HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-07-24 City Council Summary Minutes Regular Meeting July 24, 1995 1. Interviews for Planning Commission .................... 76-384 ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 6:55 p.m. ........... 76-384 ORAL COMMUNICATIONS ....................................... 76-385 APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF APRIL 10 AND 17, 1995 ............... 76-385 2. Resolution 7531 entitled "Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adopting a Compensation Plan for Management and Confidential Personnel and Council Appointed Officers and Rescinding Resolution Nos. 7351, 7481, 7505, and 7520 .................................. 76-385 4. Ordinance 1st Reading entitled "Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Sections 16.09.010 and 16.09.143 of Chapter 16.09 (The Sewer Use Ordinance) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code ............ 76-385 5. Contract between the City of Palo Alto and Jim Duffy Construction for Remodeling 425 Bryant Street ......... 76-385 AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND DELETIONS ................... 76-385 5A. (Old Item 1) Consultant Agreement between the City of Palo Alto and Watry Design Group for Downtown Parking Structure(s) Feasibility Study ........................ 76-386 6. Continued Support of Santa Clara County's Hazardous Materials Advisory Committee Funding .................. 76-388 7. Reports from City Manager and City Attorney Analyzing Citizens for Affirmative Planning Growth Management Initiative ............................................ 76-388 ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 10:05 p.m. .......... 76-407
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Conference Room at 5:45 p.m. PRESENT: Fazzino (arrived at 5:47 p.m.), Huber, Kniss (ar-rived at 5:47 p.m.), McCown, Rosenbaum, Schneider, Simitian, Wheeler ABSENT: Andersen SPECIAL MEETINGS 1. Interviews for Planning Commission ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 6:55 p.m.
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 7:09 p.m. PRESENT: Fazzino, Huber, Kniss, McCown, Rosenbaum, Schnei-der, Simitian, Wheeler ABSENT: Andersen ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Herb Borock, 2731 Byron Street, spoke regarding Sand Hill Road, Coyote Hill, and Quarry Road. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF APRIL 10 AND 17, 1995 MOTION: Council Member Fazzino moved, seconded by Schneider, to approve the Minutes of April 10 and 17, 1995, as submitted. MOTION PASSED 8-0, Andersen absent. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION: Vice Mayor Wheeler moved, seconded by Schneider, to approve Consent Calendar Item Nos. 2, 4, and 5. 2. Resolution 7531 entitled "Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adopting a Compensation Plan for Management and Confidential Personnel and Council Appointed Officers and Rescinding Resolution Nos. 7351, 7481, 7505, and 7520" Resolution 7532 entitled "Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adopting a Compensation Plan for Hourly Employees and Rescinding Resolution No. 7353" Resolution 7533 entitled "Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Adding Chapter 17 to the Merit System Rules and Regulations" 4. Ordinance 1st Reading entitled "Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Sections 16.09.010 and 16.09.143 of Chapter 16.09 (The Sewer Use Ordinance) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code" 5. Contract between the City of Palo Alto and Jim Duffy Construction for Remodeling 425 Bryant Street; change orders not to exceed $13,500 Amendment No. 1 to Consultant Agreement No. C3034784 with Baucentrum Architecture for Construction Stage Services for Remodeling 425 Bryant Street MOTION PASSED 8-0 for Item Nos. 2, 4, and 5, Andersen absent. AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND DELETIONS Mayor Simitian announced that Item No. 1 had been removed from the
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Consent Calendar on behalf of a member of the public and would become Item No. 5A. City Manager June Fleming announced that Item No. 3, Amendment to Contract with Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) to Continue to Maintain Equal Contributions for Retiree Health Plan Premiums, had been removed by staff. REPORTS OF OFFICIALS 5A. (Old Item 1) Consultant Agreement between the City of Palo Alto and Watry Design Group for Downtown Parking Structure(s) Feasibility Study Richard Ferguson, 1037 Harker Avenue, said the Watry Design Group did a study several years previously for the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce (the Chamber) on parking options, but there was no description in staff report (CMR:349:95) about its prior work for the Chamber. It was hard for Watry not to have a conflict under Section 12 of the proposed contract if it had already rendered an option to the Chamber. He thought the contract needed more work to make sure it was an independent option and not one anchored by prior work of what the options should be in Palo Alto. City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the only conflict situation that might conceivably arise would be if within the last 12 months Watry Design Group had been under contract to one of the affected parties. He suggested the authorization of the Mayor be contingent on determination from the City Attorney's Office that there was not a conflict situation. Mayor Simitian asked what was meant by one of the affected parties. Mr. Calonne said there were many different people who would be interested in the Downtown parking structure. The Chamber was the least interested since it was not a property owner engaged in a retail business. Mayor Simitian clarified the City Attorney was distinguishing between someone who might have a legal conflict of interest and someone who might have a conflict of interest in the terms of the public's perception of what a conflict of interest was. Mr. Calonne said that was correct. Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber said the Watry Design Group did work that was used by the Downtown Parking Committee of the Chamber which was part of the Chamber's 12-point parking recommendation. The group was not under contract to the City of Palo Alto. Mayor Simitian asked whether that experience enhanced Watry's qualifications or detracted from the qualifications. Mr. Schreiber said it was a positive factor given Watry's
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familiarity with Downtown Palo Alto. That work was focused on how to get more spaces out of existing surface parking lots. Council Member Kniss said the staff report (CMR:349:95) indicated the price had been negotiated down to approximately $20,000. She asked whether that was a standard procedure. Mr. Schreiber said yes. Council Member Kniss asked why one of the other bidders was not chosen rather than negotiating the price down. Mr. Schreiber said the selection committee felt the Watry Design Group was the most highly qualified, but it wanted staff to negotiate with Watry to reduce the price to be comparable with the other bidders. The situation was not unusual when negotiating consultant contracts. Mr. Calonne said there was general distinction in California law between professional services contracts and public works contracts. Under the general law, a professional consultant services contract would not require any form of competitive bidding. The City did that as an additional assurance of the integrity of the process. MOTION: Council Member Schneider moved, seconded by Wheeler, to: 1) Approve the consultant agreement with Watry Design Group, in the amount of $70,000, to conduct the Downtown Parking Structure Feasibility Study and authorize the Mayor to execute the contract; and 2) Authorize the City Manager, or her designee, to negotiate and execute amendments for services that occur during the project, related to, or incidental to, the scope of work; the total value of which amendments shall not exceed $7,000. Council Member Kniss supported the motion but wanted more informa-tion about the criterion regarding price negotiations on contracts. Vice Mayor Wheeler asked whether the motion could include the concept that the City Attorney would research the conflict of interest question raised by a member of the public and that the Mayor's signature on the contract would be contingent upon a clean finding in that regard. MAKER AND SECONDER AGREED TO INCORPORATE INTO THE MOTION that the City Attorney research the conflict of interest issue as raised by a member of the public and that the Mayor's signature to execute the contract be contingent upon the findings. Council Member Schneider said she was the chair of the Downtown Marketing Committee for the Chamber when the Watry study was presented which was more than two years previously. The study was for surface parking lots only. MOTION PASSED 8-0, Andersen absent. 6. Continued Support of Santa Clara County's Hazardous Materials
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Advisory Committee Funding Fire Chief Ruben Grijalva said the staff report (CMR:359:95) recommended that the funding of $6,380 for the Santa Clara County Hazardous Materials Advisory Committee (HMAC) be continued for one year. Although the HMAC had requested the funding for three years via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), staff had not recommended that the City sign the agreement at the present time because there was still a number of issues that needed to be addressed. The two major concerns were that there were several cities that had decided either not to approve the funding or were undecided about whether to approve the funding. In addition, staff was concerned that the work program could not be performed with the current funding level and that there were issues that related to program overlap which needed to be addressed and resolved. Approval of the funding for one year rather than three years would allow staff the opportunity to evaluate changes in the work plan that might occur as result of the changes in funding. MOTION: Council Member Huber moved, seconded by Fazzino, to: (1) Approve funding for Fiscal Year 1995-96 at the requested level of $6,380 for Palo Alto's share of funding for the Santa Clara County Hazardous Materials Advisory Committee (HMAC); (2) Direct staff to evaluate the HMAC work program and accomplishments annually and make recommendations to Council for Fiscal Years 1996-97 and 1997-98 during the budget process; and (3) Decline approval of the proposed amendment of the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among the City, Santa Clara County, and the Santa Clara Valley Water District to fund HMAC for the next three years. MOTION PASSED 8-0, Andersen absent. 7. Reports from City Manager and City Attorney Analyzing Citizens for Affirmative Planning Growth Management Initiative Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber referred to the visual aids that would be used to identify various parts of the Citizens for Affirmative Planning Growth Management Initiative (the Initiative) and the land use area maps which showed the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) change areas that identified the Comprehensive Plan land use designation for areas as well as the underlying zoning. Two tables were also included with the land use area maps that identified non-residential floor area ratios for five Comprehensive Plan land use designations and regional/community commercial non-residential floor area ratios. He and the City Attorney had discussed the implications of the Initiative if passed by the voters. His staff report (CMR:365:95) represented substantial work that had been done, but the work was still in progress. There would be other issues raised that had not been addressed in the staff report. If the Initiative were adopted, implications of the measure would include both positive and negative consequences that were difficult to foresee at the present time. City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the staff's role was to prepare
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an analysis of the measure, not an impartial analysis. The proponents of the measure had an opportunity to influence what the measure meant through ballot arguments and materials widely disseminated. He echoed the comments of Mr. Schreiber that the meaning of the measure was still being made through the process. He referred to overhead slide that showed the purposes of the measure. The purposes were critical to interpretation. The first rule of legislative interpretation was to try to give effect to intent of the people who enacted it which were the voters. The courts had typically looked to ballot arguments. First and foremost among the purposes was limitation of traffic growth which needed to be considered in the context of the Citywide Land Use and Transportation Study that was done in 1989. The measure was designed to limit traffic growth and not have as its purpose to reduce the existing traffic levels. The measure stated it was designed not to allow development in densities that would cause degradation to the present environment. He assumed that that language would also reach back to the Downtown Study and the Citywide Land Use Study which could be characterized as carrying capacity studies. He believed the measure used the Downtown Study and Citywide Study as measures of development that could happen without causing degradation of the environment and also put a strict restriction on the conversion of residential land to non-residential use. The measure also put a 20-year restriction on the Planning Commission's or City Council's ability to amend the parts of the Comprehensive Plan that the measure would enact. The basic legal thrust of the measure was to enact a series of Comprehensive Plan amendments. Until recently, there were many questions about whether an initiative or a city council could tie things up for an extended period of time. He had previously stated that it was unlawful to contract away the police power or to bind successor city councils, i.e., the power to do what was necessary to protect the health, safety, and general welfare or that the power used for land use could not be used in a way that took away the authority of successor councils. The Supreme Court earlier in the year ruled in a case called DeVita v. County of Napa that the voters could restrict a legislative body from changing a general plan for a period of years. He referred to page 4 of his memorandum that summed up the court's rulings. The argument was that comprehensive plans or general plans were living documents and needed to be kept updated under state law; and a lock in for 20 years might cause the documents to become outdated so the court should not interpret the law to allow a 20-year provision. The court stated it needed to trust the voters. That statement from the courts fueled his closing statement in the memorandum. By having parts of the Comprehensive Plan kept out of the City Council's control and left to the voters, there was an increased likelihood that the City would see litigation either over the Comprehensive Plan itself or rising out of specific development approvals because the voter approval process was more cumbersome and slower and more difficult to accomplish than a Council action. He said there were references to freezes or limitations on the slides which could be changed by voter approval. Should the measure become the law, one element of the measure that would cause a significant policy decision for the Council was "what would the Council do about projects which would
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require voter approval to become effective." The Council would have several options: 1) not to allow inconsistent projects to be submitted or 2) develop a process to handle projects which following Council action would require voter approval. He could see the temptation to either not let the projects be submitted or let the projects be submitted subject to voter approval. Mr. Schreiber said a critical issue in the Initiative was the prohibition of redesignating any residentially designated land in the Comprehensive Plan to a non-residential land use. He referred to the traditional Palo Alto land use plan map and said all of the R-1, RE, R-1(650), R-1(743), R-1(929), R-1(858), R-2, RMD, RM-15, RM-30, and RM-40 areas in the Downtown, along El Camino Real, California Avenue/Page Mill Road, and the Sand Hill Road corridor would be frozen in place with the approval of the Initiative. He referred to Table 2, "Comprehensive Plan Land Use Plan Map Changes, Residential Land Use Change to a Non-Residential Land Use Designation 1981-995," in the staff report (CMR:349:95) which identified 11 changes in the land use map that had been made since 1981 involving the redesignation of residential land to non-residential. The Winter Lodge and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation sites were approved through the voter approval process. Of the 9 sites, the biggest sites were at 725 Welch Road, approved by the City Council in 1984 for the Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital site, and 1050 Arastradero Road, which was changed to residential in 1981 and back to research office/park in 1993. He said the site at 2650 El Camino Real involved an even land exchange to square up some boundaries. If the Initiative were approved, all of those types of sites would have to go through the voter approval process. The Initiative would stop most Floor Area Ratio (FAR) increases, would prohibit any increase in the FAR allowed under existing non-residential zoning, and prohibit creation of any new non-residential designations with FARs greater than 1:1. He referred to the table attached to the land area maps which provided the Comprehensive Plan land use category and the corresponding non-residential zoning districts in the current Zoning Ordinance with the FAR. A ramification of the Initiative that was not noted in the staff report was that freezing of the non-residential FAR districts would include the Hotel (H) Combining District 0.6:1 FAR as well as the more common Neighborhood Commercial, Limited Industrial/Research Park, General Manufacturing, and Public Facilities zones. Mr. Calonne referred to the statement on the slide that the "PC Zoning is generally not affected" was an important concept to understand. The measure would readopt and hold for 20 years some FAR standards that were put into the Comprehensive Plan in 1992. When that action came to the City Council, it was characterized as minor technical changes which staff believed was necessary to make sure that the Land Use Element was consistent with state law. It was unclear to him whether the proponents viewed those FARs as site specific floor area standards which they were not. They were land use category-wide standards that came back to the concept of carrying capacity. He believed they were in state law to allow and compel councils to do a citywide or land use category-wide macro analysis of how much a city would receive with 1,000 acres
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of regional/ community commercial/light industrial, etc. With the PC zoning, the City might have projects that exceeded the FAR specified in the Comprehensive Plan because the Comprehensive Plan numbers were not site specific. Staff believed a consistency finding could continue to be made between the PC zoning and the Comprehensive Plan even though the numbers might be lower. He assumed the proponents would speak to the issue, but it was significant in terms of preserving some of the flexibility that currently existed. Council Member McCown clarified the fact that the PC was not affected meant that the FAR could not be increased based on prohibition of any increases but could be increased if an applica-tion came in as a PC zone and met all the PC requirements. Mr. Calonne said that was correct. The current PC zoning district did not specify a FAR so the City would be able to increase it because it was not specified. The second issue dealt with the provisions of the Comprehensive Plan that were amended which were not site specific requirements but were category wide. Mr. Schreiber said the Initiative would freeze or not allow the reduction of non-residential parking standards as contained in the Palo Alto Municipal Code Section 18.83 of the Zoning Ordinance. However, Section 18.83 also contained exceptions provisions for bicycle parking and landscape preserve which would not be covered by the Initiative, and the ability to adjust the overall parking requirement would remain in effect. Also, other sections of the Zoning Ordinance contained other exceptions such as in the Downtown zone that related to land use but did not have parking requirements. Those exceptions would continue but the basic table in the Zoning Ordinance could not be changed. The Initiative stated that maximum allowable non-residential building heights could not be increased and that no building could go beyond 50 feet. The intent was uncertain, but he assumed that variances could be granted to height modifications beyond 50 feet. Height modifications could presently be achieved by one or two mechanisms in the Zoning Ordinance--a variance or a design enhancement exception (DEE), which allowed minor modifications of standards that related to architectural features and building design. There had been four variances to the height during the previous years at--Packard Children's Hospital, Sun Microsystems Building, and 250 University Avenue. The recent Alma Street Single Room Occupancy (SRO) project received a great deal of attention, but the fact that the building was 54 feet high rather than 50 feet high received no comment during the public review process. Mr. Calonne clarified Mr. Schreiber mentioned that the Initiative would not stop variances for projects over 50 feet which was confirmed by discussions that day with the proponents. In the absence of any clarifying statements, he had concluded that variances for buildings over 50 feet would not be permitted. For structures in zoning districts where the height limit was under 50 feet, the variance could be allowed. He was uncertain whether that was consistent with the proponents intent. He said there was a provision in Section 4.C that required a number of entitlements
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to be consistent with the Initiative, and variances were not included among the entitlements listed. There was a serious interpretative question about whether the proponents intended to preclude variances over 50 feet. Vice Mayor Wheeler asked whether the SRO project was considered non-residential. Mr. Schreiber replied it was a mixed-use project. Any project that exceeded the 50-foot height limit was listed, but because the ground floor contained non-residential space, it was technically a mixed-use building. Mr. Calonne said the City would be really strained on what could be done in the future with mixed use, e.g., whether a project would be broken up based on the percentages of residential or non-residential within the project. He said the Initiative included a consistency requirement which specified that a number of different entitlements had to be consistent with the Initiative. The difference between the Initiative and the existing law was the rezoning. Under current law in Palo Alto, PC zoning, conditional use permits, and tentative maps needed to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. The Initiative would preclude long-standing discrepancies between the land use map and the applicable zoning. The companion component of the measure to that consistency requirement was an implementation section that indicated what should be done about it. The City had six months from the effective date of the Initiative to clean up any inconsistency. He did not believe there were that many inconsistencies. Any provisions of the Zoning Ordinance that might be in conflict would not be enforced. The Council had previously asked which would prevail in the event of inconsistencies--zoning or the Comprehen-sive Plan. The measure specified that it would prevail in the event of inconsistencies. Mr. Schreiber said the Initiative incorporated the Downtown growth cap that was adopted by the City in 1986 at the conclusion of the Downtown Study. The first provision would freeze for 20 years the existing 350,000-square-foot limitation on non-residential development in the Downtown area. The City had had approximately 35,000 square feet of development net increase in square footage in the Downtown since May 1986. The second provision stated that if the City reached 235,000 square feet of additional square footage, it would trigger a process to reevaluate the growth regulations. The City Attorney would comment on the relationship of the two provisions with the underlying Comprehensive Plan designation. Mr. Calonne was uncertain how the two provisions would be read together since one provision called for reevaluation of the cap and the other provision locked the cap for 20 years. He supposed the reasonable interpretation would be that the Initiative authorized the reevaluation even if it resulted in alternation of the 350,000-square-foot cap. It could also be read to essentially nullify the effect of the cap. The area needed to be cleaned up.
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Mr. Schreiber clarified the Downtown area included the Downtown Parking Assessment District and the University Avenue Business District. It also included, based on the Comprehensive Plan and the Downtown Study in 1986, not only all of the land typically thought of as the traditional Downtown--the University Avenue area, Lytton Avenue, and Hamilton Avenue frontages--but also the land along Alma Street to the north zoned CD-N and the service commercial area zoned CD-S. The traditional Downtown, the area to the south, and the non-residential area to the north was included as part of the 350,000-square-foot cap. He said the Initiative clearly stated that there would be no connection of Sand Hill Road to Alma Street. That was an existing City policy and the Initia-tive would reiterate that policy. Council Member Kniss asked whether any entity had the ability to freeze that action. She understood that it was not possible for the City to do that and that it was a state issue. Mr. Schreiber said the issues that came up with previous discus-sions of the Sand Hill Road extension was what would happen if Caltrans insisted on an intersection configuration that would allow traffic to cross El Camino Real to the existing Palo Alto Avenue and not have the intersection configuration that the City wished to have. The conclusion was that Caltrans had ultimate authority for what happened in its right-of-way. There might be an opportunity to negotiate some type of a reasonably binding agreement on that issue. The City had control of the City's right-of-way and could have a policy that stated it would close that section of road so that traffic could not go through to Alma Street. Mr. Calonne referred to Item No. 3 on page 6 of his memorandum dated July 20, 1995, that read: "Reduce traffic congestion on Sand Hill Road while prohibiting a direct connection from Sand Hill road to Palo Alto Avenue/Alma Street across El Camino Real." He said the proponents were fairly careful to not include the phrase "reduce traffic congestion on Sand Hill Road." He pointed out at a previous CPAC workshop that the existing reduction of traffic congestion language on Sand Hill Road would preclude, if a consistency requirement existed, any increase in traffic congestion on Sand Hill Road. That part of the existing Comprehensive Plan was not among the provisions that were locked in for 20 years which led to the Council's discretion on what it would do with the corridor under any circumstance. Mr. Schreiber referred to the Sand Hill Road corridor map and said the Initiative would have several land use impacts. The Zoning Ordinance provided a limitation on Stanford Shopping Center of a 65,000-square-foot growth factor. After 1989, there was approxi-mately, 48,000 square feet left to be built. Stanford University had an application filed and staff was in the process of preparing the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that would involve 160,000 square feet of additional space within the shopping center area on both sides of Arboretum Road. If the Initiative passed, that provision could not be approved by the City and would have to have voter approval for a square footage increase. The Initiative was
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silent on the issue of extending Sand Hill Road to El Camino Real. The City would be able with appropriate actions to approve that extension. The other land use area was the Medical Center on Welch Road where most of the sites were zoned research/office with a 0.5:1 FAR, but that area was zoned public facilities with a 1:1 FAR. The Medical Center was a facility that was split between land within the City and land within Santa Clara County (the County). The City of Palo Alto portion of the Medical Center was built-out to the maximum 1:1 FAR. The Initiative meant by locking in a maximum 1:1 FAR the City could not modify that public facilities zone to allow more square footage. The alternative for the Medical Center would be to incorporate some of the Welsh Road office sites into the Medical Center or expand into areas outside of the City. The Initiative only applied to land within the City of Palo Alto. There was a City/Stanford/County land use agreement that was dated from the mid-1980s that related to land use relationships among the City and the County and that agreement was clear that the County retained all of its authority for land under its jurisdiction. He said by being silent on residential development, the Initiative would not preclude the City from approving residential development on the 46 acres or the proposal from Stanford University to reuse the former Children's Hospital site for residential use. The range of the regional/community commercial land use category was not called out in the Initiative and was more complicated than that. A 2:1 FAR currently existed for the California-Cambridge Avenue area which came from land use studies done in the 1980s when downzoning from 3:1 FAR to 2:1 FAR was considered a major step. Those policies were soon overrun by other events, and the City some years later changed the zoning in the Downtown from 3:1 FAR to 1:1 FAR. The City had never cleaned up the California Avenue zoning, and in the last 10 years there had been very little additional square footage in the California Avenue area. The Initiative would require that the City change the Comprehensive Plan and rezone that area to a 1:1 FAR. If the Initiative were approved, implementation of that provision would have the greatest impact on staff. He believed the change would not be simple, and the situation would end up similar to the Downtown in terms of the amount of square footage left and how it would be used. A land use and zoning study would probably have to be done for the California Avenue area. Mr. Calonne said there was an overlap in the way the Comprehensive Plan worked with the regional/community commercial land use category. The FARs done in 1992 expressed category-wide carrying capacity measures. In the Downtown, the Council had expressed that carrying capacity measure as an absolute number of 350,000 square feet. The fact that the Council chose to express those carrying capacities in Downtown and at Stanford Shopping Center as numbers reinforced staff's sense that the FARs were not site specific but category-wide. Mr. Schreiber had suggested that the California-Cambridge Avenue area might be at or near the specified 1:1 FAR; and even though the limitations were not site specific, it would not make a difference. The area might be at the carrying capacity with a 1:1 FAR. Mr. Schreiber said within the California Avenue area, the parking
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lots were part of the commercial area. He described the California Avenue area as the areas on either side of California and Cambridge Avenues and the areas to the south--the areas designated as regional/community commercial in the Comprehensive Plan, which included a number of surface parking lots and parking structures. If the parking areas were included within the land area, the FAR within California Avenue was about 0.8:1. If City land were pulled out of the equation, the FAR would be over 1:1. If the City parking lots were included, the remaining development capacity in the California-Cambridge Avenue area would be approximately 150,000 square feet before the 1:1 FAR stipulation in the Initiative had been reached. Mr. Calonne said in the areas that were close to a FAR limit, it would be easier to translate it into a monitored cap square footage. The City's choice of FARs in the Comprehensive Plan was done so that it could be matched easily with the existing zoning without knowing anything about the development potentials. Council Member Huber clarified if the City's parking lots were included in the California-Cambridge Avenue area, the FAR was slightly over 1:1. Mr. Schreiber said no. If the land area were included, it would be a bigger base. Council Member Huber asked what was done in the Downtown. Mr. Schreiber said the Downtown commercial area as defined in the 1986 Downtown Study included all of the City parking lots as part of the Downtown area. Staff assumed that the same thing would apply to the California-Cambridge Avenue area, and the land area of City parking lots would not be netted out even though the parking lots were zoned public facilities rather than the community/ commercial zone. The land use designation was regional/community commercial. Council Member Schneider clarified that if the parking lots were not included, the FAR was slightly above 1:1. Mr. Schreiber said that was correct. The FAR was 1.02 or 1.03. Mr. Calonne clarified that when the 1:1 FAR was exceeded, it went to a de facto moratorium. He did not know how else to read the FARs without nullifying them if the City did not pay attention to the caps. He said the Planning Division's staff report would be put on the Internet, and he had also offered to the proponents to post copies of the Initiative and other materials on the Internet. Mr. Schreiber said the regional/community commercial category was not handled as simply in the Initiative because it functioned differently from the other land use categories. There was a variety of zoning regulations that applied to land zoned region-al/community commercial. The Town and Country Village had a 0.35:1 FAR in the Zoning Ordinance. The CC(2) area was the California Avenue area, and the Downtown had a variety of FARs.
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The hotel (H) combining district could be added into the land use category. The Initiative would change the definition in the Comprehensive Plan to have a FAR range from 0.35:1 to 1:1 rather than the 2:1 that currently existed. The 2:1 FAR was California Avenue. It had been concluded as indicated in the staff report (CMR:365:95) that given the fact that the Initiative was silent on the Town and Country Village but was within the regional/community commercial land use category, the City would have the discretion to increase the FAR of the Town and Country Village. The Stanford Shopping Center, the California-Cambridge Avenue area, and the Downtown area were called out in the Initiative, but it was silent on the Town and Country Village. He said as noted in the "Non-Residential Floor Area Ratios" table, the research/office park category had a FAR range of 0.3:1 to 0.5:1. The areas along the West Bayshore Frontage Road, Embarcadero Road, Stanford Research Park, and the Welch Road office area were designated as a re-search/office park category. Given that the land use categories were defined as a range, staff concluded that the City would have the discretion to change parcels in the Stanford Research Park or the West Bayshore Frontage Road to a 0.5:1 FAR rather than the current zoning of 0.4:1 FAR. The 0.3:1 FAR zoning was in the area west of Foothill Expressway and the Research Park, and the 0.5:1 FAR was along Welch Road. The rest of the areas was zoned 0.4:1 FAR. The range within the land use category would allow the discretion to raise zoning and densities on areas that were currently zoned 0.3:1 or 0.4:1 to higher levels. He said four change areas were identified in the staff report (CMR:365:95) which were the same change areas that were identified in the staff report on area planning that was provided to the Council on June 10, 1995, for its beginning discussion on the Comprehensive Plan Community Design Section. Each of the areas contained some problems that staff believed should be resolved by relying on an area planning process. The first change area was the South of Forest Area (SOFA) which might be one of the easiest areas, but it had the Palo Alto Medical Foundation site that was currently non-residential, a convalescent facility that was residential, and a commercial area with some intricate intermixing of residential and non-residential. One characteristic of all of the area planning studies was that there were complicated intermixing of land uses. An area planning process envisioned the ability for property owners, residents, and members of the community to grapple with problems with reasonable freedom in terms of what range of the land use would make sense. If the Initiative passed, all the residential land would be locked in place without going back to a vote of the people. The other impact would be how to handle parking if there were changes desired in terms of natural parking standards. The second change area was that the California-Ventura area had some of the more complicated intermixing of land use. If the Initiative passed, it also would lock in all the residential land in that area also. In the CPAC process, there was also a discussion of mixed use of live/work for areas like that, both residential and non-residential. Staff believed mixed use could be approved for residential land but that issue would need more discussion as staff moved forward in the process. The third change area was El Camino Real from Lambert to Charleston. Issues in that area would tend to focus especially on FARs, what it would
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take to try to encourage redevelopment, renovation, modification of FARs, which would become more difficult because a new land use category would have to be created and a new zoning category to go with. The FARs could not be increased for the existing neighbor-hood commercial and service commercial categories. Parking could also become a standard issue in those areas. The fourth change area was the Midtown area. The Council had authorized staff to begin a study of that area and work with the property owners in that area. That area was also an intermixing of residential and non-residential, and all the residential land would be locked in place which might curtail options and opportunities. Emily Renzel, 1056 Forest Avenue, representing the Citizens for Affirmative Planning (C.A.P.), commented on the reports of the City Attorney and Director of Planning and Community Environment. She said the main thrust of the Initiative was to reaffirm the 1989 growth limits in the City's land use and zoning which resulted from the Citywide Land Use and Transportation Study which was also recommended by CPAC. The 1989 limits balanced non-residential growth with realistic ability to handle the resultant traffic. C.A.P. believed the balance should be maintained to avoid further deterioration of Palo Alto's environment. A 20-year time period was selected to encompass the duration of the next revised Comprehensive Plan. It was a reasonable time frame for land use planning to provide stability and predictability to land owners and the public. C.A.P. believed there was ample flexibility to create new land use categories and zones, enact Planned Community zones, and grant variances as well as continue present administrative practices (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office). Council Member McCown asked about the relationship between the prohibition of conversion from residential to non-residential and residential to mixed use. She asked whether a PC proposal could make that change or not. Ms. Renzel said the intent was to maintain the existing flexibility of the PC, but the PC would have to be consistent with the land use category. It would not be consistent if a site were in a residential land use category. Council Member McCown said staff had listed two sites on Middlefield Road that had a multiple family residential Comprehen-sive Plan designation--the Century Liquor Store and the South Peninsula Emergency Veterinary Clinic. When the applications came forward, the applications were handled as PCs, but the underlying land use map designation had to be changed to neighborhood commercial. She clarified that under the Initiative that would be impossible to do. Ms. Renzel said that was correct. Those particular examples had been commercially zoned and rezoned to residential in lieu of an amortization extension or nonconforming use status. Council Member McCown said there were situations around the community with commercial uses on them that had been zoned
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residential, but that opportunity would no longer be possible. Ms. Renzel said the intent was to maintain the balance in the community and not to exacerbate the commute traffic that resulted from having too many jobs. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Street, said some of the problems which the Initiative addressed were recognized in the Citywide Land Use and Transportation Study and were being threatened by the update of the Comprehensive Plan. He said Stanford Research Park had asked for a 15 percent increase in zoning potential. Alternative 1 was recommended with a 0.35 FAR, but what actually existed was Alternative 3 because the City had rezoned the Mayfield School site to commercial. The use of the Mayfield School site for commercial would result in significant development potential. Alternative 3 would result in a requirement for 2,706 additional housing units which was more than a 10 percent increase in the housing stock. He questioned how Palo Alto could get 10 percent additional housing units without the massing rezoning of R-1 to multifamily or medium density multifamily to high density. There would be significant adverse impacts on both housing and the transportation system if the development potential were not frozen. The Initiative would prevent the City from making a bad situation even worse. Mayor Simitian clarified a 15 percent increase had been proposed by the CPAC, not Stanford Research Park. Vice Mayor Wheeler said Mr. Moss made reference to the rezoning of the Mayfield School site. She assumed the reference was to a potential or suggested action rather than anything that the Council or the Planning Commission had taken action on. Mr. Moss said the staff report indicated it had been rezoned in 1993. Vice Mayor Wheeler clarified the parcel was squared off in 1993, but there was no net gain of commercial or loss of housing. Mr. Moss concurred that the Mayfield School site was still zoned housing. Lynn Chiapella, 637 Colorado Avenue, supported the measure because she did not feel the City was addressing the traffic congestion problems on neighborhood streets but at the same time was proposing more growth. Traffic problems needed to be put at a higher priority before new housing was built. The land use proposals showed R-1 and R-2 areas that would be studied in the future and changed to another type of zoning. There should be no conversion of residential because the residents had not been notified. She did not think the parking standards were a problem, and the Planning Division staff had developed a creative way to identify the FAR in Midtown and get more parking. There were office buildings that needed a lot of parking that were once retail which had exacerbated the problem. The proposed conversion of housing into something else in the SOFA area would also
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exacerbate the parking problem. The Architectural Review Board (ARB) had already approved so many projects in the Ventura/South El Camino Real area that none of the plans put before CPAC could be done because the area had already been converted to a restaurant zone and the potential for public beautification was gone. Traffic should be addressed first before adding to the square footage. Herb Borock, 2731 Byron Street, referred to the Planning staff's analysis (CMR:365:95) of the Initiative and the City Attorney's report on legal issues associated with the Initiative. He reminded the Council that it had previously approved the staff recommendation to add language to the non-residential land use categories which clarified the City's existing policies that allowed and encouraged residential and mixed use in all commercial and light industrial zones. Staff also pointed out that the Zoning Ordinance also listed housing as a permitted use in all commercial, research/office, and light industrial zones. The Initiative's definition of non-residential land use was the same as staff' definition of mixed use. He referred to the staff's comments about integrated area planning and said the report indicated the existing policies and regulations had not resulted in the desired development, but it was the application of the existing policies and regulations that had weakened the regulations. He referred to the language in the City Attorney's report regarding DeVita v. County of Napa and suggested the Council look at the language in light of its context. He referred to the opinion stated about PC zones in the Initiative on pages 9 and 10 of the City Attorney's report. He said some of the land use categories had a range of FARs and any conclusion about PC zoning had to be modified to different limits for the different zones in the land use categories (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office). He said the Council recently tentatively approved a prohibition of a connection of Sand Hill Road to Alma Street. He recalled four years previously being told that the Stanford Medical Center had reached its limit but the following year it was increased. The Council should be careful about whether the limits of the Medical Center had really been reached. RECESS: 9:00 P.M. - 9:10 P.M. Mayor Simitian clarified the Council needed to take action by August 7, 1995, based on the fact that a sufficient number of signatures had been submitted in order to place the Initiative on the ballot. The Council's options were to adopt the measure as a council and put the item on the ballot for voter approval and/or to put the item on the ballot and present an alternative measure(s) by August 7, 1995. If the Council placed the item on the ballot on August 7, 1995, the Council had some decisions to make on or before that same date about ballot arguments and measures and who would be the signatories of the ballot measure. The Council would not need to reach a conclusion on the issue that evening; but if the Council were headed in a direction that required some alternative measures, staff would need some quick direction. The Council should discuss the issues that evening; and if there were additional issues that needed more information,
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staff should be directed to return with that information on or before August 7. Council Member Huber asked whether the ballot arguments and other things generated pro or con with respect to the issue would need to be interpreted if the Initiative passed. Mr. Calonne said the statements from proponents, including ballot arguments, and other very widely disseminated statements from the proponents would need to be interpreted. Council Member Huber clarified an example was that it appeared that 50-feet was maximum, but the Council had a letter from Ms. Renzel that indicated that her interpretation was similar to what had been done in the past. He asked whether that was the kind of thing that would need interpretation on how an individual would deal with a 50-foot limit. Mr. Calonne said that was definitely correct in that particular area because the Initiative was somewhat ambiguous on that point. Mayor Simitian clarified the City Attorney was not suggesting that the proponent or opponents could change the plain meaning of the Initiative language when the plain meaning was clear from reading the language. Mr. Calonne replied that that was not his suggestion. Mayor Simitian clarified when there was interpretation, it was one of the factors that a court would look to, but it was not the only factor or not solely dispositive. Mr. Calonne said that was correct. Mayor Simitian was concerned that regardless of where any individual might be or any Council Member might be, it was important not to have a moving target to discuss during the period before the election. He asked how the City could present the information so that people knew what they were being asked to vote on. Mr. Calonne said if the Council wished, he and Mr. Schreiber could prepare a list of question areas. The pros and cons of presenting the material in that way was that it would convey what was ambiguous without putting the whole issue in context. Mayor Simitian asked staff to consider the issue between now and August 7, 1995. The Council should know what it was asking the public to vote on if the issue were placed on the ballot and what the Council was voting on if it made a determination to act. He did not want the City Attorney's explanation of interpretive rules to suggest to proponents or opponents that the merits of the issue could be made up as they went along in the course of a campaign. Council Member Rosenbaum said Ms. Chiapella used the phrase "rezoning from residential to areas for future study," but the
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Council had not done any rezoning or discussed rezoning. He asked the significance of areas for future study. Mr. Schreiber said one map prepared from the CPAC process identi-fied change areas and another map identified a large number of potential land use map changes most of which were non-residential to residential. The information was very generalized and became translated in a mapping process to small area maps but with the same nomenclature as the large area map which became quite confusing. In the CPAC process, some areas were identified for area studies. Within the area studies, it was understood that the process could look at a variety of land use issues and land use changes. Some of the changes might be residential to non-residential or non-residential to residential, but none of the changes constituted specific recommendations from the CPAC or specific actions in front of the Planning Commission or the Council. The only change that had received any widespread discussion and had been endorsed by City staff was the change of the six-acre site at Page Mill Road/El Camino Real from multifamily residential to a commercial hotel use. Council Member Fazzino said both the City Attorney's and the Director of Planning and Community Environment's reports were outstanding. He was intrigued by a statement made by the City Attorney in the last paragraph under Conclusion that "the Califor-nia Supreme Court has left open the question of how to deal with initiatives which constrain the elected legislative body's ability to amend the plan to react to unforeseen circumstances," and then he referred to footnote 3. It somewhat contradicted the Contra Costa County decision made several years prior regarding the City of Walnut Creek and the argument that the initiative was inconsis-tent with the general plan. He wanted to understand where the law was going in California on the issue of consistency with the general plan. It seemed to be a different conclusion from the one rendered in the Walnut Creek case. Mr. Calonne said the Walnut Creek case expressly left open the question of whether the general plan could be amended through an initiative. The property owner picked up that the queue in DeVita v. County of Napa. The Supreme Court recently answered the question affirmatively that the general plan could be amended by initiative, but consistency had to be maintained. In the context of the footnote, the really difficult question was that the City Council could not bind its successor, but people could bind successor councils. He believed the court had not addressed what could be done when some unforeseen circumstance caused the voter locked-in provisions to create a legal or policy difficulty. The only authorization in the measure for the City Council to do anything was to bring all of the other pieces of city law into conformity with the Initiative. There was not an authority for the City Council to further implement, clarify, or address problems that arose. The Council was constrained to make everything consistent but there was no authority to fix anything if circumstances changed. The conclusion in his report reflected that the City did make its legal stance somewhat worse by being tied up in that manner. However, the Supreme Court confronted
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with that same sense stated it would trust the voters to do the right thing, and if the voters did not do the right thing in the future, the court would intervene. That raised the question of how much it would cost to get voters to answer the question, how it would be paid for, and how it would be worked into a planning process. It was unclear to him how the City would deal with the many time limits when the electorate needed to become involved in the questions. Council Member Fazzino wanted to know the implications of the most recent Supreme Court decision in the City of Napa case for Palo Alto if the measure were approved by the voters and there seemed to be inconsistency with the general plan. Mr. Calonne said the Council would need to direct staff to create some implementation procedure that would allow the City to go to the voters to bring about that consistency when its necessary. As a charter city, Palo Alto was neither required by the state to have consistency between planning decisions and the Comprehensive Plan nor had the City self-imposed that requirement. The Comprehensive Plan had a vague statement that rezoning should be in harmony with the Comprehensive Plan. The fact that the Comprehensive Plan said harmony rather than consistency told him that the City did not have a consistency requirement. The Initiative created a partial consistency requirement with some of the Comprehensive Plan. He believed there would be a lot of pressure on the Council to self-impose a consistency requirement for everything if the Initiative became the law. Vice Mayor Wheeler expressed her appreciation to the City Attorney and the Director of Planning and Community Environment for the work that they had done on the issue. Another major side of the measure was the governance issue. The City Attorney mentioned that the Council would need as part of the implementation to devise procedures for getting Planning Commission/Council recommendations to the voters. The Council had no way to know how many times voter approval would occur between the time the measure went into effect and the next 20 years. She asked the City Clerk what an election might cost. City Clerk Gloria Young said a Special Election which was not consolidated with the General Municipal Election (GME) would cost approximately $130,000. Vice Mayor Wheeler asked whether the City Attorney had indicated that there was another way to pay for an election. Mr. Calonne said the Council could probably devise a way to pass the cost along to an applicant, but it raised some interesting questions since elections had a special status as an essential part of government. He said a private party paying for an election might raise some legal issues. Mayor Simitian clarified on some occasions it would be possible to consolidate an election on an item with a regularly scheduled GME or State Election.
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Ms. Young said the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) called for consolidation with the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District and Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD), at a GME and any other election held might or might not reduce the cost. Mayor Simitian asked what the incremental cost increase would be on a consolidation. Ms. Young said the Registrar of Voters had indicated a cost of $45,000 for the current GME which included one measure, so the additional cost was approximately $5,000 to $6,000. Mayor Simitian asked what the cost would be if the Council election were scheduled in the odd-numbered years. Ms. Young said the cost at the present time was approximately $3.00 per voter. Council Member McCown said another major difference of interpreta-tion was the issue of the range of FAR for Stanford Research Park and the Town and Country Village, and Mr. Schreiber's presentation stated that there could be potential changes within that range up to no greater than the maximum of the zones. Ms. Renzel stated she did not agree with that characterization and that it was the intent that it would not be possible to increase the FARs for those two examples. She asked whether that was another instance in which the explanatory material by way of the ballot argument or other statements of the proponents on that point would be determinative or not, i.e., what the plain wording was of the measure and how would it come out. Mr. Calonne said the question was very difficult to answer. He believed that the carrying capacities referred to as FARs in the Comprehensive Plan were reversed engineered from the zoning, e.g., a newly incorporated city established building intensities and then implemented consistent zoning. The City backed the numbers out of the zoning. To give meaning to the numbers, the Council had to look at the capacity figure that included the regional/community commercial areas of Stanford Shopping Center, Downtown, Town and Country, and California Avenue. As he read the measure, there was nothing to preclude the Council from creating a new designation not to exceed 1:1 FAR as long as it was consistent with the capacity for the entire area affected by the increase. Mr. Schreiber said the Initiative was silent on Town and Country Village, but it called out Stanford Shopping Center, the California Avenue area, and the commercial Downtown zoning for very specific actions or continuation of current limits. He concluded that since Town and Country Village had not been called out, it was intended to fit somewhere within the range which meant it could stay at the bottom of the range or be increased to the top of the range. Mr. Calonne emphasized that if the measure passed, everyone's job would be to give effect to the intent of the voters. The discus-
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sion was academic until everything was argued out, and he did not want the discussion to be perceived that the City was trying to find conflicts or ways not to do what the voters intended. There was a lot less ambiguity with respect to the FARs used for Town and Country Village than there was with respect to height, and less ambiguity would lead staff to believe there was less room for explanatory analysis. Council Member McCown asked what the PC process could be used for if the measure passed. Ms. Renzel stated that any land designated in the Land Use Element of the Comprehensive Plan as distinguished from zoning as residential could not be changed with a future vote. The measure also talked about maximum FARs of 1:1 for a new zone. If the Council wanted to create a new zone, she was unclear whether a PC commercial zone of more than 1:1 FAR would be possible in the future. Mr. Calonne said under the measure, a PC that would increase the square footage to over 65,000 at the Stanford Shopping Center would be prohibited because the Council could not make a finding that the use and site development regulations for that PC were consistent with the Comprehensive Plan amendment. FARs were site development regulations in the PAMC. Staff did not believe the FARs from 1992 currently in the Comprehensive Plan that would be readopted by the measure would establish site specific limits. A PC that had the right entitlement regardless of FAR and was within that 65,000- square-foot cap at Stanford Shopping Center or within the 350,000-square-foot cap Downtown would not raise a consistency issue. The City had processed PCs previously that had greater FARs than the land use category designations, but none of them exceeded the district-wide carrying capacity. He believed that PCs were relatively unaffected by the Initiative. Council Member Huber said it was unclear from reading the Initia-tive and listening to the comments from the City Attorney, the Director of Planning and Community Environment, and Ms. Renzel what, if any, constraints the Initiative might put on the ability to rejuvenate the Midtown area, e.g., parking and the PCs. Mr. Schreiber said part of the problem with the lack of clarity was that each of the areas could unfold into a variety of different directions within the context of a particular area study. A residential land that could not be redesignated to non-residential would be constrained. Any type of redesignation would require voter approval which would be a discouraging factor when doing an area study. Mr. Calonne clarified the measure precluded a redesignation from residential to non-residential even if it were offset in the same action. Mr. Schreiber said the total FAR in Midtown was very close to the 0.4:1 FAR of the underlying zoning. There were areas in the City where the existing regulations had not yielded the types of development and redevelopment rejuvenation that the community wanted. The FAR was a factor in that reality. Within a
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particular area, there might be good economic, land use, and community service arguments for increasing the FAR. The FAR could be increased but it would mean that a new Comprehensive Plan designation and a new zoning district would have to be created rather than amending the existing districts which complicated the overall process. When far-reaching, widespread regulations were adopted, whether by initiative or other means, the administration of the regulations would find unintended consequences. To the extent that the Initiative locked things in place, it might be harder to deal with unattended consequences that arose as implementation moved along. Council Member Schneider clarified the Initiative generally restricted the City Council's authority to manage the legal frame work of the City's land use system. She asked whether the same methods would be available if the Initiative passed and eight years later a group of citizens wanted to change the Initiative. Mr. Calonne said a later group could correct or change the provisions in the Initiative through the same initiative process. Council Member Huber clarified if an area plan were done and there was 100 percent agreement in the community but it came in conflict with the Initiative if it passed, the only choice would be to place the issue on the ballot for voter approval regardless of the nature or extent of the agreement of the shareholders. Mr. Calonne said that was correct. Council Member Huber asked whether the Council could put the issue on the next available ballot if in the future it reviewed a process and felt the citizens should vote on the issue. Mr. Calonne said yes. The creation of a process for getting voter approval required many details to be worked out that ranged from legal, policy, to political. Council Member Huber clarified presently nothing was in place to do that. Mr. Calonne said yes, but it was not very adaptable. Council Member Kniss referred to page 10 of the staff report (CMR:365:95) which indicated that the 180-day time period was short and one or more development application moratoriums might be necessary. She asked what would happen if the 180-day time period to create consistency could not be achieved, how that would change the Council's ability to be flexible, and how that would alter the City's philosophy in the Charter--taking the City out of harmony and into consistency. She asked whether a legal interpretation should be done regarding the issues brought forward that evening that were different interpretations. Mr. Calonne replied the staff would recommend that the Council enact an implementing ordinance; and if one or more people felt that was an incorrect interpretation of the initiative, it would
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be subject to a court challenge, e.g., a claim that the Council was without authority to pass the ordinance under the terms of the Initiative. The staff would try to resolve the interpretations through an ordinance that laid out why the Council believed the measure authorized the Council to do that action, and the ordinance would be subject to challenge. He referred to the 180-day time period and implementation and said Ms. Renzel's letter tried to address that there were not many areas where the proponents thought there was potential for inconsistency. He and Mr. Schreiber were concerned with the California-Cambridge Avenue area. If the time period were running out, the question would be whether the City had the authority to continue dealing with development applications in that area because the measure stated a development application inconsistent with the measure could not be approved. If the staff did not have the land use tools to assure the Council that the approval was consistent, staff would have to recommend no action for awhile. He believed 180 days was a fair amount of time, but the City, unlike the Initiative process, would have to go through an environmental review. Mr. Schreiber said part of the concern regarding California Avenue was that the City would have to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). A CEQA analysis required an evaluation of the difference between where the City was presently and a future condition, e.g., the difference would be the additional square footage of 150,000 to California Avenue. Given traffic conditions at Page Mill Road/El Camino Real and other locations in the vicinity, it was not inconceivable that the City would not have a simple environmental review. Given the requirement that the action would have to go to the Planning Commission with public hearing notices, six months was a relatively short amount of time for what might be a rather complex measure. The second concern about California Avenue was that if a cap were established, the people would not want to have a first-come, first-serve use of the cap but would want to discuss excep-tions and try to use the cap to encourage seismic upgrades which left him with the conclusion that the California Avenue rezoning would not be simple. In terms of how the Initiative would change the City's ability to be flexible, as indicated in the staff report and his previous comments, there was a number of previous residential to non-residential designation changes. He said an example of how that flexibility would change was the situation with the well site on Middlefield Road which had been redesignated from major institution/special facilities to single-family residential. The Utilities Department had recently lost a well and might ask the Council to reactivate the well on Middlefield Road; but under the current regulations, the site would have to be taken out of the single-family residential regulation and put back to the major institution/special facilities. If the Initiative passed, that issue would have to go on the ballot. Small situations such as the Williams Property and the Gamble Garden sites were more likely than large-scaled changes which would require voter approval for a land use change to take the sites out of residential and into a public use. Council Member McCown said the third option was that the Council
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direct staff to prepare an alternative measure. She did not believe it would be a helpful step with respect to the issues that were raised by the Initiative to put a competing measure on the ballot. The Council's choices were to put the measure on the ballot along with a Council position on the measure versus some other Council action to adopt it. City Manager June Fleming asked the Council to indicate that evening whether there was any additional information that the staff needed to prepare to help the Council with its deliberation on August 7, 1995. Mayor Simitian noted correspondence received from Robert J. Debs and requested the information be made a part of the record (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office). Council Member Kniss asked Mr. Schreiber to put together a matrix showing the land use decisions. Mr. Schreiber clarified the matrix would identify activities ranging from development applications through proposals, CPAC process or others, to general studies that might or might not be impacted by the Initiative. Mr. Calonne said given the context of an election and initiative, it was appropriate to have the request be in the form of a motion and action by the Council to direct staff to prepare the matrix. MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Wheeler, to direct staff to prepare a matrix showing land use decisions. MOTION PASSED 8-0, Andersen absent. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 10:05 p.m. ATTEST: APPROVED: City Clerk Mayor NOTE: Sense minutes (synopsis) are prepared in accordance with Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 2.04.200 (a) and (b). The City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are made solely for the purpose of facilitating the preparation of the minutes of the meetings. City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are recycled 90 days from the date of the meeting. The tapes are available for members of the public to listen to during regular office hours.
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