I actually would really encourage you to make a really good project, great architecture, great living which to me is closer to the 400 square feet, good open space as Council Member Filseth said. I've always actually disliked the idea that we break the rules for affordable housing projects on things that make it look good and things that make a quality of life for the residents. I would encourage you to make a really great project that's livable. I know that's what you want to do. I was at Colorado Park, and I know how much you care about the residents. I know you want to do that. That was really important to me on that. In terms of the zoning, I have no problems with the 61 units, the 50 feet. I don't have problems with any of that in that location. My concern more is when I listen to my fellow Council Members of how we move forward on this project after this Study Session. I really appreciate Council Member DuBois' comment that up to 40 feet is what I heard you say you were comfortable. That's a very different project than this project. That's not … Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) he said close to 40 (inaudible) 42. Mayor Scharff: I thought you were higher than 42, no? I thought you were at 48 feet. Mr. Owen: It's 48 to the top of the parapet roof. Ms. Gonzalez: Exactly. It's 42 to the roof and 48 to the parapet. Mayor Scharff: Were you fine with the project (inaudible)? I thought you were suggesting it be 10 feet lower. All of what I heard was mostly positive about the project in terms of what people were thinking of what you're actually planning on doing here. I was unclear, as I started this off. Given that it violates all of the rules on this project, that's why I think it's so important how we then move forward. What I heard Director Gitelman say is we could run TRANSCRIPT Page 63 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Options 1, 2, or 3 concurrently with the project. What I heard from Council Member Holman—I didn't quite understand how I would put those two together. What I heard from Council Member Holman—correct me if I'm wrong—was that we should go do some community outreach, that we should meet with the community and develop a framework that could be applied. I don't really understand how we get … Council Member Holman: For Option 2, just to be clear. For Option 2. Mayor Scharff: For Option 2, correct. You wanted Option 2. If we take Option 2 and you're running it concurrently and you're running it with this project, maybe you can explain to me how you get that framework that's applicable to this project. If you go to the community—if you go to me frankly and say, "I want a framework where I can put this anywhere in the City, where we go to 2 1/2 FAR and, if it's a 35-foot height limit because it's close to single-family or multifamily, we can now go close to 50 feet, and—what else do we violate here—we're going to cut parking necessarily," a lot of that is site-specific. I wanted Director Gitelman to explain how we get this project without agreeing that we're going to do this project everywhere in the City if we have that overlay. Maybe there's a simple way to do that. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Transit service areas, Cory, are 70 or 80 percent of the City. When we say 70 or 80 percent, what we're saying is we're zoning the entire City to do this. I'm curious as to what you're thinking. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, we would welcome the opportunity to work on crafting an overlay zone that could be applied to sites like this one by the Council if and when an applicant came forward with a project that has the merits that this project has. It'll take some creative work. We do need to do some outreach to people who care about these things. I think there is a way to do it and, with your policy direction, we could make it work. Council Member Holman: Could I interject something since you were asking that? Mayor Scharff: I was. I actually wanted that discussion on Council of how they move forward. I heard me and Vice Mayor Kniss say we should look at a PC. I completely understand that we could be wrong on this. Maybe the PC is like waving a red flag, and people are really upset. I heard Council Member Filseth and Council Member Wolbach, for completely different reasons, say let's have a framework. Their idea of the framework is at cross purposes, I believe. I heard Council Member Holman say she wants that too, but we should have a lot of community engagement. Normally when we do these TRANSCRIPT Page 64 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 things, we have the community engagement. I think it's really important you bring that along when you make a new zoning change. The reason I was with a PC was purely because I thought it would take too long to have the community engagement and to have a thoughtful discussion about what a framework actually looks like, that's comfortable with the different options. In 8 years on the Council, I've never seen us do anything under 9 months. Nine months would be quick for a zoning change. There are zoning changes we've talked about that I haven't seen for years, that I've heard talked about. My concern is, if you're going to run this concurrently and we're actually going to do a zoning change, we come to the Council with those zoning changes, and we come to make those hard decisions, and we do it. I know you're really impacted. If you say you can make this work on a timely manner and they can move this project forward, I actually don't mind which of the three we use, to be honest. I have concerns, though, about the precedent we set when we do a framework and how that's going to look and how that's going to match up with their project as they move through that. I don't want to drive a framework that applies to the entire City based on simply their project that's before us. I think that's bad public policy. I have concerns. I also had one little thing I wanted to ask. Don't we have an Option 1 right now that we drafted, which is an alternative to State density or at least a streamlining? We have it that if you choose certain options, you don't have to do a whole bunch of other onerous things. Ms. Gitelman: When you qualify for a State density bonus, you get concessions. We created a fast track for certain design concessions. The only local alternative we have to the State density bonus is the PTOD zone, which is an overlay zone. It's like what we're talking about here. Mayor Scharff: Option 1 creates a similar to a PTOD zone for 100-percent affordable projects? Ms. Gitelman: It wouldn't actually be mapped like the PTOD. It would be a provision in that Title 18.15 that would say, "If you're going to do a 100- percent affordable project, you can have an FAR of this and a height of that provided you meet these conditions." We'll have to think about this carefully and draft something that makes sense with your help. Mayor Scharff: Option 1 or Option 2 I'm sort of agnostic about with the limited information I have. Which option would you prefer and how do we get the Council more information about which works better, on Option 1 or Option 2? Ms. Gitelman: We suggested in the Staff Report that we liked Option 1 best because if we succeed in putting it in place, it would be available to developers of 100-percent affordable projects with ground-floor retail anywhere in the TRANSCRIPT Page 65 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 City without coming back for another rezoning. They could meet the standards, apply it, and get where they want to be. City Manager and the Planning Staff are looking forward to having a broader conversation with the Council about housing policy issues sometime this fall. That would be the opportunity to talk in more detail about some of these ideas. Mayor Scharff: You're thinking you'll come soon with these? Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: I assume they need to move forward with their project. Ms. Gitelman: Yes. Mayor Scharff: When do we need to make those decisions about how they move forward on which one they use? Ms. Gitelman: We'd like an opportunity to process the Council's input this evening, talk to Palo Alto Housing, talk amongst ourselves. We can get back to the Council on next steps. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much, and thank you very much for coming forward. Shall we take a 5-minute break? Council took a break from 8:47 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Mayor Scharff: A couple of things. First, I've been talking to the City Manager a little bit about the schedule. We're going to take the Idling Ordinance right after we do public comment. We'll do that first, as our first Action Item. Then, I think we're going to do the fire station. In looking at this and going through it, I know there's a number of public speakers. How many public speakers do we have for oral communications so far or not yet? Beth Minor, City Clerk: Nine. Mayor Scharff: Given the late hour and repeated statements by colleagues over the years that we shouldn't take up development proposals at 10:15, I think what we're going to do is move the 3877 El Camino Real to—are we going to do a date uncertain or are we going to do September 18th? James Keene, City Manager: I think our target date is the 18th because we lost a number of items on that Agenda. That's the most open Agenda you have in September. TRANSCRIPT Page 66 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: I need a Motion to move Item Number 17 to September 18th. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Council Member DuBois: Do we want to hear from the public if they're here on 17? Mayor Scharff: I'm happy to hear from the public on 17 as well. I will let them speak if they wish or they can speak then. Vice Mayor Kniss: They'd be more effective on the 18th. Mayor Scharff: They'd be more effective on the 18th. Is there anyone in the public who would like to speak to that tonight by the way? Ms. Minor: Mayor Scharff, I do have three cards. Mayor Scharff: I will let the three of you speak when we get to that unless you want to wait 'til the 18th. You're welcome to speak tonight. I will let you speak to that. I think I need a motion to move it with the understanding that we'll let people … Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: Second? MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to hear public comment on Agenda Item Number 17 - PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI- JUDICIAL: 3877 El Camino Real [14PLN-00464] … and then continue the Item to September 18, 2017. Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That passes unanimously with Council Members Wolbach and Fine absent. You're going to confuse me tonight on the voting. That's Fine. That was Agenda Changes and Deletions. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 Wolbach not participating, Fine absent City Manager Comments Mayor Scharff: City Manager Comments. James Keene, City Manager: Mr. Mayor, maybe I'll just give the first of the comments and then break, and then do the others later on since you have some public here. I did want to make a comment related to the Verizon small cell antennas, just in case you could have any more oral communication on that tonight. As you know as Council Members, you've seen a number of TRANSCRIPT Page 67 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 emails from members in the community about the proposed deployment of small cell wireless antennas in a variety of Palo Alto neighborhoods. I did want to provide a little more context and a little more information about the limitations of the City's authority over this process and the decision. First, of course some parts of our community have already received and others may receive notifications that our Planning Department recently sent to property owners and tenants about a pending application from Verizon. Typically, notices are sent to properties within a certain radius of a specific site. However, since this involves a number of different locations where existing utility poles are situated, the radius of neighborhood notifications has increased, which in turn has generated a higher volume of emails from our community to date. Verizon has expressed an interest to install about 93 small cell antennas and associated mechanical equipment with another 50 or so potentially installed by other carriers on existing poles in the City. There's a picture there of a pole. It's a little hard to see, but the antennas that we're talking about, the small cell antennas, are painted brown. They blend in with the pole. They're about 40 percent of the way up the pole, and they're on the right side of the pole for those who may have difficulty seeing it in that photo. In terms of location, some of this is in preparation for future deployment of 5G. That much faster technology will require many more of these around not just Palo Alto but other cities. In some cases, these antennas may be filling in gaps in existing coverage. Not that we have time for a full civics discourse or whatever here, I just unfortunately must remind everybody that we live in a system of federalism with the national, state, and local governments. When I was in graduate school years ago, the saying was the feds have the money, the states have the power, and the localities have the problems. Of course, the feds don't really have the money anymore, but they also have asserted themselves particularly in the area of telecommunications and, in many ways, have preempted at the national level and then at the state level the authority of local communities to regulate a lot of these telecommunications issues. For example, State law guarantees telecommunication companies general access to the poles in our rights-of-way as a City, and local jurisdictions have very limited authority over what they can require. For example—I'm just the messenger on this—concerns over health issues and radio frequency emissions are essentially regulated by the federal government. That said, we have requested a full emissions report to ensure Verizon's equipment complies with existing federal regulations. We will be having the report peer reviewed. For projects in the City's right-of-way, the City's authority is largely limited to issues of aesthetic compatibility, and we have very limited ability to ask for information about network configuration, equipment choice, or the necessity of locating small cell antennas in any particular location. The Council previously approved the Master License Agreement that generally grants access to the City's utility poles. In one sense, that made sense since otherwise you would be barraged with continual requests on an individual TRANSCRIPT Page 68 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 level, which essentially we'd be pushed into providing individually. Each pole location on a going-forward basis will need to go through the Architectural Review Board process. There will be a preliminary review on these particular installations, at least 93 installations, before the Architectural Review Board in September. Verizon and any other carriers in this space are required to conduct public hearings on their own on their application in the local community in our case with the first round of those expected to begin in October and November. Lastly, I just would remind us that for the Council, as you well know, please be aware that all of these applications may appear before the City Council if aesthetic decisions by the Architectural Review Board, for example, are appealed. They would come to the Council. That, of course, requires a quasi-judicial decision by the Council, so you will certainly want to remember the requirements related to your preparation for such hearings. I would encourage you to be talking with the City Attorney in more detail. We'll have more to come on this. Particularly, just over the past couple of weeks, all of the emails we had, I thought it was important that, in addition to any correspondence we may send you, here at a public meeting we share with the public status of where we are and, again, some of the limitations on the City's authority. Thank you. I'll later on in the meeting go over some other items that I have on City Manager Comments, but I didn't want to stand in the way of public comment. Mayor Scharff: Do you want us to come back to you right after public comment then? Mr. Keene: Whatever is convenient for you. Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Let's move on, then, to Oral Communications. Our first speaker is Sea Reddy. You'll have 2 minutes. Sea Reddy: I'll be very short, Mayor. In the last 1 1/2-hour discussions, we were talking about keeping retail and promoting retail in the residential neighborhoods. You all work hard. We all have this College Terrace Market. To be truthful, they are struggling. We need to get community support and your feedback to them so they can do things for us. We want to keep them and (inaudible) them to be a nice community market. Just to let you know, it's still possible to have new markets. I just went to Sunnyvale 2 or 3 days ago. There's a market called New Seasons open, a beautiful market. We could learn from that as to how we would have markets. We've been shuttling with the market on Embarcadero Road. That's all I want to say for now. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 69 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Our next speaker is Andie Reed, to be followed by Mary Sylvester. Andie Reed: Hi. Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Andie Reed, and I live at 160 Melville, one house down from Castilleja. I am here tonight to express my concern that Castilleja continues to state that in their quest to add 30 percent to the student body and embark on a massive expansion plan, they have included neighbor input into the process. Not only did their glossy flyer of mid-June repeat that they included neighborhood input, but the mailer letting us know about the first day of school, which we received on Saturday, again stated that the neighbors had many opportunities for input into the Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and the expansion plans. The school did hold meetings; however, the plan submitted in June 2016 ignored the desires of the neighbors and the detrimental impact to the neighborhood. When the school submitted their revised plans April 28, 2017, they included a statement that said the neighbors wanted the underground garage. We were so incensed that we went around to all of our neighbors on a Sunday afternoon. Almost all of the households whose doors we approached signed a letter stating they did not want the underground garage. Yet, the school continues to say we participated in the plans. At the public meeting, which is required twice annually by the CUP, held on June 6th the room was packed, and virtually all the attendees except for those connected to the school were opposed to the expansion, the underground garage, and increasing the enrollment by stuffing 125 more students into the same 6 acres. Industry experts, architects, engineers, and residents all spoke eloquently and knowledgably against the project. Yet, there have been no meaningful changes to these plans. We admire the powerful educational opportunities afforded to young women at Castilleja. If the school desires to grow, they need to consider alternatives besides overfilling the current acreage. The girls deserve better. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mary Sylvester to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Mary Sylvester: Good evening. Hello, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back, Vice Mayor Kniss and Council Members. I am Mary Sylvester, and I live at 135 Melville Avenue, and I'm a 39-year resident of Palo Alto. Unfortunately, I too am here again tonight to speak regarding Castilleja and not favorably so unfortunately. Ms. Reed attested to the school's lack of meaningful response and respect for neighborhood concerns. We've given the City 2 months since their last public meeting to respond to neighbors in an honest and straightforward manner about our concerns. We remain waiting. However, we are active in the community, building our membership base and outreaching to the community at large. Palo Alto remains very supportive of the neighborhood as demonstrated by our yard sign campaign. We have a waiting list going for TRANSCRIPT Page 70 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 our next series of signs. Castilleja students are very fine young women. There is no neighborhood beef with the girls. However, the school's administration is where the issue is, what they're modeling to these fine young women. The school has constantly disregarded the good will of the neighborhood as well as the law in their actions. This self-centered way of pursuing supposedly educational pursuits is a waste of this City's time. I'm sorry I'm here tonight given all the pressing issues you are facing as well as the nation. The school has the option to mitigate the impact on the neighborhood and still grow as many other private schools on the Peninsula have done, Keyes, Nueva, Crystal Springs, Harker, and the International School. This is a smoke and mirrors defense the school is using. We'd like the campus split in half if the school insists on growing and (inaudible) within their legal limit. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Mary Jo Prewitt. Rita Vrhel: On Saturday, Jeff Lewinsky and Doria Summa contacted me to let me know that the dewatering project at 544 Patricia off Hamilton—the tank was overflowing and water was rolling down the street outside the pipe. Since I know where Phil Bobel lives, Jeff and I went over there and knocked on his door. He graciously agreed to ride over to the site immediately. This is well beyond any call of duty. I just wanted to thank Phil for doing that. The pump taking the water out of the ground exceeded the pump taking it out of the tank's ability. Very quickly it would have become a huge neighborhood problem. He fixed the problem individually. Again, I just wanted to say thank you to Phil. The other thing is I saw all the Castilleja girls in the back, so I have to make a comment. My daughter went to Castilleja for 6 years. There's a whole bunch of Cs in Castilleja's logo. I think one of the them is community; although, I think one of the other ones is consideration. Hauling the girls in to say that they didn't get to be on a baseball team or to say something about their school is really degrading to the whole concept of Castilleja, teaching children that are privileged that they need to give back to the community. We have seen in this nation now way too much where the rules don't apply to certain people. Castilleja has been out of bounds with their CUP for 15 years. To drag the kids in as eloquently as that last young woman spoke last year is not appropriate. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Mary Jo Prewitt to be followed by Alexis Stull. Mary Jo. Alexis Stull. Jashe Yang. Go ahead, Jennifer. Jennifer Landesman: Good evening, Council. Citizens concerned with low (inaudible) jets stay at night, especially the jets at night. We've submitted a list of actions to you for the City to assure that we have a voice in the Phase II of the FAA's project to address noise concerns. As frustrating as it is to be TRANSCRIPT Page 71 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 in Year 2 of correcting a problem which abruptly came upon us with a switch onto Next Gen, we're in fact in the middle of the FAA's project to address mitigations. Getting ourselves heard depends on you because the FAA is working with official representative bodies which are here, not in Washington, D.C. I would like to highlight two requests that we've submitted. One is to ask our City Attorney to organize and host a meeting or a report about the environmental review that is part of the design process for the amendments of procedures that are going to impact us. The other one is to host a meeting regarding the representative bodies. We were caught off-guard with the environmental process that caused this mess in the first place. We really need to be ahead of it this time. I think citizens need to be informed. The Consent Agenda today has something on Palo Alto Airport, I believe, which says insignificant impact. We've learned what insignificant impact means when the FAA applies its rules and policies. I ask that you consider those two requests in particular. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Darlene Yaplee: First and foremost, thank you, Mayor Scharff, for getting support at the August 10th Cities Association meeting for forming an ad hoc committee to create a recommendation for a regional airplane body. Thank you, Council Member Wolbach, for continued P&S leadership to support airplane noise actions, and Councilperson Kou for your support in attending the SFO Roundtable meetings, the Cities Association meeting, and the Sky Posse community meeting just a week ago. Our work is not done. We cannot wait for the ad hoc committee to be formed to make the recommendation. I hope we can take action in parallel. What does that mean? We should be responding, first, to the FAA report, get aviation experts involved, and reach out to the Menlo waypoint community to get their input. Number two, follow up on discussions on the June 9th Council meeting and the May 23rd P&S meeting, where we discussed getting a noise monitoring strategy and discussing that with experts and providing conversations staff-to-staff and Councilperson-to-Councilperson with our neighborhood communities. Number three, San Jose is forming an ad hoc committee, and we should be part of that. It's very critical. Chappy Jones mentioned that at the Cities Association meeting. We should get a part of that before decisions are made that affect Palo Alto. Lastly, the Cities Association ad hoc committee is crucial to our airplane relief. It's sponsored by the three Congress people. We need your best brains to develop a strategy to give input for governance, membership, and scope and host a community meeting to give input. Lastly, I think we should consider seriously getting Willie Brown involved to consult. He's quite a savvy person. I know Greg mentioned a long time ago we need someone that really knows how to navigate some of this. I read his column every Sunday. He's pretty knowledgeable. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 72 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Back to the City Manager. We have another one, Greg Gatwood [phonetic]. Sorry, that wasn't there a few seconds ago. Greg Gatwood. Come on up, Greg. Did Greg leave? I guess so. Back to the City Manager. James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In regard to Downtown RPP employee permits, existing employee permits in the Downtown RPP program are set to expire on September 30th, just a month away from now. Current holders of employee permits will shortly receive emails about purchasing permits for the next 6 months. Residential permit holders will not receive this message because their permits are valid for a 1-year period. At this point, I did want to share information about Downtown RPP permit sales generally as well as an unfortunate error we recently identified. First in the good news category, the Downtown RPP program is working as intended. We've distributed about 6,000 total residential permits and 1,155 total employee permits, well below the maximum of 1,400 employee permits allowed within the current program boundaries. In the not so good news category, it appears that our contractor mistakenly oversold employee permits in five out of the ten RPP individual zones during this permit cycle. The zones affected are generally located closest to the commercial core between Hawthorne and Lytton and between Forest and Addison. Because other zones had less demand, this mistake did not affect our compliance with the overall limits set by the City Council's Resolution. Our Staff is taking steps to ensure that this mistake does not ever happen again. While we considered revoking the permit, when we'd just become aware of this, issued in error and reissuing them with a corrected zone number, we decided against this because the permit expiration date is so close, and all employees will have to obtain new permits by the end of September. It seemed chaotic to try to do this swap out at this point in time. We apologize for that unfortunate error by our contractor. Looking farther ahead, the Council will be revisiting the Downtown RPP program in early 2018, and you will have an opportunity to discuss employee permit limit and zone structure again at that time. Our Staff is also working to initiate a procurement process for a better online permit system that will allow us to upgrade from our current system and vendor. More to come on that. Shifting to tough news around the country, everything that has been happening in Houston. Just both a reminder of visions of the future, I guess, in some ways as it relates to global weirding and also just visions of the present that let you know how many hidden stories there are in communities about people who are just getting by. When a catastrophe hits, what the scale of that impact is. I did want to share, though, in our small way in support of the rescue and disaster relief, the California Task Force 3, which is based in Menlo Park, was requested yesterday and is in transit to the Houston area. Palo Alto Fire Department Apparatus Operator Chris Moscow, on our Staff, is one of fourteen members of the Peninsula area fire TRANSCRIPT Page 73 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 departments who were deployed to assist in rescue efforts in Texas. Chris is there now. He's been on the Task Force for 7 years, and he's serving as a water rescue specialist including swift water and flood rescue. Just so we're clear, this task force is federally funded, urban search and rescue supported by FEMA. Our Fire Department has a longstanding participation agreement with the California Task Force 3. We currently have six Palo Alto firefighters who are team members. The last time, obviously, that this group was deployed was in 2005 following Hurricane Katrina. This week, I just want to share, we're beginning an outreach campaign about the City's carbon neutral natural gas and electricity program as part of our communication with our public. We're unveiling a new webpage and a video with information on the carbon neutral natural gas plan as well as education about the City's electric supply portfolio, which has been carbon neutral since 2013, as you know. Palo Alto is the first city in the nation to have a completely carbon neutral electric and gas portfolio. Starting September 1st, residents and businesses will see a line item charge on their utility bills for the purchase of natural gas carbon offsets. We're also including inserts with the September utility bills to provide community members and our customers with more information about what it means to be carbon neutral. We recognize that carbon neutrality is another step on our path towards sustainability, and we've developed a video to explain why this important step and progress toward achieving a goal of 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 is so important. Here's a sneak preview. [Video shown.] I think that's a really nice piece. Thanks to Ed and the Staff team in Utilities for putting this together. That's all I have to report. Mayor Scharff: Thanks. Minutes Approval 3. Approval of Action Minutes for the August 14, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: I need a Motion to approve the Minutes. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: I'll second that. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to approve the Action Minutes for the August 14, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: That passes unanimously with Council Member Fine absent. MOTION PASSED: 8-0 Fine absent TRANSCRIPT Page 74 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Consent Calendar Mayor Scharff: Now, I need a Motion to approve the Consent Calendar. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: Second it. If we could vote on the board. Council Member Tanaka: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Sorry. Did you have your light on? Council Member Tanaka: I did actually. Mayor Scharff: You just wanted to register a no vote. On which item? Council Member Tanaka: Thirteen. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to approve Agenda Item Numbers 4-15. 4. Resolution 9706 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing the Submittal of a Financial Assistance Application to the United States Bureau of Reclamation for the WaterSMART: Title XVI Water Recycling Projects Under the WIIN Act and to Enter Into a Financing Agreement Under the Program.” 5. Approval of a Multi-year Contract With Abbe and Associates in the Amount of $499,016 for Technical Support for the Zero Waste Program That Includes: a Waste Characterization Study, an Update to the Zero Waste Operational Plan, and Refuse Management Contracting Assistance. 6. Acceptance of the Hewlett Foundation Grant, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and Code: ART Private Contributions; and Approval a of Budget Amendment in the General Fund and Public Art Fund. 7. Adoption of Three Resolutions Approving the Submission and Management of Three Grants: Resolution 9707 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Approving the Submission of an Application for Outdoor Environmental Education Facilities Grant Funds;” Resolution 9708 Entitled, “Resolution Approving the Submission of an Application for Habitat Conservations Grant Funds;” and Resolution 9709 Entitled, “Resolution Approving the Submission of an Application for California Cultural and Historical Endowment’s Museum Grant Funds.” TRANSCRIPT Page 75 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 8. Resolution 9710 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Utility Rate Schedules G-1 (Residential Gas Service), G- 2 (Residential Master-metered and Commercial Gas Service), G-3 (Large Commercial Gas Service), and G-10 (Compressed Natural Gas Service) to Reflect the Carbon Offset Charge, as Adopted by City Council in the Carbon Neutral Gas Plan, and Terminate PaloAltoGreen Gas Schedules G-1-G, G-2-G, G-3-G, and G-10-G.” 9. Approval of an Agreement With the County of Santa Clara Providing $3.2 Million in Transportation Impact Fees for the Design, Review, and Construction of Improvements at the Intersections of Page Mill Road/ Hanover Street and Page Mill Road/El Camino Real; and Approval of an Associated Budget Amendment in the Stanford Research Park/ El Camino CS Zone Traffic Impact Fund. 10. Approval of Amendment Number 3 to Contract Number C15156501 With SP Plus in the Amount of $16,335 for Additional Services for Parking Permits and On-site Customer Service; Approval of Amendment Number 3 to Contract Number C15156763 With Serco, Inc. in the Amount of $115,140 for Enforcement of Southgate Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) District; and Approval of Amendment Number 5 to Contract Number C15157271 With McGuire Pacific Constructors in the Amount of $142,155 for Construction Services for Southgate Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) District. 11. Approval of a Memorandum of Understanding With the Santa Clara Valley Water District to Assess the Feasibility of Developing Water Reuse Alternatives, and an Amendment to the Recycled Water Supply Agreement With the City of Mountain View. 12. Approval of Contract Number C18167808C With DeSilva Gates Construction LP in the Amount of $9,243,797, Amendment Number 2 With Mead & Hunt, Inc. Contract Number C15155208B, and Amendment Number 4 With C&S Engineers, Inc. Contract Number C15155208A for the Airport Apron Reconstruction Capital Improvements Program Project AP-16000; Resolution 9711 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing the City Manager to Execute Future Grant Agreements Offered by the California Department of Transportation for Airport Improvement Program Matching Grant Funds for Apron Reconstruction at the Palo Alto Airport, and Authorizing the City Manager to Execute Supporting Documents Associated With the Application and Acceptance of Said Grant Funds;” Approval of a Budget Amendment in the General and Airport Enterprise Funds; and Approval of Findings That the Proposed Project is Exempt From Environmental TRANSCRIPT Page 76 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Review Under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines 15301 and 15302 and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Order 1050.1F11. 13. Approval of a Contract With York Risk Services Group Inc. for up to Five Years in a Total Not-to-Exceed Amount of $1,206,015 for Workers’ Compensation Claims Administration Services. 14. Vote to Endorse the Slate of Candidates for the Peninsula Division, League of California Cities Executive Committee for 2017-18 and Direct the City Clerk to Forward to Seth Miller, the Regional Public Affairs Manager for the Peninsula Division, League of California Cities the Completed Ballot for the City of Palo Alto. 15. Ordinance 5416 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing an Amendment to the Contract Between the City of Palo Alto and the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) to add Cost-sharing Pursuant to Government Code Section 20516 (FIRST READING: August 14, 2017 PASSED: 8-0 Fine absent).” Mayor Scharff: If you could vote on the board. That passes unanimously with Council Member Fine absent and Council Member Tanaka registering a no vote on Item Number 13. MOTION FOR AGENDA ITEM NUMBERS 4-12, 14-15 PASSED: 8-0 Fine absent MOTION FOR AGENDA ITEM NUMBER 13 PASSED: 7-1 Tanaka no, Fine absent Mayor Scharff: Would you like to speak to your no vote? Council Member Tanaka: Sure. Basically, I just think it's not prudent for the City to spend—it's not a lot of money, but it's 30 percent more on a $1.2 million contract, 30 percent more on a contract which could be done for less. I just think we should spend our money better. Action Items 18. Colleagues’ Memo From Council Members Dubois, Filseth, Holman, and Vice Mayor Kniss Regarding an Anti-Idling Ordinance (AIO). Mayor Scharff: Now, we will move to the Colleagues' Memo from Council Members DuBois, Filseth, Holman and Vice Mayor Kniss regarding an Anti- Idling Ordinance. Who would like to introduce it from the Council? TRANSCRIPT Page 77 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: Shall I go ahead in my funny role on the Air Board? Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Vice Mayor Kniss: I appreciate the others being involved, but Karen in particular because the two of us have been working on the Healthy Cities Healthy Communities Priority now for 3 years, Karen, I think. The matter of the Anti-Idling Ordinance has come up sometimes in the past as well. I wanted to start by saying that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, known as the Air Board, already enforces the State law, which is for trucks and for buses and for other large vehicles. They penalize them if they are not obviously—if they're breaking the law. A couple of things that I have found out, which are very interesting, is there is a State law now that requires any new vehicles of that type have a device that shuts them off after 3 minutes. Regardless of whether they wish to do that or not, it is shut off. I do not know exactly what the fine is, and I apologize for not finding that out. Going now back to Palo Alto. At some time in the past, Karen and I began discussing should we have an Anti-Idling Ordinance. There were those who at first thought this was almost a funny idea and weren't totally taking it seriously. If you look at some of the material that's in your packet tonight, you'll see the amount of particulate matter in particular that is emitted through idling, especially if it's idling with diesel. We would like to see Palo Alto institute the same law that they have throughout the state, only in this case it will apply to cars and other vehicles like that as well. A couple of areas where we see this happening a lot are people waiting for school kids to get out of school, waiting for kids to get out of hockey practice, out of other team practice they happen to be in, those who are stuck on University waiting, as somebody said this afternoon, for the traffic that started at 2:20. Most people think if you turn your car off and turn it on again, you have wasted gas. Any number of studies show that this is actually not the case. I would like us to move forward with this and institute this as an ordinance in Palo Alto. The goals are listed on the front of your Staff Report for tonight. Also, they give some examples that you might not think of right away. Any public vehicles that—there are a number of things that get excluded, like fire trucks and police vehicles and so forth. There are certain situations where it doesn't apply. Any other time that you're driving something with a motor—I told Council Member Tanaka, even on his skateboard, which is electric, he will have to shut it off as he's waiting more than 3 minutes. I would like to suggest that we proceed with this, refer it to Staff to create an ordinance, as it says, to shut off your engine after the feasible wait of 2-3 minutes. You then would make a measurable contribution to our goal in Palo Alto of 80/30 by 2030. We just discussed that earlier tonight. This certainly supports our S/CAP. It certainly supports all the ways that we're trying to reduce particulate matter among other things in our atmosphere. It's a great day to talk about it. It was a Spare the Air day. If TRANSCRIPT Page 78 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 anyone was up in the hills, you would have noticed that what they call the PM2, the particulate matter, was particularly noticeable. Perhaps, Karen, you'd like to jump on with that because probably the two of us have been … Mayor Scharff: I think we have some speakers, so you can't make the motion until we … Vice Mayor Kniss: I wasn't going to make a motion. I thought Karen might make a comment. Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Council Member Holman: I really appreciate colleagues who have been a part of this, especially Council Member Filseth for providing some of the data that are included in here and, of course, Vice Mayor Kniss with the Air Board and Council Member DuBois with his commitment to the 80/30 goal. Even since just working on this memo, I've become even more aware of what the habits are and what the patterns are of folks as we are in our cars. I don't know; maybe about 3 weeks ago, I even observed on not that particularly hot a day someone sleeping in their car with the motor on. I thought my goodness. That's the most extreme example. I see people sitting in their cars idling for really no reason, getting in the car. I can't say I've never been guilty of this. I'm much more mindful of now behavior around it. People get in their car and turn the motor on and, before they take off, they're checking their texts or checking their email or stuff. Just really unnecessary behaviors that do impact our environment and, thus, also impact our health conditions around it. With an increasing incident rate of asthma, especially among young children, this is an important leadership position to take and an important leadership action to take. A large part of this is going to be about education. Again, for me just being mindful of this has made me much more aware of my own patterns as well as patterns of other people, that I might have occasion on some instances to just do a friendly reminder. It's like, "Maybe you don't need to idle so long." One of the easy things that we could do is post and require to be posted on construction sites that construction vehicles shouldn't be idling more than the 2 or 3 minutes. Many of those vehicles are diesel vehicles. A lot of them idle for long periods of time for reasons that I can't see are justified. There's a construction project very near me. I've gotten to know the contractor and his crew, very nice people. Once in a while, I'll ask them something about does this truck need to idle. They'll go turn it off. One of the trucks that comes to their site is one of the vehicles that you talked about, that has the automatic shutoff after 2 or 3 minutes. There are improvements being made but, until we get there on a more broad basis, it's important and really appropriate that we take these steps. There are a number of people here I appreciate; there are a lot of high school students here to speak to this TRANSCRIPT Page 79 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 item too. The last thing is the Spare the Air day. Just looking down my street the last few days, I can see the air. I don't think I've ever been able to do that before. I'd have to look out for distances to be able to see the air. The last few days, I can just look down my street and see the air. It's bad. We've got to do as much as we possibly can. This will be one piece of that set of steps that we will and are taking. Thank you all for your support, and look forward to hearing from the public and my other colleagues. Mayor Scharff: If we could hear from the public. Our first speaker is Andy Zeng, to be followed by Rachel Lowey and Tanti [sic] Su. Andy Zeng: Good evening, Councilmen. My name is Andy Zeng, and I live at 2150 Waverley Street. I am a vice chair of the Sierra Club Youth Division Climate Action Leadership Team. Today, I am here on behalf of my hometown to make sure that it is one of the most sustainability cities in the world. Since the beginning of this year, we have gone to elementary schools to monitor traffic congestion, especially Hoover and Walter Hays but mainly Hoover, and discovered that there was an excessive amount of idling done, by parents especially. This idling can cause particulate matter to lodge within the child's lungs, which when they're young can lead to respiratory damage including asthma. Of course, the carbon emission from unnecessary idling also adds to our atmospheric carbon load, which includes a push our planet towards disastrous consequences resulting in climate change. Unfortunately, Palo Alto is actually falling behind in terms of our idling laws despite current state laws. In 2011, idling beyond 2 minutes was outlawed in Salt Lake City. Just this year, Ann Arbor, a city in Michigan, had an anti-idling ordinance approved last October 2016 and began enforcing this law in July, a law that imposes a $100 fine for any unnecessary idling over 5 minutes. Ann Arbor's Council had deliberately delayed the law's enforcement for 8 months so that they could have time to educate Ann Arbor's residents first, so they can prevent any unmindful idling. I think this two-step campaign, first education and then enforcement of the law, is something that we have been doing and is in our best interest to do. Council Members, I urge you all to join us in our efforts by getting this ordinance passed, so that we can join the idle-free Bay Area campaign. Thank you all for your precious time. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rachel. Rachel Loewy and Tami Su: Hello, I am Tami Su, and I'm Rachel Loewy. We both attend Palo Alto High School and are here on behalf of the Sierra Club's Youth Leadership Climate Action Team. As your future environmental leaders and voters, we want to protect our environment as much as you do, which is why we started an educational anti-idling campaign this year. So far in our project, we have worked with the Hoover Elementary School principal, Katie TRANSCRIPT Page 80 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Benson, to limit idling while parents wait to pick up their children at school. We created an informational video and anti-idling pledge cards, which we distributed at Hoover. Over the summer, we met with Terry Godfrey, who is President of the PAUSD School Board, and Rebecca Navarro, who is PAUSD's sustainability program manager. We have also been invited to present to the Sustainable School's Committee in October about our anti-idling campaign. We would love to extend the anti-idling campaign to the rest of the School District. Passing a Citywide ordinance will definitely help us. The anti-idling campaign has also caught fire in three of our neighboring cities, including Los Gatos, Los Altos, and Saratoga. We met with two City Council Members from Los Gatos and Saratoga. Because of Palo Alto City Council's actions, they are also interested in passing Anti-Idling Ordinances as well. We believe if Palo Alto takes the lead and passes this ordinance, it will have a domino effect, and other cities will quickly get onboard. Every day in the U.S. idling emits 40,000 tons of carbon monoxide gas. We need to educate drivers that the seemingly harmless act of idling has far more consequences than they might think. By simply putting up signs in locations where idling is common, like at schools and malls, we can teach people to stop idling and improve our environment. We urge you to pass this Anti-Idling Ordinance as a measure towards Palo Alto's 80 by '30 carbon emission reduction goal. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Mr. Mayor, could we ask if they could get us a copy of your video? We'd really like to have that. Mayor Scharff: Cheryl Weiden to be followed by Debbie Mytels. Cheryl Weiden: My name is Cheryl Weiden, and I do not live in Palo Alto. I live in Los Altos. I have prepared statements, but everything has been said. Vice Mayor Kniss took a lot of my steam by talking about the technical issues. She is the Chair of the Bay Area Quality Management, BAAQMD. I saw you in July, and you have some tough issues to deal with in terms of our air quality. You do know about this. In fact, you all know about it as evidenced by your film. The end of your film said that you wanted to be a leader for other cities. That's what I'm here to do, to be a follower. I was very inspired by Shelly Gordon's effort to bring this issue to you. I did take it to Los Altos, and I did get a front-page story about me and Shelly on anti-idling, and I got a thumbs up from our editorial staff. They want to do it. We've taken it up in the environmental commission. Los Altos is not Palo Alto; we want a leader. We are waiting for the domino effect that Tami and Rachel mentioned. I am asking you to be this leader; that will support my efforts with Los Altos to get this to be a regional effort. When you leave here today, you will see anti- idling. Once you know about it, you will see it. My husband and I did a little TRANSCRIPT Page 81 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 survey on a sleepy Sunday in downtown Los Altos, which is a whole lot sleepier than Palo Alto. We found 11 instances of people sitting in their cars, doing their emails and stuff. It added up to 50 minutes of idling. We left after 5 minutes; they could have been there for more too. It does work, and you will see it. Please take the lead as your video said. Be the domino effect as Tami and Rachel said. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Debbie Mytels to be followed by Rita Vrhel. Debbie Mytels: Debbie Mytels at 2824 Louis in Palo Alto. I'm speaking also in favor of an Anti-Idling Ordinance. I'm excited that the City here is considering this and hope that you'll pass such an idea tonight and direct the Staff to create such an ordinance. I was at a meeting this morning with the folks at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. One of the staff people there actually mentioned that this is possibly an idea that they will consider putting into a model ordinance; they're trying to put together some model ordinances to carry out their clean air plan. Before I even had a chance to mention it, the staff was talking about it, which is kind of exciting. Palo Alto does have an opportunity here to be quite a leader. Some people may, of course, question why is an Ordinance needed in this situation. I really think an Ordinance is important. It provides a vehicle for the education that has to happen, and it shows that we're serious about trying to reduce the amount of burning of fossil fuels that goes on. We really need to start to stop burning fossil fuels of any amount and in any situation. It's affecting our natural environment. It's affecting our health. It's important that we move forward. I'll just show you another brief incident. My sister, who lives in New Jersey, tells me about the school where her children have gone. They now have a sign that says turn off your engines, children are breathing here. I hope Palo Alto will be able to take that into account as well. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Omar Chatty. Rita Vrhel: I think this is a great opportunity to once again become a leader and show the rest of California what Palo Alto can do. This is a choice that first-world nations are making. We don't have to idle our car to cook our food or to sustain our families. It's to read email or to be air conditioned when, in fact, we could open the windows or get out of the car. I live next to a church. There was a stretch limousine waiting for a wedding that basically idled for 30 minutes. I went over and asked her if she would stop idling, but she said, "Is it against the law?" I had to say no. When you implement this ordinance, which I hope you will do, I hope there will be something written in there that says a person can take down the license number and submit that to the police, and then the police can call that person because they can get the name and all that and then do some education. If you wait for the police to show up, TRANSCRIPT Page 82 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 it's not going to happen. Let's do it a little differently than the gas blowing machines. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Omar Chatty. Omar Chatty: Didn't bring my glasses, so I'm going to pretend I'm Mr. Magoo. I come to Palo Alto from San Jose about five or six times a week, to Stanford or Downtown and so forth. I'm very familiar with this. I would ask you to please respect the citizens of Palo Alto that are so well educated that they don't need laws for every little nitpicky thing that you want them to do. I would suggest, as one of the ladies suggested, put up some signs in places where you'll typically see people idling like the little Miss Busybody said was going on in Idaho. Let's not turn Palo Alto any more into an over-regulated eco socialist mini state. Before you do anything else, you should clean up your own house. You need to look at Middlefield and Embarcadero; those lights are taking too long. You've got California Avenue and El Camino, which has been screwed up since the day you narrowed the lane there. It still thinks somebody wants to walk even at midnight, and it stops traffic all night long. There are other examples I can give you. I've contacted your Utilities Department; it didn't do any good. Clean up your own house before you start asking other people to do it. You might want to re-look at Arastradero. I know the congestion is causing people to idle. Again, Palo Alto people are really well educated. There's no reason to do this. I would suggest you put up signs or recommend people to do that. I don't think you should be using your well-trained police forces to work on idling. There's a lot of good reasons to idle; you don't have to follow other cities and other states. Remember, 40 other states allow people to carry guns openly and shall issue permits. Does that mean Palo Alto should follow? No, of course not. Please be independent; don't over control people. The cleaner cars are coming so that the issue is getting reduced. Thank you very much. By the way, if we had BART, we wouldn't have all the idling at the cross-traffic. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me start out by making the motion, and then I know others will jump in as well. On Page 2 of 5, it says to develop a City Ordinance to implement programs so and so in the draft Comp Plan and support Health Cities Healthy Communities Priority by requiring drivers to shut off their engines after 2 or 3 minutes of stationary idling if not in an active traffic path— we're not going to stop them in the middle of University—noting exceptions. The Ordinance would be patterned after the Ordinance adapted in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Ann Arbor, and other cities. One of the things we're not addressing with this is the enforcement. I would suggest that Staff look at ways they think it would be practical to enforce it. Also, we were asked about TRANSCRIPT Page 83 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 would there be a fine after a certain period of time. That's something else we should look at but certainly not make a decision on that tonight. In addition, we think that it's going to be acceptable if you sit in your electric car and do your email. Having said that, I think it's going to be self-evident in many cases who is idling, who ought not to be. We'll leave it to Staff to come up with doing the investigation, Minneapolis and Ann Arbor and so forth. I make that motion. Council Member Holman: Second. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to direct Staff to return with an Ordinance to implement Programs N5.2.1 and N5.2.2 in the Draft Comprehensive Plan and to support the Healthy Cities, Healthy Communities Council Priority by requiring drivers to shut off their engines after two or three minutes of stationary idling if not in an active traffic path, noting exceptions. The Ordinance would be patterned after city Ordinances adopted in Minneapolis, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; and Ann Arbor, MI. Mayor Scharff: You want to speak further? Vice Mayor Kniss: I think I've spoken enough. I hope we get support for this. As Karen said, when you can start to see the air, that's not a good day. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, you want to speak to your second? Council Member Holman: I think a lot has been said about this. I do want to call out Shelly Gordon, though, and the Sierra Club because Shelly really started the ball rolling on this. She contacted me about this and really has been the driver behind it. She would be here tonight except that her plane was 2 hours late getting in. She's very disappointed not to be able to be here. She's been texting me and knows that some of the people are going to be here, that are here. She enthusiastically supports this effort. It's her vision and initiative that really got this ball rolling. I would be very remiss not to call her out on that positive note. I hope that with this Staff will come back with something that is a reasonable and measured approach, that really does a lot about education, and is not an absolute proliferation all around town with signs. I don't think the public is going to like that very well. I do hope that along with education something will happen that never did happen with the Smoking Ordinances. If Staff could just provide to members of the public who want them, Council Members, some little cards. If there's somebody that's idling, it's a piece of information that we could hand to people and say, "Here's where you can find the City's Anti-Idling Ordinance, and here are the negative impacts of idling." It's a very good education tool. It's simple; it's inexpensive; and it keeps people from having to approach somebody and TRANSCRIPT Page 84 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 potentially be perceived in a very negative fashion. I leave it to Staff as the Colleagues' Memo indicates there are some exceptions that are noted there. I don't need to repeat them. Having to do with penalties or fines, I'll also look to see what you come back with on that regard, also noting what you've already said in the Staff impact. I think that's it, except I do want to call out construction sites, because those are pretty heavy abusers. If we could have as a requirement along with the construction hours posted on the site, having the idling requirements also posted onsite would be a big help to advance this. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: As a number of people talked about, sort of enforcement and signs. This is going to save about 1,000 tons a year of carbon from transportation. Most of it is going to come from education and signage and stuff like that. There's going to be very little dependency on enforcement, for example. Mostly it's to get people to thinking differently like separating your food scraps. We've all internalized that. What I want to say is we signed up to an 80/30 goal, and that calls for us to cut a little over 100,000 tons of carbon out of our transportation by 2030. This is the kind of thing we're going to have to do if we're, in fact, going to turn that into reality. I suspect we're going to find that we're going to get an awful lot of that 100,000 by grinding out 1,000 tons here or 2,000 tons there. This is a relatively low-effort way to get 1,000 of that. It takes a couple of hundred cars off the road and moves this forward. Molly Stump, City Attorney: Mr. Mayor, may I be heard? Mayor Scharff: Sure. Ms. Stump: For the Council's consideration, there are some details to be worked out. I know you've asked for Staff to work on these issues around what a penalty would be, what would be an enforcement plan, what the exceptions might be. For your consideration, why don't you let us know whether we should bring that analysis and that conversation back here to the Council for an action item on a future crowded agenda, or whether you might want to refer that as a first instance to Policy and Services? Vice Mayor Kniss: I would choose the latter route. Mayor Scharff: Which is Council or Policy and Services? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, I would actually send it to Policy and Services. TRANSCRIPT Page 85 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Ms. Stump: Council could make that referral then as part of your Motion tonight, then we'll be clear on where we're supposed (crosstalk). Vice Mayor Kniss: We can pound it out more there and especially talk about what the other cities have done. James Keene, City Manager: I don't mean to say that there are nuances here, but both a challenge on even the educational campaign. We need to have a clear conversation about that. I would agree in general with the comments that real active enforcement—forget the resource implications of it. There are lots of other even complications there. I think it'll be important for us to have that sort of discussion too. I'm not saying to poo-poo it; I'm in the camp that's saying an education campaign and way to keep referencing it is going to be in a way more essential and effective than the power of the State intervening. Council Member Filseth: Those of us that drafted the Memo, that's how we saw it too. Council Member Holman: Can I get clarification? Is Vice Mayor moving to amend the motion to refer to Policy and Services? If so, I would second it. Vice Mayor Kniss: That makes sense, at Molly's suggestion. Don't you? Council Member Holman: Mm hmm. I accept that. Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, let's do that. Mayor Scharff: You're fine with that? Council Member Holman: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “to the Policy and Services Committee” after “Staff to return.” Mayor Scharff: You're done, Council Member Filseth? Council Member Filseth: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I think you guys have covered almost all, but I did want to thank Shelly Gordon and the students and other speakers. It's a great example of how you can make a difference in your community. The video you guys made was really great. Thank you, guys, for doing this. I helped write TRANSCRIPT Page 86 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 this Memo because it makes a ton of sense. Multiple people have said it. Most new eco cars automatically do this anyway. There are other cities that we're patterning this after. I've heard from other cities that they really are looking to us. Los Altos will be the first, but hopefully others around us will adopt this as well. In a lot of ways, I see this as similar to our Smoking Ordinance in terms of enforcement and education. I agree with Council Member Filseth and the City Manager that it'll be mostly education and information and just creating that new behavior. I'd urge my colleagues to adopt this. I don't know how you can be for idling; idle hands, idle minds, idle cars, none of it is good. I hope you guys will support the anti-idling. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to direct Staff to return to the Policy and Services Committee with an Ordinance to implement Programs N5.2.1 and N5.2.2 in the Draft Comprehensive Plan and to support the Healthy Cities, Healthy Communities Council Priority by requiring drivers to shut off their engines after two or three minutes of stationary idling if not in an active traffic path, noting exceptions. The Ordinance would be patterned after city Ordinances adopted in Minneapolis, MN; Salt Lake City, UT; and Ann Arbor, MI. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no other lights, can we vote on the board? That passes unanimously with Council Member Fine absent. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 Fine absent 16. PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of a Finding That the Fire Station No. 3 Replacement Project (CIP PE-15003) is "Substantially Complex" Under Public Contract Code Section 7201 and Direction to Increase the Retention Schedule From 5 Percent to 10 Percent. Mayor Scharff: Now we are to the public hearing on the Fire Station Number 3 replacement project. We have a speaker on that too. Brad Eggleston, Public Works Assistant Director: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council. We don't actually have a Staff presentation on this. I'll just frame the Staff recommendation. We're done with the design process, essentially done on the design for Fire Station Number 3, the second of our Council infrastructure plans, which will be going out to construction. The project is under building permit review currently. We expect to put it out for bids in about the next month. The Staff Report that you've looked at explains the factors that make the project complex, such as the fact that it must meet the Essential Services Building Standards. Our recommendation is that you, the Council, find the proposed project to be substantially complex, which then allows us to put the project out to bid with a retention amount of 10 percent rather than the 5 percent that would otherwise be required. Essentially, the TRANSCRIPT Page 87 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 higher retention amount is just a tool on a complex project like this that will help us assure the successful completion of the project. That is the recommendation. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. We have one public speaker, Stephanie Munoz. Public Hearing opened at 10:05 P.M. Stephanie Munoz: Thank you, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. Why can't you put firemen housing on top of the firehouse? You don't have to worry about the FAR. You do not have to worry about the number of units. You do not have to worry about whether they're affordable because whatever you supply in housing you will not have to supply in money. You'll say, "I'm sure the firemen don't want to live near the firehouse." You want to bet? Five will get you ten that the whole complement will be happy to accept housing there, real housing. I don't mean temporary housing just for the nights when they're on duty. I mean housing that will hold their whole family of six or eight children, however many. You could do it. It's City land. It's already paid for, and it would be nice for the firemen to be able to put their children in Palo Alto schools without having to make a special arrangement and to have childcare in Palo Alto for them. It would really work out very well. I just don't see why you don't consider it. Thank you very much. Public Hearing closed at 10:06 P.M. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, coming back to Council, I will move that the proposed Fire Station Number 3 is substantially complex under Public Contract Code Section 7201 based on the reasons set forth in the Staff Report and allow this project to be advertised for bid with a retention amount of 10 percent. Council Member Holman: Second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to: A. Find the proposed Fire Station No. 3 Replacement Project “substantially complex” under Public Contract Code Section 7201 based on the reasons set forth in the Staff Report; and B. Allow the Project to be advertised for bid with a retention amount of ten percent. Mayor Scharff: After reading the Staff Report, I'm sure that the project is complex. I had originally thought this would be the least complex of our Public Works projects that we're about to do, but I've now decided it's complex. TRANSCRIPT Page 88 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I would just quickly—any time you have an opportunity to take an action that's in the favor of the City, we ought to just go there. I'm happy to support this. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, no. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I know it's late; I just have a quick question. I didn't even know this was an option, to do 5 percent. Are there any projects you think we would ever do 5 percent on? Do we do 10 percent on the garages? Mr. Eggleston: It used to be standard to utilize a 10 percent retention on our construction projects. The State Code was changed maybe 4 or 5 years ago to require the retention be no greater than 5 percent except in the instances when the governing body finds the project to be substantially complex. 5 percent has now been our standard, but I would imagine on other, larger, more impactful projects we would also seek the same finding from Council. Council Member DuBois: I'm asking of our list of projects, do you expect any of those to be 5 percent. Mr. Eggleston: Probably not. We haven't made this consideration on all of them. We'd have to consult with the Attorney's Office on a case-by-case basis. Council Member DuBois: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Thanks. If we could vote on the board. That also passes unanimously with Council Member Fine absent. MOTION PASSED: 8-0 Fine absent 17. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL: 3877 El Camino Real [14PLN- 00464]: Adoption of a Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan and Approval of a Site and Design Review for the Demolition of the Vacant 5,860 Square-foot Commercial Building and Construction of a new Mixed-use Project. The Project Includes a 4,027 Square-foot Commercial Building and 17 Dwelling Units (Flats and Townhouses). Parking for the Project is Provided in a Basement. The Applicant Also Requests Approval of a Design Enhancement Exception to Allow the Basement to Encroach Into the Required Rear Yard Setback Below Grade. Environmental Assessment: A Mitigated Negative Declaration TRANSCRIPT Page 89 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 was Circulated Between March 6, 2017 and April 7, 2017. Both the Planning & Transportation Commission (March 8, 2017) and Architectural Review Board (May 18, 2017) Have Recommended Approval of the Project. Zoning Districts: CS and RM-30. (Continued From August 21, 2017). Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs 19. Support for SB 797 (Hill), a Senate Bill Allowing Regional Entities and Residents of Santa Clara, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties to Vote to Increase the Sales Tax by 1/8 Cent for Caltrain Operations and Capital Purposes. Mayor Scharff: That now brings us to Intergovernmental Affairs, support for SB 797. Do we have a Staff Report or … James Keene, City Manager: (inaudible) feel the need to do that. I think the Staff memorandum is self-explanatory. Given the sponsor, the focus, there are some implications, but ultimately it really—if this passes of course, all it does ultimately is require a two-thirds vote of the public in order to enact it. Mayor Scharff: My bad. I did promise that we would speak on Item Number 17. We have one public speaker, Judy Gitelson. Is Judy still here? I don't see Judy. I apologize for that. Are we done with the Staff Report then? Mr. Keene: Yes, sir. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I just want to understand. I thought there were potentially competing initiatives here. I was surprised this came to us so early. RM-3, is that competing for the same dollars? Is it an either/or proposition? Mayor Scharff: No, Tom, it's not. Council Member DuBois: It's not? Mayor Scharff: No. RM-3 is not competing. Council Member DuBois: It's not sales tax? Mayor Scharff: It's not competing with the bridge toll. Council Member DuBois: Is it a sales tax or not? TRANSCRIPT Page 90 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: It's a bridge toll. Council Member DuBois: Again, does Staff have any—is there any downside to supporting this versus RM-3? Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: As noted, it really doesn't compete. There are different funding sources potentially complementary. We really do not see a downside at this point. Council Member DuBois: The other thing we need to think about is we're the second busiest Caltrain station. Supporting this, Palo Alto's potentially contributing, I think I read, $100 million. We're not guaranteed any kind of control or governance. Under this bill, there'll be a rep from San Jose. There will be a VTA rep and a County rep. I support it over all; I just wonder if this is our opportunity to have more of a governance discussion related to funding for Caltrain. Mayor Scharff: We have a bunch of speakers that want to speak on this; that's good. Let's go to the public so we can just do that. Herb Borock to be followed by Omar Chatty. Herb Borock: Thank you, Mayor Scharff. I had sent an email communication to you, but it arrived while Staff was already setting up at places. You don't have a printed at-places memo in front of you, but you should have received a forwarded email. I believe you should oppose this legislation. I didn't see a copy of the bill provided to you either in the packet or at places tonight. If you're going to be asked to vote on State legislation, you should have a copy of it. The most recent version is August 24th. The idea that somehow if we electrify Caltrain and are able to carry more passengers, it's going to relieve congestion on 101 is not accurate. It's a myth because the same companies that benefit by having somebody else pay to have their employees commute on Caltrain are into growth. They will just want more, and they'll just fill up the space as well. They'll have traffic congestion anyway. The largest, well- known companies with stations along Caltrain have over 120,000 employees in the Bay Area. If Caltrain's going to have 100,000 passengers and they're mainly commuters, that's 50,000 seats. They alone with their present employees can fill it up, and they all want more including Stanford, which is already expanding, and Google, which wants to go down to it with Diridon Station as a main thing. It's also a regressive tax. First, because the companies should be paying for it instead of everybody else. Secondly, because the general public that'll be paying for it through sales tax does not have an income that compares to the average Caltrain rider, which is $129,000 a year. For all those reasons, you should oppose it. Finally, this reminds me, as Dave Price said in the Daily Post a week ago, of the vote on TRANSCRIPT Page 91 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 October 6, 2008, when the Council voted for Proposition 1A and then turned right around and began opposing the very thing that they had helped pass. I suspect that's what's going to happen here, and the time to oppose it is now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Omar Chatty. Omar Chatty: Hi there. My name's Omar Chatty, and I live in San Jose. I'm a member of the Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Association Board of Directors, which is opposed to this tax. There are a number of reasons why. This is really for High Speed Rail like so many taxes that were passed in 2016, including our Measure B, which had over $1.1 billion for grade crossings, etc., and for Caltrain. We have federal funding available. We have regional Measure 3, which is being cut up into goodies for each of the cities that support it. Caltrain's not ruled out yet. You also have a measure coming in San Mateo for a half cent tax. We have regional Measure 2. We have the 2000 Measure A. We have a lot of funding coming in. We don't need this. We have the cap and trade funds where some of it can be cut out for this kind of project. The lie that—the High Speed Rail project is full of lies, as you know. That's one of the reasons this City was sued before it was taken over by the pro High Speed Rail State Democratic Party—excuse me. I don't know what other word to use except puppets. I don't like using that word; I'm sorry. There is funding available. There is no shortage of funding. This is High Speed Rail, which is going to really cause problems for Palo Alto. You should oppose this regulation. It also breaks the State limit of allowable sales tax. This has an exemption for 1/8 cent to go beyond the State limit. We know Jerry Hill is the point man for High Speed Rail in the Peninsula. Right, Cory? I would be real careful about this. I would ask you to oppose it. I know Democrats' DNA is for tax and spend. I'm smiling. You need to restrain this. This is silly. We need money for other things. Remember, since High Speed Rail was decided in 1995, 275 people have been killed on this track. We need BART, not High Speed Rail, which is going to do it faster especially with electrification. No to this tax. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. I'm actually going to speak to this right now. We should support this, and there are a lot of reasons to do that. Caltrain does not have a stable source of funding. There's basically three counties. Every year, the counties put together their budget for Caltrain. Vice Mayor Kniss was on that Board for a short while. It gets complicated. If one county has less money, the other counties are only obligated to put up as much money as the county with the lowest amount is willing to put up. The budgets fluctuate in different years. This is a long-term problem for Caltrain, and Caltrain is crucial to Palo Alto. I actually agree with Tom on the governance issue, but the governance issue is very complicated. San Mateo chooses their TRANSCRIPT Page 92 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 reps and San Francisco chooses their reps very differently than Santa Clara does. As you know, Santa Clara chooses it through the VTA. We choose one person from our Council to go to the VTA Board, and then it rotates. Currently, it's Vice Mayor Kniss. When are you going to rotate onto that VTA Board? Vice Mayor Kniss: Do you guys know when we really rotate on it if it goes correctly? In 2020. It's terrible. Mayor Scharff: I agree with Council Member DuBois that our ability to have influence on the Caltrain Board is really, really limited. In fact, I don't know if anyone from Palo Alto has ever actually made the Caltrain Board. I don't know. Do you know? A Council Member, not a Supervisor obviously, who has ever been on the Board. Have we ever had a Council Member from Palo Alto on the Board? Vice Mayor Kniss: I don't (inaudible) Caltrain Board. Mayor Scharff: We've had them on the VTA Board, but actually on the Caltrain Board. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) can't go on Caltrain unless you're a Supervisor. Mayor Scharff: No, Jeannie's on the Caltrain Board. She was just a Council Member. Morgan Hill. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's because (inaudible) VTA, though. Mayor Scharff: Right. You have to go on VT … Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: You have to go onto VTA, and then you have to get there. In other words, it's really difficult. There are other reasons why this bill—there are some positives on this bill. Mr. Chatty actually mentioned one of them. It raises the sales tax limit so it doesn't take away. We still have the ability to go out for our 1/8 cent sales tax. If we as a City wish to go out, it doesn't change that. I think that's why it's breaking that limit. I think that's a good thing. There are other negatives on this bill in some ways, but it's outweighed by the positive of a stable funding system. Is that what's really going to happen? They're fairly open about it. SamTrans, VTA, and San Francisco are no longer going to provide the money that they currently provide. What they're going to do is use the sales tax money instead. Caltrain won't actually get much more money, if any more money, out of this to start with. Instead, it's going to allow Caltrain to operate in a funding stable environment. I know a lot of you weren't on the Council; Vice Mayor Kniss, you should address this TRANSCRIPT Page 93 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 a little bit at some point. There was an issue when Caltrain looked like it was actually going to go under. There have been periods in the past where that's come pretty close. Any time we have a recession, these other agencies do not step up and do not fund, and we have a huge problem with that. That's really the reason to support this. I was thinking, to Tom's comment, about how we could influence this. What we typically do—in the past we've had our representatives, Hill and the Assembly Member—that would be Marc these days—come to Council and talk to us about things in a Study Session. I actually think we should try and arrange that as soon as possible, frankly, where we could actually talk about some of these governance issues. Otherwise, our response would have to be we approve, but we would like you to amend it to include changing governance. I just don't see that as effective frankly as opposed to having the discussion with Jerry as maybe a next step of how do we deal with some of the governance issues on this. Anyway, sorry about jumping in like that. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'm looking at the bill right now on leginfo. It's offered by Senators Hill, Beall, Wieckowksi, and Wiener with coauthors Assembly Members Berman, Chiu, Kalra, Mullin, Stone, and Ting. It has pretty broad support from our legislative team for the region up in Sacramento. My understanding is that this does not approve any sales tax. This bill would enable the Caltrain Board to propose 1/8 cent sales taxes in the three counties, and it could only go to the ballot if it was also approved by the Boards and Supervisors, and then would require a two-thirds vote of the people in those counties. We are not voting for any tax tonight. We are merely voting for support for the Legislature to enable our region to explore sales taxes to provide a stable funding source for Caltrain. I fully agree with concerns about Caltrain safety, which is why with everybody else up here I think that Caltrain grade separation is crucially important. We need to get our act together, frankly, as a City moving forward with our decision about how we're going to separate. I fully agree with the concerns about Palo Alto's lack of representation on the Caltrain Board and will support efforts to amend that in the future. I do not think that is the purpose of this legislation. Those conversations do need to move. I don't think tying them together as a condition at this point makes sense. I'll be supporting this. Do we have a motion yet? Mayor Scharff: We don't. Council Member Wolbach: I'll make the Motion to support the Staff recommendation. Mayor Scharff: I'll second it. TRANSCRIPT Page 94 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to declare its support for SB 797 (Hill), a bill allowing the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain) to petition regional entities and the voters of Santa Clara, San Francisco, and San Mateo Counties, to increase the sales tax by 1/8 cent to fund Caltrain operations and capital expenditures, and direct the City Manager to advocate for its adoption, including submitting letters of support to the legislature, contacting the author to offer support, and directing the City’s State lobbyist to testify on behalf of the Bill in committee hearings and meet with the legislative offices to advocate for the bill on behalf of the City. Mayor Scharff: I already spoke. You want to speak to your Motion? Council Member Wolbach: I think I've spoken to it. Mayor Scharff: I feel like I've already spoken too. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I appreciate the apparent intentions of this, but I also really appreciate and support the comments of Council Member DuBois. These issues are always so San Jose centric. We have less than a voice because everything here is so San Jose centric, so loaded with votes whether it's County Supervisors because they have so many Supervisors on the Board of Supervisors that they then get the vote. Palo Alto has no vote essentially. We don't get good representation even though we are the busiest station between San Francisco and San Jose in terms of ridership. Also again as Tom said, we provide a significant amount of sales tax dollars. This 1/8 cent sales tax increase would be a lot of the funding coming from Palo Alto, and yet we really have pretty much no voice. I also am frustrated because it's occurred to me sort of recently and continues that we haven't had joint meetings with our Assembly Member or with our State Senator. We haven't heard from our lobbyists. We've just had no contact from any of those entities that I am aware of. I don't think the lobbyists have even been reporting to the Policy and Services Committee. I'm not aware of any of those things happening. Mr. Keene: I'll look into what our State lobbyist has been doing. I think they've actually been really on top of stuff and have done a great job of keeping us informed. We've certainly talked about our legislative strategy and policies this year, but we could certainly bring them forward. Council Member Holman: That would be really helpful. I just don't feel like we're having those discussions. Is there a timeliness to this? Is there a deadline for this that's looming? TRANSCRIPT Page 95 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mr. Keene: All the legislation's got to be done by what, the 15th or whatever would be going to the Governor. End of the session is September 15th. Yes, it's timely. Council Member Holman: I'm having a hard time supporting it. Mr. Keene: Could I just offer a practical observation, a little riffing off what the Mayor said? First of all, number one, this is going to pass most likely for sure. Council Member Holman: I understand that. Mr. Keene: Secondly, to the extent that we're primarily putting this on to ultimately allow the people to have a vote on whether or not they want to tax themselves to provide this and provide a stable revenue source, that sounds like a good democracy-supporting perspective. Three, most practically, don't we have more influence in talking with Caltrain about saying we support this going forward, but we've got to talk about governance, than for us to say we wanted to do it, but we decided to pass on this. I think we give up. To me it's a better entre to support this going forward and then make asks. We still always have the opportunity to oppose it when it goes to the ballot, if it does, because (inaudible) shortchanged or whatever. That's more influential than the decision you would make right now, it seems to me. Council Member Holman: It is a bit of a sixes-and-sevens kind of thing. I agree with your latter point. I agree with your first point; it is going to pass. I think it also does say something if this doesn't pass Council unanimously, that we are not particularly happy with the voice we have in things. If we support this at this point in time, I don't know what the likelihood is that, when this goes to the ballot, we're going to oppose it then. That seems rather odd that we would do that. For what it's worth. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: The governance issue is very important and relevant. Tom brought it up, and the City Manager just articulated the af [sic] case for this pretty well. Here for me is the neg case. We already fund Caltrain through sales taxes via VTA. Assuming that the Mayor has correctly analyzed the situation, what's going to happen is, if this passes, we're going to still fund Caltrain through sales taxes to the VTA, but we've got some other sales taxes that go to the VTA that they're going to divert to the South Bay. VTA is already diverting resources to the South Bay and not giving us anything for it. This will be even further us paying the VTA for services that we don't get. They already see us as a cash box to fund their inefficient service to San Jose and the South Bay. I would sure love to find a way that we can get some of that TRANSCRIPT Page 96 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 money back from the VTA if this goes forward. That said, as the City Manager pointed out, there's a ballot initiative. We're not approving anything tonight. I hope that's a discussion that will come into the discussion of Palo Alto's ultimate support for this bill because Palo Alto residents are ill-served these days by the VTA in terms of return on the money we send to them. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I wanted to understand from the Mayor—I hear Council Member DuBois' proposing that we put something in here that says we get better representation. The country's founded on no taxes without representation or something like that. Why not do that here? Why not support it but say we want our—we're the busiest stop, as everyone talked about. Why not get our fair share of the representation? Certainly having him come here and talk to us is also a good thing. For such an important stop, I don't understand why we don't have representation. I think we should insist upon it. I would like to understand from the Mayor why you think we should just not do that at this time. Mayor Scharff: I don't think it would be effective, and I think it muddies the water and makes us look out of touch. It's an important discussion that we have with Jerry. I think it's a separate bill about Caltrain representation. That's going to be something that has to be worked out, that would pass in some way. Us saying this would be sort of like spitting into the wind. It makes us seem out of touch with regional politics and sort of "that's Palo Alto, they're just not really in touch up there with what's going on." It hurts us and the ability to—what we're doing tonight is really what Council Member Wolbach said. We're setting the stage to have the discussion. The question is when do you push things in the discussion. I don't think it's right now, which is just the enabling legislation to allow the VTA, to allow our Supervisors. If you notice, this has to get a two-thirds vote from the Supervisors, the VTA, from San Francisco, from all that, to put it on the ballot, and it's going to have to pass by a two-thirds vote. The negotiating part of when we had effective negotiations to get the money for the grade separations was not early on. It was as this went to the voters when we told the Leadership Group, "San Jose has been stealing our money on all of this; Palo Alto voters aren't going to support this unless there's something baked into this about how we're going to get what we need to get." That's the time to have those discussions. You never get there if this doesn't pass. If we're not part of the solution of putting this on the ballot, we're not at the table. People will say Palo Alto didn't even support this when it came up. From a political strategy point of view—I know we don't usually have these discussions totally in public like this—what we need to do is support it and then have those discussions about our concerns on Caltrain and try and get something positive. I don't view us as a debating TRANSCRIPT Page 97 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 society, frankly, where we just say, "I'm unhappy with this." I view it as how do we be effective and get what we need for the Palo Alto residents. That's why, Greg. Council Member Tanaka: My only concern here is just that it sounds like we've been wanting this for decades, to get better representation, and it's never really happened. I guess it's your strategy to—since this is more of a preliminary thing—say we support it, but then at the last minute say we're only really going to support it on a ballot if and only if we get representation. Is that the strategy? How do we change decades of no representation to suddenly getting representation? We don't. I would love to see a way to get there somehow. Council Member Filseth: Fundamentally, I see this as it has the potential of being a good thing for Palo Alto. In its current form, we don't know if we can get it to that point yet. It has the potential, so the discussion here is should we try to get to that point. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: I do have the advantage. I've been on VTA. I've chaired VTA a couple of times, and I was on Caltrain Board for about 3 years. What Greg Tanaka has just said is you don't change this. I went on the VTA Board hoping to change it because San Jose is so influential in this entire county. I'm looking at Ed, and Ed knows that. It's absolutely the case. We have almost no power against San Jose, believe it or not. It's extremely frustrating. The same on Caltrain. Caltrain is the same kind of issue. We really don't have much influence on Caltrain as much as we might like to. This is very tempting. I've talked to Jerry Hill about this bill a lot. We talked about it a lot when I was on the Caltrain Board. Even if this sets the stage, I'm not comfortable with whatever governance is involved in this. I can't support this yet. Maybe in a couple of weeks, if I knew something more about where this was going. I'm delighted to see that Senator Hill is putting it forward. I worry that just what has happened before to us in Palo Alto will happen again. We simply don't have a great deal of power at this end of the county, and we don't have a lot of power in the three counties as a whole. The other part of this I'm concerned about is some of you who are involved with VTA may have had a note from Jeannie Bruins—have any of you had that note—indicating that Measure B funds are frozen because there has been a lawsuit. The lawsuit could go on for any length of time. This is the first time I've really looked at this tonight. I'm not feeling comfortable supporting it. For one of the very few times in my entire career, I'm going to abstain. I just cannot feel comfortable with it. With all the other information I've collected through the years, I'm not sure this is an overall good deal. Caltrain, by the way, also TRANSCRIPT Page 98 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 needs to clean up their operations. I know we may think we pay a lot here; Jim Hartnett I think makes about &500,000 a year. It's a very generous, very generous salary. There are lots of other issues with Caltrain that I'd like to see addressed before we go ahead with a bill like this, that once again increases the sales tax. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Since I didn't really speak after making the motion earlier, I'll take a quick opportunity now. I just want to make sure we're all clear about, again, what this bill does. Vice Mayor Kniss: I am. Council Member Wolbach: This bill would not increase any sales taxes. This bill does not increase sales taxes for VTA. This bill is enabling legislation to allow the Caltrain Board to propose a sales tax in the three counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties, which would also need to be approved by the Boards of Supervisors in each of those counties and would need to be approved by the transportation agencies in those counties, and would also then need to be approved by two-thirds of the voters in each of those counties; maybe it's in total for the region. This is so far from baked. To suggest that tonight is too soon to vote for a tax misrepresents quite grossly what is front of us on the agenda tonight. Also, again, the governance issues and the operations issues facing Caltrain, I fully agree with all of the concerns raised this evening. I'm going to be really clear about that. I think we all are on the same page that Caltrain needs to clean up their act, and that Caltrain representation needs to include more equity and representation of the cities including Palo Alto. This isn't about Caltrain governance. This is about Caltrain funding and having at least a stable funding source for Caltrain. I think the Mayor put it—when we launch those conversations in the future— I would like to see our Rail Committee get to work on this soon. Those conversations about how we can increase representation and improve the operations of Caltrain, I want to make sure that we're at least relevant and that we're invited to those conversations or at least, when we shoehorn ourselves into those conversations, we're not laughed out of the room. Just something to take under consideration. Vice Mayor Kniss: Excuse me for going out of turn. If we talk about funding, we're talking about funding the current governance, not changing any of the governance. You can't keep governance and funding separate. The funding goes to the current governance. Amen. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. TRANSCRIPT Page 99 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Kou: What Council Member Tanaka said, we've been wanting to be on this—have some influence for many, many years. Really it's insanity to try to continue doing this over and over again and getting the same results. We've been through this more than once, voting a tax for VTA in order to do something about Caltrain for our side of town. It's really not happened. I completely agree with Vice Mayor Kniss as well as Council Member Holman. This is not something that I can support either. I'm looking at it, and we're looking at how jobs are so much over here. It's the industry that is bringing in the need for the Caltrain. Yet, none of that industry is doing anything about funding for Caltrain and its operations. Instead, we're always constantly coming up with some sort of sales tax or some sort of imposition on the taxpayers here. There's just too many. It's just too many for nothing that's moving forward. To hear about this freeze on Measure B is beyond disappointing. I am not going to be supporting this. Council Member Wolbach: A quick question for Staff. There have been some questions raised tonight about whether the timeliness means that we need to submit our position on this, this evening and what the next steps are for this piece of legislation. Is this something that we could take up or finish the conversation about in say a week or two? Mr. Keene: Yes, you could if you wanted. September 5th is a fairly light agenda. It's still within the parameters of when the session ends. Council Member Wolbach: Would it be possible at this point to make an amendment to my motion? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Council Member Wolbach: We continue this discussion until September 5th. Mayor Scharff: I would be fine with that. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to continue this Item to September 5, 2017. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois, you wanted to speak. Council Member DuBois: I was going to—I appreciate Council Member Kou and Council Member Kniss and Tanaka. I'm not sure where Council Member Holman is exactly. Again, what I'm hearing is we're going to get multiple bites at this. This is not approving the tax itself. It's just supporting the ability to potentially have a discussion about a future tax. Given the expenses for Caltrain and the importance of Caltrain, I would urge the Council Members, particularly Council Member Kniss, to think. Again, I really do appreciate what TRANSCRIPT Page 100 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 you said and your position on this. This, again, seems so early in the process. We're going to get another chance before we're really supporting an actual tax. I'd just ask you to think about that. I'd prefer to just do this tonight. Mayor Scharff: I'd prefer to do it tonight too. I was surprised at Council Member Kniss' comments, and I was unclear if Council Member Tanaka was supportive or not. Council Member Tanaka, would you like to—do you want to put it off for a week and think about it or do you want to vote tonight? Council Member Tanaka: I'm looking at putting it off a week. My main thing is I just … I agree with what someone said earlier, which is the money follows the governance. For this 1/8 cent tax, instead of being allocated the way it's been allocated, maybe it could be allocated by ridership, which city has the ridership. It'd be San Francisco, Palo Alto, then the cities downstream or something like that. Maybe we can't control all the funding, but at least for this kind of funding we start—every measure that we support, we try to push for something where we get some sort of representation and we have some control. My big fear is that if we don't do something different, if we keep going the way we're going, we never get our representation. Vice Mayor Kniss: As Lydia said, insanity is … Council Member Tanaka: I know. That's why I would love to support this, but there should be some sort of amendment that ties some of the control of the funding to the station ridership or something where it's more fair and equitable than "Palo Alto, it's too bad you guys just don't have representation." That's what I'd like to see. Mayor Scharff: Is the difference between funding to ridership, which is difficult to do given that it funds the whole Caltrain system … Council Member Tanaka: I'm just trying to say for this 1/8—we can't change Caltrain overnight. Each time the funding goes around, the incremental funding is controlled by the cities that have the ridership or the stations that have the ridership so that there's more equity involved. Right now, it's we pay, and we may or may not get the money. We may not get the service that we care about. I'm just trying to figure out how do we get even a small piece of some control to control our destiny. This is very important to our City and, yet, we have very little control. I'm trying to figure out how do we get control. That's what I'm after. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to make sure everybody saw … TRANSCRIPT Page 101 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Council Member Holman: Just a quick point of order. I'm sorry. There's a substitute motion up there without a second, and yet we're having a lot of discussion. Was there a second that hasn't been captured? Vice Mayor Kniss: Greg seconded it. Mayor Scharff: Yeah, I did second it. I could withdraw my second if I thought it would be worthwhile to have the vote. If we're going to deadlock four—we could have the vote on the first Motion and then have the vote on the second Motion. Maybe that's better. Let's see if people want to move forward tonight or don't. Council Member Holman: We have to have the vote on the Substitute Motion first. Mayor Scharff: Not when they're by the same people. Anyway, you actually wouldn't take two votes on that like that. I'm going to withdraw my second for now, and we'll just see. I'll let you speak to it first. Council Member Wolbach: I was suggesting it as an amendment to the first motion. I thought you agreed. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'll second it. Otherwise, you don't get my vote tonight. You decide on what you want. Council Member Wolbach: I'll speak to the Substitute Motion. Thank you, Kniss, for seconding the substitute motion. I appreciate that you all will have a little bit more time to read up about the bill. You can call either our Assembly Member who is one of the principal coauthors, Marc Berman, or our City Senator, Jerry Hill, to ask them or their staffs about it. Also, I'd make sure we saw an email that we also got at places from Jessica Epstein, who's the Governance and Community Affairs Officer for Caltrain. This is important. The second substantial paragraph says we're entering this process thoughtfully—this is from Jessica Epstein—and deliberately by developing the Caltrain business plan. This goes to the question that Council Member Tanaka raised. This is the conversation that we need to have. What's going to happen in that business plan? In the last substantial paragraph, it says that they're hoping to complete the business plan by the end of 2018. There's a year and a half or over a year at least of discussion left on even what the business plan would be. If something were to go to the voters, it wouldn't be until 2020. That's according to the letter we got from Caltrain. You've got it at your places as well. Something to think about. Also, Jessica's number is there, so we could each individually call her before the 5th so that we can understand this more. I'll reach out to her and encourage her to come to the meeting on the 5th in case we have remaining questions at that time. TRANSCRIPT Page 102 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: The reason I'm willing to put it off a week is I would like to talk to Jerry about this a little bit at least. Greg Tanaka's comment about governance is absolutely critical. If there isn't some way to change the governance, you do not have any influence. That to me is the big frustration. I'm willing to wait a week, ask them is there any way you could change the governance. I don't see it off the top of my head. VTA has been in place in since 1996. It's a State law. In order to ever get it changed, you'd have to get San Jose willing to change their vote. Mayor Scharff: The way we choose the Caltrain membership is internal to VTA. San Jose would be the one that would have to change the vote. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's why they always dominate. Mayor Scharff: Are we ready to vote on the board? Did I miss someone who wanted to speak to this? We'd be voting on the substitute motion. Do you want to speak to the substitute? Council Member Holman: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I had not had a chance to read the letter yet that Cory just referenced. If the proposal wouldn't go to the voters until 2020, what about a conversation with Senator Hill, for instance, to ask for this vote to be delayed so that we can have some reasonable conversation with Senator Hill, Assemblyman Berman, and some others to talk about this very issue of governance and fair representation? It doesn't sound like there's any real urgency. I do have a problem with trying to vote yes on this but, when the wording comes back later, we're going to vote against it if it doesn't say the right thing when it goes to the voters. That just seems schizophrenic to me. it doesn't address the issue of governance that we've talked about ad nauseum. Vice Mayor Kniss: To me, the bottom line is governance because you cannot change outcomes without changing the governance. Council Member Holman: We've talked about that ad nauseum. I'm happy if this comes back on September 5th. Maybe in the meantime, we can have some conversations with our State Legislators and see if we can't just delay this vote. It looks like Council Member Wolbach is in favor of that, at least will consider that. Mayor Scharff: Ready to vote on the substitute motion? Back on September 5th. TRANSCRIPT Page 103 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED: 6-2 DuBois, Kou no, Fine absent Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Scharff: Now, we're at Council Member Questions and Comments, I believe. Go for it. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of things. One, I do hope that we'll find a way to bring for our agendas in the not too distant future how we can get back to having something that a number of other colleagues have talked about in the past, which is sense minutes rather than just verbatim and action minutes. I'm just going to put that out there, that that's my view on that issue. Vice Mayor Kniss: Did you say what I think you did? James Keene, City Manager: That's about four meetings. Council Member Wolbach: Secondly, I did want to reiterate my view on the question of uses and tenants and what's permitted or not permitted in churches and other places of worship in our community. I'm actually glad that the question of Code enforcement when it comes to tenants in churches, etc., has been an issue. It's been in the press and been discussed here quite a bit recently. I do look forward to a broader discussion about that topic for a real policy discussion coming to the Council hopefully in the not too distant future. I look to the City Manager with just my own thoughts. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Two things. I also hope that—just to support what Council Member Wolbach just said—discussion about uses at churches will come to the Council or perhaps Policy and Services first. It needs to be a discussion by elected officials and take the Staff out of the hot seat on that. It's too big of a policy issue to leave it solely with Staff. It needs to come to Council. Last week when we were discussing the animal shelter, I think it was Council Member Wolbach that asked for a study that Pets In Need had done, that wasn't in our packet and hadn't been provided to us. I thought that was going to be forthcoming, unless I've overlooked it, which is possible. I've not seen it come. I'm still interested in seeing that so that can come to the Council. Also, there was a letter provided by the Director of Pets In Need, that was about last week's agenda item. We didn't get copies of that letter either, and there was only an excerpt read from it by Rob de Geus. I'd also like a copy of that letter. It should be a public letter, I would think. Those two things I hope will be forthcoming about the Pets In Need proposal. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 104 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Perhaps this is news you already know. The Supreme Court ruling today would change the two-thirds rule for tax measures if brought by citizens. Are any of you familiar with this? It says the Supreme Court ruling. I presume it's State. Mayor Scharff: I just forwarded it to you. Molly Stump, City Attorney: The decision is complex. It was issued today. I actually spent some time reading it while I was listening to your deliberations this evening. Folks who are drawing that conclusion from the case may be reading it too broadly. The question before the Court was much narrower. I'd like some time to analyze the decision and the cases it cites, and then I'll advise you. Vice Mayor Kniss: That would be very valuable. Someone has been pinging me. What I'm seeing is the voice of San Diego says the State Supreme Court just changed everything we knew about local taxation. Ms. Stump: The question before the court was a much narrower one. When a citizen initiative that involved a fee, possibly a tax, whether the timing requirement in the State Elections Code for Council-initiated measures also applied in the same way to the citizen initiative. It was not about the two- thirds requirement. We'll need to read all of the language of the court's opinion very carefully to see whether it has those broader implications. As of this evening, I'm skeptical that it does. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Also, if somebody would be in touch with VTA in particular, maybe Jeannie Bruins who's chairing it this year, and get a report on Measure B, how long it may be in a lawsuit. What I'm reading is everything is tied up at the moment. Therefore, all those grade separation monies, the road improvements are all frozen right now. Ms. Stump: That one, we'll have to look into that. Mayor Scharff: I'll just point out that might be a good thing for Palo Alto, given where we are on grade seps. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's all I have. Mayor Scharff: Yes. James Keene, City Manager: Mr. Mayor, Council Members, I know this is just during Council Comment period. As it related to the more general comments from both Council Member Wolbach and Council Member Holman about uses TRANSCRIPT Page 105 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 and churches and that sort of thing, I would just share that we are in the midst of conversations with the First Baptist Church and outlining a potential way forward. I can't see what the Council is asking as a directive for us right now in the nearer term in any way to stop what we're doing in this particular situation, waiting for some larger discussion. I don't see those things as either/or. Vice Mayor Kniss: Just a request. I thought it might be a kindness for a change if we all kept Number 17. That's a lot of stuff to be sending around to each one of us. I'll keep mine on hand 'til next week. Mayor Scharff: One other thing I wanted to say. I'm going to send out a letter opposing SB 35, which is the Wiener bill. We have a City policy of supporting local control. I don't know if everyone realizes the Wiener bill actually creates a ministerial streamlining process for the approval of projects and requires that we get rid of our parking. It basically allows you to have no parking within half a mile of transit anywhere in the City. That's something we need to get on the record that we oppose. If we're going to be effective, we need to send it in immediately. We don't really have time to put it on the September 5th calendar. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's like the old (inaudible) build right bill. It's the build right again. Mayor Scharff: It's the build right with allowing no parking. Council Member Holman: Could I suggest this, which has happened before sometimes? A letter is drafted; it's sent to all Council Members. If we have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, we could forward them individually to the Staff to then filter back to you. Mayor Scharff: I would just look on a Brown Act violation. I don't believe— I'll leave it to the City Attorney. That makes me feel uncomfortable in terms of a Brown Act violation when we have a serial meeting, even if we do it through the City Clerk. Council Member Holman: I just know we've done it that way before when there's been an urgency of time. Mayor Scharff: I don't recall us doing that. Ms. Stump: A procedure like that really pushes the boundaries of the rule for the reasons stated. We can talk more about it. TRANSCRIPT Page 106 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 Mayor Scharff: I'm not sure we can have a discussion of this, frankly. I'm going to say we can't. I just wanted to let you know that I've consulted with the City Attorney. I'm the Mayor on this. I hope no one has a huge problem with this, me sending this out. I think it's important, and I think it's supportive of our policies on local control. I just didn't want to catch anyone by surprise by sending it out without telling you. Council Member Holman: I don't want to indicate that I'm opposed to the action. I was just trying to look for a way if there was. I support your doing it. Mayor Scharff: Does anyone have something else? Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: There's also another bill, SB 649, which has to do with the data cell boxes that are going to be installed. It's basically going to again take away local governance in terms of putting these boxes up in our own public spaces. It further erodes our ability to control what goes up. it's something we should look at and also oppose. Please take a look at that and advise. Mr. Keene: We've already taken an opposed position on this, but it looks like it may pass. We'll be in a situation where it's going to go to the Governor's desk. We probably then would just respond with another letter advocating a veto by the Governor. Mayor Scharff: Cory. Council Member Wolbach: Without getting into conversation about it, I forgot to mention it when we came back from our break. Over our break, the Legislative Action Committee for the Peninsula Division of the League of California Cities met with a number of our local Legislators and/or their staff up and down the Peninsula, from San Jose to San Francisco. They are aware of the League of California Cities' position opposing SB 35 and also the small cells (inaudible) 649, I believe it was, because of local control issues. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: Back to the First Baptist Church. I'm glad to hear that the City Manager is putting stuff on pause. During one of my office hours, the owner of (inaudible) came to see me and talk about some of the challenges. Some of the things she told me about, in terms of consistency, some answers she got from the City. She actually showed me the emails. She got contradicting answers on the zoning and what she should do and the advice. She had to shell out tens of thousands of dollars, and this is a marginal business for her. She's doing it because she wants to teach kids how to sing TRANSCRIPT Page 107 of 107 City Council Meeting Final Transcript: 8/28/17 and play music and stuff like that. She's not like a multimillionaire for doing this. She ended up having to—I think her husband had to mortgage their house for $1.5 million. The impacts of this—while it sounds like most people are okay, we hit a small business owner pretty hard. We need some better judgment in the future on some of these items. It's pretty dramatic. She was in tears. I felt extremely bad for her. She was there for 10 years, and then suddenly there's a Code crackdown. That doesn't seem right. I definitely would love to hear how this goes like to Policy and Services, and hopefully stuff like this doesn't happen again. These are community-serving businesses, and they're trying to help the community, trying to help kids. That's why we had that turnout a month ago with iSing and others, because they're trying to help the community. It just didn't seem right. I appreciate Policy and Services taking this up. Vice Mayor Kniss: Is that it, sir? Mr. Keene: Not necessarily at Policy and Services yet on this. Just as a follow- up, we are working directly with iSing and exchanging drafts, including their edits of drafts, about what is the way forward to allow them to stay there. Council Member Tanaka: iSing is probably okay, but (inaudible) got wiped out. That's the thing to think about. Mayor Scharff: The meeting is adjourned. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:04 P.M.