HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-09-30 City Council Summary Minutes Adjourned Meeting of September 29, 1997, to September 30, 1997 4. PUBLIC HEARING: The Palo Alto City Council will consider the recommendations of the Planning Commission for a 1998-2010 Comprehensive Plan....................................84-378 ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m.............84-381
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 7:15 p.m. PRESENT: Andersen, Eakins, Fazzino, Huber, Kniss (arrived at 7:25 p.m.), McCown, Rosenbaum, Schneider, Wheeler UNFINISHED BUSINESS 4. PUBLIC HEARING: The Palo Alto City Council will consider the recommendations of the Planning Commission for a 1998-2010 Comprehensive Plan, including goals, policies and programs for six elements (Land Use and Community Design, Transportation, Housing, Natural Environment, Community Services and Facilities and Business and Economics); creation of new land use designation categories and street classifications; a modified Land Use and Circulation Map; and a Governance chapter which is not an element. The Final Environmental Impact Report analyzes potential environmental effects and impacts of the new Comprehensive Plan, mitigation measures for reducing environmental impacts and responds to comments received during public review of the Draft Environmental Impact Report. (continued from 9/29/97) Emily Renzel, 1056 Forest Avenue, said when the Comprehensive Plan was revised in 1975, a draft was made available to the public free of charge, which was 75 pages long, very readable, and policy-oriented. She paid $35 for a copy of the current Draft Comprehensive Plan (the Plan). She red tagged on the policies she had concerns with and green tagged the policies she supported. Since she had previously provided the Council with extensive comments on the red tagged policies without any impact, she believed it would be futile to spend the time to attempt to
influence the current plan. She was discouraged by the Council=s action the past April, which she believed gutted the Citywide Land Use and Transportation Study recommendations. The study was a major step forward in planning for Palo Alto. It acknowledged the extreme limitations on the street system and established zoning limits for particular areas to control traffic increases on the specific street networks which served them. There was also a
citywide cap on growth. The Council=s action in April set a cap which could be raised, was citywide, and did not differentiate where growth occurred. She believed the streets were still limited in capacity, and it did matter where growth occurred within the cap. She questioned what the cap meant if it were not really a cap. She believed the Plan was nothing more than a blueprint for
developers= plans already on the drawing boards. After Council=s consideration of a comprehensive look at the Sand Hill Road Corridor, she questioned Ronald McDonald House seeking open space for expansion and wondered why it was not included in the Sand Hill Road Corridor study. For years, the public raised concerns for
projects seeking to exceed zoning limits. She mused over Council=s
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surprise at a new restaurant creating heavy parking demands without added parking when 15 years prior everyone knew there was a 1,600-space parking deficit in the Downtown. She requested that Council make the document into a Comprehensive Plan and not a developer blueprint. Chop Keenan, 700 Emerson Street, addressed the Land Use Element of the Plan annotated by the Chamber of Commerce. He was concerned about the way Palo Alto wanted to look at the land use process, specifically the numerous references to Coordinated Area Plans, Architectural Design Guidelines, and Urban Design Guidelines. Every area of town, whether it was Downtown, California Avenue, Middlefield Road, or the South of Forest Area (SOFA), would have its own Coordinated Area Plan. Currently, the system included comprehendible, equitable zoning ordinances which defined what was. Whatever vision the Council ultimately decided, would be the vision that set the rules. Previously, when people asked how to
get through Palo Alto=s system, he suggested appearing before the Architectural Review Board (ARB) and to be compelling esthetically and appear from a good planning prospective. The new Land Use Element was interminable and needed much discussion. There were a number of issues which were annotated such as fast food monitoring in the Downtown, the live/work interface, Town and Country described as local serving, the South El Camino Area Plan, adaptive reuse of old (not historic) buildings, parking design guidelines, the Middlefield Road bottleneck, extraction zoning, growth limit tools, retail mix management, and rent control language for San
Antonio and East Bayshore Roads. Those issues were the Αhit
parade≅ highlighted for Council when it reviewed the Plan, particularly the Land Use Element. Mike Midolo, 362 Channing Avenue, referred to Green Page N-24, under the Land Use Element of the Plan and addressed the issue of noise and the Land Use Compatibility for Community Noise Environment table. As a resident of Palo Alto, he was concerned with the standards mentioned on page N-24 because it might endorse those standards which could then be incorporated into future revisions of the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) section 9.10.010 which covered noise. He contacted various City staff members when the PAMC had been violated. Unfortunately, the standards set forth on page N-24 provided specific benchmarks regarding the decibel (dB) noise rating. Currently, under section 9.10.030 of the PAMC
for residential property, which stated, Αno person shall suffer or allow to be produced by any machine, animal, or device, or any combination of same, on residential property a noise level more than 6 dB above the local ambient at any point outside of the
property plane.≅ Further, in section (b) it stated, Αno person shall produce, suffer, or allow to be produced by any machine, animal, or device, or any combination of the same, or multifamily residential property noise level of more than 6 dB above the local ambient three feet away from a wall, floor, or ceiling inside any
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dwelling unit on the same property when the windows and doors of the dwelling unit are closed except within the dwelling unit in
which the noise source or sources may be located.≅ The local ambient meant the lowest sound level repeating itself during a six- minute period as measured with the precision sound level meter using slow response and A weighting. The minimum sound level was determined with the noise source at issue silent and in the same location as the measurement of the noise level of the source or sources at issue. The previously mentioned section of the Plan could be construed as a recommendation that set levels as high as 80 dB in some sections and as low as between 70 and 75 dB in other sections. The levels might be appropriate for University Avenue or other areas mid-day; however, those levels of sound would certainly not be acceptable in a residential neighborhood at 1 a.m. Consideration was not made for that in the Plan. In the ordinance, consideration was made because it stated the reading would be taken with the source at issue silent. If it were 1 a.m., the reading would be fairly accurate, rather than assuming that 65 to 75 dB were acceptable and raising the level of noise at hours which were inappropriate. A specific concern was the Downtown area and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation where a barking dog could be an issue. Currently, 8 of 15 minutes must consist of continuous barking to be a citable offense versus the noise standard where the threshold was much lower. He would continue to lobby on behalf of making the document reasonable and usable within the community. Mayor Huber declared the Public Hearing closed. Mayor Huber suggested adjourning the meeting to Monday, October 6, 1997. In the interim, he asked the City Manager and/or her staff to ascertain additional meeting dates. Council Member McCown placed a high priority on finding back-to-back dates because momentum was lost when too much time elapsed between meetings. If there were dates available, it was important and preferable to have an intense focus to complete the process in November. City Manager June Fleming said due to complicated schedules, staff was faced with having large agendas for both Finance and Policy and Services committees, as a majority of Council desired not to delay several items. She reviewed the upcoming week of October 6 as an example of a typical pattern of meetings. She suggested options of looking at what items were in committee and not address those items before the end of the year, devoting an entire Saturday, or have more than two or three meetings in one week.
Council Member McCown said in light of Mayor Huber=s suggestion to review the calendar on October 6, 1997, part of the review could be to look at the schedule outlined by Ms. Fleming, including the committee calendars, to determine whether there was a reasonable reordering of the priorities of agenda items. She emphasized the
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importance of completing the process with the same Council who had spent the last four years working on it. Ms. Fleming said staff would provide a month-by-month calendar which would show what was scheduled and what dates were open. Mayor Huber suggested using a committee date and asked the City Manager to poll the Council Members on their availability. Ms. Fleming said staff would put together a proposed schedule for the Monday, October 6, 1997, City Council meeting. MOTION TO ADJOURN: Mayor Huber moved, seconded by Andersen, to adjourn the meeting to 7:00 p.m. on Monday, October 6, 1997. MOTION TO ADJOURN PASSED 9-0. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 7:40 p.m. ATTEST: APPROVED:
City Clerk Mayor NOTE: Sense minutes (synopsis) are prepared in accordance with Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 2.04.180(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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