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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-10-30 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT Page 1 of 117 Special Meeting October 30, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 5:09 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Fine, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Special Orders of the Day 1. Introduction of Lord Mayor, Professor, Dr. Eckart Wuerzner of Heidelberg, Germany, and the Heidelberg Delegation. Mayor Scharff: Today, it's my great honor and privilege to introduce the Lord Mayor, Professor Dr. Eckart Wuerzner of Heidelberg, Germany, and the Heidelberg delegation. After 6 years of being Deputy Mayor of the City of Heidelberg, responsible for the environment, he was elected Mayor in 2006 and then reelected in 2014. Dr. Wuerzner served as Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Stadtwerke Heidelberg and Heidelberg Marketing GmbH, the Technology Park, Chairman of the Administrative Board of Sparkasse Heidelberg and Regional Chairman of the Climate Protection and Energy Advisory Agency. Dr. Wuerzner also served as President of the European Energy Cities Network and President of Heidelberg Club International and is a member of the European Covenant of Mayors Board. We also welcome the other members of the Heidelberg delegation, Nichole Huber; Dr. Wolfgang Niopek, head of the Chamber of Commerce Heidelberg; and Steffen Woerner, head of the Heidelberg Youth Organization; and also present is Achim Fischer, head of communications, City of Heidelberg; Ralph Kuhnl, CEO of our local TV station, Rhein-Neckar Fernsehen; and Matthias Heimer from the City. Lastly, I want to recognize Neighbors Abroad for all the work they do to support our Sister City partnerships. Bob Wenzlau, thank you for coming. I'd also like to recognize Judy Kleinberg being here on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and our former Mayor. While I'm doing it, Rick Kniss who's come to support his wife tonight. Now, we invite Dr. Wuerzner to make a brief presentation to us if you want to approach the podium. TRANSCRIPT Page 2 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Professor Eckart Wuerzner, Lord Mayor of Heidelberg, Germany: First of all, I would like to say thank you for the invitation to speak to you here in the City Council. It's a great pleasure to meet you, talk to you. Also for all those who are part of the delegation, as you already mentioned. Many thanks for this great thing to Greg and to Liz and all the former Mayors, because we have already, as you mentioned, nearly 6, 7 years trying to build up ties since 4 years now through the strategic operation in working together in the field of Smart City. Now, the official signature, the official partnership, the official twinning between Heidelberg and Palo Alto is great. I also want to say thank you to those who are supporting this structure. Jim, many thanks to you. I think it's also very important that the administrations are working closely together to learn from each other, to share experience, to get a broader experience exchange in many fields when you think about the Smart City development, when I think about the cooperation in the question of how we create a more sustainable city and the question of mobility, topics which are coming up very brutal in our city. It's not a question only in Palo Alto and Heidelberg, but we all have to deal with this. This is also something which brings pressure to the citizens. It's not always so easy to implement mass transit system, for example, or bicycle lanes in downtown areas. We have to think how we can keep our cities, also my city, Heidelberg, as you know, is a very historical city, but we cannot only secure the city; we also have to develop the city because then the next generation has a perspective and, therefore, the administration in my opinion is very important. The leaders are very important from the administration and also from the City Council. The right decisions should be made. In Heidelberg, we have a little bit different situation when we try to bring on board the political agenda. In my City Council, we have 48 City Council Members, each from different political groups and parties. About 13 political groups are dealing about the best topic, the best bicycle project, best waste management, the best social program or health care program. It's all about politics and how we can really move the City in the right direction. Beside this, I think it's also very important for the future, beside this business and cooperation in the field of administration, that the citizens fell that they have a new friend, a new friend in the United States, here in Palo Alto, and therefore Bob in my opinion is a great friend who support this partnership with a lot of other partners from the Neighbors Abroad association to bring together the citizens. If this is not the case, it's just an official cooperation, and it's not based on the trust of the citizens as it should be. The project we just saw this morning bring the young generation together via Skype on the topic of new business relations in the field of mathematics or other topics. I think it's very important that we have this support. We're supporting as the City of Heidelberg this very strong with unit. It's lots of finance in many cases by the City. Steffen and many other persons who are responsible for the cooperation between the young generation, between the sports clubs, between the culture groups, between all those who have also get TRANSCRIPT Page 3 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 a closer link is very important. I'm very pleased to be here with my delegation. It's an honor to be a twin with Palo Alto. I have to say this. We're a little different in the size, but we're nearly in the same shape; a very strong, well known, international university, which sometimes just doing what they want and we want another way. There's always a nice cooperation or a strong cooperation. We have also the same entrepreneurship and business group, lots of startup companies, lots of freethinkers. One is most important that we believe what is not always the case that only if we're going more international, if we believe that religion should not lead the way to the future in this or that direction, that will give everybody a chance to live in our country and our community, if they're black, if they're white, if they're Muslims, if they're Christian. They should follow our rules and then they're welcome and then they are great supporters for our system. This is our vision and this is the same what's going on and what's the dream of Palo Alto. Many thanks for being here. Today, it's business, meetings with Google and meetings with the City Council and with your university, Stanford, tomorrow. We have a little bit of time to see what's going on in Halloween here. We're very happy to see what is special on Halloween here in Palo Alto. We heard a lot about it. You can be true it is not just the cooperation, it is a real, binding bridge we wanted to build between Germany or Europe and the United States and especially with cities who are driving more and more the society than sometimes national leadership. Therefore, I think we should make a clear comment that we are working together. We are on the right way, and we want to create a more sustainable and better structure for the next generation. Many thanks for your attention and giving me the time to speak to you. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you, Mayor Wuerzner, for that. I think we share your vision and are very excited about the Sister City partnership over the next few years and hope it lasts a really long time and that we do lots of things together. Welcome all of you to Palo Alto. We look forward to many years of hosting you over here. Vice Mayor Kniss: You know how much we have enjoyed spending time with all of you. I'm sure, Eckart, that you would also like the rest of the Council to come and visit Heidelberg at some point and would welcome them. I would assure them it's a beautiful city. We had a wonderful time there. Thank you again for being so kind to us when we were there. It has been a wonderful visit having you here. We appreciate it. Mayor Scharff: I know you need to get off to San Francisco. Thank you very much for taking the time in coming to our Council meeting. With that, I think we're going to take a 15-minute break, and then we'll reconvene for the rest of the Council meeting. TRANSCRIPT Page 4 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council took a break from 5:19 P.M. to 5:53 P.M. Action Items 1A. Discussion and Consideration of the Planning & Transportation Commission's Recommendations Regarding the Comprehensive Plan Update and Adoption of Resolutions Certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Comprehensive Plan Update; Adopting Findings Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and Adopting the Updated Comprehensive Plan Dated June 30, 2017 With Desired Corrections and Amendments, Which Comprehensively Updates and Supersedes the City's 1998-2010 Comprehensive Plan (Two Public Hearings Will Be Held: October 23, 2017 and November 13, 2017. On October 23, 2017, the City Council may Consider Action on the Planning & Transportation Commission’s Recommendations, Providing Direction to Staff, and Certification of the Final EIR. Other Actions Will be Deferred Until the Hearing on November 13, 2017.) (CONTINUED FROM OCTOBER 23, 2017). Mayor Scharff: We'll resume the Council meeting, and we'll start with the first Action Item, which is 1A, a continuation of the discussion and consideration of the Planning and Transportation Commission's recommendations regarding the Comprehensive Plan Update and adoption of a Resolution certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report for the Comprehensive Plan Update. Staff, do you have a further presentation? Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Yes. Thank you. Just three quick slides. Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. I'm joined by Elaine Costello and Joanna Jansen. We're delighted to be here again with a continuation of the hearing from October 23rd. You got an at-places memo in your packet last week with a little bit of supplemental information. What we did is summarize some of the comments we heard on the EIR at the last meeting and responded to those in writing so we don't have to do that orally this evening. We updated our list of suggested text changes. There were a few additional errors and corrections we found. Also, at the request of at least one Council Member, we prepared a chart showing what the PTC's recommendation had been and how the Council might accomplish that by changing the text or the figures in the Comp Plan. Of course, all of that is subject to your review and edits or changes as you wish. We wanted to make that available to you just to show you what we think we might have to do to the document to accomplish the PTC's recommendations. Just in terms of tonight's goals, we're hoping that you will hear public testimony from anyone who did not have an opportunity to speak at your last meeting; consider the PTC's report and identify any of those recommendations you'd like to include TRANSCRIPT Page 5 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 in the Comprehensive Plan; identify any additional changes you'd like to include in the Comprehensive Plan; then consider Attachment B, which is a short Resolution certifying the Final EIR. This is not a decision document. An EIR doesn't bind you to any specific decision. By certifying it, you're simply saying that it's been prepared in accordance with the law, you've read it, and it reflects the City's independent judgment. We can talk about that further if you like. Then, we're hoping you will continue the hearing to November 13th for Plan adoption. At Plan adoption, there are a couple of additional Resolutions, one of them quite long related to CEQA findings. That's where we get into which mitigation measures are going to be adopted, how are they met with policies in the Plan. We can talk about that in detail at your next meeting. Specifically this evening, we're hoping that you will adopt a motion thanking the PTC and giving us direction on which of the PTC's changes you'd like to incorporate into the Plan, direct Staff to incorporate any additional changes that the Council has, then adopt the Resolution in Attachment B certifying the Final EIR, and continue the hearing to November 13 for consideration of Plan adoption, which will involve the adoption of two additional Resolutions. We're available to answer questions now or following the public comment. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to do a round of questions for Hillary or shall we go to the public comment, then do a round of questions for Hillary? Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Public comment first. Do we have public comment? Our first speaker is Eric Rosenblum, speaking for five people. Let me just take a quick look at this. I think what I did last time is I gave people 6 minutes for their speaking for five people, and I gave people 2 minutes for the other thing. To be consistent with what I did in the last hearing, I'm going to continue to do the same thing so everyone gets the same amount of time. Public Hearing Continued at 5:57 P.M. from October 23, 2017. Eric Rosenblum speaking for A.C. Johnston, Titi Liu, Mehdi Alhassani, and Drew Maran: There are two people that are speaking for others that were seated, Sandra Slater and myself. There were actually two groups of cards that were submitted. One group of five were submitted for Sandra Slater, and another group of five were submitted for me. We're having Sandra Slater speak first if that's okay. Mayor Scharff: That's fine with me. Sandra Slater will have 6 minutes, and then you'll have 6 minutes. TRANSCRIPT Page 6 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Sandra Slater speaking for Hillary Glann, Rachel Thomas, Pat Safford, and Liza Hausman: I'll cede some of my time to Eric, I think. Mayor Scharff: We don't cede time. You have 6 minutes; he has 6 minutes. Ms. Slater: Thank you, Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, and Council Members, for allowing us the opportunity to address you this evening. My name is Sandra Slater, and I am speaking on behalf of Palo Alto Forward. The Comp Plan. It's well past its due date. It's 10 years of thinking and meeting and discussing and compromising and massaging. We now feel it's time to ratify it and to roll up our sleeves and get working on its implementation. We'd like to address this evening the content of the Plan and also the process that got us here. On the content, we have to ask ourselves is this Plan something that we can live with. There are a lot of compromises, as I said, on many fronts. On balance, we have to ask ourselves is this a reasonable Plan. On the process side, it's been 10 years in the making with countless committee meetings, citizen input, Staff feedback, and Commission review. Our position is that there's a lot to like in this Plan. We all agree that it's urgent, that we need housing, especially affordable housing. The TMA is in the Plan, and it's become a priority, which it's great to see that. The Plan takes a holistic and supportive stand on parking, including paid parking and the RPP. Finally, the delineation of the coordinated area plans for Downtown and North Ventura are really, really important. It was great to see that also in the Plan. We all have things that we would like to have included. We would have liked to have had a more robust housing number, a target of 10,000 units. In our last Housing Element, we only built 38 percent of what we—of our target. We would have liked to include more flexibility on zoning that would enable us to actually achieve the goals that we set out in the Plan. On metrics, we'd like to see success metrics included in the Plan. We'd like to know how we're doing against the targets on housing, SOV rates, shuttle ridership and its frequency, and by what dates we're meeting or not meeting our targets to make sure that we're on track. The other metric we would have liked to have had included and something that's very near and dear to my heart is VMT. It should be the only metric used as it will encourage infill development, which LOS does not do. We need to be consistent with the S/CAP and the California guidelines, and VMT will do that, and LOS won't. I'm going to hand it over now to Eric, who's going to delve a little more deeply into the content of the Plan. Mr. Rosenblum: Thank you. I'm Eric Rosenblum. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Palo Alto Forward, not in my capacity as a Commissioner with the Planning and Transportation Commission. I know that I only have 6 minutes; did you reset this? TRANSCRIPT Page 7 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I did. Mr. Rosenblum: Fantastic. Man, you guys are on it. A couple of things. I think it's important not to just look at what's in the Plan but also clarify some of the numbers that are being thrown around. This was something that was passed out at the last meeting around some of the issues with the Comp Plan. I think it was quite well done to look into Palo Alto's future. I think you all have a copy of it. It does highlight some of the important issues, but I do have issue with the way some of the numbers are portrayed. I want to go through those first and then get down to what at least Palo Alto Forward would be in support of. One of the big ones is around commercial growth. Specifically it says the draft Plan would add up to 3 million square feet of nonresidential space over the next 15 years. This translates to an average of twice the annual growth rate experienced during the past 27 years. A couple of quick things. The first is that language matters. They use both the term commercial growth and nonresidential growth. We have to realize that 1.3 million of the 3 million cap is already taken by the approved Stanford Hospital expansion. The relevant cap that's left over is office space and R&D space only. That's 1.7 million. When we're talking about future growth of office space and R&D space, we're really talking about this 1.7 million. A bigger problem is that this is apples and oranges. We're comparing a cap against a rate. It's useful to go back to the 1998 Comp Plan. That had a cap of 3.2 million square feet. That was in what was called monitored areas, so only part of the City was covered by that. We ended up building 1.5 million square feet against that, so some of it was not built. An additional 1.3 million square feet mostly with Stanford Hospital was built in other areas. Where did our current Comp Plan cap come from? They took the old Plan, and they saw that what wasn't built from the old cap was 1.7 million square feet. They brought that forward, and they said instead of just having this concept of monitored areas versus unmonitored areas, this applies to the whole City. They took the 1.7 million and moved it forward. Then, there was an additional 1.3 million that was already approved for Stanford Hospital. Together, you get this 3 million number. First, talking about 3 million going forward, it actually is 1.3 for a project that was already approved and 1.7 that was carried over from the old Plan. Wait, that's not all. In addition to that, like I said, I don't find it that useful to compare a cap to a rate. If we're going to do it, then take the 1.7 million and divide it through 2030, which is what this Plan is supposed to be, and you end up with an average of 113,000 square feet per year. The old cap ended up averaging 128,000 per year. They're comparable. One's a little bit lower. Our current one looks like it's going to be a bit lower. As you can see in the past, sometimes we built more, sometimes a lot more. Sometimes you built less, sometimes a lot less. At times you went negative. A cap and a rate are just very different things, and they're hard to compare. To the extent that we are comparing, the cap only went lower not higher. Next, I'm not going TRANSCRIPT Page 8 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 to go through these one by one because I just don't have time. The next one's a big one, and it's near and dear to my heart, the transportation mitigations. I've heard this a lot. Transportation mitigations have been discussed for years, since the last '80s, with very limited impact. Again, we can all ready the Plan from 1998. There's really nothing in it that is around the traffic mitigations that we are currently talking about. There's no plan for a Transportation Management Association or anything that looks like that. There's no discussion of priced parking. There's no discussion of building-by- building offsets. There's no data that is intended to be collected on SOV rates or anything that you do for transportation planning. Back then, Staff hadn't even launched their TDM programs. There was no model that we were following. While it may be true that some people discussed traffic, we didn't plan for it, and we didn't budget for it. To say we tried this and it didn't work, the tried part I would take issue with. We've never tried. Yet, this Council has done pretty great things. You guys kicked off the SOV survey, business survey. You started the TMA program. You've started the parking strategy overhaul. This Council in the last couple of years has done quite a lot on this, more than was anticipated probably in the previous Comp Plan. I would say kudos to all of you. To say that we've tried this in the past and it failed, I don't think is accurate. Moving from content to process, where do we hope this goes? As we said, we of course have some quibbles with all this. We would have liked to go for 10,000 housing units, for example, but we think the core of the Plan should be set now. That's done. We had our say; we didn't prevail; that's fine. There's a bunch of things that you guys are to be working on that support this Plan. What are the right metrics? What are the right zoning changes that might be done to get to our housing number? We think the things to support the core of the Plan, which is the housing, the cap, the TMA—at this point, we had our chance. Everyone's had their chance. You guys made a decision; PTC and others weighed in. We think that should be set, but there are many things to support this. Finally, I'm here to support the 260-plus people that signed our petition to say let's get it done. It's time. These are people from south Palo Alto and north Palo Alto, young and old, renters and homeowners, some people very well off, some people that are struggling to stay in Palo Alto. This is the people that really you're representing. The final word thank you. It's hard. This is like we're 10 years overdue on this. I'm really happy that you guys are bringing this to a close. A lot of you people birthed this, really the PTC. Thank you. I timed that within like 5 seconds. Mayor Scharff: Pretty good timing. Mr. Rosenblum: Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 9 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Drew Maran to be followed by Stephen Levy. I'm sorry. Stephen Levy to be followed by Nelson Ng. Stephen Levy: The main job of the EIR was to look at the impacts of the growth alternatives you gave them. Joanna and the Staff did that professionally. I review this stuff part of my living. It should be approved or certified or whatever the word is. The main point is if you read it, they gave us a pointer to look for where the key impact areas are. If you look on Pages 210 and 211—you don't have to do it now—they point out that the base plus the growth in the lowest alternative is at least 95 percent of what's going to be here in 2030. For the jobs, the operable number is between 110,000 and 112,000. They say, I say let's focus on the 110,000. They did a second thing. They pointed out that in the Comp Plan and in the S/CAP and in the Housing Element in the Comp Plan, there are policies that are broad-based and affect nearly all residents, all employers, and all businesses. In the vein of thanking you, I know that you don't get a lot of this. If you look at what the past two Councils have done, they've taken $2 million a year, added it to the infrastructure budget. We have the best road condition index in the state. They've funded with the hotel tax an investment program that's building fire stations, public safety, and parking. As Eric said, Gil and you all have approved an S/CAP that identifies and goes after the resource impacts of the Comp Plan. You have RPPs and expanded them. You've funded the TMA. Actually, you do get kudos. The 85-percent number that was talked about last time is the highest approval rating that I have seen anywhere for anyplace. It's something to be proud of. Thank you again. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Nelson Ng to be followed by Karen Porter. Nelson Ng: Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, City Staff, and concerned citizens of Palo Alto. First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has worked hard the last couple of years on this Comp Plan. I believe all of us want a Comp Plan that will guide Palo Alto toward a better future in the next 15-20 years. First, I would like to start asking the audience a couple of questions. If you work, live, or study in Palo Alto, would you please raise your hand up high and keep it up? It's almost everybody. Now, please keep it up. Please leave your hands up if you feel the current traffic condition is acceptable, you are willing to accept even more traffic in Palo Alto in the future? For those who have your hands up, I would like to invite you to experience the traffic conditions on the major artery of the City such as Page Mill, University, and Embarcadero. This is a picture on Embarcadero with some of the gridlock conditions. This is in the evening. Hopefully that will give you an idea of what you are willing to accept. For those of you who brought your hands down for question number 2, I hope you will be coming up here tonight to let the City Council, Staff know that the current traffic TRANSCRIPT Page 10 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 condition for Palo Alto is not acceptable. We need a Comp Plan that will protect the City from the traffic getting worse in the future. If you have concerns about the future of Palo Alto traffic, please do not accept something like what the EIR is trying to categorize it as significant but unavoidable. This almost like going to the doctor and telling the doctor that you have a major headache and is affecting your quality of life. The doctor tell you it is major but unavoidable. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Karen Porter to be followed by Suzanne Keehn. Karen Porter: Thank you, Council. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm here to address specifically the aircraft noise issue of the Environmental Impact Report and the Comprehensive Plan. From my reading—I'm not an expert in reading these. For example, in the EIR it appears to indicate that an increase of 5 decibels of noise over existing residential areas would be acceptable with respect to the Palo Alto airport. I'm really concerned because, as you know, we have been engaged in a very heated battle, I would say, with the FAA over the noise and emissions associated with jets flying into SFO and San Jose airport over the last few years, since the FAA changed the flight paths. For the City to allow more noise associated with its own airport, I think, would just be pretty hypocritical and would send the wrong message. I would really urge that the Comp Plan beef up Policy N-6.12 to provide better measurement systems to measure noise and emissions and more specific protections to reduce both noise and emissions associated with the Palo Alto airport. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Suzanne Keehn to be followed by Ester Nigenda. Suzanne Keehn: Good evening. I read Bill Ross' letter, and I guess the sentence I came up with was this EIR, the Notice of Preparation was 3 1/2 years ago. It is not current. He's saying that we need to look at the evaluation of housing, transportation, and fire safety on a regional basis. Also, with Stanford expanding a hospital, the traffic that that brings in, coming and going and the staff, is going to increase our traffic load so much more. We should be looking at Stanford's plans or what they hope for and our plans and see how they fit together for the livability of this City. There were questions in today's Palo Alto Post that I thought were very good. Will this Comp Plan improve the lives of Palo Alto residents? Will it reduce traffic on our streets? How will it affect the number of workers commuting in and out of Palo Alto every day? Will it make it easier for Palo Alto's residents to find a parking place in town? Will it improve our schools or add to the overcrowding? Will it make it safer for school children walking or biking to school? Will it help or hurt small businesses and neighborhood-serving retail? Will it drive out affordable businesses in favor of expensive, upscale ones? Will it require TRANSCRIPT Page 11 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 future tax increases to maintain current levels of service? How will it affect the affordability of housing in Palo Alto, especially the below market homes and service workers? Will the primary beneficiaries of this Comp Plan be Palo Alto residents or land developers and the real estate industry? In 15 years, how will this Comp Plan affect Palo Alto's quality of life on the annual Citizens Survey? Mayor Scharff: Ester Nigenda to be followed by Doria Summa. Ester Nigenda: Good evening, Council Members and members of the public. Compared to all the other weighty issues discussed tonight, I have a smaller but, in my opinion, no less important request for City Council. Please reinstate adjacent properties and public resources on Mitigation Measure Hydrology 2, Page 3-14, of the Final Environmental Impact Report as shown in the first slide. What's in red was deleted. As proven by its ongoing work on the San Francisquito Creek and the recently approved Storm Water Management Plan, residents and the City rightly believe that it is part of the City's mandate to protect private property. Save Palo Alto's Groundwater is primarily concerned with advocating for the protection of groundwater as an important Palo Alto resource. At the same time, we have all heard that recent groundwater extraction in the Central Valley and in Palo Alto in the 1960s caused subsidence. We may want to think that extracting 30 million gallons of groundwater for the building of one residential basement will have no impact on neighboring parties, our canopy, or our infrastructure. This photo shows otherwise. The City's own public records show some newer basements near dewatering sites needing permits to replace insulation and sheetrock due to water damage. As we empirically showed last year, the groundwater level is lowered several feet even on the properties hundreds of feet away from the dewatering site. We respectfully request that the City uphold its value of protecting all property rights, private and public, and reinstate this protection in Mitigation Measure Hydrology 2. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Doria Summa to be followed by Sea Reddy. Doria Summa: Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Thank you, everyone, for reviewing the Planning Commission's recommendations. I did want to clarify a couple of things. One is that the Planning Commission only made recommendations on the Land Use and Transportation Elements. We had no public hearings about any of the other elements including the Housing Element. I also wanted to make a comment about the new table that was provided by Staff. I appreciate that Staff wanted to give you even more information. I wanted to make clear—that's the table in the memo that was added, Table X. The right half of it is revised language for the draft Plan itself, and the PTC did not work on that language. I just wanted to make sure that TRANSCRIPT Page 12 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 you knew that. The old Table 3 in the original Staff Report lays out our positions in a better way for you. You can also see the votes and how the votes went. I also wanted to remind you that the very last motion that we took on the 27th of September was to request that, if you were interested in any of our recommendations, you refer them back to the Planning Commission because we wanted to help Staff weave them into the draft Comprehensive Plan. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Sea Reddy to be followed by Jeff Levinsky. Sea Reddy: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council and citizens of Palo Alto and also the surrounding cities. What really needs to be done is to up the Comprehensive Plan for a new city called New Palo Alto. There is just absolutely no room anywhere. No matter how you slice it, this isn't going to work. More people on top of each other, this and that. We just need to go and look for a totally new (inaudible) to build tall buildings by the marshlands we have, by the airports we have, and a build a new city of 30,000, 40,000 people. I know you're surprised by what I'm saying, but that just needs to be done. If it does 30, 40, 50 years from now, we might as well start the Plan. Be innovative, be creative. Work with Stanford planners. There is an amazing amount of talent in the country and the world to build new cities. There isn't any room here absolutely. No matter how you slice it, there isn't any room. We're just going to fight this forever. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Jeff Levinsky to be followed by Lisa Van Dusen. Jeff Levinsky: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I'd like to add my voice in support of the many across Palo Alto who have spoken, written, and responded to polling with their concerns about the grave direction our City is going. The proposed Comprehensive Plan and its EIR need better leadership. The new Comp Plan refuses to look honestly at traffic, parking, sustainability, school capacity, diversity, and neighborhood protections. Instead it shrugs its collective shoulders and suggests we keep doing what hasn't worked such as relying on TDMs, which don't work in our City, to solve traffic, parking, and climate change; and on woefully inadequate funding for below market rate housing. As Neilson Buchanan pointed out last week, the old Comp Plan contained powerful language. It encouraged "commercial enterprise but not at the expense of the City's residential neighborhoods." Ask where are those words now in the new Plan. They seem to be missing. Please put them back in or be honest and say our City government no longer cares to protect our neighborhoods. Please do not accept the EIR's contention that worsening traffic congestion and other impacts are "unavoidable." The EIR never studied how our City might be better off if we didn't build the 1.7 million square feet of unapproved new offices. It didn't study what would happen if TRANSCRIPT Page 13 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 that became housing instead. Such measures would dramatically reduce our job/housing imbalance—just what so many want—but the EIR ignored that. The "unavoidable problems identified by the EIR may be completely avoidable if the EIR's hands weren't tied." Do not accept a dismal path that clearly leads to failure. Instead, insist on solutions that will make Palo Alto truly better. Please put back in neighborhood protections and do not support the business as usual scenarios that cannot solve our City's problems. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Lisa Van Dusen. Lisa Van Dusen: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Honorable Council Members. I appear to have the last word on this. I will try to be brief. I'm here to ask and encourage—I would almost say implore—you to adopt the Comprehensive Plan as it's been recommended to you. It is not perfect. I would dare to say that nothing is and no one is. I, for example, would have preferred more affordable housing in this Plan, but it has been a long time coming. This has been in the works for almost a decade. In that time, both our sons have gone through college. One has started and finished medical school. They've done more things besides that, so I think it's time to make a decision. My message is really very simple. It's carpe diem. It is trust the process that you have set forth, and it is to strive for progress, not perfection. We live in times that are evolving quickly. I think it's time to act, to vote yes, and to trust that the process you set forth has created something that's workable for all of us going forward. We do need it now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, that ends public comments. Now, we return to Council. I've got to say this is an exciting moment. We're at the penultimate moment on the Comp Plan. That's the one right before the ultimate one, which is the next one. I think we've really come a long way. I wanted to say that we've had—we started this process in 2006 with that then- Council suggesting that we go ahead and start the Comp Plan. Then, we did whatever we did to 2008, which I'm not sure is that much, when we started working on this. Planning and Transportation spent hours on this. I know that a lot of the Planning—I know Arthur Keller himself worked on this and wordsmithed it and went over and over it. At the Planning Commission, they formed subcommittees. Lots of work went into that. We then formed the CAC and spent lots of time with the CAC, got lots of input. We had—I can't remember. We had how many citizens speak last night plus tonight? Do you remember? Forty-seven. We've had a lot of public input, a lot of public interest. I think the CAC did a great job. I think the Planning Commission has done a really good job. I think the Council has spent a lot of time on it. I saw a list of how many meetings the Planning and Transportation Commission had on this. Do you remember the number? You probably don't. It was … The CAC had a number of meetings. I think this has been a really TRANSCRIPT Page 14 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 long but fruitful process in terms of getting lots and lots of public input into this process. I've been sort of amazed of how we've really come together on the broad themes as a Council. When we look at the Comp Plan, we're very supportive of retail. I don't think there's a Council Member up here how's not. I think the Comp Plan is very supportive of retail, and I think we've all really agreed that that's something we need to support. I also think we've all agreed as a Council that BMR housing is very important to this Council and is really in the Comp Plan. We can always argue about the margins. Some people want stronger emphasis on BMR housing; some people think it's fine the way it is. I think there's no dissension on the Council that we all support BMR housing and we all think it's really important in the Comp Plan. I also think when we talk about growth and housing, everyone on this Council has been supportive of new housing. Everyone here talks about how we need new housing, how we need to support housing. I think there's some disagreements on how much. Some people have argued for the 10,000 units. Some people have argued for less. I think we've come to a compromise on this Council that I hope we all feel good about or feel that we can support. When we look at the commercial stuff, basically what we did is we've taken the 3 million cap that we started with—I think Eric Rosenblum really put it out well, so I won't restate it. Basically what we've done is made it much more restrictive than the previous Comp Plan. What we've done is put in a 50,000—not in the Comp Plan, but we've committed to it, and we've had those in terms of a growth metering process of 50,000 square feet a year. That means on 12 years left in the Comp Plan, that's another 600,000 square feet maximum. If you look at what we will actually build in the particular years, I'll be surprised if we actually even get to half of that frankly. How much, Hillary, do we have this year in the books of that 50,000 square feet? James Keene, City Manager: 2017, which is almost over? Mayor Scharff: Right, 2017. Ms. Gitelman: Eleven thousand square feet of net new under the cap. Mayor Scharff: How much is in the planning for next year? Ms. Gitelman: There's nothing in the area that's subject to the 50,000- square-foot limit. Mayor Scharff: I think it's really important to realize that what the Comp Plan does is provide flexibility. We're never going to build the 1.7 million in the next 15 years. It's not going to happen. The remainder of that space is really out in the Research Park. That's the other million—I don't know. What do we have, do you know, Hillary? That's where the remainder of it basically is. When we talked about it at this Council, I don't recall—I could get it wrong— TRANSCRIPT Page 15 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 maybe one Council Member, maybe two at the most wanted to impose the cap on the Stanford Research Park. I think we've had real unanimity on this Council in terms of what we're thinking about the Comp Plan and the broad issues. I realize that we've had some 5-4 votes, but when you look at it, those issues are really on the margins. I hope as we go through this we keep that in perspective, that this has been a—2006-2017. It's been really an 11-year process here. We're at the almost culmination of an 11-year process. After so many people have spent so much time compromising and working through this on the CAC, on the Council, and at the PTC, I hope we can all come together and get this to work and be satisfied with what we've done as a group. I don't think there's any one of us up here that, if we didn't have a choice, would change certain things in the Comp Plan. I don't think anybody is entitled to have the Comp Plan the exact way they want it. This is a community document that we've all come together. Compromises are messy, and compromises aren't perfect. I think we're getting to the end of that process, and I think Staff actually has done a really good job. We should really recognize the hard work that Staff put into this and how hard this process really is. With that, I think we should start a round of questions. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) one person got left out. If you could hear from them? David apologizes that (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: One person did get left out, so I guess you didn't get the last word. Jennifer, if you'd like to come up and speak for 2 minutes. Ms. Landesmann: Thank you very much, and thank you for all the hard work on everything you do. My understanding of an EIS—we had to learn about it as I also work on issues relating to aircraft noise. An EIS should ensure that agencies will take a hard look at environmental consequences by guaranteeing broad public dissemination and relevant information. I want to just speak to the issue of relevant information and public dissemination on the aircraft noise element. It says compliance with the airport-related land use compatibility standards for community noise environments. If this relates to FAA Order 1050, it should be noted somewhere that these standards are under scrutiny, possible review. FAA's carrying out a new annoyance study because of gaps in their metrics which, as we all have experienced, the FAA basically does not register the noise that we're experiencing on the ground. Among the things that are not embodied in how the FAA looks at noise are the impacts of, for example, classroom disruption, frequency of events. I'm going to try to be fast. It's an annoyance metric. It doesn't include children, for example. Just world standards, 55 dB is the threshold for health consequences. The idea of increasing noise by 5 dB—this is very high. We would be really pushing the health issue. I would like for this information, like other people have said, to track data. I saw the word reduce, reduce, reduce in the EIS or in the Plan. TRANSCRIPT Page 16 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 We have to have—I would like Palo Alto to lead on this noise issue. We know too much to just put a little one-liner that we're going to abide by what the FAA has used with an archaic metric. Thank you, and I wish us all success with this. Public Hearing closed at 6:33 P.M. Mayor Scharff: Now, we're going to return to Council, and we're going to do a round of questions. I want to point out to people that we have really two things tonight. The first is to receive and consider the Planning and Transportation Commission report regarding the Comprehensive Plan, adopt a motion thanking the PTC, identifying specific changes to the June 30, 2017 Comprehensive Plan. The second part of that would then be to certify the Environmental Impact Report. When we do our round of questions, we're going to start with Number 1. We'll come back; we'll do another round of questions after we deal with Number 1 and go to Number 2. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Right. Right now we're just going to do questions. Just a round of questions. I'm thinking if you have questions, you should hold the questions on certifying the EIR until we deal with that topic. Then, we can have another round of questions on that because people may want to speak to that specifically. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to make sure we're clear on process and all on the same page on how this is going to work. Is your thinking that we would do a round of questions on the first part and then motions on the first part and then move on to questions and motions on the EIR? We'd go through each section with a round of questions followed by motions? Mayor Scharff: Correct. Council Member Wolbach: Then, would we confirm that with a final motion that incorporates all of those or (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: No, I wasn't thinking we'd do that. I think we'll take them as separate things. I think they're actually fairly separate items. It makes it a lot easier for people to focus on one at a time. It makes it easier for the public to understand we're talking about this than if we keep switching back and forth. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Again, a general question, correct? Mayor Scharff: General or specific on the first item. TRANSCRIPT Page 17 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: This is general and specific. Let's talk about the real bug- a-boo, which is traffic. Talk for a minute about Stanford, Mountain View, Menlo Park, and what has transpired in the last 2 years and how that might affect our traffic. I've heard many people say tonight what are we doing about traffic, why can't we control the traffic. What should we be doing? I'm leading you down the path, of course. I think, especially when we're looking at 5,000 essentially square feet at Stanford and 50,000 square feet per year here, that gives us a comparison. Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Vice Mayor Kniss. Just briefly, we put a slide together that shows the growth projected in jobs, population, and housing in Palo Alto when compared to our county, the adjacent county, and the region. It's just to make the point that—I think we made this point in our presentation at the last meeting—a lot of the impacts that we're seeing, particularly with regard to traffic—there's an air quality impact as well—have to do with Palo Alto's place in a region that's growing quite a bit. Other jurisdictions are growing a lot faster and more than we are. I would point out, in addition, that in the EIR, as you know, we look at a variety of different planning scenarios. Scenario 1 represents the current Comp Plan, so what if we don't adopt this updated Plan, we let the old Plan limp along. That scenario actually has more impacts in many ways than the preferred scenario that we're suggesting be adopted by the Council. We can delve into the specifics. There are some good tables in the Final EIR that you received. On the whole, you're seeing traffic impacts that are a result of our place in the region. We do make a contribution—there's no denying that—to growth and traffic that's happening around us. With this Plan, I think the Council has incorporated some responsible strategies about limiting nonresidential growth and job growth, trying to make an effective change to the jobs/housing balance, and other things that are trying to move the needle in the right direction, particularly when compared to the current Plan. Vice Mayor Kniss: Again, I'll try to keep this specific. Looking at our neighbors, looking at Stanford in particular as they add 2 million square feet of academic and 3,000 beds, and maintain that there really is no impact on us, maybe you could comment on that. Ms. Gitelman: I think the Council knows that we're … Vice Mayor Kniss: Keeping this to questions the best I can. Ms. Gitelman: I know. We're in the process of reviewing the Draft EIR that Stanford has produced for the GUP. We'll be coming back to the Council with a comment letter at the end of November. I think we have a great deal of skepticism that they can mitigate all of the impacts to the extent that they've TRANSCRIPT Page 18 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 said they can. They are contributing just as we are to the traffic that we see on the roads today and that we expect to see in the future. There's no doubt about it. They're proposing quite a bit of additional development on campus. That's in addition to, of course, the uses and intensity of uses that they already have, both on campus and in the adjacent communities. Vice Mayor Kniss: Again, kind of rhetorical. As I look at traffic on Embarcadero and Oregon Expressway in the morning, it does seem to be headed toward Stanford. The picture that somebody showed tonight, which was going under the underpass by Town and Country, is definitely I would guess Stanford related. There's also-I think you'd agree—the pass-through traffic from Menlo Park and from Mountain View and so forth. Mountain View would you say has surpassed us in square footage? Ms. Gitelman: Certainly. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: I see no other lights, so I guess we have no other questions. Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you very much to Staff, PTC members, and the CAC for all the hard work on this. I would have a lot more to say about that, but I'll just go into some of my questions. One area we haven't taken much of a look at is the implementation section. I believe that's coming to us later again. I do have a couple of questions that will hopefully get Staff thinking. Looking through the implementation section, a lot of the work is to your department, Hillary, and also to Public Works. Maybe this is for the City Manager. Are those departments staffed and resourced enough to take on these implementation items we're giving them? Do we have some kind of plan around when they'll get done and what kind of resources we'll have to put against them? Mr. Keene: Thank you, Council Member. I'm going to hedge on this a little bit. Yes and no. Once you've adopted this, we'll take a deeper, closer look at it. That being said, in many of these areas, particularly in Planning but to some extent in Public Works, the same people who would be working on this implementation work potentially on other issues or demands we have, so we can't assess this completely in isolation just as it relates to the implementation of the Comp Plan. It argues, though, at the same time for us trying to be decisive and move ahead on items as much as we possibly can so we can be sure that we do manage and put the resources towards what it is that you've directed us to do rather than compounding the issues. To restate, we'll be able to give you a definitive picture on when the implementation will take place once you've taken your action. TRANSCRIPT Page 19 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Fine: Thank you. Just to my Colleagues I would say two things. I do like seeing from our City Staff and the PTC is when we've prioritized things. In terms of our capital improvement budget, we generally prioritize things; then, we know what we should put our resources against. The PTC tonight has given us 11 items with their priorities as well. I think that might be helpful as we look at the implementation section. Just two or three more questions, one specific one. For the cumulative office cap of 1.7, is that net new office space? Ms. Gitelman: Yes, that's net new office/R&D. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Two more questions. One, I'll start with a specific one. This is maybe for the City Attorney. Actually, that's an EIR question, so I'll wait on that. This is just the last one, and it's more for our community and for our Council. I think we should start thinking about how do we make our next Comp Plan more successful, what lessons have we learned in doing this process over the past 11 years, was the CAC a success, was all the PTC review successful, was our review successful, is there a more nimble planning vehicle we can use going forward. I understand that we're required by State law to issue a General Plan, and we go a little above and beyond that. I think it would be helpful for us to have some style of post mortem on this Plan. It's not usual for a community to spend 11 years writing this Plan. If we intend to solve some of these fast-changing problems, the Mayor of Heidelberg was just saying about mobility there's frustration in the community, but the solutions are coming fast and furious and we're not sure how to deal with them. We may need to look at different planning and execution vehicles to begin testing new ideas and figuring out how we actually solve those problems that our community is putting forth to us. A General Plan may not be the best way to do that. Those are all my questions for now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: We'll return—Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I noted—I can't remember where—a removal of the East Meadow concept plan. Isn't that already completed? Elaine Costello, Management Partners: Hi. Elaine Costello. Yes, the concept plan has been completed. It was approved by the Council. We reviewed—it was going to be in the Plan by reference. When we reviewed it, it was not consistent with the policies that you have in the Plan. It's much more aggressive on large-scale industrial development of large companies, as a major focus in that plan. Council Member DuBois: That's one of our employment districts, right? TRANSCRIPT Page 20 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Costello: Yeah. We looked at the policies, and they were just not consistent. It was really talking about encouraging large businesses and significant amounts of development. Council Member DuBois: Are we saying we're not going to follow that plan? Ms. Gitelman: I think our thought was not to include it in this package of elements and chapters that the Council's adopting today. If you'd like to take another look at that plan and make the determination yourselves as to whether to incorporate it, we can certainly bring it back at a later date. Mr. Keene: May I just add something both as a question of Hillary? One of the points that is being made tonight is that despite the fact that we have a requirement to review our Comp Plan and make adjustments over time, in the absence of having a new Comp Plan the existing Comp Plan we have, in a sense, is what is generally operative. It would seem to me that the approval of the East Meadow plan is a plan that exists and has been approved. Ms. Costello: Can I just clarify that? I'm sorry. I just got a clarification from Elena. I was actually never approved by the Council. There was no CEQA that was done on it. Mr. Keene: In that regard then, it's not approved. Ms. Costello: It was not an approved plan. It was a concept that was brought forward. Council Member DuBois: I'm pretty sure that it was approved. I thought there was another plan on Cal. Ave. Ms. Gitelman: If I can seek to clarify? This does predate my tenure. As I understand it, the Council charged the Planning Commission with preparing two concept plans, one for the California Avenue area and one for East Meadow Circle. The one for East Meadow Circle got much farther along. A work product was presented to the Council, and the Council accepted that work product. It was never subjected to CEQA review, so it couldn't have been actually formally adopted and incorporated into the plan. It enjoyed some status, and for quite a long time we thought we'd make it an appendix, and it'll be part of the Plan. In this last review, we looked at it, and we really saw that it was quite a bit different than what the current Council, PTC, and CAC had directed in terms of overarching policies around nonresidential growth. It was much more growth-friendly than the planning effort has been since. I apologize. We made the decision that this is going to be a problem to resolve. We can certainly bring it back to you at a later date for your review and incorporation if we can resolve the inconsistencies. TRANSCRIPT Page 21 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member DuBois: Part of the reason I ask is it just seems—the current Plan seems a lot more clear on where our major employment districts are. This update seems a little muddier. How would you describe the employment district under this Plan? Ms. Gitelman: I'll let my colleagues weigh in on that as well. We really tried to maintain the City structure from the current Plan. I think there was at least one Planning Commissioner who pointed out why are we preserving this structure. We felt like that was a mandate from the Council, to stay as close as we could to the existing Plan. We tried to maintain the commercial centers, neighborhood centers, employment districts, that structure that comes from the current Comp Plan. Do you have anything to add? Ms. Costello: No. The map has not changed of where the employment districts are. There is more focus in this Plan on smaller businesses and less focus on large, new businesses. Council Member DuBois: That's not comments. I guess we'll get to it in a bit. The text here was really Staff's suggested text, right? Not from the PTC in the latest handout we got? Ms. Gitelman: The column on the right? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Ms. Gitelman: That's correct. Council Member DuBois: Ultimately, PTC's recommendation was not adoption but to send changes back to them. Where did they end up? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. They adopted a motion offering to review any of these items that the Council wanted to implement. They offered to have you send it back to them, so they could work on incorporation. Council Member DuBois: Several speakers brought up this phrase in the current Plan, encourage commercial enterprise not at the expense of neighborhoods. What was the discussion around that? Why was it removed? Joanna Jansen, PlaceWorks: I'm Joanna Jansen with PlaceWorks. We're the consultant that's been supporting the City on the Comp Plan process. This came up in language, particularly when we looked at the Business and Economics Element with the CAC Business and Economics Element Subcommittee. Both on the subcommittee and at the full CAC, there was a feeling among the group that the language in the existing Comp Plan really presented the issue as a conflict or a battle between commercial areas and TRANSCRIPT Page 22 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 residential areas. They really asked us to take a look at some revisions that would present the relationship between commercial neighborhood shopping areas or employment districts and residential areas as a synergistic relationship where residents shop there, and workers shop there, and people who work there live there. Really the two are different types of areas that are interrelated rather than in conflict. Council Member DuBois: That was the Business Element Subcommittee. Did the Land Use Subcommittee feel the same way? Ms. Costello: It was approved by the entire CAC. It was the idea of making it less combative and more around having them be successfully complementary. There wasn't a decrease in the commitment of neighborhood preservation at all. It was just less "us versus them" and more of an idea that they're complementary. That's a lot of the focus on local-serving businesses versus large businesses, which was part of the conflict with East Meadow. It was just much more of "let's have businesses, let's promote"—it's just a change like let's promote retail, let's promote local-serving businesses, let's see them as complementing a really vital neighborhood situation. That was really the thinking as Ms. Jansen had said. That was accepted by the CAC as more the approach of that complementarity between neighborhood residential areas, neighborhood businesses, that more local-serving, small, nonprofits, that kind of thing. Council Member DuBois: Thank you for that. I think it'll come back up again in the EIR. In regards to school impacts, I just wondered—I understand the State law and CEQA mitigation for school impacts. I'm wondering whether communities in California put in policies and programs that go beyond the State minimum. Was there much discussion about that? Ms. Gitelman: Actually I think it was this Council that asked us to incorporate a policy about school impacts, and we did incorporate that policy that's referenced in the Plan, Policy L-2.11. We think that reflects the current State law. If there's something you see that you feel is missing from that, we can talk about that. Council Member DuBois: I'm saying forgetting State law, are there communities in California that have stronger policies and programs in their Comp Plans to have great schools. Ms. Gitelman: Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what they would achieve that's not reflected in this current policy. Council Member DuBois: I'm sorry. Could you read the policy to me? TRANSCRIPT Page 23 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: Yeah, it's Policy L-2.11, ensure regular coordination between the City and PAUSD on land development activities and trends in Palo Alto as well as planning for school facilities and programs. It says under State law impacts on school facilities cannot be the basis for requiring mitigation beyond the payment of school fees or for denying development projects or legislative changes that could result in additional housing units. The City will, however, assess the reasonably foreseeable environmental impacts of development projects that result in new school construction or enrollment. Council Member DuBois: It says we'll talk to them about potentially new schools. Do some Comp Plans get more specific and say identify three sites or two sites for new schools and more actively plan for it? Ms. Gitelman: We certainly could add a program under this policy about working with them to identify sites, if that's the Council's desire. Council Member DuBois: There was some discussion about the caps. The 50K rollover, that's just Downtown, right? Ms. Gitelman: The 50,000-square-foot annual limit that the Council's talking about affects Downtown, the California Avenue area, and the El Camino Corridor. It's quite a bit of the City's employment-generating districts. What it excludes is the Research Park principally. Council Member DuBois: And things like Bayshore and Embarcadero. That would be about 600,000. That would leave 900,000 for those other areas. It does seem pretty feasible to me that we could get to 1.7 million if you include the Research Park, Bayshore, Charleston. We have the 3 1/2 million from the Stanford GUP, which is outside the City but deeply embedded. Ms. Gitelman: Yeah. I would just point back to what the experience was with the current Comp Plan. They had a cap of 3.2 million square feet in just a portion of the City, the monitored areas. They didn't get close to it. We're putting a cap in what is the leftover, what's left over. We're making it Citywide, so we're making it a little stronger in a couple of different ways. I don't know. My crystal ball and your crystal ball may vary, but they didn't reach the cap last time. Council Member DuBois: I think that's the point. We added a rollover to the cap, so it's more likely to get built. We've had years when we've had zero. I think the cap is so high it's not really a cap. It's not going to be much effect. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. TRANSCRIPT Page 24 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Holman: Thank you. Just a little bit to get it on the record. This Plan has taken a long time to develop. Going back and running it back, it's partly in response, but also there's been a lot of community dialog too about how long this has taken. Just really briefly, it's taken this long to a good extent because the Councils over the time have put other things as priority spending. We took money away from doing the Comprehensive Plan at one point in time. We took the focus away from it. It isn't that developing this Plan has taken this long. It's that at some points in time it was not considered to be the highest priority. There wasn't funding for it. We did go through a downturn in the period of time that we talked about updating the Comprehensive Plan. It isn't that this is a broken process or that Staff hasn't been working diligently on it. It's nothing like that. Just to revisit something that's come up before just in this line of question. The project, if you will, has really only been identified in March of this year, drawn from the scenarios that were explored earlier. How does inclusion of the GUP impacts interface with that? Ms. Gitelman: Thank you for the question, Council Member Holman. We actually prepared in the Final EIR what we call a master response because we got so many comments on the supplement to the Draft EIR about cumulative growth in the region and things that had happened to us all between the time we started the EIR and now when we're finishing it up. We took a hard look at all of the proposed development that's come online as a gleam in someone's eye between then and now. We compared it to the regional projections that we used for our analysis. We found that our projections have been large enough to encompass that growth. This is quite typical for a planning process that takes many years, that you have to check periodically and make sure the assumptions that you based the analysis on are still good. We did that review, and it's explained in detail in the Final EIR in that master response in Chapter 5. Council Member Holman: I remember seeing a table in the hundreds if not thousands of pages that we've looked at. I can't recall where that was. I think the table is probably part of the master response. If I remember correctly, it seemed like the numbers for Stanford were quite low, certainly not the 3.2 million that's being proposed now. If Staff could with your memories—I don't know how you have your cross-references set. You seem to do a good job of being able to direct us to a particular point. If you could direct us to that, that would be helpful. Ms. Gitelman: Absolutely. I looked at it this afternoon. There is a table in there that shows what was in our original traffic forecast model for Stanford, and it was pretty low. We talk in that response about the GUP, and we compare it to the regional projections. As I said, we found that our analysis, TRANSCRIPT Page 25 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 when we started out, was conservative enough, meaning large enough, that it's encompassed the changes that are happening around us. Also, some of the plans like the GUP will probably build out after the life of this Plan. We're analyzing to the year 2030. If I recall, the Stanford GUP is a build out to 2040. Some of the development that they're proposing and some of these other things that are happening in Mountain View and elsewhere will happen over a longer period than this Comprehensive Plan. We're confident that the analysis has been done in a way that addresses this particular question. I invite you to take another look at that master response. We can answer further questions. Council Member Holman: As a part of that, I did not learn with the presentation here, but I did learn at the public presentation that was maybe a week ago Thursday or something like that. I don't remember. There was a presentation with Supervisor Simitian about the Stanford proposal, and it indicated—the presenter for Stanford indicated that the housing impact fees were to be spent in the prior GUP within a 6-mile radius of the proposed area. This one is actually targeting the transit stations that serve campus, is what I heard the presenter say. For me, that seems like it's got to be maybe the Menlo Park train station, certainly the University Avenue train station and the Cal. Avenue train station. Rather than a 6-mile radius, it's really more focused in Palo Alto. Did the master response include that or was Staff aware of that change in focus for putting the housing at the time of the master response? Ms. Gitelman: If I'm not mistaken, that was raised when the County came and presented on the GUP at the beginning of this process, when they issued their NOP. The intention is to not spend the housing money in a more concentrated area, but spend it in a broader geographic area. I think this Council will want to make comments to the County based on that. It doesn't really change the analysis that we've conducted here because our analysis of the location of housing and job creation is based on the zoning that's inherent in all of our communities and the capacity of that zoning. It's not something that would change our analysis, but it is a policy issue that I'm sure we're going to want to raise with the County. Council Member Holman: My last question at this point in time is something that you mentioned in response to a question earlier. How does Palo Alto know, how do we know from our analysis how much we are contributing to the air pollution? How much do we know? What's our contribution to that? What's our contribution to the traffic impacts? We do have people from other places certainly that come here to work and such and even go through here. Air pollution is ambient the way noise is. How do we know what our contribution is to both of those impacts? Is there a way to measure that? Probably easier for traffic than for air quality. How do we quantify that? TRANSCRIPT Page 26 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: Your singing our song. That's what we've done in this Environmental Impact Report. We quantified the air emissions and the new trips and the VMT associated with each of the scenarios we looked at. That is provided in detail in the Draft EIR and the supplement to the Draft EIR. I can reference page numbers or tables for you if it would help. We did that quantification, and it shows how this community will contribute to the region in the year 2030. Council Member Holman: My question was your response to a prior question. I would appreciate a referral to the page for the air impacts that our community's contributing. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: We're done with questions unless Council Member Wolbach shows up. You had one comment that you wanted to make. Vice Mayor Kniss: Just one. Since I chair the Air Quality Board, there is a great deal now out about exactly what the air quality is. They have been doing it daily. I haven't looked lately, but they've been doing it on a daily basis. As far as I know, you can go online to the website, and it will give it to you. Am I correct that it's still running daily? It really gives you a very accurate picture of what's happening. Obviously during the fires, it was terrible. We were Beijing-like it was so bad. I think since then it has pretty much cleared off and is back to what I think is a really admirable level at this point. Council Member Holman: Thank you for that. It's good for everybody to know that. I am aware of it. It's the specific impacts of what Palo Alto is adding to that, that I was inquiring about. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: A couple of things. I guess we're still on questions, correct? Mayor Scharff: We are. Council Member Wolbach: I appreciate Council Member DuBois bringing up— was it Policy L—and staff pointing out—2.11. Since we're still on questions, I'll just mention I actually have already sent to Staff a potential program to go under that. When we come back to motions, I'll suggest that unless somebody beats me to it. Also, looking at Policy T-4—sorry, Goal T-4, my mistake. Looking at Goal T-4, would it be possible to add some language to that to strengthen it a little bit? TRANSCRIPT Page 27 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: That's not a question, Council Member Wolbach. That's not in the spirit of asking questions, can we strengthen the language. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to make sure—let me step back a little bit. At what point—I'll maybe turn to the Mayor for this for process because I want to be respectful of process. If we have specific motions (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: Let me jump in then. Council Member Wolbach: Do you want to just do it for this section or after we've done the PTC stuff? Mayor Scharff: This is what my thought was of how we're going to approach this. Council Member Wolbach: I see some (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: We are going to next consider the Planning and Transportation Commission's things. Then, after we have finished with the Planning and Transportation Commission, we will open it up to Council Members who want to make any motions or do anything on the existing Comp Plan. I would encourage you not to do so. We've argued about this. We've gone through it. Obviously, you all have a right to, but—if there's something that's a burning thing and you want to take motions on it and make changes to what we've talked about, that's obviously your right. I would ask that we not be here all night and redo the entire Comp Plan that we've now spent so many time on. Council Member Wolbach: The question, again, for Staff is can we make changes to any of the programs or the policies without creating an inordinate delay in the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. Mayor Scharff: I'll answer … Council Member Wolbach: I think the answer is yes, but I'm looking for confirmation. Mayor Scharff: I'll answer that as well then, I think, for Staff. What the goal for tonight is, is to get any language changes out on the Comp Plan, so that when we come back the next time Staff has the language, it's in the Comp Plan. The next meeting hopefully is our final meeting on the Comp Plan, at which point we would have to actually wordsmith any particular language that night. If you do want to make language changes in the Comp Plan, tonight is the night to try and get that out on the table. There are two ways you can do it. If you have specific language, we can vote on it or we could vote on a concept and ask Staff to come back with that language. If you do that, then TRANSCRIPT Page 28 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 next time we're going to actually have to decide on the language or we're going to have to have another meeting, which is not off the table. We could have another meeting. I just don't like to start with the notion that we'll have more meetings. I want to be forced into it. That's where I view the process. Council Member Wolbach: I'll leave my questions there. Mayor Scharff: Now, we're back to the Comp Plan. We're back to Number 1. What I'm going to do is move that we receive and consider the Planning and Transportation Commission report and recommendations regarding the Plan Update, Attachment A, and adopt first of all a Motion thanking the PTC for identifying specific changes to the 2013 Comprehensive Update as a result of the Commission's work. Council Member DuBois: Second. Mayor Scharff: Then … Council Member DuBois: Sorry. Thought you were done. Mayor Scharff: No, not done yet. That'll be the Motion. What I expect is I am then going to take us one by one through the PTC stuff and ask if anyone wants to make a motion to support that. If no one does, then we'll move on to the next item, and then we'll vote on it. We'll go through them individually and discuss it. Council Member Filseth: Second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to thank the Planning and Transportation Commission for their input and thoughtful consideration of changes to the Comprehensive Plan. Mayor Scharff: That's seconded by Council Member Filseth. Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) seconded it. Mayor Scharff: That's the Motion. The first thing we have would be Item Number—PTC Priority 1. Council Member Filseth: Do I get a chance to speak to the second? Mayor Scharff: I didn't let you speak to your second. I'm sorry. I should let you speak to your second. Go ahead. Council Member Filseth: Just very briefly. I think this is the right way to do this. We are in punch list territory here. In the spirit of what the Mayor said TRANSCRIPT Page 29 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 earlier, this is the penultimate moment, which hopefully doesn't have anything to do with penalties. Given that it's the penultimate moment, I hope we will strive to avoid major policy changes at this point in time. We as Council should be careful not to unwind any careful balances that were hammered out in the CAC. That's it. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Does any Council Member want to make a Motion supporting— what we're doing is looking at not the comments on the PTC. We're looking at their language, the language that was drafted to implement that. The question is would you want to change the language in Policy L-1.4—I won't repeat this for everything—by adding in the underlined language to that language that exists there. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I would like to move accepting the proposed revised text for PTC Priority 1. Mayor Scharff: Do we have a second? Vice Mayor Kniss: I'll second. Council Member Fine: Second. Mayor Scharff: I got two seconds. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to: A. Thank the Planning and Transportation Commission for their input and thoughtful consideration of changes to the Comprehensive Plan; and B. Replace Program L-1.3.1 with Policy L-1.4, “commit to creating an inventory of below market rate housing for purchase and rental. Work with neighbors… that is affordable so that the City consistently attains the quantified goals for housing production in the adopted Housing Element.” Council Member Wolbach: Do we need to speak to it or … Mayor Scharff: Yeah, you need to speak to it. Council Member Wolbach: I'll keep it quick. I think it speaks for itself. Mayor Scharff: Adrian seconded it. Council Member Wolbach: I appreciate the—let me first say just as far as looking at how this table is laid out, there are probably places in this table TRANSCRIPT Page 30 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 where members of the PTC or members of Council won't agree 100 percent with the language that's proposed by Staff. They did a good job with this one. The PTC recommendation was a good one. The proposed language is good. People have said before we all support below market rate housing. Having a little more language in the Comp Plan won't really make or break whether we have more BMR housing in Palo Alto. The decisions we make over the next 15 years and the major policies that we have and programs we have will determine that I think. Having strong language and especially creating an inventory seems like a really positive step. Mayor Scharff: Adrian, would you like to speak to your second? Council Member Fine: Yes. Echoing Council Member Wolbach, I appreciate this table. Thank you to PTC and Staff for putting it together. I don't agree with everything in here at least for this Priority 1. I do want to point out that it's important that the last sentence there, the City consistently attains the quantified goals for housing production in the adopted Housing Element, looking at Palo Alto compared to many other cities, we've consistently planned for housing and not necessarily met those goals. I hope this policy advice from the PTC will help us do that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Thank you. I have two questions on this. One is about in the middle of that section that says identify barriers to infill development of below market rate and affordable market rate housing and remove those barriers. I don't know what affordable market rate housing is. I don't think we have any definition for that. I think we might all have different definitions of what that is. That's a concern. If I had to project, I'd say that probably—I'll just project and I don't know, of course. I would suppose that we would all support removing barriers for truly BMR housing. Again, I don't know what affordable market rate housing is. It gets bandied about, but I don't know what it is. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. I just wanted to remind you that what we're looking at doing is the changes to the existing language in the Comp Plan. If you want to come back afterwards and make motions to the existing Comp Plan, the language is not language the PTC suggested or language that Staff used. It's the underlined stuff that we're doing in the thing. Language that's not here, we're not really looking at this piece except with the changes in the Comp Plan. When we finish going through what the PTC wants, if you want to come back to this and make a motion on L-4, you think you should remove certain—I would obviously entertain that because I'll TRANSCRIPT Page 31 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 entertain anything on the Comp Plan. I think we need to really stick to what the PTC changes are and go through those. Council Member Holman: Acknowledging that, where that was leading me was the part that the PTC has added. It seems—supposing one has a definition of affordable market rate housing, it seems like that last part that was added is—how would you say—somewhat redundant. Also, I'm not sure that the Comprehensive Plan was studied on us actually developing this or on presumptions as we have in the Housing Element. In the Housing Element, we talk about—let's just say some site could develop 60 units but realistically it will yield 32. I'm making this up. I don't know what was analyzed then in the Comprehensive Plan. Was it the 32 or the 60, which this would indicate we would get 60. I'm trying to simplify it here for purposes of description. You get where I'm going. Ms. Gitelman: I think what the language is proposing there is an aspirational goal. We're making this a policy now rather than a program, saying it's the policy of the City to try and achieve the goals set forth in the Housing Element. That's collectively, not site-specific. This is talking about our RHNA allocations specifically. Council Member Holman: I don't disagree with that whatsoever. My question still stands. Again, using round numbers for purposes of simple conversation here. If we're supposed to create 3,000 housing units, but we're supposing that with the zoning that we have we're more likely to create 2,000 units, if we remove all the barriers we're really going to get 3,000 units. Was that 3,000 units analyzed for the Comp Plan purposes? Does that make the question clearer? Ms. Gitelman: The scenarios we analyzed and specifically the preferred scenario has a large enough housing number to accommodate both the current RHNA cycle and the next RHNA cycle. It is sufficiently broad to encompass this goal that's articulated here. Council Member Holman: That's clear. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I think that answered a large part of my question. Again, the PTC comment was a strong commitment to BMR housing, which the first change in the text accomplishes. The last line is basically about market rate housing. It seems to go well beyond what the PTC was suggesting. It seems like a pretty significant policy change. If Staff could remind me, the Housing Element is for 15 years at a time or 7 1/2 years? TRANSCRIPT Page 32 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: The Housing Element is usually for 7 or 8. I'd just add to your conversation. The PTC actually wanted to reference the quantitative goals in the Housing Element. That was their idea. Maybe we didn't do it the best way here in this sentence. That was the gist of the comment that they were making. Is it the BMR goals or … Mr. Keene: Both. Ms. Gitelman: Both. The RHNA allocation includes affordable units and market rate units. Council Member DuBois: That's what I'm struggling with a little bit. We've had this process. We negotiate these numbers; they're somewhat out of our control. To me, there's just a little bit of concern that we're signing up our Comp Plan for future numbers that are going to be imposed on us. I would feel much more comfortable keeping this focused on the BMR housing. I guess I'll make a Substitute Motion that does that, which would be to adopt the first proposed change, that first sentence, but drop the end of the paragraph. Council Member Filseth: Second. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to: A. Thank the Planning and Transportation Commission for their input and thoughtful consideration of changes to the Comprehensive Plan; and B. Upgrade Program L-1.3.1 to Policy L-1.4. Mayor Scharff: That's seconded. Do you want to speak further to your … Council DuBois: Again, I think that's much more the intent of reading the PTC Minutes, to focus on our commitment to BMR housing, commit to create an inventory of below market rate housing for purchase and rental. It doesn't bind us to future RHNA numbers that we may or may not have as much input into as we'd like. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth, if you'd like to speak to your second? Council Member Filseth: Yeah, thank you, just briefly. I talked to two members of the PTC, only two, about this point. Both of them said they had no intention—there's some communication—of specifying any such thing. Their interest was only in talking about BMR housing for this point. They certainly would not have voted for a—it seems to have gone 7-0—such a clause. I agree with Council Member DuBois that it's a major policy change because it really re-interprets how the Housing Element and the RHNA goals TRANSCRIPT Page 33 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 have been interpreted by the City. I also wonder if we can actually do it because essentially what this does is it sort of impacts the Housing Element, which the PTC did not discuss and hasn't been noticed. If we're going to go back and do something like that, it takes more discussion than this late hour of the Comp Plan. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, you wanted to speak again. Just speaking to the amendment, you can. Council Member Wolbach: Right, I'm speaking to the Substitute Motion. I'm going to just talk about these two Motions, these two options. I will not be supporting the Substitute Motion, but I want to explain why. I've heard what my Colleagues who have proposed it have said. I think there's a couple of things to point out. One was as addressed earlier in the line of questioning from Council Member Holman, which I appreciate because it helped create clarity. The inclusion in this program or if we change it to a policy, it's still the same text. The inclusion of market rate along with BMR was already there. That was there when it came to us in June. That was there prior to it going to PTC. PTC—that's right. PTC did not vote to add that because it was already in there. What PTC suggested, I think, is well captured by the proposed text. What that second part says is that we're going to actually try to do what's in our Housing Element. We've already adopted our Housing Element; it's been approved by the State. We did it, and we committed to do it. This is just saying we meant it. The question for me is, when we adopted our Housing Element, did we mean it or did we not intend to do what was in the Housing Element. I think it's not inappropriate to remind ourselves that we actually meant it when we passed our Housing Element. I will not be supporting the substitute motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will also not be supporting the Substitute Motion. I actually don't think this is a major policy change. If you look at the RHNA numbers that are given to us, in fact, which we worked pretty collaboratively with ABAG and MTC to put together, there's a whole range. It includes very low, low, moderate, and above moderate area median income housing. RHNA numbers include that whole spectrum including above moderate. Looking back between 2007 and 2014, the only category where we got near to attaining our goals, quote/unquote, was the above moderate category where we issued 80 percent of the permits that RHNA allocated for us. I think that's something we're going to hit already, but I think it's important to remember that regional housing needs as this process is named is about meeting a number of income levels across the county and across the TRANSCRIPT Page 34 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 region and within our City as well. This second piece of language is actually important in attaining that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I just wanted to clarify if I read the PTC comment and the Motion, it states that it wants to create BMR housing inventory for purchase and rental. If we're only looking at what the PTC is commenting on, then I would actually have to support Council Member DuBois and the Substitute Motion. Also, I want to ensure that the language in the revised text actually states in there not making a list of BMR housing, but actually ensuring that we are doing the creation and encouraging the building of BMR housing. Mayor Scharff: Council Member—do you want to speak, Vice Mayor Kniss? I'll speak to it then. This is either a major policy change or it's not a major policy change. It's either aspirational or it's going to give us all sorts of problems on our Housing Element. To be honest, I've absolutely no—my gut sense is it's aspirational frankly. I don't know. I will say that in my experience on the Housing Element with HCD is that it's very, very difficult to get anything. Stuff like this language, if this was in the Housing Element as opposed to the Comp Plan, would be a problem for the City. I've also got to say that I have four Council Members who seem worked up about this issue. If it's aspirational, I don't know why we'd want to give four other Council Members angst, frankly. If it's actually not aspirational and is a major change, which I think the other Council Members don't think it is and I think of myself as included in that. I'm saying if it's not that important, which I don't think it is because we have a Housing Element that'll have the RHNA numbers in there—I'm asking myself why would I give four other Council Members angst over something like that. Therefore, this is a long way about saying that I actually agree with the Council Members that want to support this, but that's because they think it's aspirational. Since four Council Members don't, I see no reason to cause that angst and, therefore, I'm not going to support— therefore, I'm going to support the Substitute Motion. That was the most convoluted thing I think I've ever said on Council. Council Member Holman, did you speak to this, the Substitute? Council Member Holman: I did not, and I will do so just really, really briefly. It's that aspirational is one thing. When I read language in a Comprehensive Plan that says remove barriers, that to me indicates upcoming zoning changes, and that's where the—you referred to it as angst—angst comes from, which could be above the 50-foot height limit, for instance, because that could be perceived as a barrier. I read it as more than aspirational. TRANSCRIPT Page 35 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Clarifying question from Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: We keep coming back to this. Maybe we're not looking at this the same way. I'm just checking. The part about removing barriers is not something we're voting on because that was already in there. If somebody wants to make that amendment, they could (crosstalk) … Mayor Scharff: That's correct. Council Member Wolbach: … correct? That's not what we're voting on anyway. Mayor Scharff: That is correct. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: We're voting on the Substitute Motion. That passes on a 6-3 vote with Council Members Wolbach, Kniss, and Fine voting no. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED: 6-3 Fine, Kniss, Wolbach no Mayor Scharff: Now, we're onto the next one. Does anyone want to support Priority Number 2? Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I'll move that we adopt the language for Number 2. Mayor Scharff: Do we have a second? Council Member Kou: Second. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member Kou. Their Motion is to adopt all of the language in Priority 2, which is a lot of language. MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to: A. Replace in Program L-4.8.2, “for retail at Stanford” with “for non-profit office, small medical office, or retail uses at Stanford;” and B. Move Policy B-2.1, Program B-4.2.1, Program B-4.2.2, Program B-4.6.2, and Program B-4.6.3 to the Land Use Element under Goal L-4 and renumber the Business and Economics Element and Land Use Element accordingly. Council Member DuBois: The only change—very little change. Mayor Scharff: (crosstalk) change, right. TRANSCRIPT Page 36 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) change is nonprofit. Mayor Scharff: That's correct. The only change is nonprofit, small medical office, etc. Council Member DuBois: At the Stanford Shopping Center. Mayor Scharff: At the Stanford Shopping Center, that is correct. You want to speak to it? Council Member DuBois: It seemed like a totally reasonable change by the PTC and fairly minor. If Council Members do have angst about it, I would withdraw the Motion. It just seemed reasonable. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Agree it's reasonable. Mayor Scharff: I actually have angst against it, so I'll speak about my angst. My angst is simply this. The Stanford Shopping Center produces a lot of sales tax revenue. It's one of the premier shopping centers. I would not want to see any nonprofit office, small medical office crowding out that retail. For me, if it went on the second or third floor, I'd be fine with that. I'm not so sure we want to make those decisions about second or third floor on the Stanford Shopping Center for office since we already talked about putting housing. If we said second or third floor, I'd be fine with it. Council Member DuBois: It says explore. It's pretty soft, and we don't control the Stanford Shopping Center. I assumed they would put it in a good place; I would trust them. Mayor Scharff: I actually would make an Amendment that we say "adding additional floor area for nonprofit office, small medical office, or retail uses at Stanford Shopping Center." I would say the nonprofit office space, medical office, however, must be on a second-floor space. Non-first-floor, must be on a non-first-floor. That would be my—is that accepted? Is that accepted by the seconder? INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part A, “on non-ground floor” after “retail uses.” Mayor Scharff: Anyone else? Everyone wants to speak on this. Wolbach, Vice Mayor Kniss. TRANSCRIPT Page 37 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: I don't know where this came from, but this seems like one of the most—this seems like the oddest addition to me. Stanford is one of the most—I will look at Council Member Tanaka for this one. It is one of the most carefully curated shopping centers in the country. I've talked to them often. You have to practically apply and prove your worth and have something somewhere else. You have to prove that you can make money. That is the only way they're going to rent to you. Looking at a nonprofit office, a small medical office, or retail uses at Stanford seems to me at least to be a waste of our time to include this program in L-4.8.2. That's my observation. I'd love it if Greg talked about it when it gets to that point. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I actually align myself with the comments of Greg and Liz on this. One is if it's going to pass, I agree it should be non-ground- floor. The other is what was causing me—your word tonight seems to be angst, the nonprofit because we have had this conversation at this Council and prior Councils previously that all nonprofits are not created equally. Some of them are very large and very well-funded. To Liz's point here, it's very hard to imagine that any nonprofit or small medical office at Stanford Shopping Center is going to be affordable. I can't even imagine that. I guess there's no harm if we make it non-ground-floor as has been—was it amended? What is it? On non-ground-floor. I guess there's no harm in this, but it's pointless because ain't going to ever happen. Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) time out. I'll just withdraw the Motion. There seems to be enough disagreement. Mayor Scharff: You're withdrawing your Motion. Does anyone else want to pick up the Motion? Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, if I can interject? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Ms. Gitelman: I think the most substantive part of the Staff recommendation here to implement the PTC's Motion was moving some policies from the Business and Economics Element into Land Use about this issue that the Planning Commission felt very strongly about. I apologize if we got a little bit off on a sidetrack about the Stanford Shopping Center thing. I think it really was the idea of elevating these policies that are shown below into Land Use that would effectuate the PTC's recommendation. Council Member DuBois: I guess I do not withdraw the Motion. TRANSCRIPT Page 38 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: You're just going to delete certain parts or whatever. Council Member DuBois: I would be open to deleting or restoring L-4.8.2 to its original language, which was additional FAR for retail uses at Stanford Shopping Center. The other points, it does make sense to maybe highlight them in the Land Use Element. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou, are you fine with that? Council Member Kou: I'm looking at this. If we're going to be adding—if we're looking to—in the future should there be housing going in, you'd think that you want all these other uses over there. Mayor Scharff: He already withdrew all the other uses. Council Member Kou: You took them all out? Council Member DuBois: Just retail for the first one. Council Member Kou: I would like to see medical offices back in. Because the Medical Center is right there. I can go with what he said. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to: A. Replace in Program L-4.8.2, “for retail at Stanford” with “for non-profit office, small medical office, or retail uses on non-ground floor at Stanford;” and B. Move Policy B-2.1, Program B-4.2.1, Program B-4.2.2, Program B-4.6.2, and Program B-4.6.3 to the Land Use Element under Goal L-4 and renumber the Business and Economics Element and Land Use Element accordingly. Mayor Scharff: Anyone wish to—the whole board's lit up. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to be clear. The Motion would accept everything under the first paragraph here. It would do the movement from Business to Land Use and would not make changes to the Stanford Shopping Center. I was going to suggest that, so it sounds great. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I was going to speak to the first part, which was the nonprofit office, small medical office, or retail uses. The Vice Mayor is correct TRANSCRIPT Page 39 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 in that Stanford really does carefully curate what goes into Stanford Shopping Center, which is one of the reasons why I think it's been very, very successful. With that said, one reason why I think Council Member DuBois actually had it right is the nature of retail is changing. The days where you have just a pure shopping mall by itself is rapidly changing. Now, at Stanford we have very interesting demographics and economic situation, so it's still working there. At a lot of shopping malls, you're starting to see a mix of uses, not just shopping. What the Mayor had to say about making it second floor is actually not a bad idea because you can be pretty sure that Stanford is not going to have something there that's going to be a total dog because it's not going to work for the shopping center. In the future, they may want to have that flexibility, which might create the traffic that they need at the shopping center. I would be open to having what the PTC first recommended back in there mainly because of the fact that just the way retail is evolving, this may become something that they would want to have. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Holman. MOTION RESTATED: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to move Policy B-2.1, Program B-4.2.1, Program B-4.2.2, Program B-4.6.2, and Program B-4.6.3 to the Land Use Element under Goal L-4 and renumber the Business and Economics Element and Land Use Element accordingly. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on this. That passes on a 9-0 vote. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Does anyone want to pick up Priority Number 3? Council Member Fine: I'll move Priority Number 3. Council Member Wolbach: I'll second it if you're open to a couple of amendments. Mayor Scharff: What are your Amendments? Council Member Wolbach: If the maker would be open to it, I'd suggest replacing the word "City" with "public." That would, I think, make it more inclusive and open up more opportunities to work with other public agencies that may have land that would be appropriate for BMR or more affordable market rate housing. I would also suggest along the same line of thinking to remove the words "such as alleys and parking lots." Not because I'm against exploring those options necessarily, but (crosstalk). TRANSCRIPT Page 40 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Fine: You're trying to widen the net here. Council Member Wolbach: Yeah. Let's keep the ideas open at least for consideration potentially. Council Member Fine: I'll accept those. MOTION: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add a new Program L-2.4.8, “identify development opportunities for Below Market Rate housing and more affordable market rate housing on publicly owned properties in a way that is integrated with and enhances existing neighborhoods.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your Motion? Council Member Fine: Essentially this is identifying development opportunities for BMR and more affordable market rate housing. I hear your comment earlier, Council Member Holman, about affordable market rate housing. I think this is a good suggestion from the PTC, and it's nice to see a program in the Comp Plan about it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: For everybody, the way it would read with those changes is "identify development opportunities for BMR and more affordable market rate housing on public-owned properties in a way that is integrated with and enhances existing neighborhoods." This goes to where the consensus is around housing opportunities. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Council Member Wolbach: Just a small tweak as Vice Mayor Kniss just pointed out. The word "public" should be "publicly," but a very minor grammatical thing. This goes to, again, where I think the consensus is in the community about where we could and should look for housing opportunities. Again, the word "public" should just be "publicly" with an L-Y at the end. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I could support this if the "and more affordable market rate housing" was struck. The reason that I mentioned earlier is because I don't know what that is. We have no definition for it. The other is this is publicly owned property. Publicly owned property should be utilized for the public good. That is things like BMR housing, parks and open space, that sort of thing, not for the profit of a private developer, which is what market TRANSCRIPT Page 41 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 rate housing would be. I think it's an inappropriate use, an absolutely inappropriate use for publicly owned lands. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I appreciate the comments of all my Colleagues. I actually appreciated the changes. Public land, making it more broad, those were good changes. That was all I was going to say originally, but Council Member Holman makes a good point as well. I would ask the makers maybe if they have an idea to modify this. Again, the idea of market rate if you're talking about—the levels of affordable housing may be defined in the Housing Element. Something below market rate on public lands, there are other places where we could talk about market housing. I think it's a good point. Mayor Scharff: I'll speak briefly to that. A pure market rate housing on public land would obviously be a problem. There may be circumstances where you actually get to make it work by making it a mixture of market rate and affordable housing. You can't always make it work. Council obviously would prefer to do all affordable on something like that. The question is do you want to limit it to that or not. Vice Mayor Kniss: I want to comment. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Looking down here, we keep saying affordable market rate housing. If it's coming up frequently, why don't you tell us what you think affordable market rate housing is? Ms. Gitelman: I think the key word there is more affordable market rate housing. The idea is that there is some housing types—we've talked about small units in the past—that might be more affordable than other forms of market rate housing. Vice Mayor Kniss: Would we say then this says to us there are alternative ways to have affordable market rate housing and that's what we should be looking at and perhaps they could go on publicly owned—it's really publicly owned, David, properties. Is that what we're saying? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. There was interest on the Planning Commission— I think everyone on the Commission was supportive of BMR housing, but there was a segment of the Commission that was also really focused on more affordable than other types of housing, market rate. TRANSCRIPT Page 42 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: This might be a discussion they had in Menlo Park about their library when they came to that. Secondly, would this involve, for example—I don't know where this is done, but I've often read about it— development done in essentially the air space above a garage that we might build? Something like that? Ms. Costello: Yes. In fact, what I think a number of the Planning Commissioners talked about was building it above a garage. Many of the communities who have done that—it's happening more and more—have had a mixture of market rate and below market rate in order to make it financially feasible. The concept of the more affordable market rate housing came out of the CAC and was kept by the Planning Commission. It wasn't the idea of trying to not have everything that gets built in Palo Alto be luxury housing and also recognizing that, to get more housing for people, we're going to have to have the market building some of it, trying to steer it more toward the less expensive aspects of market rate housing. Vice Mayor Kniss: That helps, and that really makes some sense. I know Menlo Park had a spirited discussion about this. While we never have seen this come to us, I hope that sometime in the next 5 or 10 years we will see something that's really creative like that. That to me does speak to the more affordable market rate where you weren't looking at everything coming in on a single lot that was—while in a neighborhood, still becomes extraordinarily expensive. Thanks so much. That helps. Mayor Scharff: I have a clarifying question that you've made me think about. We often talk on this Council about providing housing for teachers, first responders, City employees, and others who—I'm sure there's a whole bunch—make too much to qualify for BMR, but yet we would still rent these at below market rate. How would I make sure that those people are included, that they don't fall? We as a City may suddenly decide we want to build some teacher housing, and we may decide we're going to open it up to teachers who make more money, but we aren't going to charge them—we're going to charge them below market rents frankly. Right now, the way it's written that would allow that. If we took out the "more affordable housing," would that limit it to not allow those people to … Ms. Gitelman: I think you could substitute a word like workforce housing if you took out more affordable market rate housing. Mayor Scharff: You could just say more affordable housing, right? You could just do that. I just wanted to understand that. Vice Mayor Kniss: Are we wordsmithing (inaudible). TRANSCRIPT Page 43 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: We are. Let's see. Council Member Wolbach's talked. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: We may be wordsmithing here, but I hope we get it right. We don't have enough—we're out of land in this town. We don't have enough land to do playing fields and dog parks and community centers and all the other stuff we want to do with land. To use public land for market rate housing in the traditional sense of market rate housing, I agree 100 percent with Council Member Holman. It's an unnecessary giveaway to people whose business is building things, and it doesn't help the community. On the other hand, I also agree with Council Member Scharff. If we decide to build workforce housing or teacher housing or something like that, then yes it does make sense to consider some amount of public land for that. I don't know if the answer is BMR should be—instead of capital B, capital M, capital R, it should just be below market rate written out in lower case or something like that. Short of identifying that, I could support this Motion easily with the words "more affordable market rate housing," "more affordable market rate" taken out but not with that. The word "affordable"—there are too many different people with different definitions of what that is. Carmel Village in San Antonio, we understand you can rent a one-bedroom apartment there for $3,000 a month. For some people that's more affordable than Sharon Heights where it might be $4,000 a month. I don't think that's a good use of public land. I think we need to—I would be okay with striking that clause or finding some other language for what we really mean. Again, we're talking about public land here. We don't have very much of it. I'd be okay with workforce. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Just a few things here. One, we're not actually judging a project in this, and we don't know what might come down the pipeline in the future. Two, it's completely conceivable that public lands converted into a large portion of BMR housing may also need to support affordable or—take out the word "affordable"—market rate housing to cross-subsidize them. Let's all remember that BMR housing is—to use your word, Council Member Filseth—a giveaway. This is a cross-subsidy from market rate housing to someone else. Third, nonprofit affordable housing developers also make money. They're not in this business to lose money even if they're a nonprofit. I think that argument falls on its face. This is flexible, and future Councils and this Council, I do not believe, would give away public lands for market rate housing, but there may be a foreseeable project where it has an abundance of BMR housing, and there could be some market rate units in there, which make the project whole. I'd encourage you all to support it as is. TRANSCRIPT Page 44 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I want to respond to that too just because it made me think about it. I probably would never support taking one of our surface parking lots and turning it into housing and losing the parking. I might support putting a bunch of BMR units and putting some market rate housing that allows us to then go underground and replace the parking, so that we are better off. We still have the parking we had before. If we just limited this to BMR housing, there would never be enough money to build the parking back. That's why I think we should have flexibility on this. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I want to be clear that the concern is not about— two things. Support definitely is in my vote for affordable housing, for the BMR housing. It's the more affordable market rate housing that is causing consternation. I don't think that's what this says. What you just described, I don't think that's what this says. Mayor Scharff: Could you elaborate? What do you mean it doesn't say what I just said? Council Member Holman: The way I read this is that it could be an all market rate housing project on publicly owned land. That's how I read this. Again, it's not wordsmithing. This is really important policy-setting. I'm not at this moment coming up with language that would accomplish what you're saying. I'm thinking about it. I'm not coming up with it. I can't support it the way it is now. Mayor Scharff: Council Member—who hasn't spoken? Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I was thinking about what the Mayor just said in terms of if we're taking public land and then, let's say, adding housing to it. I think one thing that's actually important—it's a good point that the Mayor made, which he didn't quite expand upon. I wanted to see if we can. The concept of not using the public use. If it was a parking lot before and we had to put up housing there, we want to make sure we don't lose the parking or whatever use was there before. It is public property, and it was serving the public in some way. I think it's important that it doesn't lose that character. I don't know quite what words to use. I think the Mayor has a good point, and so I would support some sort of measure in that regard. The second topic I have, which may be a little bit more controversial, is—if we want to solve this housing issue, we need to address the supply. That means not just below market rate but all housing. I don't know if—one thing to consider is maybe striking BMR and affordable and just say "housing" versus just BMR housing. That's going the other direction. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. TRANSCRIPT Page 45 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Wolbach: Good discussion. I think we've heard a range of views about how we could tweak this. Some suggest getting rid of the more affordable market rate. At least one Council Member suggested getting rid of the BMR in that and just leave it open. I think this is right down the middle. I still think this is—the proposal is the right language. I haven't heard any actual amendments offered, though. As the seconder, I would have been open to Amendments, but I didn't hear any mentioned. I do want to address just a couple of things that were mentioned and just clarify how I envision this working or what kind of things might open up. I heard people say that it would be free land and a giveaway to developers or implied to developers. I don't think that's true. As far as how public land could be used for—whether it's called reasonably—I would say reasonably priced market rate housing maybe or for BMR housing, I would envision that whoever is making it would pay for it, so it wouldn't be a giveaway and wouldn't be free or they would lease use and pay for use of and there might be a terminus on the duration of that lease or it might even be publicly built by the City, the School District, Caltrain, VTA, whoever and no private developer might be involved except perhaps on the contract to do the construction and perhaps a property management company to do management. It might remain in public hands for perpetuity. Allowing this to be flexible means that senior housing, something like Channing House, or teacher housing as was suggested perhaps on School District land or on some other land where multiple public agencies collaborate, again Caltrain property. If we are able to underground Caltrain, people talk about value capture. One of the ways to acquire money to do grade separations, especially undergrounding grade separation, is to do value capture where you make some of the land available. If it's market rate housing, that could help fund some very expensive infrastructure projects. I don't want to get into all those right now. My point is merely that I don't think we would give away public land as a City. I don't think the School District would. I don't think Caltrain or other public agencies would. I think it's important to leave open those options, and that's where I see this going. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou and then we'll vote. We do need to move it along. I notice we're moving slowly. Council Member Kou: I would actually make an Amendment to remove market rate and just say "below market rate housing and more affordable housing on publicly owned properties." That takes care of … Vice Mayor Kniss: I'd second that. Council Member Kou: Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 46 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 AMENDMENT: Council Member Kou moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to remove “market rate” after “more affordable” from the Motion. Mayor Scharff: What's the Amendment? Council Member Kou: Strike "market rate." Vice Mayor Kniss: It'd be more affordable housing instead of market rate. Mayor Scharff: It would just say "more affordable housing." Council Member Kou: I think that's the question everybody has been asking, what is affordable. Mayor Scharff: Fair enough (crosstalk). Council Member Kou: Did someone second? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yeah, I seconded it. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Council Member Fine: No, no, no. I'm not going to. I know you're about to. I'm not going to accept this first of all, so it'll have to be unfriendly. I think that makes it even more diffuse. We are having some questions here about what is "more affordable market rate housing." That's a good question and a discussion we should have. I think Staff, this Council, and the community have some ideas about what that means. It could be things like car-lite housing. It could be things like smaller units. Those are potential avenues for it. I think this Motion or this policy here is strongest when it includes BMR housing, which is subsidized housing, and more affordable market rate housing, which may be smaller, car-lite units. I don't think saying affordable housing really gets to the point. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the Amendment. We're voting on the Amendment to the Motion. That fails on a 5-4 vote with Council Members DuBois, Kou, Kniss, and Filseth voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 4-5 DuBois, Filseth, Kniss, Kou yes Mayor Scharff: Now, let's vote on the main Motion. That passes on a 6-3 Motion with Kou, Filseth, and Holman voting no. MOTION PASSED: 6-3 Filseth, Holman, Kou no TRANSCRIPT Page 47 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Now, we need to move on. Does anyone want to pick up Number 4? Vice Mayor Kniss: I move we move forward on Number 4. Mayor Scharff: Seeing … Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Number 4 to Number 4. Council Member Kou, you put your light on, did you or not? Council Member Kou: No. Mayor Scharff: I'll clear the lights. Vice Mayor Kniss, did you want to say something? Vice Mayor Kniss: I said I would move forward on it. Mayor Scharff: What does that mean? Move forward. Vice Mayor Kniss: Move forward, we accept it. Mayor Scharff: What's your Motion? Vice Mayor Kniss: Are we accepting things or rejecting them? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Your Motion is to include the language in the Comp Plan? Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: I hear no second. That dies for lack of a second. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member XX to implement the Planning and Transportation Commission Priority 4 changes. MOTION FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: We'll move on to Number 5. Anyone want to support including the language in Number 5? Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm going to try this one. I would move we accept the language in Number 5. Council Member Fine: Second. TRANSCRIPT Page 48 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to add to Program L-4.6.1, “the Coordinated Area Plan should include a study of the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian-only zone.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to—that's with Adrian as the seconder. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Which one of you seconded it? Council Member Fine: We both did. Vice Mayor Kniss: I have long been enthusiastic about converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian-only zone. In fact, I think we've probably talked about it for 20 years off and on. The coordinated area plan, I know many think is complicated. It mentions in there that it's a huge undertaking, but I don't know how we can actually get to the point where we look at dramatically changing the Downtown in some way without some type of area plan. SOFA, which we reference often, certainly allowed a very different kind of development to take place in that particular area. We're watching our City change dramatically. I heard someone from the Chamber say earlier that retail is probably getting more and more problematic. I think this actually is a good way to go forward with it. This is going—remember this Plan lasts until 2030 and probably beyond that. The current Plan evaporated how long ago? 2010. We've been operating for 7 years with what essentially is an old Comp Plan. If we included this and this got done within the next 10 years—it'd be nice if it was 5—that could make a big difference in our Downtown area. I would hope you would support that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Yes, just would echo what the Vice Mayor said, that Downtown does have some challenges. Although this would be a big undertaking for our City to create a coordinated area plan, I think it's our best chance to address issues such as housing, transportation, and traffic in the Downtown area. I also think it's particularly important as changes are coming to the rail system and as we're looking at potentially HSR coming through the City and electrification, which will increase service to the University Ave. station this kind of plan will be even more important. Finally, you mentioned SOFA for a moment. A coordinated area plan for the Downtown area would be a nice way for our community to watch and participate as the wheels really hit the road after we finalize this Comp Plan. It may not be next year; it may not be 10 years out, but I think in the next 15 years it would be a good opportunity for our community to come together, do some drawings on the wall, and figure out what Downtown should look like. TRANSCRIPT Page 49 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I actually wanted to speak on this. I've been thinking about this. First of all a clarifying question. It's already in our Comp Plan that we would actually undertake a coordinated area plan for Downtown. I must have missed that. That's nuts. It'll just take 10 years to do it, and it'll be way too many resources. I am going to follow my own rules, but I am going to come back when we do this and try and remove Policy L-4.6.1 from the Comp Plan. With that said, we really should go ahead and do a study of converting parts of University Avenue to pedestrian-only. I'll actually make a motion to do—a substitute motion that we have a separate program to do a study of the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian-only zone. The reason for that is if we put it as part of a coordinated plan, it'll actually never happen. It'll be not in my lifetime. It'll be 10 years, and I'd much rather see it happening sooner than that. I don't know if I'll get a second. I'll move that we make it a separate program. Council Member Wolbach: Second. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add a new Program, “study the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian-only zone.” Mayor Scharff: I'll speak to it. I think a lot of people have said to me they'd like to see parts of Downtown be pedestrian-only. I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not frankly, but I think we need a study. We need to look at it. It may not be University; it may be one of the side streets. It's definitely something we should look at and decide. I don't think it should be part of a coordinated area plan. It's a very separate issue of do we go ahead and make parts of Downtown pedestrian-only. Cory. Council Member Wolbach: When we come back and the Mayor attempts to remove the idea of a coordinated area plan for Downtown, I will absolutely oppose him. I think a coordinated area plan for part or all of Downtown is a great idea. I don't think we should get to it in the next couple of years. I think it's a long-term thing. Again, maybe we just do it for a portion of Downtown. I still think it's a great idea. I love that it's in the Comp Plan. I'm going to fight to keep it in the Comp Plan. Since we don't know how that debate's going to go, I want to make sure the idea that the PTC proposed about converting a portion of University Avenue to a pedestrian-only zone … Mayor Scharff: It's not University. It's somewhere in the Downtown. It could be a side street. Council Member Wolbach: Are you changing the language to a portion of down … TRANSCRIPT Page 50 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I would say a portion of Downtown because some of those side streets may be better. You don't know. You want to do the study. Council Member Wolbach: A portion of Downtown. I won't remove my second. Mayor Scharff: If you want to leave University, I'm fine to leave it University. I just thought it should be broader. Council Member Wolbach: Let's just leave it as University. Let's undo the change that was just made. I'm not saying that we're ready to do that. Like the Mayor said, I'm not sure it's a good idea. It's a good enough idea to study. I agree with the PTC on that. When you look at other areas that have done that around the state, whether it's in Santa Monica at the Third Street Promenade or other places, it works pretty well. When we close University Avenue for festivals and things like that, it's wonderful. It brings a lot of energy to Downtown. Part of the study might say we only do it during certain hours or—there are a lot of ways we could go with it. A study is totally worth doing. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I've actually heard a lot of people talk about this before as well in terms of having a pedestrian mall at University Avenue. I support this as well. The other thing I've heard a lot of and may be a better idea or may be just as good is potentially having parts of Cal. Ave. Cal. Ave. on Sundays, as most of you guys know, is a farmers market. That might also be something to consider. I'd like to add as a friendly Amendment to also have University or Cal. Ave. as a pedestrian-only zone. Mayor Scharff: Are you not accepting it? Council Member Wolbach's not accepting it. You need a second. Hearing no second, moving on. AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Substitute Motion, “or California Avenue” after “University Avenue.” AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Mayor Scharff: Now, Council Member Fine, you wanted to speak. No. Council Member Holman, you wanted to speak. TRANSCRIPT Page 51 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Holman: If I'm clear on where we are, you are wanting to add the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian- only zone instead of studying it as part of a Coordinated Area Plan. Correct? Mayor Scharff: Correct. I don't want to tie it to a Coordinated Area Plan. I want to study it now—undertaking a Coordinated Area Plan is a long process. I want to study it earlier than that. Council Member Holman: Are we adding new programs tonight? I don't disagree with what you're saying, but are we adding new programs tonight? Mayor Scharff: We could add new programs tonight, yes. Council Member Holman: If that's the case … Mayor Scharff: Right now we're only focusing on what the PTC suggested. They're adding this to a program. We'd make it a separate program. Council Member Holman: What's in front of us as a substitute motion is adding a new program to study the feasibility. Right? Mayor Scharff: Yes, that is correct. Council Member Holman: I agree with you it shouldn't be part of a Coordinated Area Plan. It's a time suck for the Staff quite frankly. We've talked about this off and on for many, many years. What we need to remember is that University Avenue is also a major thoroughfare. Kind of unfortunately, it's a major thoroughfare from east to west in Palo Alto. I can't imagine how closing off portions of University Avenue are going to work. That means it also would result in loss of parking along those areas of University Avenue that are closed to traffic. I guess there's no harm in studying it, except I think it is a time suck for Staff. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. You don't need to speak again, right? No, you're not, Cory. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm looking at this. What I don't want is this to go down the drain because I do want us to look at the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue. At this point, I'm just going to play this one out. I'm not hearing strong support for the Coordinated Area Plan short term. We might hold it out as long term. At this point, what I'm going to do is vote for the substitute motion. When the coordinated area plan comes back separately, which I know it will, I will support that. I'll support the substitute motion so we at least get started on University Avenue. Council Member Holman, I hear what you're saying. I remember the fight they had in Santa Monica over the TRANSCRIPT Page 52 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Third Street Promenade. It was pretty much that same discussion. It has one of the most successful areas that there is. Their traffic is far worse than ours, by the way. At least that's my own opinion. I don't think I'll even mention tonight what we could do in order to make this happen. I think there are ways that that could come to fruition. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I think we—traffic is already pretty bad on this street. It's a way in and out for Stanford as well for a lot of the businesses over here. We're just diverting—in a way it's going to be—my concern is diverting traffic into the neighborhoods. That's been a big problem in the past with parking. Now, it's going to be traffic using neighborhood streets to get to wherever they need to go here in the City or even getting into Stanford University from the 101. That's a big concern for me, to have University be a pedestrian-only zone. If it's a study, I can go along. I'm still greatly concerned about just making the problem worse and just pushing it off to other places. Mayor Scharff: Did you just put on your light, Council Member Fine? Council Member Fine: Just to respond to a few comments I've heard here. Yes, traffic is bad. Do we ever think we're going to expand University to more lanes? I don't think so. If we believe that there are too many cars on the road, perhaps we need to explore ways to get out of our cars. One of the ways we do that is by building the environment we want to see in our world. Pedestrian-oriented zones absolutely work. There are challenges here in Palo Alto we'll have to address. We haven't even mentioned the issue of retail. I think it is completely reasonable for us to study this. I would offer one friendly amendment to the substitute motion, which is—I'm looking maybe to the Planning Director here—to a non-motorized-only zone. I'm thinking of bicyclists, roller-bladers, things like that. Council Member Wolbach: I don't know that that's necessary at this point. I think that might get a little more specific than we need to right now. Council Member Fine: Bike and pedestrian-only zone. Would you guys accept that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Why don't we see if we can just get that one (crosstalk) Substitute Motion passed. Council Member Fine: All right. Pull my Amendment. I'll support this as is. TRANSCRIPT Page 53 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace in the Motion, “pedestrian- only” with “non-motorized only.” AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace in the Motion, “pedestrian-only” with “bike and pedestrian-only.” AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER Mayor Scharff: We could take the word "only" out and call it a pedestrian zone. Would Staff know what that means? Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mayor. SUBSTITUTE MOTION RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add a new Program, “study the feasibility of converting parts of University Avenue to a pedestrian zone.” Vice Mayor Kniss: Can we vote? Mayor Scharff: Yes. If we could vote. That passes unanimously. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, we're on Item Number—what are we on—6. Does anyone want to add that in? Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'll move that. Mayor Scharff: Do we have a second? MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to add a new Program T-1.2.5, “pursue full participation of Palo Alto employers in the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to it? Council Member Wolbach: Getting more employers to participate in the TMA is important, so this would just—we would add the new program, pursue full participation of Palo Alto employers in the TMA. Maybe that's aspirational, but it's a lot of local even if we don't get all the way there. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. TRANSCRIPT Page 54 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: I hope this is an easy one. Pursuing full participation, we could be encouraging it. We could be hoping for it, whatever it might be. Certainly, we want full participation in the TMA. We've discussed that now for at least 2 or 3 years. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I'll pass. Mayor Scharff: Pass. If we could vote on the … That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Item Number 7 has no changes, so there's no reason to do it other than to acknowledge the PTC's work on that. Priority Number 8, anyone want to pick that up? If you're not interested, we can move on. We're running out of time. I don't hear any interest on this one. Council Member Filseth: I'll move we adopt it. Mayor Scharff: You'll move we adopt it. Do we have a second? Council Member DuBois: I'll second it. Mayor Scharff: Seconded by Council Member DuBois. Do you want to speak to your … MOTION: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Update Goal L-1 to “a compact and resilient city prioritizing diverse and vibrant neighborhoods and compatibility with shopping and services, work places, public facilities, parks, and open spaces;” and B. Renumber Policy L-1.2 to Policy L-1.1 and replace “strengthen” with “prioritize;” and C. Move and renumber Policy L-1.1 to L-1.2. Council Member Filseth: I'm not 100 percent what the first part of it means. The second part where it says prioritize Palo Alto's residential neighborhoods while sustaining the vitality of commercial areas sounds to me like a really, really, weak, watered-down way to say whatever the clause that was excised, that we talked about earlier, commercial growth but not at the expense of residential neighborhoods. TRANSCRIPT Page 55 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I'm just reading the PTC comments and the text. I think it's just a little bit better wording. It brought in diversity, which was a good addition. It's a little bit stronger language. It's not really a substantial change. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I'm actually really onboard with the second and third parts. That's on Page 8. Changing the word "strengthen" to "prioritize," I'm okay with that. I guess the rest was just renumbering, so that's not really important. I'm okay with the second part. The first part I'm also—I guess I'm just not sure I'm ready to change the first goal in the Land Use section. I'm not sure that the changes make that big a difference. At the risk of undercutting myself here, I'll probably vote for it either way. Would the maker and seconder be open to removing the first part and just sticking with the change to Policy L-1? Mayor Scharff: Your motion is to leave L-1 the way it is and then add in prioritize Palo Alto's varied residential neighborhoods? Council Member Wolbach: Yeah, to not change the goal, but to adopt only the change to L-1. Council Member Filseth: I'd be okay with that. Council Member Wolbach: Sorry, L-1.1. Mayor Scharff: Are you fine with that, Tom? Yeah, he's fine with it. Council Member DuBois: That was kind of a major part of it. I'd rather just adopt the revised language. Mayor Scharff: I'll second your Motion. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to remove Part A from the Motion. Council Member Wolbach: The existing language for the goal is good. It went through a lot of iterations before going to PTC. I respect the changes they made. I just don't think they're essential; whereas, I do think the change to Policy L-1.1 is rather important. I will strongly encourage moving forward with that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. TRANSCRIPT Page 56 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Fine: First, a question. Is there a substitute motion to this that Council Member Wolbach and the Mayor just made? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Council Member Wolbach: It's an Amendment. Mayor Scharff: It's an Amendment. Council Member Fine: It will just be parts b and c. Is that correct? Mayor Scharff: Correct. It's really just Policy L-2.1. It just changes the word "strengthen"—it changes the word "prioritize"—it does one thing. It changes one word, "strengthen," to "prioritize." Council Member Fine: I'll support the Amendment here. I'm also a little bit worried about changing Goal L-1. If we talk about major policy changes tonight, land use is obviously the most contested chapter of this document. The first goal, I think, is a really important tone-setting item, which we did debate quite deeply on the CAC. I also just think the word "visitors" in there is actually really important. Tonight, we had visitors from Heidelberg, and every day in Palo Alto we have visitors from other cities who come here to work and contribute to our tax base and our community. Yes, there are impacts from that as well, but it's important to acknowledge them as well as residents. I'm not in favor of changing Goal L-1 at this point. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: It's small, a small point. On the first sentence of "A," I don't think we're prioritizing divers. I think it's diverse. Is that correct? Mayor Scharff: The Amendment is not to change that language at all. Council Member Tanaka: It doesn't look right on the screen here. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. We're voting on the Amendment. The Amendment passes on a 7-2 with Council Members Kou and Holman voting no. AMENDMENT PASSED: 7-2 Holman, Kou no MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Renumber Policy L-1.2 to Policy L-1.1 and replace “strengthen” with “prioritize;” and TRANSCRIPT Page 57 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 B. Move and renumber Policy L-1.1 to L-1.2. Mayor Scharff: Now, we have to vote on the main Motion. That passes on a 9-0 vote. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, we're on Priority Number—where was I—8. We're on 8. I didn't think we were on 8. We're on 9. We're on 9. Does anyone want to move Number 9? I've got to say isn't all housing in Palo Alto infill. Hearing no interest in—okay. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to replace in Policy L-1.3, “promote infill development” with “Palo Alto has a preference for infill housing. Infill development” and “that is compatible” with “should be compatible.” Mayor Scharff: Cory, do you want to speak to your … Council Member Wolbach: I think it speaks for itself. Just to read it out loud, it says Palo Alto has a preference for infill housing. That's the new language. Later it changes two words from that, so it reads infill development in the urban service area should be compatible with its surroundings and the overall scale and character of the City to ensure a compact, efficient, development pattern. It's a minor wording change, but it flows better. Mayor Scharff: Seeing no comments, let's just vote on the board. Vice Mayor Kniss: I was the second on that. Mayor Scharff: That passes on a 5-4 vote. I had no idea it was that controversial. If I'd known it was so angst-y, I actually wouldn't have voted for it, guys, to be honest. Council Member DuBois: Me too. I don't know. We're going a little fast tonight. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to reconsider it? I'll reconsider this if you guys want to reconsider it. MOTION TO RECONSIDER: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to reconsider the last Motion. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote again on it. I'll just reconsider it. MOTION PASSED BY ACCLAMATION TRANSCRIPT Page 58 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to replace in Policy L-1.3, “promote infill development” with “Palo Alto has a preference for infill housing. Infill development” and “that is compatible” with “should be compatible.” Mayor Scharff: It fails. Let's move on. MOTION FAILED: 2-7 Kniss, Wolbach yes Mayor Scharff: Number 10, anyone want to pick that up? Wait, it does have some stuff. Council Member Filseth: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: Seeing no Motions … Council Member Wolbach: I'll move this one. Mayor Scharff: Do we have a second? Council Member DuBois: I'll second it. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to add to the Introduction under the “Maintaining and Enhancing Community Character” heading, “in residential neighborhoods, commercial centers, and employment districts” after “best features” and “foster inviting pedestrian-scale commercial centers and distinctive employment districts” after “preserve neighborhoods.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your Motion? Council Member Wolbach: Council Member DuBois and I agree on something. Let's move it forward. Mayor Scharff: (crosstalk) Wolbach. Council Member DuBois: Can Staff confirm this is just part of the narrative? Is that correct? Sorry. Priority Number 10 is just the narrative, right? I think the changes are fine. Mayor Scharff: Shall we vote—Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: A question for Staff. On Page 9, the underlined section, should that word be "distinct" not "distinctive"? I don't know what a distinctive employment district is, but I … TRANSCRIPT Page 59 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: I think it means (inaudible) Council Member Filseth: That's the question. Council Member Wolbach: Does it mean memorable? Vice Mayor Kniss: (crosstalk) distinctive, just distinct. Council Member Filseth: I don't understand what a distinctive employment district is, but I understand what a distinct employment district is. Ms. Gitelman: I think your point is well taken. I think we do have some distinctive employment districts as well. Either one. Council Member Filseth: Who made the Motion? Mayor Scharff: DuBois and Cory. Council Member Filseth: Cory and Tom. Will you guys be okay using "distinct" instead of "distinctive"? Council Member Wolbach: I think the idea of distinctive just means memorable and stands out. I like the word "distinctive." I'll accept the change. I don't think it makes a huge difference either way, so I'll accept it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion, “distinctive” with “distinct.” MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to add to the Introduction under the Maintaining and Enhancing Community Character heading, “in residential neighborhoods, commercial centers, and employment districts” after “best features” and “foster inviting pedestrian-scale commercial centers and distinct employment districts” after “preserve neighborhoods.” Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Now, we're at Priority Number 11. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, if I can just interject one comment. Mayor Scharff: Yep. TRANSCRIPT Page 60 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: The Council had considered this previously, the addition of some indicators into the Plan and decided against it. The Commission thought there was value in this idea. I think you've heard some public comments about it as well. They didn't suggest specific metrics. We came up with some suggestions. I'll just say in that second row there, where it's talking about VMT per capita, we're struggling to try and remember where we got the 5- percent decrease per year. It could be that we took that out of a draft of the S/CAP. At this point, we would just recommend it says "decrease per year." The idea is to show a trend. Council Member DuBois: I'd like to make a Motion on this one if you're ready. Mayor Scharff: Go ahead. Council Member DuBois: If we remember, there was quite a bit of discussion at that January 30th meeting when a lot of things were stripped out. There was a lot of consensus on the CAC about community indicators. I think there was disagreement about development requirements. That's where the split on the Council came from. This to me is a subset of those community indicators. The CAC spent a long time getting a balance of those community indicators. If we're going to add this, then my motion would be to go back and add the full list of community indicators that the CAC had. That's my Motion. MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to add a targeted list of Community Indicators as identified by the Comprehensive Plan Update Citizens Advisory Committee. Council Member DuBois: Just to speak to that a little bit more. To me this was one of the more important things that got stripped out in that January 30th meeting. The spirit we're having tonight of trying to achieve balance and not make radical changes at the last second, restoring those indicators would be useful. I also like some of those development requirements, and that's part of the compromise. Those are not coming back unless you guys want to add them. I would just appreciate if we had a more comprehensive list of community indicators. Unfortunately, there's a lot of paperwork. I don't know if Staff can pull up that list easily. Ms. Gitelman: I think we'd have to pull it up and bring it to you at your November 13th meeting. Council Member Holman: I'll second it. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman seconded it. TRANSCRIPT Page 61 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Holman: I don't want to repeat what Tom said. This was really important to the community, and that was something that the CAC agreed to. I thought it was unfortunate that it was removed at the Council level when the CAC had really agreed on this. I'd support the Motion. In the interest of time, I won't go into a lot of detail about it. I support the Motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Having served on the CAC, I would like (inaudible) don't think was great agreement about these community indicators. There were a lot of them which were in—how do I put this politely—pet issues for different members of the CAC, perhaps including myself. I'm going to make a Substitute Motion that we go with the proposed revised text, as in up there. Council Member DuBois, I think you're right that there has been a lot of requests for indicators and metrics in this Plan. This list proposed by Staff is fairly basic but does hit some of the major issues we talk about including greenhouse gas emissions, VMT, jobs/housing balance, and the below market rate housing production. I would ask for my colleagues' support on the revised text as Staff has put here. Mayor Scharff: I'll second that. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add a targeted list of Community Indicators including: A. Measure, greenhouse gas emissions; Metric, 80 percent below 1990 emissions by 2030 (Sustainability and Climate Action Plan goal); Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of Earth Day Report; and B. Measure, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per capita; Metric, decrease per year; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of Earth Day Report; and C. Measure, Jobs/Housing balance (expressed as a ratio of jobs to employed residents); Metric, Ratio of jobs to employed residents; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, every 4 years; and D. Measure, Below Market Rate (BMR) units; Metric, number of units; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of report to California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD); and TRANSCRIPT Page 62 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 E. Measure, progress toward Housing Element goals; Metric, annual report to HCD; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of report to HCD. Mayor Scharff: You want to speak? Council Member Fine: No, I've spoken. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine said it really well. These metrics are good metrics. Staff did a good job putting this together. I assume that you're doing it the way Staff wanted, which was decrease per year, not with the 5 percent. Staff did a good job on this. This is what the PTC had in mind when they talked about putting the metrics. I don't really want to reopen all the discussions we had previously. My recollection is the same as yours. When I looked at it, it seemed like a lot of people—it seemed like a compromise based on you said people's pet projects. I think that's probably pretty accurate. I don't want to rehash that whole discussion. I will support the Substitute Motion. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: As I recall this discussion, one of our concerns was the monitoring frequency and the cost. Am I correct? We were looking at this saying even though some of these were a good idea, tracking them and keeping the cost down was going to be difficult. The ones that you have picked out—many of these now are already included in the monitoring that we do. This is a good compromise. You've selected out the ones that—at least three of them are annual in any event. Many of them we look at on a regular basis. This is a good compromise, which is what we've been trying to come up with the entire evening. I'll support this. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I don't remember what the whole list was back in June. Mayor Scharff: January. Council Member Filseth: Was it January? I don't remember what the whole list was. I remember there was a bunch of stuff on it. This stuff is fine as is, but I could wish this list were a little longer than it is. There are some things that the community really cares about that don't necessarily make it on this list. There's higher priority stuff to most people than pick a couple of things, VMT per capita. Not that that's a bad thing. What's the mechanism that we could make this—if we go with this tonight, what's the mechanism that this could be made a little bit longer or is there one? TRANSCRIPT Page 63 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: We could certainly bring back a longer list on November 13th, and then you could decide if you wanted to add anything to this list at that meeting or, subsequent to Plan adoption, you could amend the Plan at any time to add a more complete list. Council Member Filseth: I'd propose an Amendment—I suspect it won't be friendly—where Staff comes back with a list of a few other things that we could look at next week and see if we want to add them to the list. Staff's judgment on which things those are. AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member XX to direct Staff to propose a list of Community Indicators. Council Member Fine: Can I just ask Staff, if you were to think off the top of your head, what those might be? If we were to add whatever, three more here, what those may be? Ms. Gitelman: I'm afraid we're going to have to go back and look at that list that the CAC developed. I just don't recollect back to January what it was. Council Member Filseth: I'm in the same boat. I wish I'd looked at it before I came in here. Council Member Fine: I don't want to extend this, but I don't think that's a bad idea if they're in the same vein as these kind of indicators. I'll accept. Seconder? Mayor Scharff: I do as long as we limit it to no more than three additional items. Is that okay? Council Member Fine: I think that's fair. Council Member Filseth: I think that's reasonable. Thanks. AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Substitute Motion, “direct Staff to propose up to three additional Community Indicators.” (New Part F) Mayor Scharff: It'll say no more than three. Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Actually I just sent the list of the community performance measures from the CAC meeting back at August 16, 2006, to David. What we don't have here in the new one that is in the proposed revised text is any mention about LOS. We're only measuring VMT. There is a need TRANSCRIPT Page 64 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 to have measurements within the City to see what the impacts are at the intersections for traffic since traffic is such a big issue. Also, it doesn't have in here—in the one from the CAC, it has PAUSD spending per student, PAUSD class size, and park acreage per capita. Let's see, what else is there? Also percent of commute trips to employment centers by SOV. Those were some of the things. You did a really good job coming up with these, but those were some of the things that were missing from the CAC one. Definitely those are some of the things that is pretty important in measuring community performance. It's there. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: We're speaking to the Amendment right now? Mayor Scharff: That's correct. Council Member Wolbach: Is it possible to keep the list that Council Member Kou just sent—is it possible to get that on one screen and the Motion and the Amendment on the other screen up here so we could just take a look at them? Beth Minor, City Clerk: It'll take a couple of minutes (inaudible). Council Member Wolbach: Could we just switch back to the Motion at least? Thanks. Could we scroll down to the Amendment that we're currently discussing? Thank you to the City Clerk for helping us get this in front of us. Because I didn't have a chance to really think through that list—thank you, Council Member Kou, for getting that to us to think about. Because I didn't have that in front of me earlier, I was going to suggest—I still kind of would lean towards saying I would definitely support the list that was brought to us this evening at the start of the meeting, the one that's in the packet that Staff proposed. Beyond that, I think I want a few days to think about the others. I'd be happy to say rather than Staff pick … Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, Staff's going to—at that point you can go look at the list between now and then. You can propose stuff then too. No one's saying you can't produce anything when we come on the 13th. Council Member Wolbach: In that case, I'll support the Amendment. The reason I'm going to support the aAmendment is, again, I'm definitely supportive of the ones that are in the packet that we got for tonight. I might be supportive of three or even more of the others. I really appreciate Council Member DuBois, Holman, and Kou for reminding us about those and making sure we give those another look. I also just want to echo that this is something where we can correct a mistake that we made earlier. Including these TRANSCRIPT Page 65 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 performance metrics strikes the right compromise. Exactly which ones we include, again, having a few more days to think about that would be healthy. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Time does change things in terms of what I was going to say. Council Member Wolbach, are you suggesting that this comes back with the whole list and that we choose from those, whether it's three or more? Are you offering that as an Amendment? You said you were open to more than three. Mayor Scharff: Let me (inaudible) first. What I suggested was that when it comes back no one's going to say you can't look at the list and make a Motion to include other ones later. You're going to have a week to look at it. That's what I said. I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that. Council Member Wolbach: The Amendment is good. We might propose another Amendment on top of that. If we don't make more Amendments tonight, we can always make more Amendments when it comes back. Having that list now available to us is useful. Having Staff pick out their top three is a good start. I think that'll help move us forward when it comes back. Council Member Holman: I'm just trying to get clear. Staff's going to bring back the list, and we will check which ones we want to add because the … Mayor Scharff: No. What's going to happen is Staff's going to bring back three. We're going to decide if we want to do those three. Any Council Member may add another one. If you're interested, go look at the list. In fact, I don't think it needs to be in the Motion but, David, could you email every Council Member that previous list that Council Member Kou just did so everyone has it? Council Member Holman: That's clarifying. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: A couple of things. Appreciate the discussion. I just wanted to point out there's disagreement here on Council. It was a 4-3 vote at the PTC. I did find the January 30th list. I would ask Staff if they could when they bring the list—I think you report on some of these already in other places. It would be useful to highlight which ones you're already reporting on and would continue reporting on. If we could at that point add, if there are any that are missing, under this structure that would be good. I would actually—I'm not sure about why we're passing a group tonight. I think it TRANSCRIPT Page 66 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 would be a better process to take this up in the next meeting. We could be fairly quick about it, but I want to see the list together. It does give me angst. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Very quickly, we have agreement that most of us would support the list as proposed in the revised text by Staff tonight. Some of us are interested in maybe a few more metrics, whether they're from the CAC list or they're from our January 30 list or whether they're from something else you can imagine that we should measure. I'll just say what I appreciate about Staff's measures is they hit the biggest areas in this community where folks have concerns. They're high-level measures which can't really be used one way or another to argue one specific political point. That's where I get worried about us introducing too many metrics. Frankly, when I look at the CAC list, some of those are actually quite strong measures which are actually moving policy, not just being used as measures. I'd encourage us to adopt the Substitute Motion tonight. When we get back to this in a week or two, if there are a few more that we want to add, we can vote on those individually. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: What Adrian said. SUBSTITUTE MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to add a targeted list of Community Indicators including: A. Measure, greenhouse gas emissions; Metric, 80 percent below 1990 emissions by 2030 (Sustainability and Climate Action Plan goal); Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of Earth Day Report; and B. Measure, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per capita; Metric, decrease per year; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of Earth Day Report; and C. Measure, Jobs/Housing balance (expressed as a ratio of jobs to employed residents); Metric, Ratio of jobs to employed residents; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, every 4 years; and D. Measure, Below Market Rate (BMR) units; Metric, number of units; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of report to California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD); and TRANSCRIPT Page 67 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 E. Measure, progress toward Housing Element goals; Metric, annual report to HCD; Recommended Monitoring Frequency, annually as part of report to HCD; and F. Direct Staff to propose up to three additional Community Indicators. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote. We're voting on the Substitute, on the Amendment. Can you put the Amendment up? Vice Mayor Kniss: The Amendment is the extra 3. Mayor Scharff: No, that was accepted. That was accepted. The Amendment was accepted. We're voting on the Substitute Motion as amended. The Substitute Motion as amended. That passes 9-0. SUBSTITUTE MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: Glad you're not as angst-y as I thought you were. I appreciate that. That gets us through 11. Now, the consensus comments. I think we need to do a little bit of a time check. It's now 8:40. I perceive that we should decide that we are going to have to move our Study Session off the calendar for tonight because we do need to do marijuana tonight under all circumstances. In fact, does anyone have (inaudible) for me right now? I just want to take a motion to move to a date uncertain 285 Hamilton. We might as well do that on Study Session Number 3, and Staff's requested Number 11. I'll make that Motion. I need a second. Vice Mayor Kniss: Second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to continue Agenda Item Numbers 3 - 285 Hamilton [17PLN-00309] … and 11 - PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI-JUDICIAL: 999 Alma … to a date uncertain. Mayor Scharff: If we could just vote on the board. That passes almost unanimously with Council Member Kou absent. MOTION: 8-0 Council Member Fine: Mr. Mayor, would you like to take a 5-minute break before we go through the rest? Mayor Scharff: Okay. Council Member Fine: I'm just asking my Colleagues. We've been here … Vice Mayor Kniss: Great idea. TRANSCRIPT Page 68 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Fine: We've been here for … Mayor Scharff: A 5-minute break. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Council Member Holman: Could I also suggest that before we finish this we do Oral Communications? There are people here that want to do … Mayor Scharff: I was thinking when we come back from our 5-minute break, we'll do the rest of the Oral Communications and the Consent Calendar and then come back. That way we've done most of the stuff we're supposed to do. Thank you, Council Member Holman. That was a good suggestion. Council took a break from 8:40 P.M. to 8:53 P.M. AT THIS TIME THE COUNCIL HEARD THE FOLLOWING AGENDA ITEMS: City Manager Comments Mayor Scharff: I think the first thing we move to—we did Agenda Changes, Deletions, and Additions already. I think the next thing is City Manager Comments. James Keene, City Manager: Mr. Mayor, Council Members, only two items to report. First of all, just an update. Over this weekend or the past week, there's been some confusion and resultant Council and community concern about the Palo Alto animal shelter. It's really related to the temporary suspension of scheduled spay and neuter services at the shelter that would be effective as of December 8, 2017, and the scheduling of any new visits for spay and neuter services. We apologize for that confusion. Our Staff is working on remedying that service disruption. Rob and others wanted me to be sure you know that the temporary suspension of the scheduled spay and neuter services is in no way any means to close the shelter which certainly, given folks' both love of animals and concern about the shelter, can easily lead to worries or rumors or whatever about that. On the contrary, as the Council well knows, we recently passed a letter of intent to build a new shelter in partnership with what we think will be an outstanding not-for-profit in the form of Pets In Need. We hope to conclude an operating agreement for Council consideration for Pets In Need to begin managing the shelter in the months ahead. The challenge is, as we transition from our in-house shelter to operation with Pets In Need, we are experiencing some Staff shortages and the potential that we will have existing Staff who explore seeking other employment or even ultimately retire. We're working hard on having an efficient transition, but there are different factors that arise, that we're going TRANSCRIPT Page 69 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 to have to work through. They will include—again all over the map on this— completing a capital campaign feasibility study for a new shelter, making some interim improvements to the existing shelter to the satisfaction of Pets In Need and the City, completing the meet and confer process with our own labor union, SEIU, and the effected employees in completing the approval of a final operating agreement. We just ask folks to understand that we're in a transition period right now. We may experience some temporary difficulties in service, but our Staff is doing everything we can to minimize impacts to service. We ultimately know, as we work through this, we're going to be in a much, much better situation for the long term and the potential for just dramatically improved long-term service and facilities and the care of animals in our community. I'll give you more of a report, but I did want to allay concerns in that regard. Lastly, an item from our arts and culture area. Please join us to celebrate the arrival of the Artwork Forge by Toby Atticus Fraley at King Plaza. That's scheduled for this Thursday, November 2nd, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. The artist will be here, who will give us a crash course on retro- style robotics and introduce you to his newly installed artwork as part of our community-wide artist meet and greet program. You can watch the Artwork Forge create on-demand artwork in just a couple of minutes. The temporary installation is sponsored by the Public Art Program with support from the Palo Alto Art Center in conjunction with their Season of Play! and the Play! exhibition on view through September 30, 2017, at the Art Center. That's all I have to report, Mr. Mayor. Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll move to Oral Communications. Carole Hyde to be followed by Leonor Delgado. You'll each have 2 minutes. Carole Hyde: Mayor and members of the Council, I was going to speak to the need for the Council to set policy regarding what is happening at the animal shelter. At this point after Mr. Keene's report, I would like to stress that you could hire a veterinarian on a temporary, part-time basis to keep the spay/neuter clinic going. It's vitally important to the City of Palo Alto, to the pet owners. I think it also keeps from feeding the very scary rumor factory about what's happening to the shelter. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Leonor Delgado to be followed by Liana Crabtree. Leonor Delgado: Thank you. My name is Leonor Delgado. As some of you might already know, I'm the Education Manager for Palo Alto Humane Society. We've had a long history of advocacy for animals, humane education programs for emergency veterinary intervention, and spay/neuter on the Peninsula and beyond. I would like to reiterate Carole's concern—Carole is our Executive TRANSCRIPT Page 70 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Director at PAHS—about keeping the spay/neuter clinic open. Our understanding is that the reason given for the temporary closing of the spay/neuter clinic is a personal leave of absence of the Staff veterinarian. We're asking if the Council has the purview to authorize the hiring of a temporary contract veterinarian to ensure that the clinic remains open to all members of our community. In addition to working with Palo Alto Humane Society, I've had a long history as a cat person. I help trap and bring for spay and neuter cats who are roaming in the streets. Because of our intervention and intervention by Palo Alto Humane Society and the provision of spay/neuter vouchers, the stray population has diminished tremendously on the Peninsula. Without the clinic, we cat people, if I can say that, won't have the kinds of services that we need in our community. Our community is bigger than Palo Alto. Cats wander from East Palo Alto to Palo Alto. A lot of East Palo Alto residents depend on us for our volunteer services in helping the stray cats. Thanks again. We hope that this matter will be attended to with a temporary contract veterinarian. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Liana Crabtree to be followed by Darlene Yaplee. Liana Crabtree: Good evening, Council. My name is Liana Crabtree, and I'm a Cupertino resident. I attended Better Cupertino's forum on regional planning yesterday afternoon and would like to thank Council Member and forum panelist Tom DuBois for sharing his ideas for responsible regional planning. Thank you to Palo Alto Council Members Eric Filseth, Karen Holman, and Lydia Kou and Planning and Transportation Commissioner Doria Summa for attending the forum. Palo Alto and nearby communities also enjoyed strong resident engagement at the forum on regional planning. Thank you to supporters from Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning and Real Community Coalition of East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park for their support and attendance at yesterday's event. The forum included a panel discussion followed by a direct question-and-answer session that brought attendees to the microphone to ask their own questions in their entirety without editing by anyone. Here is one comment and question that drew applause yesterday as it addresses unsustainable office development, an issue central for Palo Alto and Cupertino and every community in-between. "I am a concerned Cupertino resident, and I want to address the elephant in the room, which everyone has been skirting around, which is office. We have a housing crisis. We have a transportation crisis. We have an air pollution crisis. Here we are, a semi-arid area, whatever technology you talk about. If right now we are being told to watch how we flush, we are going to have a water shortage crisis as well. Yet, how is it that on a regional planning level, it is all but impossible to address the issue of over-office development when that is the root problem of all of our crises?" Please keep the community member's comment and question in mind as you consider tonight and hereafter whether Palo Alto will take the necessary steps TRANSCRIPT Page 71 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 to reduce the burden on housing, infrastructure, water sourcing, and air quality by limiting office development in our shared region. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Darlene Yaplee to be followed by Sydney Loew. Darlene Yaplee: Greetings, Council and Staff. Congressional Representatives Eshoo, Panetta, and Speir will be meeting with Michael Huerta, the FAA Administrator, on Thursday, November 2nd. Therefore, it's even more important that there is follow-up on the action items from the June 19th Council meeting, that were based on the May 23rd P&S Committee meeting. The action was to align resources to prepare a response to the FAA report, the Select Committee report. As of today, we have not done that. July, the report was issued. August, Staff began reviewing the report. September 25th, there was a recognized industry expert that provided concurrence that Palo Alto should respond directly to the FAA. Several Council Members and Staff were informed of this as well at the meeting. On October 10th, several citizens including myself sent an email to Staff to get an update. We do not feel we can wait to respond. It's been 4 months since the report was issued. It's important for Palo Alto to clarify its position in case we meet with the FAA or we have any Congressional meetings. To help with this effort, we're going to help with the lifting, and we're going to be sending some input to try to assist the effort. We understand that you're quite busy. If Council needs to provide any direction for Staff to proceed, I ask you to do that. I think it's unclear if there's anything that's required to move this forward. Action 2, there was agreement to get expert opinion on a noise monitoring strategy. The San Francisco aircraft abatement manager, Ben, was supportive to do this. It's requested that we get raw data, not just DNL information. Again, what is needed to move this forward? If there's something we can do to help, we are happy to do so. Additionally, the San Jose south flow arrivals ad hoc committee is being formed. We encourage you to get a representative. Council and Staff, let's continue … Mayor Scharff: I'm just going to—I never do this, but I am going to announce, because I told I'd do it later but since you're here, Lydia Kou will be our representative. Ms. Yaplee: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: I just thought we should all know why we had somebody knowing that. Ms. Yaplee. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Kris Loew, welcome. Sydney Loew. Sorry, Sydney Lowe. Never mind me. TRANSCRIPT Page 72 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Sydney Loew: Good evening, Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, and Honorable Council Members. My name is Sydney Loew, and I'm a senior at Castilleja. I live on East Charleston Road in Palo Alto, and I've lived here all my life. I would like to speak in support of Castilleja's master plan application. School is for learning, developing, and expanding your horizons, so I feel conflicted when I see the "stop Castilleja expansion" signs peppering the front lawns of our neighbors. I can't imagine why anyone in progressive Palo Alto would oppose supporting women's education for any reason. I realize it's hard to know how important Castilleja is if you aren't actually there, so I wanted to share my perspective. Castilleja has been my dream school ever since I was wait-listed in fifth grade. Even before I was admitted, Castilleja pushed me to grow as a leader and engaged learner, and I was determined to re-apply for high school. It's a big promise to say that each young woman who graduates will have the drive and self-confidence to get a seat at the table and fight for her beliefs; yet, Castilleja succeeds in this mission time and time again. I feel these benefits every day and so do my classmates of activists, artists, and arbiters. I know I'm lucky in that each year Castilleja turns away many deserving girls who seek the honor of its education. My heart goes out to every family on that wait list because I know how it felt to be on it. I hope so much that we can shorten that list by offering more admission to more girls. Castilleja helped me realize all that I'm capable of, and I'm thankful to all the educators who have worked so passionately to make a difference in my life. Besides supporting Castilleja, this morning showed me that I'm not alone in my gratitude. I quietly thanked each house that chose to stand up for women's education. Please vote yes on the master plan because, when you support building a better learning environment for Castilleja, you're supporting each young woman who promises to keep learning and leading. Thank you for your time. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Kris Loew now to be followed by Theresa Gouw. Kris Loew: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Vice Mayor Kniss and Honorable Council Members. My name is Kris Loew, and I'm a parent of a senior and a sophomore at Castilleja. I have lived on East Charleston Road in Palo Alto for the past 20 years. I'm here today with my family because we want to share our support of Castilleja's master plan application. I realize it isn't on the agenda tonight, but I wanted to recognize the community of advocates who, like us, proudly displayed a new sign today showing our support of Castilleja and women's education. The misleading and negative signs that surround our school are disheartening and downright puzzling. The latest version implies Castilleja hasn't worked with our neighbors; yet, the school has hosted 3 years of community meetings, listened and responded to concerns, and has proactively outlined the facts in a multitude of ways. Nevertheless, this small group of neighbors continues to disparage Castilleja and attempt to impede TRANSCRIPT Page 73 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 the school's necessary plans to build a more sustainable campus. I'm thrilled that Castilleja's new signs finally give us a voice. More importantly, I hope they illustrate to our community the power of a positive and honest message. While the negative signs point directly to the self-interests of those living inside that one particular house, every sign you see in support of Castilleja represents 110 years of world-class education and the thousands of graduates who are now out in the world doing incredible things and the current Castilleja students, like my own daughters, who are just getting started. A Castilleja education is a gift, and the school remains an important and historic Palo Alto institution. Castilleja simply asked to offer this gift to a few more girls and to allow the school to build a campus that will last for the next 110 years. Given that chance, I assure that we will all continue to feel the collective impact of these empowered young women. Thank you so much for your time. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Theresa Gouw to be followed by Scottie Zimmerman. Theresa Gouw: Thank you, Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, and Honorable Council Members. My name is Theresa Gouw, and I've lived on Kellogg Avenue across from Castilleja. I've been a resident of Palo Alto for over 15 years before my daughter, Sarah, was born. I am a parent of a current Castilleja student and a Board Member. I'm speaking tonight in support of Castilleja's request for increased students and for modernized spaces. I'm also, like the others, talking about the lawn signs that we have rolled out in support of women's education. Our community—this includes not only Casti families but other Palo Alto neighbors that I've had for many years—has been asking for how can we show our support for women's and girls' education since the other signs came up. Now with these signs, I'm glad we can show that support. In fact, students and other visitors to my home block over the last year have repeatedly told me that they feel unwelcome in our neighborhood. The Casti signs we put up are here to support and inspire the Palo Alto community to see what we can achieve together, to increase access to education for young women and girls. We're not here to escalate tensions. In fact quite the opposite, we are here to try to elevate the conversation, to talk about what we can do as a community to welcome these young girls into Palo Alto. I've owned my home across the street from Palo Alto [sic] for 6 years. Long before I was a Casti parent, I was a Casti neighbor. Like all of my other neighbors, I knew that they would be on the block just as they had been for the hundred- plus years before. Before I became a Casti parent, I was invited over to Castilleja along with my neighbors to hear about the school's plans and also to voice our concerns. Our goal is to respond to this growing demand for more students, more young girls to have a girls-only education here in Palo Alto. Casti's motto is women learning, women leading. As a Palo Alto business owner and a woman who happens to work in tech and sees the challenges TRANSCRIPT Page 74 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 that we have in front of us, I honestly cannot think of something that could be better for our community than to have these young girls leading us. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Scottie Zimmerman to be followed by Stephanie Munoz. Scottie Zimmerman: Hello, I'm Scottie Zimmerman. I'm a member of Friends of the Palo Alto Animal Shelter. I did hear your statement tonight, and I appreciate it, Mr. Keene. We had a letter from Rob de Geus explaining that some of the—it's clear anyway. The early announcement was confusing. It was very firmly just saying, "We're sorry. We really wish we didn't have to do this, but we're going to stop doing spay/neuter, and we won't even take reservations for the process. Please go to other shelters," which is not an ideal solution. One of the things we think could be done—I've seen it before in my volunteer experience. They bring in contract vets to fill in when there's a reason that they can't have their regular vet. I looked on the website for the City at salaries. It looks for veterinarians like a medium salary comes in somewhere slightly under $9,000 a month. We're maybe talking about 2 months when we need this service. That doesn't seem like a giant—this would not be a union person probably. I don't believe that our current vet is in the union. That's one of the options I'd like to recommend. Get a substitute vet. It loses money when we—déjà vu all over again. When we had this problem in 2012 with the shelter threatening to close, losing money, one thing they said was, "Let's raise the cost." Ian Hagerman and Pam Antil—remember those heroes from the past—said, "Let's raise the price of spay/neuter, and then we'll be able to make more money, and it'll be better for balancing the budget." The trouble is they lost all their vet techs. They could not do any spay/neuters for almost a year or maybe even more than a year. They lost money. My little group is at the farmers market, and people there are telling us they're worried. Mayor Scharff: Stephanie Munoz to be followed by Ann Pianetta. Stephanie Munoz: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I started out my political life as a—I got out of high school. I went to college, and then I got to vote eventually. I started out as a Republican. That was in the days when we had Becky Morgan. We had Paul McCloskey. I really believed that the sensible thing to do with poor people was educate them and give them the facilities and the tools so that they became non-poor people. Things changed, and it just didn't seem possible. Now, I'm looking at El Camino, and I'm looking at the place where the RVs used to be. That's so much in line with what I used to be taught and used to think we should do in governing. We should make it possible for people to earn their own living and TRANSCRIPT Page 75 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 to have their own lodging that they earn. Those people in the RVs on El Camino are there because they have to go to work. You cannot have a living unless you work. You can't go to work if there isn't any place for you to live and take a shower. I would say it's counterproductive to not let people who are trying to help themselves do what you want them to do, not helping them do it. I just wish you would rescind that idea about having the RVs not park on El Camino. They aren't bothering anybody. Nobody lives up there. Sure, the neighborhoods, I could see that. I could understand that perfectly. Not up on El Camino or if they were blocking a store or blocking something, but not out on El Camino, not at night. Thanks. Ann Pianetta: My name is Ann Pianetta, and I'm a Board Member with the Friends of the Palo Alto Animal Shelter. I've also been a citizen of this City for 60 years, and I have seen the shelter change from a cinder block over by the Sheraton to where it is now. The spay and neutering services have been a staple for Palo Altans for a long time. They are necessary. I'd like the City Council to think long and hard about reducing these services and please consider using a contracted veterinarian. Palo Alto is a complete city with utilities, police, garbage recycling, and that means including an animal shelter with spay and neutering services. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Arthur Keller to be followed by Andrew Boone. Arthur Keller: Thank you. I know that we're taking about—I'm going to speak very high level, not specifically about Comp Plan or whatever. The issue is we're thinking about putting more housing Downtown. We had an agenda item tonight that was moved about putting space on top of a tall building that could be noise generating. What we need to think carefully about is the compatibility of uses. For example, I visited not too long ago the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. There is no housing on the Third Street Promenade. Why? Because it's noisy as hell. That noise generation on the Third Street Promenade is incompatible with housing. We just need to think about what we're going to put where and how to make those uses compatible. For example, where the Apple Store used to be, there was talk about a restaurant on top of there. People who lived across the way, across University Avenue at the President Hotel Apartments, were upset about that being a noise generation. There was noise potential at the HanaHaus because of music that was going to be played there. We need to be very careful about compatible uses. One last thing. On Agenda Item 1A tonight, which was basically an agenda from last time, it said that two public hearings will be held on the Comp Plan. It's not clear whether that meant that you could speak to the item on both items, which is how I interpreted it, or whether you could speak once because it did say that they were on different topics, or whether you could speak once. The fact that you have spoken last week and today, it TRANSCRIPT Page 76 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 makes sense that you can only speak one of those two times. Not being able to speak to the further issues on November 13th, I think, would be a problem. I didn't interpret the agenda as meaning that you could speak only once for both meetings or not. I think that should be clarified so people could understand how to respond. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Andrew Boone. Andrew Boone: Good evening, City Council Members. My name is Andrew Boone. I live in East Palo Alto, and I'd like to speak in support of the City considering to study in detail El Camino Real. One particular goal would be to make this a street that people can walk and bicycle on and feel safe and be safe doing so. A Complete Streets plan for El Camino, that's really something that should have been addressed or could have been addressed in more detail in the Bicycle Plan, but the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan focused on a network of bicycle boulevards. It didn't focus on how to fix what really is the main street, El Camino Real. It's still a problem. Just because you can take another way, you can bicycle another route, it's still problematic that El Camino's not open to you. It's more direct; in many cases it's simpler. Having it closed for effective bicycling, closed to most people, just discourages that mode of transportation. Now is the time when we need to be encouraging bicycling and walking both as modes of transportation. Follow the good example set by Menlo Park, Atherton, and now Redwood City; they're all studying this. They call them El Camino Real Corridor Plans. Palo Alto should do its own and do things like count how much the car parking is used along the street, what else would we have to do to install bicycle lanes, what else do we have to do to make El Camino pedestrian-friendly. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Mary Sylvester. Mary Sylvester: Good evening, Mayor Scharff, Vice Mayor Kniss, and City Council Members, City Staff, and viewers and listeners at home. I happen to live in the neighborhood surrounding Castilleja school. I'd like to make it very clear tonight that we in the neighborhood do support women's education. In fact, many of us are parents of young women, some of whom have gone to public schools, some of whom have gone to women's schools and colleges. That doesn't mean, however, we support irresponsible and over-expansive growth. Thank you, Council Members and City Staff, for your help in trying to resolve expeditiously the outstanding issues related to Castilleja's expansion plan and how it affects the neighborhood. I'd also like to acknowledge this very poised, young Castilleja student who spoke so articulately about what the school offers as well as her mother. She attested very evocatively to the benefits of such an education. I'd like to see that expanded to other young women, and that is fallacy number 2. The neighbors don't want to limit TRANSCRIPT Page 77 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Castilleja's expansion. By no means limit the number of young women you accept; however, you're faced with a choice. If you choose to expand within an R-1 neighborhood, you have to limit the number of students you accept. Consequently, limit your growth on the site or split the campuses or move to another site. Choices exist. In some … Mayor Scharff: Mary. Ms. Sylvester: Summing up, the neighbors would just like to say if Castilleja spent half as much time as they are trying to undermine us, we would all be done by now, Council, Staff, and the community. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Rob Levitsky. Rob Levitsky: Hello, Council. I spent the last year and a half here studying what happens in this body. There's a process for development in Palo Alto. Ignorance of that process is not an excuse for proposals. Most people come to the City having talked to the neighbors first. They've talked to four neighbors out of the several hundred that live in that neighborhood. Secondly, controversial proposals are usually brought to the City Council for a Study Session so that the Council can see what the developer has in mind and can suggest choices and give feedback. Thirdly, developers usually come in, like the one last week, with a compliant proposal, no violations of zoning. In this case, we were surprised to find that just about every zoning rule was proposed to be violated, starting with cutting a lot of the trees, knocking down houses, merging lot lines, violating setbacks, playing with heights, and digging underground. In addition, they've spent the last 15 years violating their Conditional Use Permit, which they're required to have to live in this neighborhood and operate their business there. The last thing we want to do is reward them for cheating for the last 15 years by giving them another spurt of growth. If they want to grow, grow somewhere else, but try to follow the rules of Palo Alto. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. At this time Council took up Agenda Item Numbers 4-10. Minutes Approval 4. Approval of Action Minutes for the October 16, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: Now, we have Minutes Approval. Can I have a Motion to approve the Minutes? Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. TRANSCRIPT Page 78 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Wolbach: Second. MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to approve the Action Minutes for the October 16, 2017 Council Meeting. Mayor Scharff: All in favor please vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Consent Calendar Mayor Scharff: I'll move the Consent Calendar. Do I have a second? Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to approve Agenda Item Numbers 5-9. 5. Resolution 9715 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing the City Manager to Regulate Operation of Personal Delivery Devices, Also Known as Autonomous Robots Within the City of Palo Alto for an Approximate 1-year Period.” 6. Approval of Amendment Number 1 to Contract Number S18169410 With Dixon Resources Unlimited in the Amount of $69,862 for a Total Not- to-Exceed Amount of $100,762 to Conduct the California Avenue Parking Management Study and Approval of a Budget Amendment in the California Avenue Parking Permit Fund. 7. Approval of Salary Schedule Amendments for Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 521 and the Utilities Management Professional Association of Palo Alto (UMPAPA). 8. Approval of a 5-year Contract With EnvisionWare, Inc. for Maintenance of the Automated Materials Handling Systems (AMHS) at Rinconada and Mitchell Park Libraries for a Not-to-Exceed Amount of $448,634. 9. Approval of a Professional Services Agreement With BKF Engineers for the Amount of $450,000 Over a 3-year Term for On-call Surveying and Design Support Services. Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 TRANSCRIPT Page 79 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I wanted to just ask the Council. We have to do marijuana tonight. Is there any reason not to do it now frankly? Vice Mayor Kniss: As long you go out in the back room. Mayor Scharff: That's right, as long as we go in the back room as Council Member Kniss said. James Keene, City Manager: We forgot what you just said. Could you repeat that? No, just kidding. Mayor Scharff: Do we have the munchies? Mr. Keene: Let's do it. Council Member Holman: I think Jim would say, "Hey, man. Let's go ahead and do it." Mr. Keene: Let's get this done, man. Mayor Scharff: I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sick of the Comp Plan. Let's move on. Action Items (Continued) 10. Adoption of an Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Repealing Chapter 9.17 (Personal Cultivation of Marijuana) of Title 9 (Public Peace, Morals and Safety) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code; Repealing Ordinance No. 4422; and Amending Chapters 18.04 (Definitions) and 18.42 (Standards for Special Uses) of Title 18 (Zoning) to Prohibit Medical Cannabis Dispensaries and Prohibit Commercial Cannabis Activities, Except for Deliveries. Environmental Assessment: The Ordinance is Exempt in Accordance With Section 15061(b)(3). Molly Stump, City Attorney: While we're getting set up, would you like me to introduce the item? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Ms. Stump: I think they're putting up our very sharp PowerPoint. Deputy City Attorney Tim Shimizu, who's worked on this item, is going to walk you through it. It'll take just a couple of minutes. I just wanted to frame it a little bit for folks. There has been a little bit of confusion, I think, in the public dialog around this item, what's before you tonight after the Council having some initial comments last year when you did some temporary regulation in this area. The item went to P&S and then to PTC; it's coming back. What's TRANSCRIPT Page 80 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 really before you tonight is a status quo ordinance that will authorize deliveries but otherwise keep the situation essentially the same in the City of Palo Alto, which is a very common approach being taken by other cities in the area. The reason for that is the State hasn't come out with their regulations yet. There's a lot of flux in the marketplace as well as in the regulatory environment. Most cities are taking a wait-and-see approach by maintaining the status quo and not authorizing commercial activity. You're able to do that and maintain your regulatory control. At some point in the future, you can revisit either in an incremental way or wholesale these issues, and you can allow more activities when the marketplace settles down and you have an opportunity for further study. Tim Shimizu, Deputy City Attorney: Good evening, members of the City Council, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for staying up with me tonight so I can talk to you about commercial cannabis in the City. Very briefly, the two recommended items we have tonight are to adopt the CEQA findings and then to pass the Ordinance, which is before you in Exhibit A. As you know, Proposition 64, which passed last year, authorized not just the legalization of cannabis but also proposed a very deep framework of how to regulate cannabis-related businesses, both medical and recreational for adults. This ordinance is responding to that law, which has since been updated by the State Legislature this year, SB 94. Just as some background, the City does have some laws that exist. The City currently prohibits medical cannabis dispensaries and also prohibits outdoor cannabis cultivation. Permissive zoning also would not permit any kind of commercial cannabis operation. The thrust of why we're coming to you tonight is that on January 1st of next year, 2018, the State is required to begin issuing permits or licenses to commercial cannabis operators. If the City does not act before then, there's an issue of grandfathering these businesses that get State approval in the absence of any kind of city, local regulation. The policy issues generally are the commercial cannabis activities. This includes retail, growing, testing, manufacturing of cannabis-related substances. Again, the State is going to start issuing licenses next year, and the City needs to decide at least in the meantime how it wants to regulate these. This Ordinance would maintain the status quo, as Molly said, to prohibit them for now and keep the City's power to develop regulations and then go forward from there. In terms of personal cultivation, this ordinance would defer to the State law standards which currently, as you know, allow six plants per residence. That must be within an enclosed space, and it must be locked and outside the public view. The proposed Ordinance, as I just said, would do these things. It is very straightforward, I believe. If there are any questions, maybe that would be the most productive use of the rest of my time. TRANSCRIPT Page 81 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: We have a couple of public speakers. Let me do that. Our first speaker is Robert Smith, to be followed by Andrew Boone. I guess we have more. You'll each have 2 minutes. To be followed by Cathy Erdholm [phonetic]. Robert Smith: Good evening. Robert Smith's my name. I live on Greer Road. I celebrated a major anniversary last month, 50 years living in Palo Alto, more or less the entire time. I came here from Des Moines, Iowa. In Iowa, we didn't know very much about marijuana 50 years ago. I came out here, and Palo Alto people knew a lot about marijuana. There were some other communities as well, parts of San Francisco, all of Berkeley. This place had quite a reputation for a tolerance of marijuana. I also figured out that something was needed in the way of a rational approach to the government to what was then considered the marijuana problem in most places. We now are on the verge of having in this state something like a rational approach. I've been more than shocked that Palo Alto is now producing consternation, denial, trepidation about doing something to follow through on the 66 percent of the people of this City that voted for that initiative. I don't think it was a philosophical vote. I think it was an actionable thing. You need to take a more serious and proactive approach. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Andrew Boone to be followed by Cathy Erdholm. Andrew Boone: Good evening, City Council Members. My name is Andrew Boone. I agree that an outright ban of all commercial cannabis businesses in the City of Palo Alto really doesn't make much sense any more. It would have been nice if you had in your Staff Report or some report from your Staff what some neighboring cities—how they are actually changing their ordinance regarding cannabis. Not all of your neighbors are just following through with the status quo. For example, Mountain View based on the City Council Member comments within the last month—I can't remember the dates of the meetings. Mountain View indicated a strong interest in opening a retail cannabis dispensary as did City Council Members of Santa Clara. Those two cities look likely to proceed with retail dispensaries and other cannabis-related businesses. That really doesn't make sense to say there can't be any distribution facility, there can't be any testing facility, there can't be any bioscience business. If you touch cannabis, you're banned from Palo Alto. Other cities are going to be developing those businesses, welcoming those businesses right next door. It makes sense to be more forward-looking than a ban. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Cathy Erdholm. TRANSCRIPT Page 82 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Cathy Erbol: Good evening, Honorable Mayor and the Council. As a scientist, I have a PhD of genetics. I was one of the first scientists who initiate the human genome project in '98. Tonight, I'm quite surprised I'm the only scientist show up here. I just want to voice my opinion as a scientist. There have been a lot of scientific publications of the potential side effects include the genetic mutations of the use of marijuana no matter by what means of how you use it. When you take it whether firsthand or secondhand, actually the secondhand is even worse. They are carcinogenic, and they can cause multiple sites of genetic mutations. I really hope that Palo Alto can be more conscious to make this marijuana thing commercialized and to use it even entertainment. The genetic mutation side effects, it takes (inaudible) time and the large population study to fully prove it. That's a real serious scientific study. As a policy, we should be very cautious. When the real proof after meanings of population study are reviewed, there is a very bad genetic mutation there, two generation already passed. It will be too late to ban it. That's my opinion. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Now, we come back to Council for questions, comments, Motions. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Let me start with a couple of questions. I just want to make sure I'm following where we're at, kind of in the timeline, picking up from where we last—a couple of us or four of us were working on this on Policy and Services Committee back earlier this year. Was it June, earlier this year? If you could clarify for us, I know you said you were waiting to hear back from the State. Where are we at with exploration of an excise tax? For my colleagues to be aware, one of the things we talked about at Policy and Services was the idea that if we're not able to collect sales tax on deliveries, we might be able to collect an excise tax on deliveries. This was part of the discussion that was at Policy and Services Committee. There was also some discussion that we might need to put something on the ballot in order to authorize that. We still needed to get more information. If I'm reading the Staff Report correctly, we're still waiting for information from the State before we can move forward on that. I wanted to see if there's been anything more you can add to that. Mr. Shimizu: Just to be clear, there is a State excise tax on cannabis products that will go into effect next year. That 15 percent on transactions billed to the purchaser, that money is—it's not clear if any of that money is going to go to the cities. In terms of an excise tax locally by the City of Palo Alto, the City could go to the voters to pass an excise tax like that. A model would be— Campbell, I think, did that recently this year with medical cannabis. TRANSCRIPT Page 83 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Wolbach: Do we still need to wait for any more information from the State about that? If we wanted to impose an additional excise tax upon deliveries or sales within the City, should we pursue at some point to allow sales directly in the City, could we move forward with that right away, placing that on the ballot or what would the path forward look like? Mr. Shimizu: The City could research how to do that. To my knowledge, there's nothing stopping the City, for example, from putting an excise tax measure on a local ballot. Council Member Wolbach: I guess I thought that we had already asked for that at Policy and Services. Maybe I wasn't clear about that. Ms. Stump: Sorry. Asked for what? Council Member Wolbach: Asked for information about how to pursue an excise tax. Part C of our Motion at Policy and Services (crosstalk) that. Mr. Keene: That wouldn't necessarily be in a sense relevant to the particular recommendation we're making right now in this timeframe, though. Correct? Council Member Wolbach: That could also apply to deliveries. That was, I think, the focus, if I remember correctly, of our discussion back at Policy and Services. Ms. Stump: This is a policy discussion for the Council to have. The proposed ordinance would not allow any other type of commercial activity. Up to you if you want to have a policy discussion about taxing something you're not allowing. Deliveries, yes, I don't think we really understand the scope of deliveries, and the market is very much in flux in developing. If you'd like us to support that conversation next year, we're happy to do that, put it on your agenda. Council Member Wolbach: It was something that we mentioned in our motion back in June. Let me just double check the date of that. Yeah, June 13th. Just wanted to see if we'd had any more research done on that yet. If not, I understand Staff's working on a ton of things for us. I'm not (crosstalk). Ms. Stump: I'm not understanding what it is you need from me, other than for me to tell you it's a policy discussion if you want to place something on the November 2018 to tax marijuana. Council Member Wolbach: Got it. Basically, you guys have done the research and found out it's okay to do it. There's no more research that needs to be done. TRANSCRIPT Page 84 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Stump: Ball's in your court. Council Member Wolbach: Got it. Thank you for clarifying. Sorry for the confusion. Beyond that, we'd also asked Staff to research things like maximum delivery size, regulations around delivery vehicle safety, etc. Do we have any more information either from the State? I know that there's some expected regulations in November. Have you done any comparisons with other cities? Any more color you can shed on that? Mr. Shimizu: In terms of the question about delivery regulations, the State has put forth a preview of what's coming. Some of that is detailed on Page 5 of the Staff Report. They are definitely contemplating things like limitations on the value of delivery, the amount of cannabis you can have in the vehicle, GPS tracking. Couriers have to be employees; they can't be independent contractors, things like that. The draft regulations from the State are coming the middle of November. We'll check again to see how those new developments pan out. Council Member Wolbach: Got you. That means if we move forward with allowing deliveries in the new year, that would—any State regulations would apply. If we wanted to have any tighter regulations beyond the State regulations on delivery mechanism, sizes, security, whatever, we could potentially add those. Maybe it's better to wait. Sounds like it's better to wait until November when we get the State regs, and then see where we'd want to expand upon them or accept them as is. Mr. Shimizu: That's correct. Council Member Wolbach: We're just talking about delivery, which we're hopefully going to move forward with tonight. This would go into effect—when would this go into effect if we pass this tonight? Mr. Shimizu: If you pass this tonight, this is an ordinance. It'd have to go to a second reading and then, like most other ordinances, a 30-day period. Council Member Wolbach: That would give us time to … Mr. Shimizu: If we pass the first reading tonight, this would go on second reading as soon as possible and would be in effect before the end of 2017. Council Member Wolbach: Would that give us time to review the upcoming State regs for delivery and make modifications or additions to that? Mr. Shimizu: No. The State goes—they have a process. They release draft regulations. They have a comment period, and then they have a final. It's TRANSCRIPT Page 85 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 not clear if they're even going to make their own deadline for January 1st regulations. It's really in the State's court right now, and that's why a lot of cities are having a real problem trying to legislate in the absence of those regulations. Council Member Wolbach: Is it possible that we could have our own set of rules about delivery size, security procedures, etc., in place prior to the State releasing its regulations as at least an interim measure just so there's something in place and it's not the Wild West of delivery? Ms. Stump: We don't recommend it. This is potentially a complicated area. The State is working on it. It's frankly for the Staff to try to work with the Council on that. It doesn't make a lot of sense for a few-week period. You're not talking about a grandfathering situation when you're talking about rolling stock that their base business can't be located here under this proposed ordinance. If you wanted to add other regulations once you understand what the State is doing, it's not going to be a legal problem to do that. It may be a practical problem since we don't have a controlled border around the City of Palo Alto and catching cars as they come in. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not going to make a Motion yet. I want to hear where some of my Colleagues are on this. Where I'm at on this is we should allow deliveries from outside the City. If we can collect some of the sales tax or an excise tax ourselves so we can collect that here in the City, we should do that. I do think probably in the 6-12-month range, some of the other things should come back to us. I do want to include a sunset on the overall ordinance to make sure we have some pressure to discuss this again in the new year once we have more clarity from the State. I'm not super enthusiastic about allowing lots of places in Palo Alto where people could buy and use cannabis onsite, especially smoking it. We should have a nuanced discussion at some point in 6-12 months, once the State regulations are clear about commercial businesses. In that context, we should talk about the difference between medical and recreational. I think we should talk about the difference between sale for people to take home versus use onsite. The third question we should talk about is smoked consumption versus ingested or topical or other non-smoked forms of ingestion. When it comes time for motions, I'll let somebody else do it. I want to hear where other people are before I make a motion. Those are some of the questions we should think carefully about once the State's gotten some more clarity for us to understand the legal context. Mayor Scharff: We have a lot to do tonight. I'm going to make the Motion. I move the Staff recommendation. Vice Mayor Kniss: I second it. TRANSCRIPT Page 86 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Seconded by—I don't know. Who said it first? You guys choose. Vice Mayor Kniss: Doesn't matter. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to: A. Find the proposed Ordinance exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in accordance with CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3); and B. Adopt an Ordinance prohibiting medical cannabis dispensaries and prohibiting commercial cannabis activities in the City of Palo Alto except for deliveries. The Ordinance would also repeal the temporary ban on outdoor cultivation due to new State law that regulates outdoor cultivation for personal use. Mayor Scharff: What we're doing tonight is giving ourselves options for the future. We're taking it slow. We need to pass this so that we have those options in the future, so that basically we don't give up local control. We need to move forward on this. We should pass this the way it is tonight. I don't know when this should come back to us. I think I'd like to see what happens with Mountain View. I think I'd like to see the State regulations. I don't know when that's happening. I have no interest in putting a sunset on this at all. I don't think we should do that. I think we should pass it the way it is and then see how things unfold. When the time is right, come back and take a look at this. I think we'll know when the time is right frankly. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I think that's exactly right. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Picking up on where Cory left off, I think probably there will be people who do push us to do something beyond just deliveries. While we're not there yet, let's say we did talk about where something would go in. My understanding is something is happening on California Avenue, from someone who called me and probably many of the rest of you as well. Let's take it to the far end, not just buying the brownies or buying the whatever. We don't allow smoking in Palo Alto. Practically, we don't allow it in your house or your apartment. What decisions have cities made about that, who have no smoking rules? Most cities now have that. TRANSCRIPT Page 87 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mr. Shimizu: Under Proposition 64 and its updated versions, generally State law says that if cities or local governments have passed no smoking tobacco laws, generally cannabis would fall under that same law. The City can always change that, but that's the default. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'll speak for myself. I would not vote to change it. We thought carefully about the no smoking many years ago. It's made a big difference. I am concerned at some point. We will probably hear enough from the public about the fact that we don't have the same intent as passing the law did, especially when two-thirds of Palo Alto voted to make it legal, but then say you can't get a hold of it. Mr. Shimizu: Just to be clear, this Ordinance doesn't address public smoking of cannabis. Vice Mayor Kniss: No, I realize it doesn't. We'll get to that someday. I'm very pleased that you mentioned what State law says. Ms. Stump: Can I just also clarify, Vice Mayor Kniss, the California Avenue situation does not involve sale of cannabis. It involves paraphernalia products. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: I support the Motion. I just wanted to ask do you happen to know what the Federal law is. Does it supersede State law? If you could enlighten me, I'd really appreciate it. Mr. Shimizu: Just to be clear, Federal law still regulates cannabis as a Class 1 drug, which means it is generally illegal to use or have. As you know, the Federal government recently has not been enforcing that locally, but that could always change. State law has changed with Proposition 64 and its successors. Definitely Federal law has not changed. That would take basically an act of Congress to change that. Council Member Kou: If they decide to enforce it, it could supersede State law? Mr. Shimizu: Yes. Council Member Kou: It could be pretty intense if there was plants growing, marijuana growing in a house. Could that property be taken away? It's pretty extensive, serious. TRANSCRIPT Page 88 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mr. Shimizu: It's my understanding that under Federal law cannabis possession and growing, cultivation remains a crime. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks to Staff, PTC, and Policy and Services for working on this. At a high level, our City is being a bit too tepid and overly conservative on this. Since Palo Alto voters did overwhelmingly support this change in law, it's incumbent upon us to follow that and at least give a good try at figuring out some way where we could incorporate cannabis commercial businesses in our City. This is clearly a solvable problem. There are some up sides, which I'll go through quickly. I do have an amendment I'll try to add on at the end of this. A few up sides here. We talk a lot about local retail businesses. On January 1st, this will be a completely legal, local-retail business. In some cities in California, in the states of Colorado and Washington, some of these businesses have helped certain neighborhoods and districts come back to life. It's also an issue of tax revenue. If we miss out on these businesses, they're going to be in places like Mountain View and San Jose, which means that Palo Altans will drive there to get them. We'll miss out on that tax revenue, and we'll also be denying Palo Altans a product which they could potentially obtain in their own City. As I see it, commercial cannabis dispensaries or the monitoring facilities or the biomedical things, whatever you want to call them, fall into a category called LULUs, locally unwanted land uses. These are things like liquor stores, tobacco stores, strip clubs. Nobody really wants these land uses right next to them, and that makes sense. There's actually a lot of good precedent in terms of how we site these facilities, whether they're away from schools, churches, community facilities, using radii or locating them by district, limiting the number of establishments, the size of the operation, the numbers of customers permitted per hour. These are all pretty well documented areas. We really do need to make an attempt to at least try to show folks that we care and that this is something that we are willing to administer and allow in our City. The point here is that I don't think it's unfathomable that in the next few years there could be a commercial cannabis dispensary Downtown or perhaps one on Cal. Ave. Palo Alto residents would appreciate the ability to purchase and consume what's going to be a legal product. As a Council, we should consider that. I'm going to try an Amendment and happy to work with you all on it. My proposed Amendment is—maybe I should just send this to the Clerk. Using commercial cannabis regulations in nearby cities and our existing public peace, morals, and safety codes as guides, direct Staff to return to Council within 6 months with options that would (a) permit commercial cultivation, testing, manufacture, retail, and distribution; (b) distinguish TRANSCRIPT Page 89 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 between sale and use onsite; and (c) create a monitoring mechanism. The point here is I actually want to put it in writing and commit ourselves to looking at this within 6 months so that we do figure out a way that we can legalize some of these commercial activities, which will be legal in the State of California starting January 1st. As I mentioned, this is an imminently solvable problem in terms of … Mayor Scharff: You have to get a second. Council Member Wolbach: I'll second it because I was waiting (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: From what I heard, I'm not going to agree to it. If you want to second it, go ahead and second it, and then you can talk to it. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) If it doesn't get accepted, I'll second it, but I might ask for a couple of amendments. Council Member Fine: Would the … Mayor Scharff: I said no. Council Member Wolbach: I'll second it. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Council Member Wolbach. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add to the Motion, “using commercial cannabis regulations in nearby cities and our existing Public Peace, Morals, and Safety Codes as guides, direct Staff to return to Council within 6 months with options that would: i. Permit commercial cultivation, testing, manufacture, retail, and distribution of cannabis; and ii. Distinguish between sale and use on site; and iii. Create a monitoring mechanism. Council Member Fine: As I mentioned in my comments, this is a locally unwanted land use, but there are clearly ways for us to address that. I think the Palo Alto voters have spoken in support of legalizing marijuana across the state. It's incumbent upon us to look for ways to make that happen in our City. As I mentioned earlier, there are also potential benefits in terms of local retail, taxation, and actually providing Palo Altans with a good that they demand. I would truly appreciate the City moving in a direction where we do, as the Mayor said, maintain our local control and stay safe in terms of nothing TRANSCRIPT Page 90 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 happening. I think we also should put a shot clock up there that we do want to see how we can get this done. I expect Staff would return with one or two proposals about how we may integrate some of these businesses into our community. We may still vote that down; I get that. I think it's important for us to consider that. Mayor Scharff: (inaudible) Council Member Wolbach: Would you be open to a change for Part a? I'd actually prefer at this time if we limit that simply to retail distribution or use. Basically not commercial cultivation and not testing and not manufacture, but adding (crosstalk). Council Member Fine: I'll accept those changes to keep your support. I still think we should be—those are legitimate businesses in California come January 1. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT MAKER AND SECONDER to remove from the Amendment Part i, “cultivation, testing, manufacture.” Council Member Wolbach: That would remove cultivation, testing, and manufacture. Council Member Fine: It would just be retail and distribution. Council Member Wolbach: It would be retail, distribution. I would also add use. Council Member Fine: I thought that was "b," distinguish between sale and use. Council Member Wolbach: Since it's in "b," I guess it doesn't need to be in "a." If you'd also be comfortable with adding "distinguish between smoked versus other forms of consumption." Council Member Fine: Sure. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Amendment, “distinguish between consumption by smoking versus other types of consumption.” (New Part iv) Council Member Fine: To our City Attorney, does that actually matter? The different types of cannabis products these shops may sell and whether it's … TRANSCRIPT Page 91 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Wolbach: I'm thinking particularly if they're using it onsite. The difference between somebody eating something versus somebody smoking something makes a difference. Council Member Fine: That's helpful. Council Member Wolbach: Also, would you be willing to add distinguish between medical and recreational? Council Member Fine: Again, to the City Attorney, will that be a distinguishing factor come January 1? Mr. Shimizu: Yes, that's a meaningful distinction in State law. The City can handle it either way, whether they separate them out or not. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Yes, I'd accept that as well. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Amendment, “distinguish between medical and recreational use.” (New Part v) Council Member Wolbach: Would you also be willing to change it to say "return to Council in 6 months for a discussion including options"? Council Member Fine: Yes. Council Member Wolbach: Would you be willing to change it to—because I want to be respectful of Staff time, would you be willing to change it from 6 to read within 6-12 months? Council Member Fine: I want to push back on that last one. I believe Mountain View gave their staff 45 days. San Jose was looking at something like 3 months. I think within 6 months is reasonable. I know our Planning Department does have a lot of work to do, but there are a lot of guides in terms of how we regulate some of these land uses. I think it'll be a good start within 6 months. AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace “within 6 months” to “in 6 to 12 months.” AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Council Member Wolbach: If Staff finds it difficult to meet that deadline as we get closer to that, I'll just say for the record that I'd be open to them asking TRANSCRIPT Page 92 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 for an extension on that. I think I'm comfortable with that. Thank you for accepting those amendments. I'll speak to it now. The Mayor is right in that the intent and the need for passing something now is right. We need to maintain local control. I don't think Palo Altans have yet and this Council has yet had enough of a discussion to say that we'd authorize commercial or medical use onsite or sale of cannabis in Palo Alto, but times are changing. A large majority, a super majority of Palo Altans did vote for the recent proposition. I do not agree, though—I'll be honest. I strongly supported it. I think eventually I'll be willing to support some commercial use in Palo Alto. I don't think voting for that measure means that somebody also implied necessarily that they would support commercial use onsite. I just want to put that out there. That's not my reason for supporting this. They are distinct issues, but this is still a reasonable approach to exploring the questions and the options for Palo Alto in the coming year following having State regulations clarified. For me, that's the important thing. The State has been spending this year and will continue spending the rest of this year figuring out the regulatory framework in which cities can make decisions. For us to jump ahead of that, I don't think is appropriate for Palo Alto right now. As soon as the State has clarified, that's when we should start having a more serious and broader conversation. Having it come to us within the first 6 months of the year, if Staff is able to, is reasonable and appropriate, basically giving us options on a series of questions like sale for people to take home versus using onsite, that's a big difference, and we should think about those differently. Medical versus recreational is a big difference, and we should think about them differently. Smoking versus other forms of consumption, that's a big difference. Those are different land uses, and we should think about them differently. This motion addresses the core concerns. Mayor Scharff: I just want to briefly speak against it. I also voted to legalize it in California. I also—yes, I did. I think it should be legal in California, but I don't want to see it in Palo Alto. I'll be real clear about that. We've talked often that an overwhelming majority of Palo Altans voted for that proposition. What we keep forgetting is that in 2012 an overwhelming, higher percentage of Palo Altans voted to ban dispensaries in Palo Alto. My actual belief is that if you did a poll, most people in Palo Alto do not want dispensaries in Palo Alto. That was the overwhelming vote in 2012. Some of that may have shifted. I buy that times may be changing, but I don't think it's shifted more than 5, 6 points on that probably, which would still make a majority not wanting it in Palo Alto. My view on this is—the problem with this is that it's too soon. At some point, we should have Council discussions. Mountain View wants to go ahead with this. Let's see what it looks like in Mountain View. Let's see what kind of problems they have. Maybe they have no problems. Maybe it's great. Why not give it 18 months. Let's see what they do. What's TRANSCRIPT Page 93 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 the rush? I think 6 months is way too early. I'm not going to be supporting the amendment. Council Member Wolbach: (inaudible) Mayor Scharff: We'll wait and come back. Is that all right? I got all the lights. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I actually had a couple of quick questions. It wasn't exactly clear. Is the intent of Staff to come back as soon as—have some period after the State law is clarified? Ms. Stump: We didn't specify. Most surrounding jurisdictions are not putting a sunset on their rules. Whenever Council legislates, it has the opportunity to revisit that legislation when it wishes to do so. That really could be either something that Council initiates at some later point or the City Manager has the authority and often does if he sees an area of need or … Council Member DuBois: You weren't just saying we need to see what the State law says and then we'll come back? Ms. Stump: That's correct. No. Council Member DuBois: We have to allow deliveries from out of the City, right? That's not really an option? Mr. Shimizu: It's not clear under State law. Allowing deliveries also is consistent with the suggestions that we got at Policy and Services and at PTC. Council Member DuBois: Aren't there like cross-city commerce laws or something? Mr. Shimizu: State law definitely says we can't prohibit delivery vehicles from passing through our City. If Mountain View or San Jose, for example, has a delivery car going to Menlo, we have to allow that. Council Member DuBois: I think Staff probably knows the Cal. Ave. concern is that cannabis would be sold illegally. I know this may be a future question, but would you expect the rules on tobacco sales to apply to cannabis sales in terms of distances from schools and other tobacco shops? Mr. Shimizu: The rules about tobacco sales don't automatically apply to cannabis sales in the same way that public smoking laws apply to cannabis. Proposition 64 did put in place some limits on cannabis businesses operating near schools. There are State law radius guides where it says you can't do that. TRANSCRIPT Page 94 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member DuBois: We would have to pass this Ordinance tonight to preserve our ability to pass our own regulations on that in the future? Mr. Shimizu: The Ordinance tonight by passing it would preserve your ability to make sure that nothing gets grandfathered in starting January 1st. Council Member DuBois: Just quick comments. I don't think we're missing out on any of the benefits that Council Member Fine talked about. I think we're being prudent to understand State law and then adjust locally. I don't think this does anything more than that. I don't think we're going to miss out. If we decide to do this in the future, that opportunity will be there. The Mayor makes a really good point; I was actually going to make the same point. Voting for State law isn't the same as voting for it happening locally. We have to understand how to do it right and understand if people do want it put in the City, how and where. I'm comfortable with the original Motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: A question for Staff. There's only one sentence in the Staff Report about what the Planning Commission decided or did, recommended. It just said they voted against requiring accessory structure. Is that all they had to say? Surely not. What did they think about allowing dispensaries in Palo Alto? Mr. Shimizu: We gave an extended version of this presentation to the Planning Commission and the same Ordinance that you see before you. They voted to recommend it to this body. They had similar concerns about making sure just to preserve local control. They also had some positive things to say about why deliveries may be a positive thing going forward. As to the accessory structure requirement, that was a policy decision we asked them about, whether PTC would want to recommend having an accessory structure requirement for personal cultivation. They very clearly said no. Council Member Holman: Thank you. Just future reference, it's really helpful to know—when something goes to a Board or Commission, it's helpful to know what they really had to say about something in some kind of abbreviated fashion, but not one sentence because it doesn't really tell us much. Council Member DuBois made a point that we could always consider this at a future time. That's correct. I'm also somewhat intrigued by the amendment that's on the board too because it's not like we're going to keep cannabis out of Palo Alto. If it's delivered here and it's used here, what the amendment sort of does is say why wouldn't we benefit from the sales tax from it. I'm a little on the fence with this one. I'm rather intrigued by theA. I'll just leave it at that. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. TRANSCRIPT Page 95 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Filseth: This Council or a future Council could come back and revisit this issue at any time. There's maybe more degrees of freedom involved in this than we understand right now. It's going to take longer than anybody thinks to completely shake out. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I have a few questions for Staff. This is banned; marijuana is banned at the Federal level. On the State level, it's legal. Doesn't Federal law trump State law? Ms. Stump: It does. Council Member Tanaka: What I'm trying to understand is if we comply through Federal law—I'm trying to understand the precedence of laws. I would think Federal law trumps State law, which trumps local law. I'm trying to understand how does this happen. Ms. Stump: I'll clarify my response to this particular situation. The precedence and interaction of Federal, State, and local laws can be actually quite complex given the particular situation. In this situation, cannabis remains a Schedule I drug as far as the Federal government is concerned. Having it, using it, selling it, carrying it is a crime. That remains the fact despite the fact that several states have said it's not against their state criminal laws. It's very common in the criminal justice arena for there to be a layered approach to a certain type of conduct, where the conduct can be illegal under both State law and Federal law. California has said these types of activities are not crimes for California law purposes. They can't be charged by California district attorneys and prosecuted in California state courts. People who engage in these various activities remain exposed to Federal criminal prosecution. Council Member Tanaka: What if we just kept the laws exactly the way they are right now in Palo Alto? What happens? Mr. Shimizu: If the Council did not pass this proposed Ordinance tonight, the City would be at risk of the State issuing permits starting January 1st, which would license commercial marijuana businesses of all types. Council Member Tanaka: Isn't that against Federal law? Mr. Shimizu: It is, but there would be nothing stopping—but the Federal government would have to enforce that. The State actors, though, would begin issuing licenses on January 1st for commercial businesses of all types including for the City of Palo Alto. TRANSCRIPT Page 96 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Tanaka: You're saying that we really have no choice then. We have to at least do the current—not the Substitute but the main Motion. Mr. Shimizu: We're not saying that. In order to preserve local control and to prevent grandfathering issues, the City Council does have to take some action if it wishes to prevent that. Mr. Keene: We would say that you don't have to, but we think it is in the best interest of the City itself for you to go ahead and take the action that we recommend. Ms. Stump: That recommendation is not based on a concern about Federal law. We're not aware of any case or really any assertion that failure to regulate or ban at a local level is any kind of Federal criminal activity itself. There was some theorizing at some point that would cities be exposed to Federal liability. We don't believe that's really a reasonable theory or even a remote likelihood. Frankly, Federal criminal drug prosecution is an issue of resources and priorities. There does remain some risk in this area. As a policy matter, the prior Federal administration had a different view than the current one. Up to them as far as what they get around to and have the resources to address and deal with. Council Member Tanaka: What I'm concerned about is what the Mayor said earlier, which is this came up before for Palo Alto. A lot of voters didn't want it. What I'm concerned about is—what I'm trying to figure out is, is this maximizing the optionality or the rights for Palo Alto in terms of restricting the use of it as much—does this maximize the restriction or is there something more we can do beyond this? Mr. Shimizu: What this Ordinance does is gives Palo Alto, the City Council, more time to explore if it does want some or all commercial activities now allowed under State law or which will be allowed under State law on January 1st to develop a program including regulations for what that would look like. If the Council didn't do that, it didn't preserve that control, it would have to figure out and put in place those regulations by January 1st or face potential grandfathering issues with the State issuing permits in the absence of any local rules or laws. Council Member Tanaka: What if we just (inaudible) those same laws we have right now, saying it puts a total restriction on this? Ms. Stump: Are you asking is there anything that we could ban more than what the current draft before you bans? Council Member Tanaka: Correct. TRANSCRIPT Page 97 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Stump: The only thing potentially would be deliveries. As Tim explained, there's some question about whether there is actually a right under State law to deliveries. In any case, this Council has indicated in prior guidance that it wants to allow that activity to continue. Council Member Tanaka: There's no excise tax. I think Council Member Wolbach asked this. In terms of taxes on deliveries, we can't do that without a ballot initiative. Is that what you're saying? We either allow it or … Mr. Shimizu: That's correct. Council Member Tanaka: What about peripherals? Can those … Mr. Keene: Accessories? Council Member Tanaka: Accessories, yeah. Mr. Shimizu: You mean in terms of can we tax it or regulate the sale? Council Member Tanaka: Either. Mr. Shimizu: This Ordinance doesn't address either the taxation or regulation of sale of paraphernalia. Council Member Tanaka: Could it or is that out? Mr. Shimizu: It couldn't tonight. We can look at it for the future. Ms. Stump: In general, having nothing to do with the topic of cannabis, a tax requires voter approval. That's an item for the Council to think seriously about and plan. There needs to be some time and work put into that. Council Member Tanaka: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: There's a population out there, the kids. I look at it, and I think about cigarettes and alcohol. While there is a restriction for kids of a certain age not to be able to obtain it, they're still able to. I do have a worry about having this kind of law with the Substitute Motion that really is a little bit loose, and we have a population that we really have to think about. They are more vulnerable. With the police and everything, it's just an added burden on them as well having this go through. It's also a waste of Staff time to be looking at a study of this right now. I won't be supporting this Motion. It really concerns me that—for the delivery, it's definitely something that we can allow. We do want to make sure that people who do need it for medicinal TRANSCRIPT Page 98 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 that it is available to them and it's delivered to them. However, to have it sold and have a dispensary, it's just a little bit too much for the City to bear at this time and take on. I won't be supporting the Substitute Motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I really appreciate all the comments and the concerns that have been raised. I agree that having a location where somebody could buy cannabis in Palo Alto or use cannabis onsite in Palo Alto is not something we want right now. That is too much for Palo Alto right now. Mayor Scharff said he had one concern with this or one major concern, and that was he thought it was too soon. As I was reading this, I realized that there's one more amendment I hope the maker will accept and that I think is important. It should not be returned to Council; it should be "bring to Policy and Services Committee." What that would mean is that it would go to Policy and Services Committee as it did this year. Following that, it would go to the Planning and Transportation Commission. Following that, it would come to the Council. That would extend the timeline, provide more opportunities for us to consider this. We may, through that discussion, agree at the end. We're not ready for it this year. We might not be ready for 3 more years, and let's just drop the issue. At least then we can get a pulse on where the community is because we haven't really done that yet. Mayor Scharff may be right. If we saw polling on this again, it may be strongly against. Maybe that's something that somebody will do. Maybe the City or somebody else will commission polling. That would be really interesting and informative. Would the maker be okay with changing "return to Council" to "bring to Policy and Services Committee"? Council Member Fine: And PTC or … Council Member Wolbach: That would be implied, that it would go to PTC following Policy and Services Committee, but we could … Mayor Scharff: No, that's not how it works. Council Member Wolbach: Let's clarify that it would go to Policy and Services Committee, followed by Planning and Transportation Commission, and then to Council. Council Member Fine: I'll accept that. AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace “return to Council” with “return to the Policy and Services Committee, followed by the Planning and Transportation Commission, and then Council.” TRANSCRIPT Page 99 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: That would be a huge departure from our policies. You do realize that? We don't do that. Policy and Services has no ability to refer something to PTC. Council Member Wolbach: That's what we did this past year. Mayor Scharff: No, got to come to Council. After it goes to Council, then Council sends it to PTC after Council decides if they want to have an Ordinance. PTC has no authority to do that. Council Member Wolbach: I'm sorry. Remind me how the process went this past year. Mr. Keene: If we did, we made a mistake. Ms. Stump: Council sent it to P&S, and then it went from P&S to PTC. Because it was a zoning Ordinance, things have to go to PTC. Mayor Scharff: Typically in our Ordinance, the way it works is our committees actually don't have authority to do that. Staff has the authority to send it to PTC because they're drafting an ordinance and they may have needed to get this done quickly. I think that's a separate thing. What normally happens is our committees are advisory only to the Council, all of them with the exception of the Rail Committee, which has a little extra authority. If we did it this way, it would actually be a huge departure from what we normally do. It would be granting Policy and Services, four Council Members, the ability to shape something of the kind of ordinance (crosstalk). Council Member Wolbach: Can I clarify that—what I'm suggesting is that the Council initiate that direction now, that the Council now say, "We want P&S to look at it, and we want PTC to look at it," to replicate the process we took this last year. Again, it's Council giving direction now to say we want both those bodies to have hands on this topic. Council Member Fine: Process aside, I'm happy supporting it going to P&S and PTC or just P&S. I still don't think it's going to get other people's support. I would say just pick one. Let's vote on the Amendment, and then let's get back to the main Motion. Council Member Wolbach: Let's change that. Sounds like it's accepted. Change "return to Council" to "bring to P&S" or "Policy and Services." AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND TRANSCRIPT Page 100 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 SECONDER to replace “return to Council” with “return to the Policy and Services Committee.” Mayor Scharff: I'm ready to vote, but I have some lights. I don't want to cut people off. I have Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Briefly, I would love to accept this. I don't think the timing is right. We have a great opportunity to watch the city right next door and see what happens with them. This can come back to us. You've been very clear about it can come back at some other time. I would suggest that we wait until we really do think there's a need in the community. I would be fascinated in seeing a poll, which certainly won't be done by the City. It might be done by others, and we might have some access to it. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to add to the Motion, “using commercial cannabis regulations in nearby cities and our existing Public Peace, Morals, and Safety Codes as guides, direct Staff to return to the Policy and Services Committee within 6 months with options that would: i. Permit commercial retail and distribution of cannabis; and ii. Distinguish between sale and use on site; and iii. Create a monitoring mechanism; and iv. Distinguish between consumption by smoking versus other types of consumption; and v. Distinguish between medical and recreational use. Mayor Scharff: Now, we're voting on the amendment to the main motion. That fails on a 7-2 vote with Council Members Wolbach and Fine voting yes. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED FAILED: 2-7 Fine, Wolbach yes Mayor Scharff: Now, let's vote on the main Motion. That passes unanimously. Thank you for that Staff work on that. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Mr. Keene: Could we take action on the Consent Calendar before … TRANSCRIPT Page 101 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Did we not? We did. Mr. Keene: You did? I'm sorry. I missed that. Mayor Scharff: I thought we passed the Consent Calendar. I think we've done everything we said we would do except we haven't finished the Comp Plan. At this time Council returned to Agenda Item Number 1A. 1A. Discussion and Consideration of the Planning & Transportation Commission's Recommendations Regarding the Comprehensive Plan Update and Adoption of Resolutions Certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Comprehensive Plan Update; Adopting Findings Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and Adopting the Updated Comprehensive Plan Dated June 30, 2017 With Desired Corrections and Amendments, Which Comprehensively Updates and Supersedes the City's 1998-2010 Comprehensive Plan (Two Public Hearings Will Be Held: October 23, 2017 and November 13, 2017. On October 23, 2017, the City Council may Consider Action on the Planning & Transportation Commission’s Recommendations, Providing Direction to Staff, and Certification of the Final EIR. Other Actions Will be Deferred Until the Hearing on November 13, 2017.) (CONTINUED FROM OCTOBER 23, 2017). Mayor Scharff: Let's go back to the Comp Plan. Council Member Holman: Mr. Mayor? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Council Member Holman: Can I ask what our end time is tonight? We've been here since 4:00-ish. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Karen. Mayor Scharff: I was thinking about that myself, Karen. I was thinking I'd like to get through the rest of the PTC stuff. Council Member Holman: It's a lot. What is it, 31 pages or something like that? It's 31 pages. We're not going to get through all of that tonight. Mayor Scharff: It depends how much the rest of the stuff is here. Maybe we won't, at which point we're going to have to have a special Council meeting to deal with all this stuff, which I'm okay with. I don't want to rush it. I don't want people to feel rushed. Why don't we see where we get in the next half TRANSCRIPT Page 102 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 hour? I'm thinking we're done definitely by 11:30 frankly. If we finish by 11:00 … Vice Mayor Kniss: About 11:00. Council Member DuBois: I'd like to move 11:00. I have been here a long time, and I had an early morning. Mayor Scharff: Fine. We'll just decide to end by 11:00. That seems to be the consensus. We'll do that. That's fine. Vice Mayor Kniss: We're back on Page 11, is that right? Mayor Scharff: Yes, we're back on Page 11, on the PTC consensus items they call them. Do we have one? We do. Does anyone want to move Number 1 or shall we now—that doesn't mean you have to. We can just move on. This is Page 10. Vice Mayor Kniss: (inaudible) Council Member Filseth: Consensus we don't move on. Vice Mayor Kniss: These are consensus versus the others that we voted on. Council Member Filseth: We don't vote on any of these. Mayor Scharff: We don't? Council Member Filseth: I don't think so. (inaudible) the corrections. Mayor Scharff: Yeah, we're just voting on the corrections. Council Member Fine: Question to Staff. The PTC consensus items, these are not yet included in the final text of our Comp Plan. The indication here is that just the PTC was unanimous in supporting these things. Right? Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: That's correct. Council Member Fine: I would ask that we go through the same process or somebody just says, "I want to support 2, 3, and 6," whatever it is. Mayor Scharff: I'll just do it quickly. Anyone want to make a Motion on Number 1, to support that? Council Member DuBois: I'll make the Motion. TRANSCRIPT Page 103 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Anyone want to second that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Second. I'll support it but … Mayor Scharff: You will? Vice Mayor Kniss: Is that what we're discussing? Mayor Scharff: We're discussing Item Number 1. Vice Mayor Kniss: No, I do not support (inaudible). Council Member DuBois: Super quick, again there was general consensus on all of these items, but I read these text changes. These are in the narrative again, mostly. The intent was good, that there were a lot of comments part of the Comp Plan. They were just trying to tighten it up and make it more consistent. Mayor Scharff: I didn't hear a second. Vice Mayor Kniss: As it goes on, it gets a bit more complicated. Council Member DuBois: I thought you seconded it. Vice Mayor Kniss: I withdrew. Council Member DuBois: Do I have a second? Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth seconding. Do you want to speak to your Motion, Council Member DuBois? MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to implement Planning and Transportation Commission Consensus Item 1. Council Member DuBois: I just did. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Looks innocuous. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: The only part I'd recommend removing is on Page 11, where it says in L-1.6 to create or enhance cohesive neighborhoods. I'm all for creating and enhancing cohesive neighborhoods, but coordinated area plans may have other uses besides that. I'm worried that that language will TRANSCRIPT Page 104 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 be limiting. I'd suggest either removing that or having something that's more inclusive. I'll try the first motion as a friendly first amendment to remove "create or enhance cohesive neighborhoods" from L-1.6. Would that be acceptable? Council Member DuBois: Say that again. I'm not sure of your concern. Can you say that again? Council Member Wolbach: On page 11 of 31, just scratch out the middle paragraph change. It's L-1.6. Council Member DuBois: You want to scratch out "enhancing cohesive neighborhoods." Is that what you're saying? Council Member Wolbach: I don't want that to restrict the scope of L-1.6. I would suggest removing that Amendment. Would you accept that as friendly? Council Member DuBois: I'm not sure it really does what you think it—I'm not sure it does restrict it. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not sure either. Council Member DuBois: I would like to leave it in. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to remove the proposed revision to Policy L-1.6. AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Council Member Wolbach: Would you accept another chance at a friendly Amendment, which is … Council Member DuBois: Including creating and enhancing? Council Member Wolbach: … to guide development. Would you be willing to add before the amendment here so it would read "use coordinated area plans to guide development such as" and then the language here? It would be "such as to create or enhance cohesive neighborhoods." That would leave open the possibility of using a cap for something else. Council Member DuBois: I think I'd be okay with that. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Policy L-1.6, ‘such as’ after ‘plans to guide development.’” TRANSCRIPT Page 105 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Are you all right with it? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Council Member Wolbach: With that, I'll support the Motion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Don't need to. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to implement Planning and Transportation Commission Consensus Item 1, and add to Policy L-1.6, “such as” after “plans to guide development.” Mayor Scharff: I see no—I do see lights. No, I don't see any lights. Shall we vote on the board then? That passes on a 7-3 vote—6-3 vote. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 6-3 Fine, Kniss, Scharff no Vice Mayor Kniss: I need one more clarification. Mayor Scharff: Okay. Vice Mayor Kniss: This is consensus. Does that mean there was no vote on this whatsoever by the Planning and Transportation Commission? They all simply said yes? The language has been changed. It's hard for me to fathom there was no vote. Ms. Gitelman: That's correct. There was a broad discussion. At the end of the discussion, we thought there was agreement on these items. We brought it back … Vice Mayor Kniss: Thought there was? Did you interpret it, though, or did they … Ms. Gitelman: We interpreted it, but then we brought it back to the Commission. The Commission looked at the consensus items. They actually removed something that they felt shouldn't be on the list. These things remained on the list. Vice Mayor Kniss: The underlining is done by … Ms. Gitelman: Again, this is our suggestion to implement their comments and their direction. The right-hand column again is Staff's recommended changes to implement the consensus comments of the Commission. TRANSCRIPT Page 106 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Mayor Scharff: I'll try another Motion. I'll move that we don't accept any further amendments from the PTC. Vice Mayor Kniss: I would second that. Otherwise, it's (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: Does that have a second? Vice Mayor Kniss: It's a second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to accept no additional Planning and Transportation Commission Consensus Items. Female: (inaudible) serious? Mayor Scharff: I was totally serious. I read through them all, and I'll speak to it. I read through them, and I don't particularly see any ones that are that meaningful on those frankly. If Council Members want to amend it to throw in the ones they like, I'd be open to accepting those amendments. Then, we can try and short-circuit the process. You can add in the ones you want, and I can have one motion and not go through this all individually. That's my hope to do that. If Council Members don't want to do that, that's fine too. I don't really want to sit here and wordsmith the entire thing. I probably won't care that much if you throw all of them in frankly. Let me have Council Member Kniss speak if she wants to. Vice Mayor Kniss: I've honestly gone through them three times. What we've done is we recraft something continuously. That's why I just asked what I did as to how we actually got to this. I'm not seeing this as clearly as from PTC as I see it from PTC and then revised again by Staff. We could go through it once again and take each one individually, but we have done that—I think we've already done that especially going through the first 11. Mayor Scharff: Let's see. I'm going to clear the board, and then put your lights back on because I wasn't … Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I would like to discuss change I.D. Number 3 and Number 11. Mayor Scharff: You'd like to add those in? Council Member DuBois: For discussion. Mayor Scharff: You want to do it for discussion. That's fine. Let's put them in. TRANSCRIPT Page 107 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: Three and 11? Ms. Gitelman: There are only nine of these consensus comments. Council Member DuBois: I'm looking at the errata table, Page 17. Mayor Scharff: Are we going to change the errata table too? Council Member DuBois: There are corrections here. Council Member Wolbach: Did you mean to include the errata in your … Mayor Scharff: I wasn't including the errata. Sorry. Council Member DuBois: I'd like to go through it. There are (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: I'll go to the errata next if we have time. I won't say we can't talk about the errata. I'll come back to you if you want. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I just want to be clear. All we're talking about right now are PTC consensus items 2-9, correct? Mayor Scharff: Correct. Council Member Wolbach: We already approved one with that small change. Thank you again for accepting that. Looking at 2-9, I do want to clarify that my understanding of this is that this is something like people on PTC made a statement. If nobody objected and went out of their way to object, Staff took note of it, and these became consensus. I've heard from at least one PTC member that they did not feel that these were truly consensus. These were not voted upon by PTC. I just want to be clear about that. That's why I think it's important not to just throw everything in. That said, there are a couple that I really like. I'll actually propose we include—there are a couple I'll point out that don't really require any change. I would actually propose that we include 3, 6, 8, and 9. Vice Mayor Kniss: For discussion? Council Member Wolbach: I don't think we need—hopefully don't need to discuss them all. (crosstalk) Vice Mayor Kniss: You suggest accepting 3, 6 (crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: Yes. TRANSCRIPT Page 108 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Vice Mayor Kniss: Why don't you make that Motion? Mayor Scharff: He did. Council Member Wolbach: It would be an Amendment to exempt those. Mayor Scharff: I will accept that. Will you accept that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes. MOTION RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Kniss to accept Planning and Transportation Commission Consensus Items 3, 6, 8, and 9 and no additional Consensus Items. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to them briefly? Council Member Wolbach: Sure. Actually, 2 does not require any change. Four, I thought was—I didn't support getting rid of the discussion about Geng Road extension to Laura Lane. I didn't support 4. Five didn't require any change. Seven didn't require any change. I liked all the others. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: I like 6 and 9. Six is about ensuring a stable funding force for TDM measures. I think Staff might have meant the TMA in that. Actually, we should check quickly. Number 9 was on coordinating proactively with California HSR. I think that's a good policy to have. Mayor Scharff: I see no other lights. Does anyone—do you want to take a minute and look through them or should we vote on the board? Let's vote on the board. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Mayor Scharff: It's now quarter of 11:00. Vice Mayor Kniss: Are you going to do errata? Mayor Scharff: Yes, do errata. I knew I had something else to do. I move that we accept the errata. Council Member Fine: Second. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to implement changes included in the Errata Table/Comp Plan Corrections and Clarifications. TRANSCRIPT Page 109 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: You can amend and deal with it. At least, that gets it out there. I don't need to speak to the errata. I don't know if Staff wants to say anything about the errata. Do you want to speak to the errata, Council Member Fine? Council Member Fine: No. I would encourage my Colleagues—unless there's something extraordinarily major or there's an error in the errata, we should just pass this. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: On Page 17, Number 3, which is the definition of regional community commercial. Sorry to be persnickety here. If you scroll down, it says larger shopping center district, wider variety of goods, etc., etc. It lists uses such as department stores, book stores, furniture stores, toy stores, apparel shops, restaurants, theatres, and non-retail services such as offices and banks. I want to make sure—I assume that the intent there was medical/dental offices as opposed to Amazon opens up a software development operation there. I wonder if that's clear and agreed on, if that's the right word. We throw the word "office" around a lot. Vice Mayor Kniss: Are you talking about the new Amazon that's going to rent around town? Council Member Filseth: Yeah. Mayor Scharff: I think the confusion here is that University Avenue/Downtown is included in this. Council Member Filseth: It is, but it's below. It breaks out University Avenue/Downtown separately, which is what we agreed on. Here it says examples include shops, Stanford Shopping Center, Town and Country Village, and University Avenue/Downtown. I think what this is supposed to say is you can have a CPA or a medical office in Town and Country Village but not a Google development operation. Mayor Scharff: I am shocked that we allow offices in Stanford Shopping Center frankly. Male: (inaudible) Council Member Filseth: I think that's worth discussion. That's how I read it. You're right, office wasn't in there already. Do we want to allow medical offices in Stanford Shopping Center? Chiropractors? TRANSCRIPT Page 110 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: I don't think it's limited to medical offices. Council Member Filseth, did you want to … Council Member Filseth: No. I'm looking for more discussion. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, if I could interject? Mayor Scharff: That's fine. Ms. Gitelman: I just wanted to point out that that language is from the current Comp Plan. I don't know whether that helps or not. In regional community commercial, it does reference larger—includes such uses as department stores, book stores, furniture stores, toy stores, apparel stores, restaurants, theatres, and non-retail services such as offices and banks. Mayor Scharff: Office isn't being added in. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. Ms. Costello: Taken out by—this is errata. It was taken out by mistake. It's being put back in. We had some inquiries from people about why did office come out. This is correcting something that should not have been changed. Council Member Filseth: Should we try to delimit that as to narrow down offices or is it clear enough as it is? Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry? Council Member Filseth: Should we narrow down offices and say such as dental offices or something like that? Ms. Gitelman: The narrowing is what we tried to accomplish with the addition of the phrase about Downtown. Mayor Scharff: I think the errata—I think it would be a policy change. I'm thinking about this. Joe Simitian had his office in Stanford Shopping Center for a long time. Council Member Filseth: I understand. I don't want to do a policy change. I just want to make sure there's something that's not—I don't want to do a policy change at this point. It's the penultimate moment. I just want to make sure that we're not … Mayor Scharff: Adding anything. TRANSCRIPT Page 111 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Filseth: … adding anything. Mayor Scharff: What I heard from Staff—I just want to clarify. In the errata, all you've done is left everything the same, and it's correcting mistakes. Is that a fair comment? Ms. Gitelman: Yes. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I still think this is an unintended change. The current Comp Plan talks about our employment districts as areas for large enterprise. This designation, regional commercial, is primarily about retail. Right? This is our regional retail centers. Office just seems out of place to me for Stanford Shopping Center, Town and Country. I would say our retail Downtown core. Is this not a change from our current Comp Plan? Ms. Gitelman: Again, the current Comp Plan in this regional community commercial category refers to larger shopping centers and districts that have a wider variety of goods and services than our neighborhood shopping areas. It has all this language about restaurants, theatres, non-retail uses such as office and banks. Examples include Stanford Shopping Center, Town and County, and University Avenue/Downtown. What the change is here is to include this phrase about software development Downtown, which was added by the Council at an earlier meeting, and to put back in that offices that had inadvertently gotten omitted. Council Member DuBois: I do think we muddled it up a bit. I don't really think it's a question of software development yes/no. What we were trying to say is what's the scale and type of business we want in these employment districts. A lot of work is just accomplished through software development. If you use the word "work" instead of "software," we could look at this a little more clearly. If Downtown is considered our regional commercial district, just saying all software development is allowed there is actually turning it into an employment district if we're talking about global companies versus locally serving or regional ones. This change was made by the Council. It's fair for us to reconsider and make sure it's really what we intend. I really think it's about scale and maybe we should say something that—software development for local businesses, administrative offices, retail is allowed in our retail areas, but we're not talking about Hewlett-Packard. Mayor Scharff: If we were going to make this change, I think we should say Downtown is an employment district because it is an employment district. (crosstalk) TRANSCRIPT Page 112 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member DuBois: We might want to distinguish the retail core of Downtown maybe. Mayor Scharff: We already have. We said the retail core is ground-floor retail. We have strong protections for it. In fact, we have such strong protections for ground-floor retail that we are now having these appeals on these really outlying areas, which I continue to support ground-floor retail. We did agree that software development would be allowed in the Downtown. This is the errata issue. It's a longer discussion if we were going to have the discussion about changing Downtown to be an employment district, which it clearly is. There are thousands of employees who work Downtown. Council Member DuBois: It's not really, not to the scale of our other employment districts. Mayor Scharff: I don't know. If you add in Palantir, A9, and the City, that's a fairly big employment district. Council Member DuBois: I would argue those are in violation of the current Comp Plan. Like you said, it's a long discussion. Mayor Scharff: We had that discussion. We decided that software development was allowed in the Downtown. We could be more explicit on that issue, which maybe we should be, that it's an employment district. That might be a worthwhile discussion. What we've really said tonight is let's not use this opportunity to rehash stuff. Council Member DuBois: Fair enough. Mayor Scharff: I have a lot of lights. Council Member Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: I just wanted to clarify one thing. On Page 17, Item 3 again, I don't think what Council said was we're only going to allow software development in Downtown. I'm just reading what Staff wrote, not necessarily what's in the recommended change but what Staff wrote. Software development is only allowed Downtown, I think that's what we said. What we're trying to say is that software development is legal in Palo Alto, especially Downtown. I don't think it says only Downtown. We're not saying all of Research Park, no software development could happen there, or El Camino. Mayor Scharff: Or California Avenue business district. Council Member Tanaka: Or California Avenue, right. I want to make sure that's really clear to Staff because that's what it says here. I don't think it's right. TRANSCRIPT Page 113 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Ms. Gitelman: Just to be clear, this regional community commercial land use category in terms of the structure of the City applies to Downtown, Stanford Shopping Center, and Town and Country. That's the only place that this designation applies. In those three places, we're saying only Downtown allows software development. Not at the Shopping Center, not at Town and Country. Council Member Tanaka: The Research Park is okay? El Camino? Ms. Gitelman: It's not covered by this designation. Council Member Tanaka: I just want to make sure that's clear. (inaudible) sounds like only software development in Downtown, which doesn't make sense to me. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Holman. Council Holman: I look at it as it's 10:55, and we're having this conversation that we didn't really have, to my thinking, when the recommendation from the Council majority was to allow software development Downtown. Council Member DuBois is right in saying we should have a conversation and not at 10:55 about what scale of software development companies. It's not just software development. It's office. If we have individual companies that are of a large scale, they're very detrimental to the culture of Palo Alto that provides space for embryo companies, our startups. They tend to gobble up—we've seen that here—all manner of space. I think they preclude and limit, at least limit, the opportunity for startups to locate Downtown, which we have a history of. We have a culture of that. We haven't also talked about what happens when somebody who has a large stake in Downtown moves out. It leaves a huge gap in those office workers who support restaurants, retail, other personal services. It leaves a huge vacuum if we have a large company move out. God forbid we have two or three that move out at the same time. We've got a wasteland. It happens; it happens. I've lived here long enough to see—there have been times when you can go down 101 and just see enormous buildings just absolutely vacant because of downturns. I think we're setting ourselves up for a very bad economic situation. The other thing I would say about this potential—I think the other thing is I could suppose that the community would be—at least a fair amount of the community would be a little bit aghast that we're thinking of Downtown as a business center and not a commercial district that's defined by book stores, furniture stores, department stores, apparel shops, restaurants, theatres. It's a huge policy shift. It's a huge policy shift. Although the word "office" was in the current Comprehensive Plan and this is considered an errata, times have changed. We have a lot of things that we need to reconsider what the zoning is or what the wording is in a zoning ordinance because things change over time. That TRANSCRIPT Page 114 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 is what this is. It's not to pick on software development. I would say limiting the size of office Downtown because there are absolute, unintended, and negative consequences that—there are a number of them. I've listed three of them. I hope we have a bigger discussion about this particular item, but not at 11:00 at night. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me come at this a little differently. Somehow I think we're demonizing software development. I'm really troubled by that. Back in the '70s—I was here then—there was no such thing as software development in the Downtown. What there was in the Downtown were an incredible number of lawyers. No one tried to stop the number of lawyers. In fact, most of 525 University was lawyers, probably still is. What locates in the Downtown is what currently is in the business world. The big business world at the moment is software and software development. I can't imagine us going in and saying, "Once you reach 100 employees, you have to leave Downtown." I think that's far more prescriptive than we want to be. I wouldn't disagree that there are times when everything empties out. In '10 and '11, there were many, many vacant stores Downtown, many vacant stores on 101. I think that's part of the ebb and flow of what happens in the communities. I don't want us to get to the point where we're absolutely prescriptive about what's going on in the Downtown. That would trouble me. I realize we've had this software development discussion. This began a year ago last spring. I thought we had come to an agreement on it, but it sounds as though this is bringing it all up again as a result of the errata. I don't have any trouble with what it says right now. Long term, we're going to discover that in 5 or 10 years depending on who's still here, there will be some other kind of whatever it is, occupation that will take over Downtown. Karen, you were there when Joe Simitian talked on Sunday and said things come and go. The plants happened to close then. At some point, the software development will leave this valley. It will change any number of things. I agree it's not the time tonight, but I would not change this, which is Number 3 on Page 17. Council Member Holman: I just need to clarify one thing. I specifically said I wasn't picking on software. I said it was about office and office size. I wasn't picking on software, just to be clear. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine, did you speak to this issue? I can't remember. Your light's on, so your light doesn't mean … Council Member DuBois, you've spoken to this issue. Council Member Wolbach, did you speak to this issue? I can't remember. You get to speak, and then it's time to vote because Council Member DuBois made a Motion and we have like 2 minutes. TRANSCRIPT Page 115 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Wolbach: I just want to emphasize that we've already had a discussion about whether software companies are allowed in Downtown, broader discussions about how much, the size of office, etc., Downtown. We're doing a lot of things on that front. I don't think this is the best time to address them. I hope we'll just move forward with this motion. Of course, any other amendments, I don't think we're going to get to them tonight. That's another part of the agenda for tonight, any other amendments we want to make to the entire Comprehensive Plan. Opportunities still abound. Hopefully people including myself will be judicious with them. Mayor Scharff: Let's vote on the board. That passes on an 8-1 vote with Council Member Holman voting no. MOTION PASSED: 8-1 Holman no Mr. Keene: Schedule. Mayor Scharff: Schedule. We have one more meeting of this. I'm going to try and finish the Comp Plan then. This is November 13th. Do you need to have us approve the EIR beforehand? We can do it at the same meeting, right? Mr. Keene: Right. Mayor Scharff: We'd started the next meeting with EIR approval and then hopefully we finish. If not, we'd have one more meeting after that on this issue. Mr. Keene: Just so we're clear, you have the 13th. Don't know if you want to start earlier in the day, daytime. Tuesday the 14th is Policy and Services. Wednesday the 15th is PTC here. Thursday the 16th, I know our consultants aren't here. If you got done with the EIR, Staff could handle that. Your last choice would be the Monday, 11/20, of the week of Thanksgiving. Mayor Scharff: I think we'll figure it out. Council Member Comments, Questions. Ms. Gitelman: I'm sorry. Mayor Scharff, if you could continue this hearing to November 13th. Mayor Scharff: Yes. Do I need a Motion to do that? I'd like to move to continue this hearing to November 13th. Council Member Holman: Second. Council Member DuBois: Do you want to allow the possibility of a different … TRANSCRIPT Page 116 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Mayor Scharff: Yeah, let's allow the possibility of a different day for some reason. Why don't we say—do I have to have a date certain or can I say we're continuing this hearing to November 13th or a date sooner? Ms. Gitelman: If we found another date, it would be after the 13th. We do need to continue it to a date certain. Mayor Scharff: I'll move it to November 13th then. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to continue this Item to November 13, 2017. Council Member Wolbach: The portion of tonight's agenda of direct Staff to incorporate any additional specified changes to the Comprehensive Plan, we will be able to take that up on the 13th? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Let's vote. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions None. Action Items (Continued) 11. PUBLIC HEARING/QUASI-JUDICIAL. 999 Alma: Council Determination on a Waiver Request From the Retail Preservation Ordinance. Environmental Assessment: Exempt in Accordance With the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Section 15061(b)(3) Guidelines (STAFF REQUESTS THIS ITEM BE CONTINUED TO A DATE UNCERTAIN). Study Session 3. 285 Hamilton [17PLN-00309]: Applicant Requests a Prescreening Discussion for a Possible Text Amendment That Would Allow Development Exceptions for Rooftop Decks Within the Downtown Area, Including the Subject Property. Environmental Assessment: The Subject Request is not a Project in Accordance With the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs None. TRANSCRIPT Page 117 of 117 City Council Meeting Transcript: 10/30/17 Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Scharff: Any Council Member Questions, Comments or—Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I hadn't followed up with any of you, but just wondering if Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Member Kou had had a chance to get together and talk about a commitment from our contingency fund for the disaster relief up north. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: I attended a meeting of the VTA El Camino Real Rapid Transit Policy Advisory Board, which hasn't met in about a year and a half. I'm going to need to work with Planning Director and City Manager on this probably. The PAB made a recommendation to propose a pilot for El Camino Real with a right-hand HOV lane for cities that are interested in participating. We each committed that we would at least agendize a session with VTA Staff and Jeannie Bruins to discuss what that would look like and whether we'd want to participate. Just a heads up. We'll try to get that scheduled in the next few months. Sooner is better. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:03 P.M.