HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-05-31 Parks & Recreation Agenda PacketAGENDA IS POSTED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION
54954.2(a) OR SECTION 54956 PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING May 31, 2016 AGENDA City Hall Chambers
250 Hamilton 7pm *In accordance with SB 343 materials related to an item on this Agenda submitted to the Commission after distribution of the agenda packet are available for public inspection in the Open Space and Parks Office at 3201 East Bayshore Road during normal business hours. Please call 650-496-6962.
Attention Speakers: If you wish to address the Commission during oral communications or on an item on the agenda,
please complete a speaker’s card and give it to City staff. By submitting the speaker’s card, the Chair will recognize you at
the appropriate time.
I. ROLL CALL II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Members of the public may address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A reasonable time restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission
reserves the right to limit oral communications period to 3 minutes.
IV. BUSINESS
1. Approval of Draft Minutes from April 26, 2016 Parks and Recreation Commission Regular
Meeting – Chair Lauing – Action – (5 min) ATTACHMENT
2. Updates on Teen Programs – Amal Aziz - Informational - (20 min) ATTACHMENT
3. Proposed conceptual design on Quarry Road Improvements and Transit Center Access
Project Update - Shahla Yazdy, Transportation – Discussion – (30 min) ATTACHMENT 4. Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Facilities Master Plan - Peter Jensen – Discussion
– Review goals, policies, and programs; introduce park concept maps (60 min)
ATTACHMENT
5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates – Chair Lauing - Discussion
- Gym Use Update – Commissioner Cribbs – (15 min)
V. DIRECTORS REPORT
VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JUNE 28, 2016 MEETING
VII. ADJOURNMENT
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
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Draft Minutes 1
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MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
REGULAR MEETING 7
April 26, 2016 8
CITY HALL 9
250 Hamilton Avenue 10
Palo Alto, California 11
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Commissioners Present: Jim Cowie, Anne Cribbs, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie Knopper, Ed 13
Lauing, David Moss, Keith Reckdahl 14
Commissioners Absent: 15
Others Present: Eric Filseth 16
Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, Peter Jensen, Kristen 17
O'Kane 18
I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 19
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II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 21
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None. 23
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III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 25
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None. 27
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IV. BUSINESS: 29
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1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Meeting of March 22, 2016. 31
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Approval of the draft March 22, 2016 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl 33
and seconded by Vice Chair Knopper. Passed 6-0 Cribbs abstaining 34
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2. Update on the Conceptual Plans for the Rebuilding of the Palo Alto Junior 1
Museum and Zoo 2
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Chair Lauing: Very interesting subject that comes up next is our first substantive issue 4
which is an update on conceptual plans for the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. Rob, 5
if you'd like to lead that off and then introduce our guests. 6
7
Rob de Geus: I will. Good evening, Commissioners. Rob de Geus, Director of 8
Community Services. We're really thrilled to be back here again to talk about the Junior 9
Museum and Zoo and the exciting project that we've been working very hard on. Joining 10
us at the table here, we have Brent McClure and Sarah Vacarro from Cody Anderson and 11
Wasney Architects. We have John Aiken, the Director of the Junior Museum and Zoo. 12
We also have members of the Friends of the Junior Museum and Zoo in the audience, just 13
an outstanding nonprofit organization that has supported the City's Junior Museum and 14
Zoo for many years and are committed to fundraising to rebuild the old facility that was 15
built in 1941. We just wanted to sort of set the stage before I hand it over to them to 16
present. I wanted to express that I think the staff and the architects have really listened to 17
the Commission's concerns about the park and the impacts to the park. It's taken some 18
time for us to come back because they really did some heavy lifting and heavy thinking 19
on how we might adapt the program so that the encroachment onto the park is less than 20
what the Commission was comfortable with. I think they've really done an outstanding 21
job not only by being able to come back off the park as they have, but also with the 22
design of the program and the facility and how it'll operate. I think it's really innovative 23
thinking. Really appreciate the hard work that they've done. We have some new 24
Commissioners here, so we are going to take a little bit of time to catch the 25
Commissioners up. We've been here twice on the Junior Museum and Zoo, so this is the 26
third time. We'll take some time to do that. Who's going to kick it off next? Is it Brent? 27
John Aiken. 28
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John Aiken: John Aiken, Junior Museum and Zoo. I think I know most everybody. 30
Hello. I'm also excited to be here. I think we've heard your comments from our prior 31
meetings and have been hard at work. If we can put the agenda up; there we go. We're 32
going to try and brief you about the mission of the Museum and Zoo; our program goals 33
that were developed for this project; the existing conditions—it's a complicated site and a 34
challenging place to fit our program in, but I think we've done a good job to address 35
that—review what we brought to you in the prior PRC meetings; the comments that 36
you've made and how we've addressed those; and I think a very exciting proposed design 37
that meets our program goals and your concerns. Let me talk a little bit about the Junior 38
Museum and Zoo, one of my favorite subjects. The Junior Museum and Zoo works 39
closely with researchers and professionals to provide a rich environment that stimulates a 40
child's curiosity and creativity. We have about 150,000 visits a year. The institution, I 41
think, really makes an important difference for the head start or the first start in a child's 42
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life in this community. The science of brain development is providing concrete evidence 1
that there's real power in play. Research tells us that play motivates and enhances a 2
child's cognitive and social and emotional growth. Play-based learning environments are 3
more effective than classroom learning, memorization-based learning environments at 4
teaching our children. Those are the kinds of experiences that we design and support. 5
The JMZ provides a strong start for learning in children in eight ways. Each way works 6
to leverage the unique assets of the JMZ, offers to nurture a passion and skills for 7
learning, promotes seamless linkages between formal and informal learning and engages 8
children in low-income families so they too can participate in a learning landscape. The 9
JMZ increases the availability of high-quality learning experiences to all children. We 10
engage and support families as their child's first teachers. We support the development of 11
executive function and deeper learning skills through literacy and STEM-based 12
experiences. We position children for meeting expectation of the common core 13
standards, and we add capacity to early learning networks and improve student 14
achievement. In fact, this year our science outreach program will provide 19,000 school 15
kids with hands-on science-based activities in schools. We create seamless linkages 16
across early learning and early grades. We provide learning during the summer when 17
many children are vulnerable to losing ground with learning. We build community 18
through a vast array of partnerships. Come out to the Junior Museum and Zoo and you'll 19
see all the groups that use us, from childcare facilities to all kinds of social safety 20
networks and things. Rinconada Park has always been and will continue to be the best 21
location to grow the Junior Museum because it leverages the park itself, the scout 22
facilities, the Children's Library, the Art Center. We integrate indoor and outdoor 23
experiences, live animals and collections to provide a strong start for children. With that, 24
I'd like to introduce Brent McClure from Cody Anderson Wasney to talk a little bit about 25
the program and goals. 26
27
Brent McClure: Thanks, John. Brent McClure with Cody Anderson Wasney Architects. 28
We wanted to briefly kind of run through some of the programmatic issues with the 29
existing facility to kind of get you guys up to speed since we last presented back in July. 30
As John eloquently summed up, this project is this marriage of an education center, a 31
museum and a zoo with a tremendous amount of public outreach and all of the wonderful 32
programs that they support. The facility is woefully deficient to really support even the 33
needs and the programs and the operations that they have today. As a tour of some of the 34
spaces, stroller parking alone takes up probably a good 15-20 percent of the museum 35
space right as you enter. Administration, the front desk not having really enough space. 36
The teachers that run these amazing programs are really working –their office and desk 37
space is really undersized. They're just all stacked up on top of each other. Here's how 38
products and exhibit space is kind of being stored. A dearth of storage within the facility 39
to properly accommodate their needs. One of the goals of the project is to achieve 40
accreditation of both the museum space, their collections, as well as the zoo. What we'll 41
need to do is, in essence, sort of right-size the facility to accommodate some of the needs. 42
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By the way that they're operating today, they're unable to do so. This is one of my 1
favorite shots. It's the same room; it's the Zoo Director's office as well as the animal care 2
and food prep room. We've got three different activities that are all happening within the 3
same space. We've got this facility that's bursting at the seams, that's trying to get out to 4
accommodate the space. The next little bit we want to go through sort of existing 5
conditions. 6
7
Sarah Vacarro: I'm sure you all are familiar with the Rinconada Park site. The site is 8
actually a larger parcel owned by the City. The Museum itself sits on the City parcel 9
land, and the Zoo sits on the Rinconada Park land. The green line is the park boundary of 10
Rinconada Park. These are some of the main trees on the site that we are working 11
around. The dark blue-green are heritage oak trees. The red are heritage redwoods. As 12
you can see, they surround the existing Museum and Zoo. There are two special trees, 13
the dawn redwood tree and the mature pecan tree. We're trying to work around and 14
feature them in our proposed design today. There's also a utility corridor that runs 15
underneath the existing Zoo, so that's another site constraint that we're working around 16
with our proposed design. We can't build a building on top of that corridor. The parking 17
lot is a safety hazard and quite hard to navigate today. One of the goals of the larger 18
Rinconada long-range plan is to reconfigure that parking lot, add stalls and make it a 19
much safer vehicular circulation as well as pedestrian and bicycle circulation. These are 20
some quick shots of the existing conditions. The entrance into Rinconada Park from the 21
parking lot today is through a parking lot where they have dumpsters. The face of the 22
Zoo to the park today is a residential-looking wood fence. One of the main goals of this 23
project is to improve both of those entrances. 24
25
Mr. McClure: We wanted to run through and touch on what we've heard and what the 26
charge was that we heard more or less at the last meeting with the designs that we had 27
presented. February 2015 was our first meeting, and then our second meeting with you 28
all was in July 2015. Minimizing buildings within the parkland. We had some buildings 29
we'll show in a second that were physically in the parkland itself. Minimize expansion 30
into the parkland. Not only were we being charged with "let's move the program out of 31
the park but simultaneously let's maintain parking." That other parking edge that we 32
showed, "let's really work to hold that." Conversely, "let's also try to not remove any 33
more trees as well." We've got the utility easement; we've got Walter Hays as a 34
boundary; we've got Middlefield. We've got all of these different constraints that are sort 35
of pushing and impinging on this. We looked at densification. We looked at program. 36
We looked at a variety of different solutions. That's why it's taken us so long to come 37
back to you, because we've been working with the client to sort of get to where we are 38
here today. To recap those schemes. This was the first scheme really back in February. 39
Just to get everyone up to speed, the ever so slightly darker blue was the Museum and 40
Education Center over here. The Zoo, the outdoor Zoo zone was all of this space here, up 41
against Walter Hays. This oval-shaped piece was the open Zoo. This Zoo support 42
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building was this piece in the back. For those that were here, if you recall, we looked at a 1
variety of different ways to kind of look at things. Before I get to the July meeting, this is 2
the diagram that shows how our first presentation to you expands beyond the existing 3
facility. The existing facility, this weird, dashed-line shape here is the Zoo. This lighter 4
pink color is the outdoor Zoo expansion, and then the Zoo support building. We put 5
some diagrams over here on the left to show programmatically the square footages that 6
we were looking at. When we came to you in July, we had a variety of different options, 7
but I think the one that we working towards at the time was can we maintain the existing 8
design and can we just sort of suck in the Zoo and the Zoo support building somewhat to 9
minimize the impact from where we were in February. That's what you see here. You 10
can see the outline of the original design, the white one. The July design now pulls in the 11
Zoo support building, reduced the amount of Zoo. In essence, if you look at this bar 12
diagram, the Zoo got a little bit smaller and the programs stayed about the same. Now, 13
taking the charge of those bullet points that we showed you earlier, I'm going to show a 14
diagram as to the design that we're going to present to you now. We would like to ask for 15
your review. We've significantly reduced the building program by approximately 15 16
percent in building square footage. We've also significantly reduced the actual Zoo 17
program. We went back to the client; we went and re-looked at the amount of space that 18
we have, budget and all these things and were able to make things smaller from what we 19
presented before. I think it's a huge sort of first step. The second move is the Zoo 20
support building and its functions we've completely gotten out of the park. We've now 21
taken those functions of back-of-house Zoo support and absorbed them into a building 22
footprint that's outside the park boundary. The only encroachment at this time is the 23
outdoor space of the Zoo that is, in essence, 50 percent less than what we had back in 24
February. There's no more buildings in the park, and the Zoo boundary from where we 25
had shown it before encroaching into the park has been pulled back by 50 percent. I'm 26
going to walk through the design now. What we've done is—we have this unique-27
looking shape. We basically took the park boundary and fit buildings right up, in and 28
around to the edge of it. The outdoor Zoo space is here, and then the outdoor Zoo 29
support space that was always part of the February and July design is shown over into 30
here. How that fits. Again, just some diagrams to reiterate. There's no buildings into the 31
park. There's only outdoor Zoo space in the park which is consistent with the program as 32
it is today with the Zoo and the park. We've not touched the existing trees. This design 33
doesn't impact any of the trees further. In fact, by pulling the Zoo boundary back, there 34
are two large chestnut trees that are in the park right now, that are now back into the park. 35
Before they were encroached within the Zoo. We didn't really talk about those at the July 36
meeting, but we want to illustrate to you that this move now is preserving those. The 37
utility corridor, we've danced around that as well. That remains untouched, because we 38
can't put any buildings or anything on top of that. The parking, we made a little bit of a 39
nip and a tuck here and moved a spot here or there, but the parking, in essence, has 40
remained unchanged. We've kind of done our darnedest here to adhere to all of the 41
challenges that you set before us in July, to kind of fit this design around it. To kind of 42
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show you the design, here's a shot of a model. We've got a physical model that we've 1
done. One of the big moves, we have an exterior entrance. This is the pecan tree that's 2
out at the front. By pulling the building forward and having an exterior entrance, it really 3
freed up all of these great opportunities for us on the design side with your feedback to 4
now create what we think is an even—actually, we like this design a lot and feel that it's 5
going to be successful for the client and the City. Here's a shot of it from above. 6
Outdoor trellis. This is that classroom building that was shown on the site plan. Here's 7
then the two-story building and the one-story building in the front. The sort of entrance 8
into the park. Here's the plan; I won't get into the details, because there's a lot going on. 9
In essence, here's the edge of the parking lot. The pecan tree is here. We pulled 10
everything much closer to the parking lot. We've taken advantage of the plaza space and 11
located a classroom to anchor that corner over into here. Really, all you have now, this is 12
all Zoo, and this is that Zoo back-of-house space, and then you have the Museum, 13
classroom. That Zoo support building that used to be in the park is this grayish piece 14
that's right up against the edge of the property here. The second story of the design is just 15
this bar shape here, and then this little triangle piece that flanks, so we have actually less 16
of a two-story impact out at the street. We pulled that edge back. There's a butterfly 17
exhibit that then occupies the second story of that classroom building here to kind of 18
anchor the corner. There's an exterior walkway that links the two. You kind of walk 19
across a bridge and look out into the pecan tree. It's to sort of experience the overall. 20
This is a diagram showing sort of the guts and the insides of the Zoo itself. We would 21
have a wall around the perimeter. This is at the ground level. We no longer have these 22
over and under that we had before; the ground plane is now flat. We have a tree house 23
out in the middle with stairs that lead you up over on this side to the butterfly exhibit. 24
Here's the second level of the Zoo that you see here. This is inside that building with the 25
butterfly exhibit. We no longer have—we still have the Loose in the Zoo with the netting 26
that we talked about last time, but the columns that were outboard into the park, all of 27
those have been now pulled back in The perimeter that we show you here on this site 28
plan is the perimeter that we're proposing with this design. 29
30
Ms. Vacarro: The animal management area, that's the exterior Zoo support area that 31
we've been speaking about. It's basically all of the birds and animals that are flying free 32
and loose in the Zoo. This is where they would come to get cared for, to be fed and so 33
forth. This is integral part to serving the Loose in the Zoo (crosstalk). 34
35
Mr. McClure: If they've been stressed by the little kids a little bit too much and they just 36
want a timeout or just to kind of go chill out on the lawn and relax a bit, figuratively 37
speaking. How does this design kind of now fit within the park? We've tried really hard 38
to listen to your comments from July and see how this affects park arrival and park 39
impacts as we look along the edge. First we wanted to look at and study this park 40
entrance. This is a site plan that shows the existing conditions. There's this haphazard—41
the entrance to the Museum is down over here. This little bulbous kind of shape is the 42
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existing Zoo, and then there's this fence zone that's the back of house for the Zoo. I don't 1
know if you can see it clearly on this drawing, but the park boundary really is along this 2
edge. Outside the park boundary is where those dumpsters are and this little staff parking 3
lot inlet. There's a redwood tree that's nice and tall, that's kind of right on the corner, and 4
then the oak tree that's right there, that flanked the entrance. Here's the playground at this 5
spot. What we're looking to do is really grab space outside of the park boundary to kind 6
of create this point of entrance. Although it's not within the boundary, it walks and talks 7
and looks like park space is what we're hoping to accomplish here. In doing so, we now 8
are kind of creating this zone out over into here with some lawn and some loose seating 9
and not having this big plaza zone like we heard last time, but really trying to create more 10
park-like activities as well as maximize the use of the program outside of the park as we 11
talked about before. Here's a shot of what it looks like today. We haven't designed the 12
buildings yet, so this is an early, early-stage rendering of finishes and whatnot, but just to 13
kind of give you a sense as to how the pecan tree would engage the structure, the 14
butterfly exhibit in concept up above and then sort of this entrance space over into here. 15
The second area is now looking kind of down in space a little bit and looking in and 16
around the corner. Again, the existing diagram, the edge of the fence, you have the 17
pathway that wraps around those two chestnut trees and the playground. Here we 18
superimposed the park boundary with this heavy green line. We're showing where the 19
expansion of the Zoo wall is proposed to go. Presently it's overlapping part of the 20
pathway and along this edge and this little nook of lawn space over here on this corner. 21
Here it is in sort of plan design form. The other thing we want to do is move beyond this 22
static wood fence and really think about how does that experience work of that edge and 23
how do we animate it, how do we create park activities and opportunities within the park 24
that sort of really reflect the mission and vision of the Zoo and the experiences that are 25
happening within the Zoo, kind of trying to turn the Zoo almost inside out, if you will. 26
Here's a shot we did also just to kind of illustrate to you in the photograph the extent of 27
where that footprint would be. Here's a shot again in early stages of design. We're 28
thinking about a whole variety of different ideas that could happen. The possibility of 29
mounding up against the wall, so that we bring the scale down and create some 30
opportunities to get some height and play within the park. Looking at sculptural elements 31
that could be embedded within the wall. They might bleed a little bit into the edge of the 32
park to suggest animal play and activities, echoing what's happening within the Zoo. 33
Lastly, cutouts. We're showing a photograph here of a full-blown window cutout. We 34
believe we can still carve cutouts within the space, but we've worked closely with John 35
and his team, and there's a concern of having too much of a picture window and looking 36
into the Zoo. We still believe that we can have these experiences where the wall 37
becomes something that you can almost maybe sit inside of and kind of climb on a little 38
bit and really integrate it within the park. Lastly, this is not photo-shopped. That is a 39
picture of John; I forget the bird's name. 40
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Mr. Aiken: Sequoyah. 42
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1
Mr. McClure: This is Sequoyah, the bald eagle, actually out in Rinconada Park. There's 2
a wonderful opportunity to create spots of demonstration and activities within the park of 3
the Zoo itself. 4
5
Ms. Vacarro: Echoing what John said earlier, the Zoo has always been fully integrated in 6
the park. We believe our proposed design will allow that relationship to blossom even 7
further and leverage the two back-and-forth together. 8
9
Mr. McClure: We've really tried hard to listen to your comments, go back and look at the 10
program, go back and look at the design really, really, hard. There was about eight 11
different schemes that made the cutting room floor before this one. We're excited to hear 12
your comments and hope that we can get some feedback. 13
14
Mr. de Geus: Just to make a quick comment, Chair Lauing. It's a discussion item. It's 15
not really a formal vote on this. What we're looking for is sort of a straw poll that we're 16
headed in the right direction here, that we've got the confidence generally and support of 17
this new design. Staff and the architects would like to move to the next step of starting to 18
go through the formal process of the plan through Planning Commission and 19
Architectural Review Board and Council. If that's okay. 20
21
Chair Lauing: Yep, great. Before I take comments, I just want to make a couple of very 22
short, sort of summary comments. First of all, you gave the recap in our documents that 23
we got before the meeting about what happened at the 15 July and previously 15 24
February. They're totally accurate. That's exactly right. I appreciate you didn't duck the 25
punches. You took the punches and said, "This is what it's about." Again, for the new 26
Commissioners, our concern always is, as you know, even in the Master Plan we're 27
talking about the need for more parkland, and the population is growing. When there's a 28
suggestion that we then have to lose parkland, we took that very seriously and suggested, 29
as you now see some different results here, that there must be a more efficient way to do 30
that and still have a much improved, beloved children's museum. That's kind of just the 31
context for what we've been through to this point. Comments in no particular order. 32
Who would like to make comments? Commissioner Moss. 33
34
Commissioner Moss: I have several questions. First of all, this is a beautiful design. I 35
love it. I was a little bit worried that when you pulled back the wall and gave us more 36
space back that something was going to be lost in the new design. It seems like you've 37
really made it really efficient. This Zoo interaction zone, I think, has tremendous 38
potential. I mean if you could put a little amphitheater and bring the animals out and 39
show people in the park with a little amphitheater, that would be fantastic. It sort of 40
brings the Zoo out to the public. The fact that you gave us that arrival space means more 41
parkland essentially. I like that. Do you lose some heritage trees inside the Zoo today? 42
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Mr. McClure: No. 2
3
Ms. Vacarro: There are no heritage trees within the Zoo footprint. 4
5
Mr. Aiken: There used to be one large alder tree, but it died of old age last year and was 6
taken out. 7
8
Commissioner Moss: I think that's enough for now. That's really great. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Keith, did you have anything? 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: (inaudible) 13
14
Chair Lauing: Maybe get a perspective from one of our old-timers here. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: I do appreciate pulling off the park, and I appreciate that we've 17
pushed more towards Middlefield. I think that was an unused space last time. I think this 18
is a much better design. Some questions about the Zoo interactive zone. You showed 19
some pictures here. Do you anticipate that it's going to be grass? Do you anticipate 20
concrete? What do you expect? 21
22
Mr. McClure: We're very early in the process of the design, but I think our ideas and 23
vision would be a combination of soft materials, not concrete, either decomposed granite. 24
There might be some grass and then some foundation planting and whatnot. As we move 25
through the design, it'll be to have focused areas of interaction so that it doesn't bleed and 26
spread out. We've got strategic focal points. 27
28
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is the primary purpose to showcase animals or to have Zoo 29
programs out there? What's the purpose of the Zoo interactive zone? 30
31
Mr. Aiken: I can probably address that. We run a number of summer camps out in the 32
park. The green space is great for that, but also some programming space that's informal. 33
I think the key is to create something that doesn't look like it's empty when it's not being 34
used, but can still serve our needs. Whether it's just a grassy knoll that rolls around or 35
that has a log or a stone or a sculpture that's strategically placed that becomes sort of our 36
stage and focal point could work. As Brent says, we're just beginning to start that 37
process. We're also beginning to look at the integration of the Park Master Plan 38
playground renovation with this project. I think there may be great synergy as we go into 39
that design process. 40
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Commissioner Reckdahl: That path that you show up there is cutting through the current 1
playground, so the playground is going to be shifted, which means we lose green space 2
on the other side also. My concern with that Zoo interaction zone is—I think it's a logical 3
place, and I like the idea of bringing the Zoo outside and having a change of scenery for 4
the campers or for just students. I want that to be park space that's used by the Zoo as 5
opposed to Zoo space that's used by the park people. I want it to look like park. I want it 6
to be able to do things other than just showcase animals or do Zoo camps. I'm really 7
concerned about the look and feel of that. I don't want that to look like part of the Zoo. I 8
want it to look like part of the park. What are the dimensions of the animal—what is it 9
called? The animal management area. How far does that stick out, that corner? 10
11
Mr. McClure: One more time, which corner? 12
13
Ms. Vacarro: The square footage of that animal management area is just about 3,000 14
square feet. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: How far—if you look on the far right there, that corner, how 17
far is that from the current school right now? 18
19
Ms. Vacarro: I would say it's in the 20 to 25-foot range. We're also holding the fence 20
line off of the property line with the Zoo about 3 feet, so that there's adequate egress out 21
of that multipurpose space, back out into the park. I believe that's their current egress 22
plan for the multipurpose space. 23
24
Commissioner Reckdahl: I went out there today to look at this. I eyeballed it, compared 25
it to the size of the school there. On the very bottom right, you can see that school 26
building. That school building was like 30 strides. Looking at the ratio, it looked like 27
this was much further. It looked like on the order of 24 strides going out there. I walked 28
out there, and I couldn't believe how far it was from the school. That's a really big chunk 29
of land. I did measure it three times, that this can't be right. On paper it doesn't look that 30
big. In the park, it actually looks big. Going into this, I was very optimistic that this 31
design was a great improvement. When I went out there and stood in the park, I realized 32
that this animal area is going to take up a good chunk of the park still, not as bad as it was 33
before. I'm torn. I think this is a good improvement, and I think maybe a bigger Zoo isn't 34
necessarily a bad thing. Still we're losing some park space there. I have some 35
reservations. Overall, I think the design is very good. I think you've accommodated a lot 36
of our requests. Overall, I'm very optimistic. Public bathrooms. Does that classroom by 37
the parking lot, on the upper left, have any exterior public bathrooms? 38
39
Mr. McClure: The public bathrooms have been removed from the project at this point 40
with the buildings being outside of the park. 41
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Commissioner Reckdahl: That's just lack of space? 1
2
Mr. McClure: Yeah, and looking at the budget. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: I guess that's a park planning. Are we, as park planners, happy 5
with just restrooms over by the pool or in the long-term plan did we want restrooms here? 6
7
Mr. de Geus: I think we want restrooms somewhere in this end of the park. It's such a 8
busy park, as you know, so many facilities. It gets so much traffic. Finding a way to add 9
a bathroom somewhere on this northern end of the park would be good. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: Even if they're outside of the park, I have no problem with the 12
park paying for that. I'm not sure how that works. It would be a park facility. People 13
using the park would be able to use. I think it would be a public benefit. If we could 14
squeeze that in without displacing usable space in the Zoo, I think that would be a plus to 15
the design. The previous designs all had public bathrooms, and I thought that was a good 16
aspect. In summary, I think the design is nice. I still have some misgivings about the 17
size. I don't think it's a showstopper, but I still have to ponder what's the appropriate 18
amount of space to give up in the park. 19
20
Mr. McClure: Just a quick comment on that. One of the things I didn't mention in the 21
presentation is that we worked closely with John to look at—this question will come up 22
about the Zoo expanding into the space. What we've come away with is a reduced 23
program in the number of exhibits that we had and from what we presented before. 24
However, it's a number that fits within sort of the strategic plan of the Museum and Zoo. 25
With the amount of fundraising—this is a 100-percent donor funded project. In doing so, 26
they feel that we have to grow it a little bit to make sure that it's a viable opportunity and 27
that we're not just sort of recreating what is there. If we were to live within the existing 28
footprint, we'd have to actually have fewer exhibits than we have today, because we'd 29
have to meet egress requirements, ADA accessibility and Zoo back-of-house support to 30
create this loose in the Zoo experience. That's kind of why we've landed sort of where 31
we are with the boundary today and the amount of square footage. 32
33
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is there any way we could bring, on the far right, that corner 34
with more of a square? 35
36
Mr. McClure: Pull this edge back more? 37
38
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 39
40
Mr. McClure: Yeah. That's something we could look at. 41
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Commissioner Reckdahl: Was that edge there for aesthetics? To give that Zoo 1
interaction area better aesthetics? Why did we have that corner pointing out? 2
3
Mr. McClure: I think the thinking was that sort of frames this interaction area and it kind 4
of creates a little bit of a backdrop. If visually we feel that this is bumping out into the 5
Zoo a little bit, I think we could absolutely consider kind of pulling this back a little bit 6
and kind of opening the angle up. If that would help. 7
8
Chair Lauing: Is that single story there or no? 9
10
Mr. McClure: It's a wall. 11
12
Ms. Vacarro: It's all exterior space. It's not an 8-foot high wall. There will be a netting 13
that goes up to that 12 feet, but it's all exterior. It's going to be mostly animal enclosures 14
for the animals to come out of the (inaudible). 15
16
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Cribbs, did you have some comments? 17
18
Commissioner Cribbs: I did, yes. I wasn't here for last summer's discussion, so I'm sort 19
of coming to this new. I wanted to congratulate the planners. I think that the design, to 20
me, looks really good. I think that it's really time—as a mom who took her kids to the 21
Junior Museum forever and a grandma who takes her grandchildren there now, it's a 22
wonderful treasure for Palo Alto, but it needs some updating and upgrading. I'm just 23
excited to see us moving along. I'd love to see how fast we can get there. I know people 24
have comments and want to do this and want to do that, but I think it would be really 25
great if we could agree and move forward on all of this. I would like to ask if the staff 26
feels that this space is adequate now, since you've had to pull back from the parkland, to 27
do what you really want to do and really what the Friends see since they're going to be 28
funding a lot of this or all of it. 29
30
Mr. Aiken: I can address the staff's concerns. I've got to say as we went through this 31
process, there was a lot of sweaty palms and grinding of teeth and worry and stuff. As 32
we prepared for this, we worked hard and we've got all of the program elements that are 33
valuable to the staff in here. I think we're very excited about this design. As Brent said, I 34
think the hard work has really paid off. In many ways, it's actually a better design than 35
the original one. There are some things that we've given up. I think it will actually be an 36
amazing space. 37
38
Commissioner Cribbs: That's great to know. My hope is that a whole new generation of 39
Palo Alto children will enjoy it as some of the old generations have. Thank you very 40
much. 41
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Chair Lauing: Commissioner Knopper. 1
2
Vice Chair Knopper: Thank you. Thank you so much for your hard work. I know how 3
difficult this must have been and how many sacrifices and sweaty palms to your point. I 4
think it looks fantastic. I wholeheartedly support this design. I think you listened to the 5
Commission. I know that you probably, based on the amount of programming you do, 6
are at the minimum, cutting off a corner here and there. This happens to be one of my 7
neighborhood parks, so I've spent many hours there. The corner that my colleague was 8
talking about maybe cutting back, it's sort of like a dead corner, like a no-man's land now. 9
The opportunity to maybe develop integrative space out there that looks like parkland, 10
integrating art and sculpture that can be play areas for children when you're not bringing 11
the bald eagle out, I think is just another fantastic opportunity for people who visit the 12
park, for kids to climb on. I liked the idea of cutouts last time. I thought that was really 13
cool, a place to sit, checkout animals from the park side. I also love the idea of a grassy 14
knoll, kind of mounding up and giving some texture and dimension to the park. Kids 15
love mounds. They love rolling down them and throwing things down them. I think 16
that's fantastic. My only question is, because you had to cut back, are any of your 17
existing animals going to lose residence? Are you going to have to give anybody up with 18
this limiting of space? 19
20
Mr. Aiken: Thankfully no. 21
22
Vice Chair Knopper: Good. The next question is with this new design, will it provide an 23
opportunity for new furry or fuzzy friends to join your collection? That are alive, not the 24
stuffed ones. 25
26
Mr. Aiken: Did I hear kangaroo? Not quite enough room for a kangaroo, but we still 27
reserved a space for meerkats or prairie dogs in the site plan and a few other animals that 28
are pretty exciting. Let us get further along in the design before we share them with you. 29
The other thing about this back-of-house program animal space is it provides the kind of 30
support so that we can have handle-able animals for both the school programs, onsite 31
programs within the Zoo, but also to enliven the park and bring animals out. It gives us 32
the space to really work with an interesting collection. 33
34
Vice Chair Knopper: I know the entry area with the pecan tree, that looks fantastic. That 35
looks wonderful. It just feels like a lovely entry. I would encourage native plantings as 36
much as we can for that entry of the park. Where we can limit concrete, that's a good 37
thing. That's all. Thank you. 38
39
Chair Lauing: I'm just going to keep working down the line here. I have a couple of 40
comments. One, of course, it's 50 percent less than February, but we still haven't heard 41
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what is the percentage of incursion into the park. How much of the square footage do 1
you take up of the park that you don't already have? 2
3
Ms. Vacarro: The square footage of the proposed new boundary beyond the existing Zoo 4
footprint is 5,600 square feet. The existing Zoo sits on about 8,600 square feet in 5
parkland. 6
7
Chair Lauing: In any design that we looked at before, there was some tree loss. Can you 8
identify if there is and how significant it is? 9
10
Ms. Vacarro: There are some trees, probably in the range of 12 that would be lost with 11
this design. If we go back ... 12
13
Chair Lauing: Is that along Middlefield? I know that was one of the debate areas. 14
15
Ms. Vacarro: Yes, there are a number on Middlefield. There's three large atlas cedars 16
that sit right here. Those will be lost; however, it's our understanding from meeting with 17
Dave Docktor that these trees are towards the end of their lifespan and they also drop 18
limbs very easily. They're not a great spot for kids to be playing under regardless. We'll 19
be losing those as well as a couple of small trees in here. None of them are heritage, and 20
they're not super noteworthy trees. There's a large, I think, juniper bush/tree that we'll be 21
losing as well as another small tree here. We are again maintaining these two large 22
chestnut trees that provide a lot of shade in the park. We'll be featuring them in that Zoo 23
interaction zone. 24
25
Mr. McClure: The expectation is that we'll add trees out at Middlefield that are 26
appropriate for that street edge, working with the City to pick the right species and 27
replace more trees than we remove. 28
29
Mr. Aiken: Many of the trees that are actually in the Zoo were planted for the animals, 30
and some of them have had a less than ideal existence, that are probably not ideal trees to 31
try and preserve. That value of planting trees for the animals still exists, so the new plans 32
for the Zoo will plant lots more trees for the animals. The Zoo will be a verdant 33
landscape. 34
35
Chair Lauing: As we're trying to share parkland and Zoo land, we also have to share 36
parking space land. I looked at that and even looked at Rinconada. There's about plus-12 37
net ADA slots for regular parking, I think, in the new design. Over on Hopkins Avenue, 38
there's about plus-eight net. Do we feel like we're done with that or in the Rinconada 39
design is there an opportunity to look at more? I don't see Peter Jensen here, who 40
designed that park so far. If there's 150,000 visitors, the Zoo's going to be spectacular. 41
We talked last time about we're going to get more visitors. We even talked about what 42
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does it cost to do underground parking, and we're ending up with 20 more spaces. We're 1
not really making strides there. There's not room for everything. I'm not saying you can, 2
but it's an ongoing concern. I don't know if there's anything we can do relative to having 3
Rinconada take up some of that slack or if you even looked at underground parking that 4
costs an extra $3 million or whatever. I guess I just raise the alert on that one. The last 5
time there was that tent structure that reached out. Is that gone entirely now in this 6
design? 7
8
Mr. McClure: The netting is still over the walled perimeter. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Is the tent with poles, the overhang ... 11
12
Mr. McClure: The poles have all been removed from the park. We're going to align the 13
poles then with the boundary of the wall. They'll be within that footprint. 14
15
Chair Lauing: The only other question I have is if, for example, this went to Council and 16
they said, "We just don't want to incur anymore on parkland," what's next? In other 17
words, what's your fallback or is that more sweaty palms and excruciating meetings? 18
You don't know at this point. 19
20
Mr. Aiken: That's a good question, and it's beyond sweaty palms. The institution really 21
does need to be right-sized. Our existing audience doesn't have enough toilet fixtures. 22
We can't meet accreditation standards the way we are. After looking at this project so 23
long, the fit within this park is so right because of the other children's facilities. I think 24
the development of the park is the right thing to do. I'm, of course, the Manager of the 25
Zoo and, of course, I would say that. The synergy here really works. In our visitor 26
surveys, most of our users use the park as well, so there really is an ebb and flow back 27
and forth between the park. We want to continue that relationship. 28
29
Chair Lauing: Just on the wish list for maybe next time, it'd be great to see alternate 30
elevations of the Zoo side facing—I mean, 100 percent of them are going to be better 31
than a fence looking in there. It's just been horrendous since day one. To get a feel of it, 32
ideally, sort of overstating it, you want somebody to walk in and kind of not know that 33
they entered the Zoo or that they left the Zoo going to the park. As seamless as possible 34
to make that all the same thing would go a long way psychologically and, dare I say, even 35
politically to make it work even better. That's my comments. Commissioner Hetterly. 36
37
Commissioner Hetterly: I really appreciate the hard work you all put in to address all of 38
our comments. I know it was somewhat disheartening to hear from us the last time 39
around. Along with Keith, obviously, I hate the idea of giving up any park square 40
footage, but I also agree that this is a really vital use to our community. I think this is a 41
great design. I share Ed's concerns about the parking as we have from day one. That's 42
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obviously not a unique problem to this project; that's a Citywide problem. I'm very 1
happy to see the poles and the awning moved. I think that really ended up creating an 2
encroachment that was significantly greater than what's shown on your original plans. If 3
you take that into account, you really are looking at more than a 50 percent reduction in 4
the original plan. I appreciate that quite a bit. I had one other question about the shuttle. 5
I think at one point there was a plan to have a shuttle stop in front of the Junior Museum. 6
Am I confusing that with a different discussion? No. Is that still in this plan? Hopefully 7
that will help somewhat with the parking . 8
9
Mr. de Geus: That's a recommendation we have from our Planning and Transportation 10
folks. 11
12
Mr. McClure: You can see the bump-out on Middlefield is part of the Master Plan. 13
14
Commissioner Hetterly: That remains with this redesign. That's all I have. I think it's a 15
great improvement. I'm really glad to hear that you're happy with it too. 16
17
Chair Lauing: Jim, did you have any comments? 18
19
Commissioner Cowie: I do. I think it really looks fantastic, and I'm excited to see it 20
completed. I just have one question, which you may have covered—if so, I apologize—21
in the earlier meetings. My understanding is there's no roof over the animal management 22
area. I'm just wondering how do we secure the animals against interference from 23
teenagers and whatnot. 24
25
Mr. Aiken: The animal management area, there are individual enclosures. I'm going to 26
use Sequoyah as an example. She lives in a house behind the scenes now, and she has 27
her own lawn where she comes out and perches and has a bath. It's how we interact with 28
her. Over the top of that area where we work with her is a net that is required by our 29
State permits as a secondary containment. There'll be that kind of netting over the top of 30
all of the management areas. 31
32
Commissioner Cowie: Thank you. 33
34
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Knopper has a follow-up. 35
36
Vice Chair Knopper: Do you track where your 150,000 visitors a year come from? Are 37
they a majority residents? Just going to the parking issue and shuttles and how we're 38
going to move people in and out of this facility. I'm just curious about that. 39
40
Mr. Aiken: We could probably get into more detail after we finish the CEQA analysis. 41
What the traffic studies are showing is that our peak usage is not at the same time the rest 42
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of the City of Palo Alto has peak usage. It makes sense with toddlers, moving them 1
around in the middle of the day. We do survey our visitors, and we know that they come 2
from about 15 miles in either direction and only about a quarter of them are from Palo 3
Alto. 4
5
Vice Chair Knopper: Thank you. 6
7
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Moss. 8
9
Commissioner Moss: Three quick follow-up questions. I'm intrigued by the possibility 10
of having public bathrooms. I was wondering if there was any way you could swap the 11
classroom with the inside bathrooms and only have outside bathrooms, like you would in 12
a national park. In the visitor's center, you don't have the bathrooms inside; you have 13
them outside, facing out. Is there any way you could swap the classroom with the 14
bathrooms that are inside? The second thing is the outdoor animal management area has 15
the net, but does it have like two-story cages so you could have double the number of 16
animals in the same space. 17
18
Mr. Aiken: No, they're actually all less than 8 feet high. 19
20
Commissioner Moss: The last question is will there be any changes to the playground 21
that's just outside there today? 22
23
Mr. de Geus: There will be. The current playgrounds are separated. We've got the 24
younger playground and the older playground are going to be combined together. Our 25
hope is that the design of the new playground will relate to the Junior Museum and Zoo 26
and the new facility, so kids can continue to experience some of what they're 27
experiencing in the Zoo when they go out into the park. 28
29
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 30
31
Commissioner Reckdahl: How does the combined size of those playgrounds currently 32
compare to the combined size of the new playground? Is it going to be roughly the same 33
size? Are we gaining or losing playground area? 34
35
Mr. de Geus: I might need the help of Peter Jensen on this question. This is related to 36
the Rinconada long-range plan. Do you know the answer to that one, Peter? 37
38
Peter Jensen: No. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect for the City of Palo Alto. 39
Currently there is no specific design for the playground. It will definitely increase in size 40
at that end of the playground. Like Rob said, we are combining the two playgrounds into 41
one. It will take up less space in the overall park when both playgrounds are combined. 42
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There will be a gain of park space over by the tennis court area, underneath the existing 1
heritage oak tree that's there. That'll also help preserve that oak tree for a longer period 2
of time. As far as the exact square footage, I cannot give that to you. It will be 3
incorporated into that end of the design and the design of the playground. Hopefully, the 4
building will take place at the same time, so those things are linked together very well. 5
6
Commissioner Reckdahl: There's currently a couple of big trees over there, at least one 7
big redwood, that is now going to be inside the playground. Is there any danger to that 8
tree from the playground? 9
10
Mr. Jensen: Again, that's all about the playground design itself. You can see in 11
situations like we did for Magical Bridge, where it has the cork oak trees incorporated 12
into the design, every effort will be made to maintain the environment for those trees to 13
exist there. The idea is they would stay in their place. They would not be relocated or 14
removed for the playground. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: Redwoods have such shallow roots, that any type of 17
construction around them may damage them. We're comfortable that that's not going to 18
be a problem? 19
20
Mr. Jensen: Yes. 21
22
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 23
24
Char Lauing: This is not—sorry, go ahead. 25
26
Mr. de Geus: I just wanted to follow up on a couple of things as we conclude. The 27
bathroom, we'll take a look at that broadly. I don't think it's fair to ask this project to 28
accommodate exterior bathrooms to support the park necessarily. It creates an 29
opportunity to think about how we might do that in terms of the long-range plan for the 30
park. I also wanted to mention we will be back at some point for a Park Improvement 31
Ordinance. We can really move forward now with the design, I think, with a few little 32
tweaks here and there. The last thing I wanted to mention—I mentioned it last time. For 33
those that are still concerned about the loss of open lawn space, I think it's not so much a 34
loss of parkland. That's not how I see it. We have lots of facilities in our parks, tennis 35
courts and pools, and interpretive centers in our open space. I think the Junior Museum 36
and Zoo is like an intensive interpretive center. It's really an amazing place. Kids and 37
families that go through there have an appreciation for parks and the natural world in a 38
really meaningful way that lasts for a lifetime for these kids. What helps me is it's a 39
different use of parkland, but a very consistent use in terms of the values and mission of 40
Community Services and parks generally. I just thought I'd leave that with you. 41
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Chair Lauing: I was going to just say that it's not a vote tonight. The Improvement 1
Ordinance might be coming as soon as next month, I saw from our packet, or the month 2
after. It'll be imminent. I think you wanted a sense tonight of—I'm going to just try to 3
summarize because we're not going to really vote on this. The sense that I have is that 4
there's pretty broad support. A couple of significant areas that are of concern are parking 5
and maybe that corner push-out there and the high importance, which is redundant 6
because you're going to look at this, that the facing into the park needs to look park-like. 7
That's going to be a high attention area for everyone of us and Council and so on. 8
9
Commissioner Cowie: I think we ought to add the bathroom ... 10
11
Chair Lauing: And bathroom. 12
13
Commissioner Cowie: ... to the list of things. 14
15
Chair Lauing: That was actually in an earlier design, and now it's not. 16
17
Vice Chair Knopper: I actually don't agree with the bathroom issue. To Rob's point, I 18
think that's part of the larger park, if you're asking for our straw poll opinion. I think 19
that's a separate conversation that shouldn't be attached to that. That's just my individual 20
opinion. 21
22
Chair Lauing: You weren't saying that it had to be funded by the Friends of the park, just 23
that if there was an opportunity there, to look at it. 24
25
Commissioner Cowie: No. I was saying of the things that got some attention in this 26
conversation. I'm not advocating one way or the other actually. 27
28
Vice Chair Knopper: That wouldn't preclude us from ... 29
30
Commissioner Cowie: I think that came up multiple times, so I think we ought to note 31
that as well. 32
33
Chair Lauing: And it comes up in the Master Plan surveys and plans. Rob suggested that 34
that does have to be looked at somewhere in the park there. 35
36
Commissioner Reckdahl: It has to be more efficient to put a bathroom on an existing 37
building than have a standalone building. I think we want to at least consider it. 38
39
Chair Lauing: Are there any other concerns that we should mention along with general 40
support of the new design? I think the bottom line is it's still more in the park than it was 41
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before, but we understand that it is park-like and a good, intimate relationship with what 1
goes on there. We're saying that, with reluctance but enthusiasm ... 2
3
Vice Chair Knopper: I'm not reluctant. I just want to go on record; I'm enthusiastic. 4
5
Commissioner Cribbs: No, me neither. I'm (crosstalk). 6
7
Chair Lauing: Reluctant about losing parkland, because that's ... 8
9
Vice Chair Knopper: In my opinion, we're not losing parkland. We're gaining a 10
fantastic, updated, interesting, "different than other cities have" resource. 11
12
Chair Lauing: Any other? Thanks very much, and we'll look forward to seeing it again 13
with even more pictures, so we can start visualizing it and visualizing our visits there. 14
15
3. Proposed conceptual design on Quarry Road Improvements and Transit 16
Center Access Project 17
18
Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is review of the conceptual design of Quarry 19
Road improvements and Transit Center access. Rob, are you going to introduce our 20
guests there or Kristen? This is scheduled for about 30 minutes. 21
22
Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson with Open Space, Parks and Golf. It's 23
my pleasure to introduce Shahla Yazdy from Transportation and Paul Schneider from 24
Siegfried Engineering. They're going to share a little bit about the conceptual design for 25
Quarry Road improvements. 26
27
Shahla Yazdy: Good evening, Chair Lauing and Commissioners. My name is Shahla 28
Yazdy. Real brief about the project. We are requesting feedback from you regarding the 29
proposed conceptual plans for the Quarry Road improvements and Transit Center access. 30
To give you a brief background, this project was a result of a development agreement 31
between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto where the City was obligated to 32
design and construct these improvements on Quarry Road and also the transit connection 33
before the permitting of the hospital, which is happening in spring 2017. We're on a 34
pretty tight timeline. We need to start construction no later than this summer. I will turn 35
it over to Paul, and he will introduce the project and go over some of the improvements 36
that we're proposing. Thank you. 37
38
Paul Schneider: Thank you. Also here with me is Bob Norbutas. He's one of our lead 39
landscape architects. Bob and I were really the pair that worked on the El Camino Park 40
which is just adjacent to this. I recognize a few of you. We went through a lot of 41
gyrations on that. You'll see, as I walk through what is sort of technically the normal 42
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ARB package that we are planning to go to the Architectural Review Board with here 1
shortly, you'll see a lot of the same elements coming out of El Camino Park. We didn't 2
really want to reinvent the wheel. One of the things that I wanted to say is this really is—3
although, I think it'll be a wonderful addition to that empty piece of land that is next to 4
the park and it'll provide a lot of connectivity and a lot of benefits to the City and the 5
community, is an interim solution. There are still a lot of things in play with the Transit 6
Center long term. I know I've heard a lot of different bits and pieces there. Please keep 7
in mind that what we are doing is an interim solution, but we all know how long interim 8
can last at times. If I may, I'll just go ahead and step through sort of the bits and pieces, 9
and then let you guys get right to any questions you may have or comments. I know you 10
were provided just one page, I believe, out of these 14 or 15 pages, which is the color site 11
plan. I'll go through some of the beginning pieces. As you can see, we're basically 12
showing up here all of El Camino Park Phase 2 that was built, which was a synthetic 13
field, and all the pathway systems. Tried to capture some of the images. I know you can 14
see this on your screen. Wonderful. You can see all the images that we're trying to 15
capture of what is there now and what the park looks like. We really did in the second 16
phase of the park—when you reconstructed it after the reservoir was built, we have a lot 17
of decomposed granite paths that now sort of encompass that whole park. We've got the 18
Class 1 bike path that runs parallel to El Camino Real. Largely the bike path just kind of 19
dead-ended into the old bike path. We have the ramp that comes off of Quarry and El 20
Camino Real there. The connectivity was just kind of poor, and it was getting old. We're 21
trying to set the stage a little bit for what this looks like here. This is an exhibit that, if 22
you've got a really good memory you might remember from El Camino Park, showing 23
the Class 1 bike path which is, I believe, the more orange color if my eyes aren't letting 24
me down. The yellow that runs across the top is sort of a walking loop that we had put in 25
there including a walking loop that comes now around the right-hand edge of the park at 26
the softball outfield and kind of tucks its way back into that Olympic grove there, which 27
is a small cluster of redwoods that are down there. It also sort of dead-ends into the path. 28
We're going to pick up all that pathway system. Realistically what you see here is the 29
demolition plan. It's the existing sort of asphalt path that's kind of falling apart. It's too 30
narrow; it's about 8 feet wide. It's got a very sharp bend in the corner as you come either 31
eastbound or westbound along the bike path. As you keep in mind, this sort of pattern 32
you see in the background is also reflected in the color exhibit you have, to try to give 33
you an idea of the two that are overlaid together. If you haven't been out there, it's hard 34
to tell where you are. I'll stop on this slide. Our goals were to try to create as much 35
direct connectivity from the Transit Center out to basically Quarry and El Camino so 36
folks can get on their way down this expanded bike path, which is largely a striping 37
project as you come down Quarry Road all the way to Welch and the hospital. The only 38
problem with the direct connectivity, if you've been out there, is there is just an 39
unbelievable amount of utilities. There's the SFPUC water turnout which is a giant, sort 40
of vertical 6-foot box that's out there. There's the high power lines went in and they 41
relocated them in 2009 and '10. There are a lot of guy anchors. We're trying to pick our 42
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way around these things along with, of course, all the trees that we have and, meanwhile, 1
trying to maintain—as you'll see in the staff report, there's as a civil engineer more of the 2
nerd talk about design speeds with the pathway and the curves of the pathway. Ideally 3
we were trying to maintain sort of the standard design for a Class 1 bike path, which is 20 4
miles an hour. That is really fast for this. It doesn't really allow the broad, sweeping 5
turns that we need. You can see we sort of back-calculated some things and tried to get 6
reasonable radii onto the center of the path, reasonable sight distances as you come 7
around the curve and sort of "T" your way back into El Camino Real. There's a little bit 8
of a cluster of trees and some power poles, so we're trying to maintain sight distance as 9
you're coming around a corner. Really the key there, that I didn't really know if we came 10
to the punch line in the report, is that we really want to be able to post speed-limiting 11
signs on this, so that we don't have a tendency to have bikes kind of fly through there. 12
We've always been fairly strong on saying this is both a pedestrian and a bike access 13
pathway. I've seen as many walkers ad bikers there. It's connecting people coming from 14
all different directions. This really is an apex. I think Bob did a wonderful job of then 15
trying to soften things up, trying to use the landscaping, for instance, at the "T" where 16
you come off from the Mitchell Park restaurant here at the bottom of your screen and you 17
sort of circle up. We've even included a little bit of mounding in that apex there to keep 18
pedestrians from wanting to cut the corner. At the same time, we've been working with 19
Shahla, and she's been reaching out to various people and Daren to talk a little bit. We 20
actually have a little decomposed granite pathway for walkers that are accustomed to 21
taking the old pathway, so that they don't want to just kind of cut through the middle of 22
the bark. Largely, it's resolving the radii that are too tight. It's helping with the speed. 23
It's giving as much direct connectivity while sort of getting around all the obstacles that 24
are out there while also trying to accommodate walkers and bikers at the same time. 25
Coupled with this—if anybody really cares about grading, you can dive into this sheet a 26
little bit. We've gone ahead and we've shown some of the details as we'll get into with 27
the Architectural Review Board later. Some of the samples that you can see on your 28
screen here. A lot of these cut sheets, if you will, these pictures, the LED fixture that you 29
see there, sort of the railroad-type fixture, it is the fixture that was installed in El Camino 30
Park. From the color rendering, you'll see just into the park there's actually one of the 31
fixtures. We'll maintain all those fixtures along this path. We have enough capacity from 32
the El Camino Park project to tie into that system. They're all LED. I think they're a 33
great level of light. I think Daren's pretty pleased with the amount of light in the park. 34
As it turned out, I think we've gotten nothing but positive feedback. There's an image 35
right in the middle of the screen that shows the actual bike—there's a bollard with a slight 36
raised island in the middle of it, which is traffic control. The Bike Commission, if I'm 37
not mistaken, has commented that they don't want to see those bollards. They're not 38
critical to the functionality of the bike path. It's more of just keeping vehicles out of the 39
area. That is certainly something that can be eliminated and has been commented by 40
others that they don't want to see that. One of the key things that is happening with this 41
as well is we've created three different alternatives for wayfinding signage. Your lower-42
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left sign is largely just your sort of common—it's the City standard. It's what you'll 1
probably see within the Quarry Road right-of-way as more of a regulatory-type 2
wayfinding sign. We've also looked at creating some custom signs for this area, which is 3
also something that was funded by the financial agreement. These are images of what 4
they might look like. We'd encourage any feedback on these. I think probably the one 5
thing—we talked about it with El Camino Park a lot; we even heard it in the previous 6
presentation this evening—is unfortunately there is one tree that seems to be in our way. 7
It is a very small diameter Chinese pistache that is right as you come off of El Camino 8
Real. We tried as hard as we could, but we don't think we can avoid it. The health is 9
reasonable, and the arborist report is included in here. It's one of the trees back in 2011 10
that was kind of on the cusp. Please consider that if you're thinking about the trees. We 11
keep all the oaks and all the redwoods that are in the area. We're avoiding everything 12
quite nicely. We don't have any issues with getting into tree drip lines. On El Camino 13
Park we had some porous concrete on the Class 1 path, if you've been out there, where 14
we've actually bifurcated the path and sent it around the tulip trees that are out there, if 15
I'm not mistaken. They seem to be really healthy, and it worked out pretty well. I would 16
certainly let Bob step up and speak to the species of the plants that he's proposing in the 17
areas, if you're interested in talking about those. We do have a full planting plan and 18
pictures of the plant palette available. 19
20
Mr. Anderson: I would just like to add the plan is to return to the Commission next 21
month with a Park Improvement Ordinance that the Commission would be asked to vote 22
on to recommend to Council to approve, because this is on parkland. I would also point 23
out that during our very lengthy process of working on the El Camino Park project, 24
Council had been very vocal about wanting a pathway connection that was improved, that 25
connected the park with the rest of the transit area. It's in keeping with the direction the 26
Council had given us many years ago. 27
28
Mr. Schneider: I think the only thing I'd like to add is we do have some 11x17 hard 29
copies of the entire packet that I just presented to you, that Bob has. If anybody would 30
like a hard copy, if it's appropriate to hand that to you, you're more than welcome to it. 31
32
Chair Lauing: Ready for questions? Who's the first one that's going to ask where's the 33
dog park in this? I don't see it. 34
35
Vice Chair Knopper: (crosstalk) 36
37
Chair Lauing: I thought I'd get that out of the way early, Daren, just for you. Questions 38
for these? Commissioner Reckdahl. 39
40
Commissioner Reckdahl: What is the budget for this? 41
42
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Ms. Yazdy: The park portion of the project doesn't have a set budget. There's a total 1
budget that was part of the agreement that included the larger, more comprehensive 2
details. That's why this plan is kind of labeled as temporary. The larger budget is about 3
2 million, I believe, but that includes improvements to El Camino, the proposed 4
undercrossings, transit connections from El Camino. That's really part of the larger 5
picture that's in our future. Right now, we were to do the minimum to provide the 6
requirements that came out of the Development Agreement which was to provide a safe 7
bike and pedestrian path. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we have any idea how much it's going to cost? 10
11
Ms. Yazdy: Paul, do you have the latest numbers? 12
13
Mr. Schneider: The current construction cost estimate that we have for these 14
improvements is around $280,000. That is a 10-foot asphalt center with decomposed 15
granite edges. There are contingencies and permitting and things on top of that. Our raw 16
construction cost is approximately $300,000. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: That just seems like a lot of money. Right now, we have an 8-19
foot bike path through there, which is in great condition—it's in better condition that the 20
road in front of my house—but we're replacing it with a brand new 8-foot bike path. It 21
seems like we're not really gaining a lot, and we're spending a lot of money. It's going to 22
look pretty, I'll give you that. The design is very nice. I think the design looks nice, is 23
functional. I really question whether we're getting our money's worth out of this. 24
25
Ms. Yazdy: This was, again, a result of the Stanford Medical Development Agreement. 26
Part of the requirements was to provide lighting, low-tolerant landscaping. All that kind 27
of does add up with irrigation. I think just providing the lighting and a safer path that 28
didn't cause so much conflict as it does now in the existing condition which is why we 29
added the alternative where the bicyclists can kind of veer away from the intersection and 30
have less blind spots. 31
32
Mr. Anderson: The only thing I might add is this is not coming out of the City's capital 33
budget. This is Stanford money funding this. It's not money that otherwise would have 34
gone to some other park project, for example. 35
36
Commissioner Reckdahl: If it's going to be torn up in 2 years, can't we push some of 37
that—I mean, if they're going to do the Transit Center remodel and rip up this design, I'm 38
a little nervous about putting 280,000 into something that may have a very short lifespan. 39
40
Ms. Yazdy: The proposed improvements for the more extensive plan is about 5-7 years 41
away, minimum. 42
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1
Commissioner Reckdahl: You mentioned the bollards design was not acceptable. Was it 2
just that particular bollard design was not good or is it just bollards in general? 3
4
Ms. Yazdy: Bicyclists actually don't—I think bollards are not preferred for bicyclists. 5
That's not an element that they like to see in the middle of the sidewalk. There's actually 6
bollards on the top corner where it comes out of Mitchell Lane and actually comes into 7
the park. There's bollards there as well. Those are existing, so they've asked that we 8
remove those as well. They prefer some other way to prevent vehicles from kind of 9
driving on the ramp, so we're going to look at other ways and remove the bollards. 10
11
Commissioner Reckdahl: What are other ways, other than bollards, for keeping vehicles 12
out? 13
14
Ms. Yazdy: We could add islands or maybe some landscaping. I think concrete islands, 15
boulders are used a lot of times. That's something that we're going to update the plans 16
and, again, take it back to them to see if that's something that they prefer. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 19
20
Chair Lauing: Others? Commissioner Moss. 21
22
Commissioner Moss: To follow-up on Keith's questions. You must have some general 23
idea of the grand plan that's going to replace this. I'm assuming that for the 280,000, 24
some of this is not in question, some of this will always be out of that area, and some of it 25
is in a gray area. Can you tell me what percentage of this whole project is sort of 26
cemented, we really know that this is going to be around? 27
28
Ms. Yazdy: I unfortunately don't have that information. I don't believe a study has 29
begun on the improvements, but I do know just on a really brief, general description was 30
connections from El Camino to the Transit Center, which may or may not include 31
actually bus access from El Camino; whereas, currently they go around. Connections to 32
the Transit Center. I've heard of an undercrossing under the Caltrain tracks. Again, some 33
pedestrian and bicycle improvements at the intersection of Quarry Road and El Camino. 34
It's really general at this point. I don't think we have that information right now. 35
36
Commissioner Moss: The second question I have is we talked at length in previous 37
meetings about a dog park in El Camino. One of the concerns was that this is an interim 38
solution. We can't put a dog park there because it may go away. Do we have any more 39
information about where—we really don't know where we could put a dog park if we 40
could. Especially with the amount of money that we're spending on this, an interim 41
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solution would be very inexpensive. I think you are more worried that we would take 1
something away eventually. Was that right? 2
3
Mr. Anderson: Yeah. I had really good conversations with both Paul and Shahla about 4
this. They had said they could work around a dog park in the area we were originally 5
looking. It was really a conversation with Stanford that had led to some additional 6
concerns. One is the future development at that site and the fear that there would be 7
opposition from a vocal group of dog enthusiasts who would take over that area as a dog 8
park if we did so. The other was parking impacts. There's a parking lot immediately 9
adjacent to this area at the Red Cross building, which Stanford owns. It would be heavily 10
impacted if we added an amenity like a dog park. This is the closest parking lot to it, so 11
that was their concerns. Same goes with their other building, the restaurant just down the 12
way. Those were kind of Stanford's big issues. As we further looked at it while we were 13
looking at our other 12 options for really good, high probability parks for dog areas, this 14
one seemed to fall a little bit lower. It's not walking distance from any other 15
neighborhoods. It doesn't mean we couldn't still use that area. This doesn't preclude that 16
or cause problems with the idea if for some reason in the future we wanted to, if we got 17
news, for example, that any transit improvement was really far away or plans had 18
changed. I don't see how this project would get in the way of utilizing that spot or, for 19
that matter, if the Commission changed their mind and wanted to do something in the 20
developed area of El Camino, which would be going back on a prior Commission's 21
decision. That's also something that could always be looked at again. 22
23
Commissioner Moss: That's all I have. 24
25
Chair Lauing: Any other comments. Commissioner Hetterly. 26
27
Commissioner Hetterly: I have some concerns about this design. As a bike commuter 28
looking at this, I would think, "Awesome. This is great. I'm going to be able to go so 29
much faster, and it's going to be easier and smooth and paved and great." As a park user, 30
it feels like somebody just put a road right through the middle of the park. I'm concerned 31
about bike and pedestrian conflicts especially around that first "Y," this one here. I 32
appreciate that you have a direct route pedestrian pathway to try to build a path where 33
they'll walk, but it runs right into the intersection of the bikeway. There's no place for 34
pedestrians to walk on the far side of that intersection. It's kind of an incomplete leg for 35
the pedestrian side. I don't think this really fully meets the goal of pedestrian and bicycle 36
connections unless you're talking about the pedestrians walking in that DG strip on the 37
border of the path. Maybe that was the intention. Even if that's the intention, how they 38
get safely across that intersection; I don't know how much bike traffic you have going 39
through there. Maybe that's a consideration. If there aren't that many people, then maybe 40
you don't worry about conflicts. I think that could be a concern there. I also feel like the 41
location of the upper part of the bikeway really cuts across a big chunk of park and 42
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breaks up some contiguous open space maybe unnecessarily. I guess that's a question to 1
you. As you look it, it's as though you have—with the existing path that goes around the 2
bottom here, this whole area is contiguous and unused. I understand there's all sorts of 3
stuff in here from utilities. There's still potential for other kind of park uses up here at 4
some point in the future possibly. Once you put a road through the middle of it, then you 5
don't really have that option any more. I'm a little concerned about that. I'm not sure 6
why it's favored over just revamping the existing path along the southeast edge. I know 7
that you're concerned about the sharp curve there, but it seems that even with that utility 8
box thing and the trees, you could soften that curve somewhat. That would enable you to 9
have a pedestrian path alongside that's also in a direct route. You'd provide both types of 10
users a direct route. In addition, I'm a little concerned about the landscaping. As I read 11
the staff report, it's supposed to be an attractive, landscaped, passive park and green 12
space. As you read further in, it's basically mulch with landscaping that's designed to 13
enhance the street frontage but not necessarily the park frontage. It didn't sound very 14
exciting, the landscaping. It's going to be used sparingly due to maintenance, with the 15
aesthetics at the street frontage. I guess I'd like to see more in this plan to meet the needs 16
of other users besides just the bicyclists. I'm also concerned about the signage. That's a 17
lot of big, bright signs in a not very long stretch of land. I'm not sure you need a four-18
item sign at every intersection every 200 feet along the way. Those are my concerns. 19
20
Chair Lauing: That has some merit. Could you just make a comment on why you didn't 21
just kind of put the path on the outside and keep the inside an Indianapolis Speedway for 22
(crosstalk)? 23
24
Mr. Schneider: We had a lot of discussions. Shahla has asked me that a good dozen 25
times. There are two primary issues. One is we would need to make a conscious 26
decision, which may be appropriate, to reduce the speed significantly. You talked about 27
sort of having this bicycle boulevard, and that's been a concern of ours as well, trying to 28
strike a balance between creating a Class 1 bike path which has certain speed 29
requirements. It's supposed to be 20 miles an hour, but that may not be what we want. 30
We may want the Class 1 width, but we may not want sort of the Class 1 speed. If we 31
were to sort of abandon the speed goal, which is again more of a bicyclist goal—in fact 32
the Bike Commission said, "We don't want stop signs on a bike path. We don't want the 33
bollards. We want to just cook right through there." I'm paraphrasing. That's kind of the 34
bicyclist mentality as opposed to maybe a pedestrian mentality. If we were to make a 35
conscious decision to really want to reduce the speed, we could go back down the 36
existing alignment and do, as you suggest, and soften the curve. It was a reaction to try 37
to strike a balance between an alignment that is just so far away from a Class 1 bike path 38
standard to something that would better meet the standard. As you can see, we don't even 39
quite meet that standard with the soft curves that you see in there now. The other thing 40
that we're trying to resolve is really the intersection as you come off of Quarry to sort of 41
El Camino Real, as you come across El Camino Real and you want to enter into this part 42
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of the park. The way it is right now is there's zero stacking distance, if you will. If 1
there's two bikes and a stroller and a couple of pedestrians, you just sort of run right into 2
them. Our goal was to try to pull that away from El Camino Real. As soon as you do 3
that, you start to get into other conflicts with the oak trees that are there. It just started to 4
add up that maybe we should go and hug the utility cluster around the top of it. Those 5
were our drivers. That's kind of all I can say as to how we arrived at where we are, after 6
considering the existing alignment sort of long and hard. We would really want to take 7
direction that we want to consciously slow people down and, again, try to maintain more 8
of the open space. I don't think there's a lot of value in that utility cluster that we're kind 9
of surrounding. We were trying to actually bring the prominence of that down a little bit 10
and trying to bring people more into the park, how to make it more inviting. There was 11
some other things that we did study a little bit further into that open space that you're 12
talking about. In terms of the landscaping, the last thing I want to try to address is we 13
struggled a little bit with El Camino Park, the reality of water use and maintenance and 14
sort of the proper use of funding. We can certainly expand the amount of landscaping 15
that we have on the project. That wasn't a big discussion we've had with Daren and his 16
group yet to understand what is the threshold for that, trying to beautify it to what we 17
want it to be and follow that description a little bit better versus taking it too far down. 18
Again, probably for us, it was reacting a little bit to the history of El Camino Park, where 19
there is a lot of bark mulch. That was sort of the standard we were reaching for on this 20
project. Maybe we weren't reaching high enough. Daren, did you want to weigh in? 21
22
Mr. Anderson: Just to reiterate. I think when I first met with Paul and Bob from 23
Siegfried, they were thinking a more robust plan. I think they responded very kindly to 24
my concerns that we're under this challenge. We are still in the drought, and we do have 25
confines on how much potable water we could use. This is a potable water only site; we 26
don't have recycled water there. I also am not getting any new staff. El Camino is 27
already bigger and better than it was, which stretches the capabilities of staff who are 28
taking care of it. We're adding new landscaping, new irrigation, new trails to blow and 29
clean. There's an element of I don't want to over-promise what we can take care of. This 30
is a lot of additional stuff. It's a large area too. You could go hog-wild and add a 31
tremendous amount. I'm afraid it would just become overgrown and weed infested, 32
something I can't keep up with. That was the original intent, to reach out to Siegfried and 33
say, "Please keep it easy to maintain and low water use." If we've erred to far on that 34
side, I think there's probably some flexibility to add a little bit more. I would just caution 35
to be thoughtful of the fact that there are impacts to maintenance as we make these 36
decisions. 37
38
Chair Lauing: On the design issue that Commissioner Hetterly raised, would it make 39
sense to give a Scenario 1 and 2 to the ARB with the note that instead of bisecting the 40
park, if you move around it, open space is retained for future use? 41
42
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Mr. Schneider: We actually did develop sort of an "A," "B" and a "C." "A" was keeping 1
the same alignment. We have an exhibit that's largely similar to this that does follow the 2
same alignment and soften the curve. "C" was a little bit out of this world. It had a bike 3
roundabout in it. I don't think we'll present that one. We do have another alternative that 4
we could go in with that strategy and show alternatives and just explain the stepping 5
down of the speed as really the primary concern with Concept A which is existing 6
alignment. 7
8
Chair Lauing: Preservation from the Parks Commission perspective of more space for 9
future park use. 10
11
Mr. Schneider: Correct. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Any other comments on this one? 14
15
Commissioner Hetterly: I'd like to make a follow-up comment. I hear what you're 16
saying about the landscape maintenance. I just don't think it makes sense to position a 17
bench looking out on the giant mulch circle. Maybe think more strategically about where 18
you want people to hang out and plan your landscaping around that. I am very concerned 19
about the—I don't think this plan meets the pedestrian needs at this site, where you have 20
so many people coming from the Transit Center over to Stanford on foot. 21
22
Commissioner Moss: One more thing. If it's possible to put a bench or two near the 23
walking path, pretty bad to put them near bike path. If you could put a bench or two near 24
the walking path, that might be nice. 25
26
Chair Lauing: Thank you very much. 27
28
Ms. Yazdy: Thank you. 29
30
4. Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Facilities Master Plan 31
32
Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is near and dear to our hearts, presentation on 33
the ongoing Master Plan process. 34
35
Rob de Geus: We have Peter Jensen coming up to join us, and Kristen. They're both 36
going to do the presentation this evening. 37
38
Kristen O'Kane: Good evening. Kristen O'Kane, Assistant Director of Community 39
Services. Peter and I are going to present to you some information on the Master Plan. 40
I'm going to kick it off by just giving a brief summary of the policy document that we 41
presented last month. We did have some minor revisions to that, that were based on last 42
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month's discussion as well comments that we received from the Audubon Society and 1
Sierra Club. In your packet, you have a clean copy as well as a redlined version of that 2
document. Just to summarize, we did go back to the Comp Plan standard of the 2-acre 3
per thousand for neighborhood and district parks in the policy document. I am going to 4
turn it over to Commissioner Hetterly in a just a moment to talk about some 5
conversations that we had recently about how we might want to revise that policy a little 6
bit. I'm just going to finish going through the slide, and then I'll turn it over to you. We 7
also, just based on comments that we received from many of the Commissioners, deleted 8
the policy that was to explore expansion of Foothills Park to nonresidents. We've revised 9
the policy on turf fields, added the two policies on restrooms and dog parks, and then we 10
also added a policy to develop an asset management program. This was in response to 11
mainly Commissioner Hetterly's comments about having something in the plan that 12
addresses future park maintenance as well as future funding for those maintenance 13
projects. An asset management plan does seem very broad and general right now, but the 14
intent is to really have a plan that will address our future needs for the parks and how we 15
would pay for those needs. Again, we included all the revisions that the Audubon 16
Society and Sierra Club had recommended in their letter that we received. That's pretty 17
much a summary of what we changed to the policies, with the exception of a possible 18
tweak to that park development standard policy. I'll turn it over to Commissioner 19
Hetterly. 20
21
Commissioner Hetterly: I had contacted Kristen and Rob since our last meeting to talk 22
about the park standards. As I was thinking about their assessment that our deficit was 23
all on the neighborhood park side and that they had counted—sorry, let me back up. 24
Maybe you all know that the Parks and Rec standard as it stands now calls for 2 acres of 25
neighborhood parks per 1,000 and 2 acres of district parks per 1,000 along with minimum 26
walksheds and minimum sizes. The question came up of what counts as a district park 27
and what counts as a neighborhood park. As far as I can tell, throughout the history Palo 28
Alto everybody calculated differently, defined differently what counts as a neighborhood 29
park and what doesn't. For example, the Community Services Department had 30
categorized everything 5 acres or larger as a district park. The Planning Department 31
picked and chose and said, "These five are really more districty than those five." The 32
Comp Plan Environmental Impact Report has a different calculation of how much we 33
have in terms of district and neighborhood. That's why I reached out to them about it. I 34
was concerned that we weren't on the same page in how we talk about our park inventory. 35
As you all know, while I love the standard, I don't think the district and neighborhood 36
distinction is really fully appropriate to the inventory and the patterns of use that we have 37
here in our City. For example, Eleanor Pardee Park is over 5 acres, so it could be a 38
district. I think most people think of it as a neighborhood park. I didn't want to impose 39
artificial definitions, and I would suggest that we refer to the standard as our guideline. I 40
didn't print out what I sent you earlier today. Don't apply the district/neighborhood 41
distinction to our system, instead say we use the standard as a guideline, we recognize 42
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that this distinction doesn't apply to our City, but we want to add parkland with 1
population growth to achieve 4 acres per 1,000, so you still maintain the same number, 2
and it has to be well distributed throughout the community and of sufficient size to serve 3
a variety of neighborhood and broader community needs and stick with just a single 4
walkshed of the 1/2 mile which is the minimum for neighborhood parks under the 5
national standard. Our goal is really to make sure everybody can walk to a park. That 6
was what I was looking to do, take the district/neighborhood distinction out of the policy 7
and massage it a little bit to be able to still refer to the standard but apply it to our ... 8
9
Chair Lauing: That's what's—this documents that discussion, includes the discussion? 10
These words that you have in the policy include that discussion? 11
12
Ms. O'Kane: No, they don't. We just had this discussion last week, and then 13
Commissioner Hetterly and I have been sort of throwing some language back and forth in 14
email on how we might revise that policy. We would keep the actual policy in a sidebar 15
in the document so that the readers could refer to that guideline, but the policy would say 16
use this as a guide but sort of tailor it to what Palo Alto has, that we are sort of a unique 17
community, we have these parks, like Commissioner Hetterly said, that are neighborhood 18
parks but also serve as district parks. It gets a little confusing on how we would count 19
those. We reference both, but the policy itself would not be an actual word-for-word 20
repeat of the standard. 21
22
Commissioner Hetterly: We would repeat in the policy the 4 acres per 1,000 and 23
growing and all that other good stuff. Right? 24
25
Ms. O'Kane: Yep. 26
27
Chair Lauing: That sounds very reasonable to me. Anybody have any minority reports 28
or further comments or questions on that? 29
30
Commissioner Moss: (inaudible) 31
32
Chair Lauing: One ... 33
34
Ms. O'Kane: That's correct. 35
36
Chair Lauing: ... "B," yes. 37
38
Ms. O'Kane: Correct. I'm going to turn it over to Peter Jensen then, Landscape Architect 39
with Department of Public Works to continue the presentation. 40
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Peter Jensen: I would add to that that there is a series of programs which we talked about 1
today that do support "1B" that gets into more specifics on how to add or to look at 2
reviewing and expanding the park system. That's something that you will see as well. I 3
think those things really start to speak to our system itself and starts to identify what we 4
can actually do to make that happen. I am going to transition into the results of the 5
community survey. A few months ago we looked at the preliminary results. We're going 6
to look at a few of the graphics from that as well as some additional ones, and then talk 7
about at the end how we are actually using the data from the survey in the process of the 8
Master Plan. First of all, let's just briefly discuss the survey development and the survey 9
use. The survey development was developed from community feedback and system 10
analysis that was done early on in the project. That helped to develop our opportunities 11
matrix that we put together that identified specific areas of needs that the City would like 12
to address or add or expand in our park system. From that then, these areas of focus that 13
we developed specifically for the community survey itself to allow the overall general 14
community to have some say in how funds and projects should be prioritized to give us 15
good feedback so when we did do that process, which we are working now, we could 16
reference these general ideas and have that in mind when we went about ranking and then 17
scoring projects and programs. That's how this survey developed and why it developed. 18
Like I said, how it's going to be used is for our prioritization of projects and how they 19
will be sequenced in time. I'll get into a little bit more of that at the end of the 20
presentation. Basically it's talking about when we do recognize projects and prioritize 21
them, then there is the step of actually sequencing them in a schedule or a calendar of 22
time. When that takes place, the data again will be used to reference back to what the 23
general community has as higher priorities than others that we want to spend funding on. 24
The survey was done online, and it ran from August 28th to February 15th. We also did 25
have a community meeting; it wasn't very well attended, but a few people did show up. I 26
would say that in the community meeting we did focus on all the specific hot topic items 27
of restrooms, dog parks, synthetic turf. All the main topics were brought up. It was a 28
very open and good conversation that we had there. On the online end of it, 730 29
respondents took the survey. When we looked at the survey itself and looking just at the 30
IP addresses and those that took the survey, most people took the entire thing. I believe 31
there was about 10 percent that had started to do the first page and stopped, but most of 32
the people that did engage in the survey took it to its completion, which was an 33
interesting finding because the survey definitely in titling it "The Challenge" denotes that 34
it was a challenge to do, that you had to work a little bit at it. Everyone that took it took 35
it to the end, which was a good result for it. We also didn't have many people taking it—36
basically everyone that started it took it one time, and no one really wanted to fill it out 37
again. You didn't have any ballot stuffing that was happening with the process. It was a 38
good, clean process going along as the far as the survey numbers go. Six hundred five of 39
the respondents were from Palo Alto; 46 of those live in nearby communities, describe 40
themselves as visitors; 48 owned businesses as well as living in Palo Alto, and 223 of 41
those also worked in Palo Alto as well. The survey results themselves. Basically the 42
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survey was broken into four sections. The first three sections were the specific elements; 1
the parks, trails, open space was one of them; the recreation program was one, and the 2
recreation facilities was another. The fourth aspect of the survey itself was combining all 3
of those into one longer list to get a set of prioritizations for the entire list. As you can 4
see the allocations of more than $2 and the percent of allocations of those that didn't 5
provide any for those are going to be shown in the bar graphs as we kind of go through 6
those. Those particularly were highlighted to represent and to review the people that did 7
put more emphasis or more money or more funds on a specific thing than just one 8
specific dollar. This is more—for example, the dog park question in the first element, 9
you saw a greater number of individuals putting more money towards that which signifies 10
that it does have a deep-rooted following for a smaller group that would like to see more 11
investment in that, which basically I think we've heard as the years have gone by from the 12
dog community. Those findings kind of reveal, I think, what we already know, which is 13
one of the bases for doing these surveys is to make sure that the information that we do 14
have is the real information. The survey results again, it's broken into four different 15
sections. This was the first section which is six parts of the areas of focus for the parks, 16
trails and open space. In this graph, you can see it's basically per the money that was 17
allotted for each one and with the enhancement, comfort and making parks more 18
welcoming, the item that received the greatest amount of funding. These represent 19
basically the prioritization of the community of what they felt funding should be directed 20
to for our park system. The light blue or green—I'm not quite sure how you're seeing it 21
on your screen—and then the red bars. The green represents those that allotted more than 22
just $1 towards that. The red is an interesting aspect of those that didn't allocate any for 23
it. As you look down the list, you'll see that those figures kind of correspond. If we want 24
to just pick out one, like expanding the system, you see that 17 percent of the respondents 25
placed a greater deal, more than just $1 on that, and 57 percent of the voting community 26
did not actually give zero to that. This is another bar graph basically showing very 27
similar information, except it does break it down into the amount, the percentage of 28
people that spent more than just $1. You can see basically the light green at the 29
beginning of the bar is the $1 allotment, and then it basically goes up from there, so two, 30
three, four, five, and then zero where the community didn't vote any funds to be 31
appropriated towards that element. It's shown in that way. For the last one, let's say 32
improving the accessibility of the full range of park and recreation opportunities, you see 33
that over basically 60 percent of the respondents did not allocate any funding for that. 34
For that one in particular, I think what we are deducing with the project team is that 35
overall the general sense from the community is that the park system itself is very 36
accessible, does have a lot of good amenities that are close by. They recognize that it is a 37
very well put together park system. For that one that's more discussing the accessibility, 38
we feel that it was based lower because what we are providing now is adequate, and 39
they're not recognizing that as being something we should fund since we're already doing 40
a good job of doing that. A question on that? 41
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Commissioner Cowie: Yeah. Peter, did we not reach the same conclusion that we don't 1
need any dog parks, though, if we read that one that way? The zero on the dog parks is 2
almost as strong. 3
4
Mr. Jensen: Right. 5
6
Commissioner Cowie: That seemed like an awfully strong conclusion. 7
8
Mr. Jensen: It's based ... 9
10
Commissioner Cowie: I don't think we have that conclusion on the dog parks. Right? 11
12
Mr. Jensen: Right. 13
14
Commissioner Cowie: But the numbers were very similar. 15
16
Mr. Jensen: That conclusion is based on our first survey that was conducted, that 17
recognized that the general feeling of the community is that the park system itself is a 18
very good one already, where the dog park question in that survey gave us the result that 19
we did not have enough or we weren't doing enough to serve that. From that initial 20
survey information, deducing those two things is where that result comes from. 21
22
Commissioner Cowie: I guess I'm not seeing that that's an obvious conclusion from this 23
survey. It just seems to me those two—if you look at the data for those two questions, 24
the results are pretty similar. To conclude that accessibility is completely fine, but we 25
need lots more dog parks, it seems to me you're taking very similar data and reaching the 26
opposite conclusion. 27
28
Mr. Jensen: Like I said, the initial data from the first survey, because we had a survey 29
that was more about site analysis, was that the general feeling of the community that our 30
park system is very good right now. From that survey, it came back that our dog park, 31
though, and how we're serving the dog park needs is not very good. Again, it's an 32
interpretation of the results, and then reflecting those results on the previous results to 33
figure out basically what these figures are actually meaning. Yes, there is some gray area 34
of interpretation there. Because of those early results that our park system is good and it 35
is fully accessible right now, the general community feels that—that's why it received 36
lower funding. I would agree that definitely it's not as solid. I can't give you a specific 37
comments per those that are taking the survey that that was their general idea of it. That's 38
what's being extracted from it. 39
40
Chair Lauing: Did you want to add something? 41
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Ms. O'Kane: I'll add a little bit there. I think comparing dog parks to accessibility is a 1
little bit apples and oranges, because the people who are obviously putting money 2
towards dog parks are likely dog owners. That's a certain percentage of the people. 3
People who are putting money on accessibility could be the entire population. I think 4
that's something that anybody would put money towards as opposed to the dog parks. 5
Maybe comparing the accessibility and dog parks isn't very clear or very black and white. 6
7
Mr. Jensen: The second aspect of it was the recreation facilities. These were the 8
rankings per the funding value that was given by the community for each of those seven 9
things. This is basically how they ranked in that order. Again, this is the exact same 10
basically with the percentage of more than $2 given and the percentage of $0 given. 11
These are just different ways to basically look and understand the data that was 12
presented. The key aspect is how it ranked out total with those things that are ranked 13
higher or receiving higher considered by the community to be those things that should be 14
funded, which will work into basically our overall prioritization. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Go ahead. 17
18
Commissioner Cowie: I'm curious as to how did we account for the negative votes. We 19
clearly took into account the positive ones, the "I want to spend this amount of money 20
and I spent $2 or more." It's not clear to me how do we take into account the votes that 21
said, "Don't spend a dime on it." Did we subtract from the total the negative ones? It 22
doesn't look like it. 23
24
Mr. Jensen: No. 25
26
Commissioner Cowie: It looks like we essentially ignored them. Is that true? 27
28
Mr. Jensen: I don't know if you could say they were ignored. 29
30
Commissioner Cowie: I'm just trying to figure out how did we—if you look at "4" and 31
"5" here for example. "4" is slightly higher than "5" on the positive side, but it's 32
significantly higher than "5" on the negative side. 33
34
Commissioner Hetterly: Can I just pipe in for a second? 35
36
Chair Lauing: Sure. 37
38
Commissioner Hetterly: I see the percentage of $0 votes not as a negative vote but as a 39
lower priority vote. For example, if what I'm very concerned about is improving and 40
enhancing community center and recreation space, I already have a fixed amount of 41
dollars. I don't have enough to spend on everything. What do I have to pass on? It's 42
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going to be this and this. Surely there are some negative votes that say, "I'll do anything 1
but spend $1 on that." I think dog parks is one where you might get some people like 2
that. I think for the most part, the challenge is figuring out of all the things I really want 3
to spend on, what can I sacrifice in order to support those things. I don't think the $0 is a 4
negative vote; I think it's just an indication of a lower priority for the most part. 5
6
Commissioner Cowie: I agree, but I think the effect is essentially the same. Whether you 7
count it as a negative or you count it as of low priority, the effect is essentially the same, 8
is the point I'm making. 9
10
Chair Lauing: I agree with that. It served as "I don't care about that priority." It doesn't 11
matter why you don't care about it; it's not being prioritized, which then also speaks to 12
those that are "special interest groups" relative to dog parks or fields or whatever rank it 13
really high and try to weight it that way, which also showed that that was the case, which 14
is fine to get that knowledge. 15
16
Commissioner Reckdahl: What we don't know is if they gave them zero, is it because 17
they thought what we're doing is okay and we don't have to add anymore or they don't 18
care about the subject at all. It would be nice if we could add a correlation saying, "How 19
is the accessibility of the parks?" If you had answers for both, you could find some 20
correlation and find out why people are saying zero. I just don't think we have the 21
information to say why they're saying zero. 22
23
Chair Lauing: You're right; we don't have any exit polls. We don't have any 24
projectability from a very small sample size that's not statistically being evaluated. It 25
can't be with that kind of (crosstalk). 26
27
Commissioner Reckdahl: it's hard because you can make two conclusions out of the 28
same answer. How do you make it actionable then? 29
30
Mr. de Geus: I think a lot of times with surveys, it ends up you have more questions than 31
answers in some ways. It's a beginning of a conversation. I think Peter mentioned we 32
have to look at the results of this survey in context with all of the other outreach that 33
we've done and the staff knowledge about the programs and services and try to draw the 34
best conclusions that we can. Sometimes we may need to talk to more residents to get 35
their input. "This is how we're interpreting this. Do you think we have it right?" One 36
thing that struck me about the survey was that every one of the areas of focus did get 37
some funding. I think that speaks to the fact that the areas of focus are good, and we're 38
on the right track there. I think that's good news. 39
40
Mr. Jensen: The goal for the survey itself was to determine where people would spend 41
their money if they had the possibility of doing that. It wasn't to highlight or try to 42
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provide a negative aspect where they didn't want to. All the areas of focus were vetted 1
through our first phase of our project by looking at the system as a whole. All these 2
elements or areas of focus were things that the community itself brought up as being very 3
important that should be part of our park system. This general survey was conducted to 4
figure out where they would like to spend their money. When we start to rank those 5
projects and programs that are new, then we'd have a general sense of what is the top 6
priority and how we should, as a City, use our funds to make those new programs or new 7
projects come to light. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Let's move through this, and then we could just have a bunch of 10
comments. 11
12
Mr. Jensen: Again this is the bar graph that shows the amount of dollars per each one of 13
those areas of focus and the percentage of who gave one, multiple or none to each one of 14
those. This is the breakdown of the scoring for the recreational element programming 15
and how it was prioritized by the community, one through six. You can see here unlike 16
the other two that the top one was felt by the community to be a much high priority than 17
the other five items on the list. This again goes through that same review of what was 18
allocated per each element. We do have a summary of the findings from the elements. 19
Each area of focus did receive, as Rob was saying, funding from the community. 20
Respondents allocated a higher average amount to improving and enhancing community 21
centers and recreational spaces. This as felt by the project team was done because the 22
community realized this is a higher dollar value item to do, to enhance these community 23
centers, and that's why more money was allocated per individual for that specific item. 24
Exploring new programs and classes was allocated more resources than expanding 25
existing recreation, indicating a preference for newer recreation opportunities. Top areas 26
under each element usually receive a higher percentage of respondents choosing to invest 27
more than $2. If you look through those graphs, you'll see that the top portions received 28
more than just the $1 allocation. A higher percentage of respondents chose not to invest 29
any funding in the lowest ranked areas. Again, if you wanted to start to look at those 30
ways that people did allocate their funding, more of the lower aspects received less 31
funding for those things over the $2 amount. The off-leash dog park had a relatively 32
small number of respondents allocating a larger amount of funding. Those that did feel 33
that dog parks were something that we should provide more funding to, there was that 34
group that did move that money towards there felt and did it $2 or more than just adding 35
one to that. Improving the accessibility of full range of parks, which we had talked about 36
a little bit, received the lowest average allocation of funding of all three investments. 37
This lower investment supports the overall satisfaction with the distribution or 38
availability of parks and facilities across the community. The fourth segment of the 39
challenge was to rank all of the areas of focus in one compiled list. This first chart that 40
you're looking at are the top six. There's 12 areas of focus altogether; these were the top 41
six. They've been separated into two groups of six. The project team felt that these were 42
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definitely above and were prioritized higher than the bottom six. You can see the 1
percentages aren't very much. Number 7 received 9 percent of the funding that was 2
allocated to it. The ones above that were 11 and 10. You can see that there was 3
definitely a clear drop from 8 to 12 as far as funding goes and how those things were 4
prioritized by the community. This, again, is that bar graph showing the amount spent for 5
that last segment that did all 12 of them. A greater amount was allocated, $10, instead of 6
$5. This list breaks it down in that respect as well. Summaries for the overall findings. 7
The top responses in the full ranked list matched those of each element. If you go back 8
through and look at the top votes for each specific of the three elements, you'll find that 9
they also filtered out as the top choices in the overall list. Integrating nature into Palo 10
Alto parks received the highest level of funding in the overall ranking. It did get second 11
in its element as far as its ranking in that. In the overall, that did receive the highest 12
amount of investment by the community. A relatively small percentage of respondents 13
chose to invest heavily, 14 percent invested more than $2 out of their $10 budget to 14
improving spaces and increasing options for off-leash dog parks. Again, this is an 15
indicator that there is definitely a strong vocal group out there that feels that this need 16
needs to be filled. Enhancing the quality and capacity of sports fields ranked number 17
seven overall and also received relatively large investments from a small group of 18
respondents. Like the dog park question, this basically reveals that there is a strong core 19
group of users that feels that those facilities need either to be enhanced or upgraded or 20
need more of. They allocated more funding to that. 50 percent of the respondents 21
allocated at least some funding to integrating nature into Palo Alto parks, improving and 22
enhancing community centers and recreational spaces, and enhancing comfort and 23
making spaces more inviting. Those three, which fall out at the top of the list, received a 24
good amount of funding allocation for their prioritization. Again, the improving 25
accessibility, which we talked about before, was the lowest one. That is felt that it was 26
the lowest because of the high standard that we have right now of having many facilities 27
available at close proximity to the majority of the residents. The real question is what do 28
we do with these findings and how are we going to use this data. That brings us to our 29
project and program prioritization. The survey findings will be used to inform the 30
ranking and sequencing of future park and program projects. The overall results will be 31
used in the ranking of projects and scoring in the overall community needs category. 32
Within our scoring of the proposed new projects for the system, there is a column 33
referenced by community needs, and this is one of the data sources used to provide a 34
score to that for prioritization purposes. It will then be used again later when the projects 35
are actually sequenced, which is another step that basically puts the projects and gives 36
them a kind of date of when they're going to be done and performed. Of course, those 37
items that received a higher community prioritization in this will be given more weight 38
and score better than the projects that scored lower. If there's any questions or comments 39
to that or if Rob wants to add anything to that. 40
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Chair Lauing: I think we'll jump in with a bunch of questions. As the Chair's 1
prerogative, I just want to talk about the numbers first. We've had basically 600 people 2
from Palo Alto, 607, took the survey. That was over a 6-month period. They had 6 3
months, and we got 600. I don't know if that's good or bad, but we're still back here 4
with—what is it? 1 percent of Palo Alto citizens that voted. I just think we have to be 5
very cautious about prioritizing things that we're going to spend millions of dollars on. 6
When I looked at that last thing that you had up there, a few back, you had the top six and 7
then the second six. If that's true, then the ones who voted in the 10 percent range was 8
like 60 people. The ones who voted in the 5 percent range were 30 people. I don't know 9
if that's about right. Plus or minus 30 people voting on one issue is just—it wasn't a vote. 10
It was an indicator. If we prioritize it or you prioritize it or Council reads these top five 11
are in the—it's obvious what we want to do. It's not obvious just from this point. Let's 12
keep the numbers in mind as we talk about tonight's comments as well as future 13
prioritization. 14
15
Mr. Jensen: This survey joins with the information from our initial survey that we did to 16
inform our prioritization. In that, staff has gone through and started to look at—the 17
project team has started to look at the prioritization that is just one factor that is 18
considered in that with all the other analysis information that is put into there. This isn't 19
the end-all, and this is not the absolute of how we are ranking our community preferences 20
for these prioritization. This is a data point that we are using as a reference to make sure 21
that when we are prioritizing that we are considering this. It's not, again, the end-all thing 22
that we are using to do that. 23
24
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Knopper. 25
26
Vice Chair Knopper: Thank you. I was actually going to say that I feel that the—to 27
reiterate what Ed just said, it's such a small sample size with kind of contradictory results. 28
I'm totally convinced that the people that didn't vote versus the people that did vote—it's 29
a very gray area. I think this just needs a big asterisk, this data, next to it. It should, to 30
your point, sort of fall in line in the big bucket of data that we have. I feel like this is a 31
very unstable sample size with a lot of contradiction in it. I'm glad to hear that this is not 32
the be-all end-all kind of, because it's not reliable in my opinion. Thank you. 33
34
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Cribbs, did you have comments? 35
36
Commissioner Cribbs: I was just worried about the same thing, the small size of the 37
sample over the 6 months and sort of wondering why more people who have so many 38
opinions in Palo Alto didn't really join in to take the survey. That was the first thing. 39
The second thing was I agree it could be a little part of a data point, and it could be useful 40
looking back. Did the staff take it and can you do any comparison between what your 41
staff sees on a daily basis and what this study came up with? 42
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1
Mr. de Geus: We didn't take the survey, but we are interpreting the data and affirming or 2
not affirming what we understand and what we know based on being in the community 3
and managing the parks and recreation system. We're not taking this as sort of gospel at 4
all, just as information. I would say 700-plus respondents to a survey is actually pretty 5
high. I know it's a small number compared to the population, but that is a high result on a 6
survey. It is meaningful data, I think. I think we've got to be careful certainly with it, but 7
it's meaningful. 8
9
Commissioner Cribbs: It just seems like really small to base a lot of decisions for the 10
future on. That's all. I was worried about that. 11
12
Mr. Jensen: I would say too that it is trying to devise a method that allows the 13
community to prioritize not just putting a list of projects up and going through that, but 14
getting an overall, general feeling of what the main things that funding should be spent on 15
was the idea behind this, so we can get an overall, general feeling of how funding should 16
be spent on what areas of focus to inform staff and the project team when we actually 17
started looking at the projects and programs and trying to rank them in an order or set 18
them in a calendar schedule of what was going to happen first to what was going to be 19
happening later down the line. 20
21
Commissioner Cribbs: Do you know anything about the demographics of the people who 22
took the survey other than they're Palo Alto residents or not, live and work in Palo Alto? 23
I mean in terms of age groupings. 24
25
Mr. Jensen: That was not one of the questions of the survey. 26
27
Chair Lauing: No cross tabbing or anything, so you just don't know. Commissioner 28
Moss. 29
30
Commissioner Moss: I have several comments. I sort of disagree with the weight being 31
put on the survey. The way I understand this whole process to work is that it's one of five 32
points, five factors. One is the survey. One is your day-to-day interaction with the 33
public, what they're complaining about every day. One is our input from our diverse 34
backgrounds. We're from different parts of the City, and all that kind of stuff. We're 35
supposed to be representing a good chunk of the population. We're supposed to be 36
looking at these inputs and these comments and forming our vote. That's the third one. 37
The fourth one is the City Council. We're supposed to be giving our input to the City 38
Council, but they're the ones that are going to make the final decision. They have diverse 39
viewpoints as well, and they're going to take our input and your input and the survey, etc. 40
I think the survey is fantastic for what it is. It shouldn't be the be-all end-all. The other 41
thing is that I went through the survey comments, and this is fantastic comments. We're 42
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going to have a field day when we get down to the next layer which is the programs. 1
We've only gotten down to the policies. There are many programs mentioned in here. I 2
for one, representing my little constituency, I love a bunch of these programs, and I'm 3
going to cheer for them going forward. I wanted to make sure that those programs had a 4
policy to fit under. When I went through the policies, I went with that in mind. The one 5
policy that I think is missing is that "1K" about explore options to expand access to 6
Foothills Park. We took this too literally. We said it's either black or white, you open 7
Foothills Park to everybody or you don't open it to everybody. I took it to mean that we 8
could have some temporary and limited access. For instance, open house. When I read 9
the comments from Stanford that Stanford does not have access to Foothill Park. Los 10
Altos Hills doesn't have access. Portola Valley doesn't have access, and Los Altos 11
doesn't have access. I think if we had an open house for Los Altos Hills or an open house 12
for Stanford or two or three a year, that is not going to destroy Foothill Park. It's going to 13
give us some brownie points. 14
15
Chair Lauing: What's the connection to the survey that we're discussing now? I'm just 16
kind of missing if that's on point. 17
18
Commissioner Moss: One of the survey points was expanding our reach. It says serving 19
Palo Alto residents, but that seems shortsighted and parochial. I would like to know if we 20
can expand in the policies to not just think about Palo Alto, but think about our good 21
neighbors. I have something I want in exchange. I want to make sure that the Stanford 22
Dish stays open. Maybe if we gave them a little bit of access to Foothills Park, they 23
wouldn't be so quick to get rid of the Stanford Dish access. That's all I wanted to say 24
about that. I would love to put "1K" back, but make it say explore temporary and limited 25
access of Foothill Park to others. That's my one point. My last point is that there were 26
many things said in the comments about swimming pools and about tennis courts. Those 27
two things were just below bathrooms and dog parks. I couldn't believe how many 28
people said those two things, swimming pools and tennis courts. It sort of gets lost in 29
here. I can see where it would be under programs. You talk about quality of sports 30
fields, but it doesn't talk about swimming pools and tennis courts and things like that. It 31
really is included in there, I think. I'm just not sure, but I think it's in there. I want to 32
make sure that we look at these comments thoroughly and try to find a policy to stick 33
them under. 34
35
Chair Lauing: Other comments? No. Thank you. 36
37
Mr. de Geus: Can I bring something up, Chair? 38
39
Chair Lauing: Sure. 40
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Mr. de Geus: We're moving to and working on the projects and programs as the next 1
step. You saw the long list that MIG first came up with, needed a lot of work. We've 2
been working on it with them. As we prepare for bringing that back in May for the 3
Commission to look at, one thing that we're struggling with a little bit is the policy, 4
program and how they nest together. You may recall last time we talked, Commissioner 5
Reckdahl asked if every program has to fit with a policy. We weren't quite sure on the 6
answer to that. I think at the time I said, "Not necessarily. A program could fit directly 7
to a goal." As we've been working on the projects and programs and trying to format it in 8
a way that really makes sense and try and create some consistency with the 9
Comprehensive Plan and the Urban Forest Master Plan, that would be inconsistent to 10
have programs that don't relate to a policy. We haven't come to a final conclusion on 11
this, but it is likely that we might revert and go back to sort of the structure of the Comp 12
Plan and the other Master Plans that the Council is used to seeing and have programs 13
really nest under policies. If we do that, it's likely we will need to add some additional 14
policies if they're not fully representative of the goal. We know there's a couple of areas 15
where we think that exists. That's something that we're looking at, and we'll bring that 16
back in May to talk more about as we bring the first draft of the projects and programs. 17
Does that make sense to everyone? 18
19
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 20
21
Commissioner Reckdahl: A question actually. I looked through some of these comments 22
too. There's one in here about Arastradero Park. Someone said they're old and they 23
wished there was more benches. We had talked about this and put it on hold until after 24
the Master Plan to see whether we could have benches or picnic tables or something like 25
that in Arastradero. Are we evaluating that? Will the Master Plan address that? We put 26
it on hold specifically because the Master Plan was going to address that. 27
28
Daren Anderson: In the interim, I've had conversations with Director de Geus, and he 29
explained that it's really an interpretation of that prior Council decision. He's directed 30
staff to proceed with some limited benches in Pearson-Arastradero that won't 31
fundamentally alter that direction that Council provided. The picnic tables is a little bit 32
different and probably something that would be better addressed by the Master Plan and 33
bears a little further discussion and thought, because it does change the use. As soon as 34
you bring in something like picnic tables, there's trash and other amenities that affect 35
wildlife, an already over-burdened parking lot and other dimensions to that preserve. The 36
park bench less so and more just a typical feature you find. We're already moving on 37
that. 38
39
Commissioner Reckdahl: Good. Was the issue that they didn't like the look of park 40
benches? 41
42
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Mr. Anderson: It wasn't the look. It was that this should be a low-amenity nature 1
preserve and not to duplicate other amenities at nearby parks. For example, you wouldn't 2
have a boating lake like you have at Foothills Park. It would be inconsistent with the 3
direction Council had given. We've interpreted the low-amenity, low-use as part of the 4
reason why the parking lot was designed the way it was. I'm sure funds were part of it. 5
As you build a bigger parking lot, of course, more people come and it changes the use of 6
the preserve. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is the Master Plan going to address the parking at Arastradero? 9
10
Mr. Anderson: That's a good question. I'm not sure; I'll have to get back to you on that. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: If we have these questions that are kind of put on hold, do we 13
just wait until the Master Plan is done? If it's not addressed in there, then we just take 14
them up? I'm not sure exactly how (crosstalk). 15
16
Mr. Anderson: I haven't had a chance to discuss this with Rob or other staff, but I believe 17
the parking one is a bigger issue. It's a big capital issue as well. To fix that, it's not 18
simply bringing in more rock and grading it out. It's far more elaborate than that. The 19
implications of expanding that parking lot affect the preserve, affect the wildlife, affect 20
the whole experience of it. It probably bears consideration that comes with the CCP, that 21
Comprehensive Conservation Plan. We've got that slated for FY '19. That's to do 22
Foothills, Pearson-Arastradero and Esther Clark. It seems to me an appropriate one for 23
that more so than the quick look that the Parks Master Plan would give to that parking lot, 24
because of the influence that that would have on wildlife. I don't think the Parks Master 25
Plan could possibly get into that in-depth look. 26
27
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 28
29
Chair Lauing: The next agenda item is to review ad hoc committee and liaisons. 30
31
Mr. de Geus: There was one more slide to the last item that I don't think we went over. 32
Peter. 33
34
Mr. Jensen: We started moving back into the other slides. The final slide for this is the 35
next steps. For the May PRC meeting, we are planning on bringing back the project and 36
programs development to review. That, again, is what Rob was touching on before. That 37
could have some policy impacts we will discuss further. We are also developing the site 38
concept plans which we are planning to unveil to the community for their review and 39
bring that back with their comments for your review as well. That meeting is planned for 40
next month, May, before your PRC meeting. We're also having a City Council study 41
session which has been in the works and is going to be in June now. That will discuss 42
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these goals, policies and programs that we're putting together, so the Council has an 1
initial look before it actually goes into a rough draft of the Master Plan itself. The other 2
aspects of it are the draft Master Plan, summer of '16, starting to be developed right now. 3
Staff will review that and then bring that to the PRC for review. Hopefully approval of 4
the Master Plan in the fall of 2016 is our current schedule for that. 5
6
Commissioner Hetterly: I just have a couple of questions. In the final Master Plan, are 7
the site concept plans intended to incorporate the recommended projects and program 8
projects? This version that's coming in May does not, because we haven't done that yet, 9
the projects. Or does it? That's (inaudible) question. 10
11
Mr. Jensen: It does. I guess putting those things together are one and the same. The site 12
concept plans show specifically where the projects are going to be. The project list that 13
will come with that recognizes that there's a specific project of whatever it is, volleyball 14
courts. Then the site plans show where in specific parks that those are proposed to be 15
located at. I think when we saw the original list of however many there were, 400 and 16
something projects and programs, when you started to take that out and condense it, you 17
could get down to the projects being a short list of between 20 and 30 things. When you 18
started to underneath each of one those things add each park that they were going to be at, 19
that's how the list itself got expanded. Graphically as we're showing that, we'll talk about 20
the specific projects that made the list and then refer to the specific parks that they've 21
been referred to or proposed at. They work together. 22
23
Commissioner Hetterly: That is presented to the community, and that's sort of your war 24
room idea where they have an opportunity to come and look at the maps on the wall and 25
say, "I like this. I don't like this." Is it presented to them as these are all the projects we 26
want to include in the Master Plan? Is it presented as these are the projects that are going 27
through some process of prioritization, what do you think of them? That then feeds into 28
the final decision making or is the decision making basically already done and you're 29
putting it in the site plans to throw out to the community? 30
31
Mr. Jensen: It's the proposed, I guess, draft plans of recognizing which parks these 32
specific things would be placed at, and then allowing the community to comment on 33
them as a process of vetting those things. 34
35
Commissioner Hetterly: That would kind of be the final stage of your public outreach for 36
the Master Plan that will then result in refinements. 37
38
Mr. Jensen: Right. 39
40
Mr. de Geus: I would call them concept plans really. Even when we get to a finished 41
Master Plan and we go to renovate the park, we sort of in some ways start over because 42
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we actually then meet with the community and talk about these concepts that we came up 1
with, that we felt had some real credibility, validity for that particular park, and then we 2
get into the details. We might find that some of it works, some of it doesn't, but it's a 3
good starting point for the community. I will add we've been working on this, all of those 4
concept plans, and trying to figure out where things fit, what makes sense in terms of 5
balancing the system and so on. I think this is correct. We're going to try and take 6
advantage of the May Fete Parade fair because we have so many Palo Alto residents at 7
that fair, that we want to have some of these concepts out there available for the public to 8
start looking at, so we can start having conversations about people's neighborhood parks 9
and what they think. That'll roll out throughout May. Of course, we'll have a substantive 10
discussion at the May meeting, at the Commission meeting. 11
12
Commissioner Hetterly: Thanks. 13
14
Ms. O'Kane: I'd like to point out one thing too. In the staff report, it does say that the 15
Council study session is May 16th. That's been rescheduled to June 27th. We just felt 16
like we weren't quite there yet on what we were going to present to Council, so we 17
wanted to make sure what we were presenting we were presenting in a very thoughtful 18
way and giving them enough information that would make it beneficial for them. 19
20
Commissioner Reckdahl: What was the date on that? 21
22
Ms. O'Kane: June 27th. 23
24
Commissioner Hetterly: Do you expect that we would see that staff report before our—25
do we meet before the 27th or after the 27th? 26
27
Vice Chair Knopper: I was just going to ask. We don't have a June date on our calendar. 28
29
Commissioner Hetterly: Is it likely that that staff report for the Council would be done in 30
time for the May meeting or are we just going to see it as they see it? 31
32
Mr. de Geus: This is what I was envisioning. The May meeting is a little bit of a draft 33
test run of what we would be sharing with Council. The staff report and what we bring in 34
May will mirror a lot of what we're going to share in June with Council. 35
36
Commissioner Hetterly: Thanks. 37
38
Chair Lauing: Thank you. 39
40
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5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 1
- Parks and Recreation Commission webpage 2
- Community Gardens 3
4
Chair Lauing: Now we'll go over to the ad hoc item. We just want to do ad hoc 5
committee and liaison updates. We did some reassignments and creation of some new 6
ones at the retreat. Just wanted to get a status so we can all kind of collectively know the 7
probable action going forward for the rest of the year. There are a couple scheduled here, 8
and then others are going to speak to the ones that are in process. The first on the list is 9
the Parks and Rec Commission webpage. 10
11
Commissioner Hetterly: That's me and Catherine. As many of you know, this has been a 12
long process with not a lot of movement. I think we had some grand plans at the 13
beginning that the Office of Information Systems put the kibosh on at various stages, but 14
there is a certain consistency that they want from one page to the next page. Catherine, 15
can you put up the existing page? You had a copy in your packet, and I think Catherine 16
sent out a link to the website so you could see what showed up. Basically what we were 17
trying to accomplish was to have some more information upfront about what the 18
Commission's doing and some sort of key documents and answer some key questions for 19
folks who were wondering something about the parks or wondering about what the 20
Commission was doing, and wanted to find it. The old way to find it was simply to—the 21
only way you could find anything was going through every single agenda and looking at 22
the agenda item, clicking on the packet or looking at the following month for the 23
finalized meetings. We wanted people to be able to say, "I’m interested in dog parks. 24
What did the Commission just do about dog parks?" and not have to go through clicking 25
a million different things. We pulled out some of the key items. We added a third 26
column. The current website has sort of a menu on the left side and then a single column 27
with "this is how you apply to the Commission, here are the Commissioners, here are the 28
agendas." This new version we added a column with all of the contact information for 29
staff as well as how to email the Commission, how to get straight to the agenda, get 30
straight to the video of the latest meeting as well as sort of the top couple of policy topics 31
that are floating around. As you click on each of those policy topics, you get to a second 32
page that—I guess I won't go there yet. The other big change aside from that right-hand 33
column is in this agenda section. You're seeing the existing agenda section now; we 34
changed it to instead of having just agendas and minutes listed by date, we now have the 35
table view. You have the date, and you can click on the agenda and the packet for that 36
date and the minutes for that date and the video for that date. You don't have to search 37
through every one. It's a little more user friendly. On the policy topics, I think it 38
basically gives you a little introduction to what's going on there and some links to—like 39
for the Master Plan, it'll link to the Master Plan page. Can you click on one of those 40
current policy document things, Catherine? Here you can see it has a little introduction. 41
You can link to the main Master Plan page, and you can also get right upfront the latest 42
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Commission discussion on that topic, and then also access the archived discussions from 1
previous meetings. We also wanted our general policy documents on the front page. If 2
somebody wants to know what does the Baylands Master Plan really say about that, they 3
can access it online. The same for formal recommendations issued from the Commission 4
to the Council. Any questions? Thanks. 5
6
Chair Lauing: I have one. What's the plan for maintenance, adds, subtracts? Everything 7
has to be maintained. 8
9
Commissioner Hetterly: That's why we reduced our fantasies about how current 10
everything could be. We have three current policy topics on there. Catherine is our guy 11
for all of this stuff. Anything new we want to add or updates we want add, that falls on 12
her. I think she felt like those three—it was manageable to keep track of those three. If 13
we had a new discussion on that topic, she could just update the link for the latest staff 14
report and minutes. 15
16
Chair Lauing: The plan is to add existing documents that explain the progress, not blog, 17
orientation, commentary from a Commissioner or something. 18
19
Commissioner Hetterly: Right. The only thing we thought we would change is probably 20
an annual update. The current policy topics at the beginning of the year at our retreat, we 21
may say, "We don't want dog parks on there now. This is our issue of the year." You 22
might change your policy topics, and you change the message from the Commission, so 23
the Chair would have to write a new message every year. I think that was all that needed 24
ongoing maintenance. Is that right, Catherine? Can you think of anything? 25
26
Chair Lauing: I just had one other one. Did you consider and then reject the idea of 27
something like a breaking news? If we finally break ground on the golf course, to have a 28
headline up there, not a document per se but sort of an announcement. Was that one of 29
the fantasy items? 30
31
Commissioner Hetterly: It sort of was a fantasy item that we would have more regular 32
updates, but the update problem got in our way. We thought rather than institutionalizing 33
something like that, so we have a banner and people expect a new breaking news every 34
day, that would be something that could maybe be added on a very special occasion. 35
36
Catherine Bourquin: (inaudible) 37
38
Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah. Where is that? That's on the second page? It's on the 39
second page of your handout. What's happening in our parks clicks to a page that kind of 40
does keep up-to-date on sort of what's the latest thing that's happening. Monroe Park just 41
opened or whatever the issue is. 42
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1
Chair Lauing: Yes, Commissioner Moss. 2
3
Commissioner Moss: You could also put something in the message from the 4
Commission. If there was something important, you could put it in the message from the 5
Commission. That wouldn't be that hard. Also, I'm assuming that we could add more 6
community partners on that section there. Is that hard to do? For instance, Mid-7
Peninsula Regional Open Space and Silicon Valley Audubon Society, they have a lot to 8
say. 9
10
Commissioner Hetterly: We do have a lot of partners that we work with. I think these 11
four were the ones that made the cut because we contract directly with them for City 12
services. Right? 13
14
Ms. Bourquin: That's what I hear. (crosstalk) 15
16
Commissioner Moss: You also have ... 17
18
Commissioner Hetterly: We debated whether to include that section at all. 19
20
Commissioner Moss: You also have the School District and you have the social services 21
and other groups. It could get pretty big. 22
23
Commissioner Hetterly: It's tricky to decide who gets listed and who doesn't get listed. 24
We did have that question of whether that was sufficiently problematic that we shouldn't 25
list anybody. We'd love your thoughts on that. 26
27
Chair Lauing: Any others? 28
29
Commissioner Hetterly: Yes, list them. No, don't list them. Don't list anybody, okay. 30
Take off the community partners section. 31
32
Commissioner Moss: You could move it to a different page. 33
34
Commissioner Hetterly: I think it may be on the parks page. We can just take it off of 35
this one. 36
37
Chair Lauing: Great. It exists. Yea. 38
39
Commissioner Hetterly: Green light. 40
41
Commissioner Moss: It's beautiful. 42
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1
Ms. Bourquin: We go live, right? 2
3
Commissioner Hetterly: Yep. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Community gardens. 6
7
Vice Chair Knopper: Catherine's going to do the update because she's done all the work. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Credit where credit's due. 10
11
Ms. Bourquin: You just wanted a brief update. Basically I've just come up with 12
explaining how many vacancies we have and so forth. Right now at Johnson there's three 13
vacancies. We have a waiting list of 12. At Rinconada, there's 13 vacancies. Eleanor 14
has 12. The waiting list is very, very short. We have seven to share between Eleanor and 15
Rinconada. Right now, we're actively advertising the wait list. We're using the Enjoy!, 16
high schools, kiosks and word of mouth. We just had an irrigation project completed 17
ahead of schedule. Peter is here. Everyone is very, very grateful for it. Let's see. In the 18
Ventura garden, right now it's still being managed by the Palo Alto Child Care. 19
Discussions for management of the garden will take place sometime in June when their 20
tenant agreement is renewed. When coordinating our Fiscal Year '17-'18 for the budget, 21
the garden fees will be reviewed. Ventura's garden fee implementation would be phased 22
in for that year. I think that was what you were concerned about, right? 23
24
Chair Lauing: Yeah. I just wanted to make sure we got an update on the Ventura 25
contingent. 26
27
Ms. Bourquin: There is a project that's happening. It's called the "Migration of Monarch 28
Butterfly," and all of our gardens are participating in it. That's about it. 29
30
Chair Lauing: Any questions to the ad hoc on that? 31
32
Vice Chair Knopper: You forgot to mention that you're starting Facebook pages, at least 33
that was in my notes. 34
35
Ms. Bourquin: Yes. Part of working with my volunteers at the garden, we're trying to 36
make it very—how can I say this? Right now I'm doing everything as far as emailing and 37
stuff like that. Right now they want to do a Facebook page where we can announce 38
workdays and things that are happening in the garden. 39
40
Chair Lauing: Make the community do some of the work. That's good. Other ... 41
42
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Commissioner Hetterly: Can I just make a quick comment? 1
2
Chair Lauing: Sure. 3
4
Commissioner Hetterly: I just wanted to make an announcement on behalf of myself and 5
Stacey Ashland who was formerly on the website ad hoc. Catherine really worked hard 6
on this project. That included the really ugly job of going through all of those years of 7
archived minutes and figuring out which ones fit with which topic. I wanted to publicly 8
thank her for all that (crosstalk). 9
10
Chair Lauing: Thank you for bringing that up. 11
12
Ms. Bourquin: Thank you. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Are you on the next five ad hocs too? You could just keep going. Great 15
job. Commissioner Reckdahl had a few that he was going to comment on for us. 16
17
Commissioner Reckdahl: The only one with news is the Matadero Creek undercrossing, 18
the one that goes under 101. Commissioner Moss and I are on that. There was a pop-up 19
event at Matadero Creek in Midtown between Hoover and Waverley last Saturday. I 20
didn't know about it. Commissioner Moss saw that and forwarded it on, so we showed 21
up there. There was a good turnout. Mayor Burt was there, and the Planning lead, Josh 22
Mello, was there, and also some angry neighbors were there too. I think the bulk of the 23
people there were very interested in seeing the—they opened up one block of the trail. 24
People were walking back and forth on that. Overall the response was very good. There 25
were some people obviously that did not want it open, but most of the people, I think, 26
were in support of that. Mayor Burt had a nice discussion about the Matadero Creek 27
undercrossing. He was very supportive, and that was good to see. Also, we asked if the 28
trail itself slows down, can we go forward with the creek underpass by itself. He said 29
yes, he would see no problem with that. Hopefully we've gotten the ball moving, and 30
we'll get some progress on that. Did you want anything? 31
32
Commissioner Moss: Mayor Burt also mentioned that if we have trouble with the 33
utilities that we should bring that up in the City Council. They can work in ways that we 34
can't. We had the argument about the dog park. What if we want to have an ingress or 35
egress to that Matadero Creek and it's very near the utilities and they use the very good 36
argument of security, is there no way to push back? He would like to know about those 37
issues and not just keep them to ourselves. 38
39
Chair Lauing: Is there ongoing action or plans or goals for this ad hoc or is it a 40
monitoring situation now? 41
42
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Commissioner Reckdahl: The next move is that Josh is going to be talking with the 1
consultants and talking with the Water District and seeing if they have any issues with 2
that. We'll circle with him. We'll get together with him shortly and keep moving. I think 3
this will be slow going just because the Water District's involved. It's just not an issue of 4
getting the Council in line or the staff in line. There's going to be a lot of iterations. 5
6
Chair Lauing: You were also going to mention Canopy and Baylands Athletic. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: We haven't done anything on those. With the golf course 9
opening, maybe we do start getting together at the Athletic Center. Commissioner Cowie 10
and I are on that. When is construction going to start? 11
12
Kristen O'Kane: There's a pre-bid meeting for the golf course this Friday with the 13
potential bidders on the project. We don't yet have the permits, but we are supposedly 14
very close. I know you've heard that before. I believe right now it's with the agencies in 15
their approval process. It has to go to different offices and different managers within the 16
agencies to get approval. The pre-bid meeting is this Friday, like I said. Hopefully 17
construction would begin this summer. 18
19
Chair Lauing: You guys will just monitor that and see if there's any action you want to 20
take in conjunction with that. 21
22
Commissioner Reckdahl: One question about the Baylands Athletic Center. Was it a 23
CIP that was going to resurface that parking lot and look at reconfiguration or was that ... 24
There was some plans for that or some time table for that. 25
26
Daren Anderson: I believe it would be after the project. The JPA will be mobilizing 27
through that parking lot. It would be the wrong time to do it in advance or during their 28
project. At the end would be appropriate. 29
30
Commissioner Reckdahl: The timing for reconfiguring the Baylands Athletic Center 31
would be as the golf course is finishing up, and we should be making plans of how we're 32
going to place things and do we want to do anything or do we want to just leave the land 33
bank as is. 34
35
Mr. Anderson: I think so, but probably in combination with wrapping up the Parks 36
Master Plan to some degree as well. 37
38
Chair Lauing: Since you mentioned CIP, I think at this point you're on that. I rolled off 39
it. One of the things we've got to do tonight potentially is to talk about configuration of 40
folks on ad hocs. One of our Commissioners is not on any ad hocs yet. We don't 41
necessarily have to do it now. There's an opening there. Let's see what other ones we 42
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have. Dog parks, we can declare a victory. The Comprehensive Conservation Plan, 1
that's getting under way. It's listed as Moss with Hetterly backup right now. 2
3
Mr. Anderson: Would you like an update on where we're at? 4
5
Chair Lauing: That'd be great. 6
7
Mr. Anderson: This is a CIP; the funding will start this next fiscal year. Starting July 8
1st, we'll have funding for the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan. We haven't 9
started work on the scope yet. That would be the next step. Right now staff is focusing 10
on obviously the Parks Master Plan and several other large CIPs including the golf 11
course. As you heard, we have the pre-bid meeting this Friday. We've got Stanford-Palo 12
Alto playing fields, which we'll start construction June 13th. This is the replacement of 13
the synthetic turf out there. Getting Buckeye Creek hydrology study up and going. 14
That'll go to Council for contract approval in June. The next step for the Baylands 15
Comprehensive Plan will be that work on the scope of work, to develop it for the RFP, 16
maybe June, July-ish. I'll outreach to the ad hoc on that one as soon as staff's ready to 17
kind of get that going and definitely involve the Commissioners that are interested. 18
19
Chair Lauing: Good. Any others that I've inadvertently left out that need to be reported 20
on? We can do some horse trading to get you on one or two of these. 21
22
Commissioner Cribbs: I had sent a note about the Baylands and also (inaudible) ... 23
24
Chair Lauing: Turn your mike on. 25
26
Commissioner Cribbs: I had sent a note back about both the Baylands and also gyms, a 27
sort of joint use facility. 28
29
Chair Lauing: Jim is on gyms. You could join on that one. 30
31
Commissioner Cowie: That would be awesome. Terrific. 32
33
Chair Lauing: The one other thing that I thought, Jim, is that you're kind of a quantitative 34
guy. You might want to look at the CIP ad hoc. If Anne is interested in Baylands, she 35
could maybe take that one, and you can move to the CIP process one. Don't necessarily 36
(crosstalk). 37
38
Commissioner Cowie: Probably worth an offline discussion, because I don't really know 39
what it would entail. 40
41
Chair Lauing: I was going to say you don't have to decide right now. 42
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1
Commissioner Cowie: Yeah, but I'm open to it, absolutely. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Any other committees? If not, we can move on to the next agenda item. 4
5
V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 6
7
Chair Lauing: Comments and announcements. I guess we just heard about the golf 8
course, which is one that I wanted to hear about. 9
10
Kristen O'Kane: I just have a couple of announcements of some events that are coming 11
up. This Saturday is the Great Race for Saving Water, which is a partnership this year 12
with CSD, Community Services, as well as the Utility Department. If anyone's interested 13
in running or walking a 5K on Saturday, we would appreciate the support. Also the May 14
Fete Parade is coming up. You should have received an email, I believe, from Catherine 15
asking if anyone would like to participate in the parade as a VIP. If you are interested in 16
that, please get back to Catherine, so we can make sure that you're all set up when you 17
arrive. Also, we are looking for someone from the Commission to be a parade judge. 18
This would be somebody who judges the floats in the parade. If anyone is interested in 19
serving in that role, please let me know. We will make arrangements for that as well. 20
21
Vice Chair Knopper: I built two floats, and I felt judged; therefore, I will not judge. 22
23
Chair Lauing: But you've got the resume, you have to do it. 24
25
Vice Chair Knopper: I got a blue ribbon, but I didn't win. 26
27
Commissioner Cowie: Kristen, what was the date again? 28
29
Ms. O'Kane: For the May Fete Parade? 30
31
Commissioner Cowie: Yeah. 32
33
Ms. O'Kane: It's May 7th. 34
35
Commissioner Reckdahl: For the newbies, the way it works is all the Commissions 36
march in the parade. Last year, I guess they were separated from the Council. In past 37
years, we've marched with the Council. You march down the street, and the kids all 38
scream. It's like the Beetles coming to the Ed Sullivan Show. It's a good time. 39
40
Commissioner Hetterly: Parks and Rec has a tradition of exceeding the turnout of any 41
other Commission in the City. If you can go, you should. 42
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1
Rob de Geus: Arrive at 9:30. It's a lot of fun. You get a t-shirt. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: What is the theme? 4
5
Mr. de Geus: It's "Happy, Healthy Habits," related to the Healthy Cities Healthy 6
Communities priority that the Council adopted. 7
8
Chair Lauing: It's really fun. I'm going to be unfortunately out of town, so I'll break my 9
7-year string here. It's just really fun. Maybe not as much admiration as the Beetles, but 10
the kids love it too. Were there other announcements? I kind of wanted to make—I'm 11
sorry, were you not done? I kind of wanted to make an observation/announcement. I 12
went to the duck pond last weekend. The ordinance is accomplishing nothing 13
unfortunately. The feeding—I mean, there was a family standing at the sign throwing hot 14
dog buns to the ducks. At the sign. Some of the stuff they were throwing was touching 15
the sign that's clearly marked that this is bad for life in general. It raises the issue again 16
about what can we do to occasionally enforce it so that the word gets out that you're 17
going to get ticketed or whatever it is. It didn't accomplish its goal. It's kind of 18
frustrating for all the time and effort that Daren and others put into it. 19
20
Mr. de Geus: Yeah. Have you seen that multiple times? I mean, could it have just been 21
a bad day? We'll check with Daren to see ... 22
23
Chair Lauing: It could have been, because I don't go there that much. I intentionally 24
went down there just to see what was going on. It was dreadful. 25
26
Mr. de Geus: We'll check in with Daren and the rangers. 27
28
Chair Lauing: Any other announcements? 29
30
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR MAY 24, 2016 MEETING 31
32
Chair Lauing: Tentative agenda for the May 24th meeting which will certainly include 33
the Master Plan. It may include the Zoo. 34
35
Kristen O'Kane: Will it include the Zoo? 36
37
Chair Lauing: The PIO. 38
39
Ms. O'Kane: Mm-hmm. Daren also mentioned the presentation we heard tonight may be 40
coming back next week on the El Camino. That discussion on the Master Plan will be 41
DRAFT
Draft Minutes 55
significantly more, I think, in-depth next month than it was today. There will be a lot 1
more information that we'll be presenting (crosstalk). 2
3
Chair Lauing: We had to get through the survey data, so that we could all see what was 4
there. I think that's the right batting order. Other items? I'm sure there will be more. 5
6
Ms. O'Kane: One thing that I would like to bring hopefully next month is to have some 7
of our Rec staff come and present just what we're doing with teen programs, youth and 8
teen programs. We have a lot going on. We have a lot of really interesting programs that 9
we're either partnering with other organizations on or hosting. I asked them to come and 10
present to the Commission just sort of a brief summary and highlighting what they're 11
doing. I think what they're doing is really great things for the community. We'd like to 12
share those. Hopefully that will be in May. 13
14
Rob de Geus: I have one announcement that is fairly significant. We're in the budget 15
season. Our operating budget for the department is going to be reviewed by the Finance 16
Committee next week on the 5th. The Chair of the Finance Committee is right here. If 17
you're interested in that, I think it's a 6:00 start. The Finance Committee goes department 18
by department for the 2017 budget. The City Manager last night gave the overview of 19
the budget to the full City Council and gave them their books. It seemed to go quite well. 20
If you have questions or are interested in knowing more about the operating budget and 21
what's in there, you certainly can ask me. It's also posted online so you can access it. 22
We'll send you a link so it's easy to access. 23
24
VII. ADJOURNMENT 25
26
Chair Lauing: If there are no other items, we can entertain a motion for adjournment. 27
28
Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Reckdahl and second by Commissioner 29
Cribbs at 10:03 p.m. 30
TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
FROM: AMAL AZIZ, RECREATION PROGRAM COORDINATOR
COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
DATE: MAY 31, 2016
SUBJECT: TEEN PROGRAMS AND SERVICES
RECOMMENDATION
No action to be taken.
BACKGROUND
The City of Palo Alto (City) recognizes the importance of creating a positive, safe environment where teens can
develop life skills and grow as individuals. The Community Services Department offers several programs and
leadership groups geared specifically for the Palo Alto teen community with the goal of developing leaders and
fostering growth. Each teen program offered by the City focuses on developing the spirit, mind and body;
stimulating creativity, offering challenges, and building developmental assets.
DISCUSSION
The City’s teen programs include teen leadership opportunities, afterschool programming, and teen initiative
grants. Summer camps are also available for teens to participate recreationally or through the counselor-in-
training program, which provides leadership skills.
Teen Leadership
Representing the City of Palo Alto, Teen Leadership brings the teen voice into various facets of the Palo Alto
teen community.
Palo Alto Youth Council (PAYC)
PAYC works closely with City of Palo Alto's recreation department and reports yearly to the City Council to
contribute information on issues related to Palo Alto youth. The council is made of approximately 20 teens from
Palo Alto High School, Castilleja High School, and Gunn High School. The Council hosts an array of events,
including regular teen forums, where teens from throughout the community are welcomed to voice their ideas,
concerns, opinions, and possible solutions to issues facing the teen population.
Teen Advisory Board (TAB)
The Teen Advisory Board (TAB) is made up of Palo Alto High School students who want to plan and lead high
school events for students in Palo Alto. Comprised of approximately 20 teens from Palo Alto High School,
Castilleja High School, and Gunn High School, the Advisory hosts a number of recreational events, including
movie nights, trivia nights, finals decompression cupcake decorating, and more.
Teen Arts Council (TAC)
The Teen Arts Council is a creative community of Palo Alto teens dedicated to enriching the lives of their peers
through artistic expression. Towards this end, the TAC coordinates events and projects inspired by the passions
of council members and connects teens with the financial and logistical resources to carry out their imaginative
ideas. Comprised of approximately 50 teens from Palo Alto High School, Gunn High School, and Castilleja High
School, the Teen Arts Council is best known for their highly successful open-mics and other creative productions.
Teen Library Advisory Board (T-LAB)
The Teen Library Advisory Board, or T-LAB, is an advisory of teens in grades 8-12 that coordinate events,
activities, and efforts for teens that visit Palo Alto libraries. Comprised of approximately 15 teens from Palo Alto
High School, Gunn High School, and Castilleja High School, Jordan Middle School, J.L. Stanford Middle School,
and Terman Middle School; T-LAB hosts an array of fun events for teens, including an Anti-Valentine’s Day Party,
Teen Finals Cram Slam, and more.
Afterschool Programming
The Mitchell Park Teen Center provides both drop-in and structured free programming for middle school and
high school teens in the community. Ensuring a fun, safe, and engaging space for youth afterschool both the
Learning Enrichment After-School Program (LEAP) and The Drop programming is open to all teens that attend a
Palo Alto middle school or high school.
Learning Enrichment After-School Program
LEAP (Learning Enrichment Afterschool Program) is an after-school program located in the Mitchell Park
Community Center that provides services, activities, and classes to middle school students, grades 6-8
throughout the community. We provide homework help, various fun enrichment activities like sports, cooking,
art, special events, and more. The program has approximately 90 enrolled students from schools throughout
Palo Alto, with a daily attendance of approximately 35.
The Drop
The Drop at the Mitchell Park Teen Center is our drop-in space for high school teens. With extended hours on
Friday evenings, Palo Alto high schoolers are able to participate in special teen events, as well as all of the
recreational amenities the center yields, including pool, air hockey, video games, basketball, and board games,
all in a fun, safe, and supervised space. Our teen membership has enrolled approximately 100 teens, with
approximately 15 teens during regular afterschool hours, and approximately 30-40 teens for Friday Teen Night
events.
Teen Initiative Grants – Bryant Street Garage Fund
The Bryant Street Garage Fund brings mentorship, support, resources, and funding to teen led ideas and
initiatives. Teens bring their ideas and meet with the Teen Programs Specialist to further develop their idea into
the form of a proposal. Proposals are reviewed by the Teen Services Committee, where they are then approved
and moved forward into action. With support from teen services throughout the process, the Bryant Street
Garage Fund supports teen ideas from beginning to end.
This year, the Bryant Street Garage Fund has supported an array of teen ideas, ranging from the highly
successful teen documentary, ‘Unmasked’, to the creative collaboration of the Teen Arts Council. The Fund has
put forth thousands of dollars towards more than 30 projects, reaching thousands of teens in the community.
Programs supported through the Bryant Street Garage Fund include:
Project Enybody
Teen Arts Council
Make X
Palo Alto Youth Council
Palo Alto Roots
Girl Up
Science for Sight
Gunn BEAM
Team 6036 Robotics Team
Financial Literacy for Youth (FLY)
Teen History Bowl
Teens Exploring Code
Science for Sight
Students United Against Cancer
DocX: Unmasked
Eyes: Teen Photography Exhibit and Fundraiser
ClickPA
Tall Tree Teens
Buddies 4 Math
Kick 4 Charity
Summer Opportunities
Teen Week Out Camp
Teen Week Out brings teens to weeks of exciting, and engaging trips activities throughout the summer. With
trips to beaches, museums, theme parks, indoor rock climbing, and more, Teen Week Out works to help teens
break away from their day-to-day routine.
Foothills Adventure Camp
Foothills Adventure brings traditional City of Palo Alto Foothills Camps to pre-teens and teens ages 11-13. Set in
the beautiful Foothills Park, campers experience nature, learn basic outdoor skills, canoe, participate in
overnights, and much more.
Counselor-in-Training Program
The City of Palo Alto Counselor-in-Training Program brings leadership into the camp experience. Counselors-in-
Training are given opportunities to take on leadership roles in our Foothills Camps, where they work closely with
youth and camp staff throughout the summer.
PLANNING AND COMMUNITY
ENVIRONMENT DEPARTMENT
MEMORANDUM
TO: Parks and Recreation Commission
FROM: Shahla Yazdy DEPARTMENT: Transportation
AGENDA DATE: May 31, 2016
SUBJECT: Quarry Road Improvements and Transit Center Access Project
RECOMMENDATION Staff requests that the Parks and Recreation Commission provide feedback on the updated conceptual
design plan for the Quarry Road Improvements and Transit Center Access Project’s pathway
connection plan.
BACKGROUND The August 2011 Development Agreement between Stanford Hospital and Clinics, the Lucile Salter
Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University and the City of Palo Alto obligated the City to design and construct enhancements of
various pedestrian and bicycle connections between the Palo Alto Intermodal Transit Center and the
Stanford University Medical Campus (SUMC). Stanford provided funds for these projects.
Specifically, the agreement called for:
1) Improvements to Enhance the Pedestrian and Bicycle Connection from the Palo Alto Intermodal
Transit Center to the existing intersection at El Camino Real and Quarry Road, including
development of an attractive, landscaped passive park/green space with a clearly marked and
lighted pedestrian pathway, benches and flower borders; and
The purpose of the project in this area is to provide safe, clear, and directly connected pathway system for travel by both bicyclists and pedestrians from the Transit Center to Quarry Road. The park area is a
connection point between the crosswalk at El Camino Real and Quarry Road, El Camino Park,
University Circle, and the Transit Center. The existing asphalt pathway is uneven, unsafe, lack of
transitional space, and an unsafe interface between bicyclists and pedestrians at the El Camino
Real/Quarry Road intersection crosswalk.
DISCUSSION On April 24, 2016 Staff presented the park concept plan to the Commission. Following the meeting on
April 24, 2106, staff has revised the conceptual plan in response to the comment received from the
Commission. The following is a brief summary of the comments and responses to each:
• What is the purpose of the project and what is wrong with the existing path and alignment?
The path is currently in poor condition with various abrupt changes in grade at El Camino Real and at
the Transit Station.
• Keep existing alignment. Proposed path alternative prevents future use of the park.
The temporary pathway connection has been restored to close to the original alignment with only
refinements at the tee intersection with El Camino Real and the exiting sharp turn. These refinements
have improved pedestrian and bike flow as well as improved sight lines and stacking at transitions.
• Why so little planting and it does not seem like a green belt?
We have significantly increased the plantings and buffers to truly create a more beautified corridor.
• The signage is too much and too many.
We have opted to keep the two existing directional signs and only add one small low level directional
sign at the "Y" intersection to provide some direction. The sign is 3 feet tall and minimal. It is also not
focused on just the bicyclists.
• The path does not address pedestrian needs.
The pathway has been realigned back to the original alignment which is heavily traveled by
pedestrians. In addition the pathway has now been marked with both bike and pedestrian markings like El Camino Park to indicate the path is a shared use. As indicated earlier the bike focused signage has been removed as well. The plant material has specifically been layered to promote a diversity that is more appealing to pedestrians and bicyclists alike.
• Add benches near walkway path
Three benches have been located on the plan to provide pedestrian rest areas and face into the path and
the landscape buffer.
Updated Project Description:
The updated design consists of an 8 foot wide striped asphalt shared use path with 2 foot decomposed granite fines paths on both sides, for a total width of 12 feet. The alignment of the path is largely in the
same location yet has been adjusted slightly to provide a smooth and direct transition between the
existing El Camino Park bike path, the crosswalk area, and the direct connection to the Transit Center.
In short, the pathway successfully increases the pathway flow for both pedestrians and bicyclists alike
while taking a route that avoids the existing Oak tree grove, power poles, guy anchors, SFPUC Utility
obstructions, and various sightline obstructions, all while taking advantage of the existing open space
area. All visibility and pavement markings will be in accordance with MUTCD, Section 9C101 (CA).
Bicyclists and pedestrians are provided with a combination of two (2) existing and one new wayfinding
signage at the three (3) key transition nodes to help them navigate to their desired destinations. To
address the tendency for pedestrians to take the shortest distance between two points, pedestrians are
provided a separate 2 foot wide decomposed granite fines shoulder along with high visibility shared
pathway markings. The entire pathway system is to be lit by LED pathway lights to at least minimum
safety standards in accordance with the Highway Design Manual Section 1003.1 (18). The fixtures will
match the recently installed park light fixtures and poles.
Landscape planting will be used with the goal of improving the aesthetics at the street frontage and
pathway alignment. The landscaping has been designed in a fashion that will create a n ample buffer to
the currently unused open space that is reserved for future park uses. The largely native plant material
will be harmonious and compatible with the newly installed plants located at the adjacent El Camino
Park, but will provide more depth and interest to the pathway user due to the deeper open space
adjacent to the path. The plants will be drought tolerant and irrigated with a drip system. The layout
will be low accent shrubs, layered in with appropriately sized background material and groundcovers.
The views into the area and along the path will be clear, unobstructed, and not create safety concerns and places to hide. The remainder of the area that may be disturbed during construction will be
redressed with a 4” thick recycled mulch layer, which is what currently exists now.
Timeline The tentative project timeline, subject to change, is as follows:
• ARB Review/Approval –June 2016
• Council Concept Plan Approval– June 20, 2016
• Final Design and Construction Document Completion – August 2016
• Council Approval of Construction Contract – Late Summer 2016
• Construction Completion– Spring 2017
NEXT STEPS Staff will go to City Council on June 20, 2016 for the conceptual plans with feedback received from PABAC, Parks and Recreation Commission and the Architectural Review Board. ATTACHMENTS
• A–Updated Park Concept Plan
Prepared by:
Shahla Yazdy
Project Engineer, Transportation
Department/Division Head Approval:
TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
FROM: KRISTEN O’KANE, COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
PETER JENSEN, PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT
DATE: MAY 31, 2016
SUBJECT: PARKS, TRAILS, NATURAL OPEN SPACE AND RECREATION MASTER PLAN
RECOMMENDATION
No action to be taken.
BACKGROUND
The City of Palo Alto has 36 parks and open space preserves covering approximately 4,165 acres of land,
which includes Foothills Park, Pearson Arastradero Preserve, Esther Clark Park, and the Baylands Nature
Preserve. A Capital Improvement Project for a Parks, Trails, Open Space, and Recreation Master Plan (Master
Plan) was adopted by Council for the 2013 fiscal year. The purpose of this effort is to provide the necessary
analysis and review of Palo Alto’s parks and recreation system for the preparation of a long-range (20-year)
Master Plan. The Master Plan will provide the City with clear guidance regarding future renovations and
capital improvement projects aimed at meeting current and future demands on the city’s recreational,
programming, environmental, and maintenance needs, establishing a prioritized schedule and budget of
future park renovations, facility improvements and expansion of recreational programs.
The Master Plan process consists of three phases:
1. Phase 1: Specific Site and Program Analysis and Community Engagement (complete): Development
of a comprehensive inventory and analysis of all Palo Alto parks, trails, developed natural open
space areas (picnic areas, parking lots) and recreational facilities and programs; analysis of current
and forecasted demographic and recreation trends, and analysis of community recreation needs.
Identify community and stakeholder needs, interests and preferences for system enhancements
using a proactive community engagement process.
2. Phase 2: Developing and Prioritizing Project and Program Opportunities (complete/ongoing):
Preparation of goals, policies, and programs; identification of capital projects, needed renovations
and other improvements; and prioritization of projects into an implementation timeline of short (5-
year), medium (15- year) and long-term (20-year) ranges.
3. Phase 3: Drafting of the Master Plan, Review and Adoption (ongoing): Public, Parks and Recreation
Commission (PRC), and Council review; and Council approval to adopt the Master Plan.
The technical assessment and analysis, and the community and stakeholder engagement activities are
complete (Phase 1). The Goals and Policies have been developed (Phase 2) and were presented to the PRC
on April 26, 2016. There have been some revisions made to the policies, which are included in the Discussion
section of this report. The potential Programs that will help achieve the goals and policies have since been
developed and an implementation timeline and assessment of costs is underway. The draft programs are
included in this staff report and will be presented by staff. Additionally, park concept plans highlighting the
proposed improvements to each of the City’s parks have been created. The Site Concept Plans can be located
on line at the project web page for review.
DISCUSSION
Policies
During development of the Proposed Project and Programs, some modifications were made to the Policies
presented at the April 26th PRC meeting. A summary of policy changes are included in Attachment A. While
most of these modifications are minor, some revisions are more significant and are discussed below.
Policy 1B (revised): Use the National Recreation and Park Association standard as a guide for park
development in Palo Alto’s Urban Service Area. New parkland should be added to meet and maintain the
standard of 4 acres/1,000 residents. Parkland should expand with population, be well distributed across the
community and of sufficient size to meet the varied needs of neighborhoods and the broader community.
Maximum service area should be one-half mile.
The initial recommendation for policy 1.B was to adopt the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA)
standard for the desired amount of urban parkland per resident. This standard is currently cited in the draft
Comprehensive Plan Community Services Element. The standard divides parks into two categories:
neighborhood and district parks and recommends for each type that 2 acres of land be provided per 1000
residents. This recommendation was made on the basis that the NRPA is currently a nationally recognized
standard and an accepted established bench mark, and would provide the city with a clear goal. In applying
this standard to Palo Alto’s existing park system, however; it became apparent that the distinction between
district and neighborhood parks used in the NRPA standard does not readily correlate to the inventory and
patterns of use in Palo Alto where many parks serve as both neighborhood and district parks. In addition,
many of Palo Alto’s small neighborhood parks would be discounted from the overall parks inventory if the
exact standard were used. Building off the Comprehensive Plan, the PRC and staff revised the policy to
more accurately reflect Palo Alto while supporting the need to expand the existing parks system. To support
the policy a set of programs has been developed that will guide how to expand the park system while taking
into consideration the limits of space and funding.
Policy 4.C: Prioritize development of comprehensive conservation plans for Baylands Preserve, Foothills Park,
Esther Clark and Pearson-Arastradero Preserve to identify strategies to balance ecosystem preservation,
passive recreation, and environmental education.
This policy was moved to a program under Policy 4.H -In Natural Open Space, focus on features and activities
that are compatible with the protection of nature. Development of conservation plans for the open space
preserves is a direct action that will identify methods for managing open space areas while balancing
protection of the natural environment and recreational uses, which is the intent of the policy.
Policy 5.E: Encourage new parks and identified neighborhood needs as part of the Development Agreement
process for new residential and commercial developments.
This policy has been deleted. New residential and commercial developments are reviewed by the City’s
Planning Department. Policies and laws related to parkland dedication are already in place and incorporated
into the Planning Department’s review of new developments.
Proposed Projects and Programs
Following the Goals and Policies, the next level of the Master Plan framework is the projects and programs
that provide specific actions toward achieving the goals and policies. For consistency with the
Comprehensive Plan, the Master Plan will refer to projects and programs collectively as programs. The
programs represent potential enhancements and expansions for the parks and recreation system including
2
recreation programming. Potential new programs were created from the information gathered in the
analysis phase of the project including physical inventory and community feedback, and utilizes the Areas of
Focus that were developed as part of the community on line survey challenge as an overall structure.
Additional programs, such as the addition of new park amenities like dog parks and restrooms were also
considered and are included. Refer to Attachment B for the proposed Programs, including how they correlate
to the goals and policies. For organizational purposes, and to ensure that the intent of the Master Plan is
met, programs should be either New Programs or System Recommendations as described below:
Proposed New Projects and Programs:
• Enhance Existing Park Amenities: small scale enhancements or renovations made to the existing
parks and facilities
• New Park and Recreation Facilities/Amenities: new facilities/amenities the current park system is
missing or lacking
• New Programming Recommendations: new programming as well as maintaining/expanding existing
programs
System Recommendations:
• Improve Accessibility and Inclusiveness: access and connections in and between parks as well as
making that accessibility inclusive
• Partnering and Expanding the System Recommendations: opportunities to partner with others to
acquire more area as ways of expanding the park and recreation system
• Funding Recommendations: funding opportunities to support and expand the parks and recreation
system
• New/Revised Ordinance & Policy Recommendations: updates, modifications or new ordinances and
policies for the parks and recreation system
• System Management Recommendations: maintenance and system expansion practices
• Environmental Recommendations: environmental and nature considerations
• Art Recommendations: incorporation of art into the parks system
Program prioritization and implementation:
When considering the priority of programs and the order in which they will be completed, the following set
of criteria will be used as a guide to identify the benefit of the proposed program to the overall parks system
and in relation to other programs. Proposed programs would be given a ranking of how well, using a range
of low, medium, and high; that program meets the criteria. These criteria would not provide an overall
score to a program, but would be used to inform staff, the PRC, and Council on how a particular program
would serve the needs of the community. The criteria will be applied to each of the identified Master Plan
programs and included in the draft report. New programs that are proposed will also be scored using the
below criteria.
1. Fill existing gaps: Bring recreation opportunities (parkland, facilities, and programs) to areas of the
City and to users where gaps were identified.
2. Address community preferences: Target the highest priority types of projects and programs
identified through citywide outreach.
3. Respond to growth: Add features or programs, modify or expand components of the system to
prepare for and address increasing demand.
4. Maximize public resources: Create the most impact for each dollar of capital and operating
expenditure possible.
3
5. Realize multiple benefits: Advance the principles of this Master Plan as well as the goals, projects and
directions of other adopted City efforts.
Since the aforementioned criteria are only a guide and first-step to identifying which programs to complete
in the near-, mid-, and long-term; additional factors that influence the prioritization of programs will also be
considered and applied, including:
• timing of the proposed program in relation to other facility improvements (e.g., plan for the
installation of an adult fitness area to coincide with other planned park improvements to minimize
disruption);
• available resources based on the approved annual budget;
• length of time to plan, implement, and/or construct; and
• overall feasibility based on staff knowledge and expertise, permitting requirements, immediate
needs based on a specific event or incident, etc.
Site Concept Plans:
Site concept plans were developed for each of Palo Alto’s parks and facilities that show site specific
recommendations for new and enhanced park amenities the can be reviewed on the project web page at
www.cityofpaloaltoparksplan.org. The Site Concept Plans provide the opportunity for the community to
provide input on what new amenities are being proposed for each site. Input gathered from the community
review of these Site Concept Plans will assist staff, the Parks and Recreation Commission and City Council
determine what new amenities are added to the specific site and within what time frame the improvements
will be installed. The park concept plans were developed from site analysis and extensive community
outreach by the project team with assistance of park and recreation staff who has detailed knowledge of the
community’s preferences, common requests and feedback received from the public, as well as the feasibility
of proposed improvements. The project team is currently providing numerous opportunities for the public
to review and comment on the concept plans. Outreach was conducted at the City of Palo Alto May Fete fair,
at a community meeting that was held on May 25, 2016, and was available online beginning May 25, 2016.
Printed versions of the Site Concept Plans have also been dispersed throughout the City’s libraries for
comment. Review of the Site Concept Plans is anticipated to last thru June 2016. Staff will review with the
commission the overall format of the site concept plan document and is requested to provide feedback by
June 10, 2016 to staff.
NEXT STEPS
A City Council Study Session scheduled for June 27, 2016 will review the master planning process activities
completed to date and obtain feedback on the goals and policies. Specific focus will be placed on the policies
that address dog parks and restrooms.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The proposed CIP recommendations are consistent with Policy C-26 of the Community Services element of
the Comprehensive Plan that encourages maintaining park facilities as safe and healthy community assets;
and Policy C-22 that encourages new community facilities to have flexible functions to ensure adaptability to
the changing needs of the community.
ATTACHMENTS
A. Summary of Policy Changes
B. Draft Goals, Policies, and Programs
4
Attachment A: Summary of policy revisions
(Strikethrough denotes deleted text; underline denotes added text)
Policy Revised policy
1.B Use National Recreation and Park Association
Standards as guidelines for locating and developing
new parks. These guidelines are as follows:
• Neighborhood parks should be at least two acres in
size, although sites as small as one-half acre may be
needed as supplementary facilities. The maximum
service area should be one-half mile. Two acres of
neighborhood parkland should be provided for each
1,000 people.
• District parks should be at least five acres in size.
The maximum service area should be one mile. Two
acres of district parkland should be provided for each
1,000 people.
1.B Use the National Recreation and Park Association
standard as a guide (see sidebar) for park
development in Palo Alto’s Urban Service Area. New
parkland should be added to meet and maintain the
standard of 4 acres/1,000 residents. Parkland should
expand with population, be well distributed across
the community and of sufficient size to meet the
varied needs of neighborhoods and the broader
community. Maximum service area should be one-
half mile.
1.F Continue to apply the Field and Tennis Court
Brokering and Use Policy as well as the Gymnasium
Use Policy (as well as any subsequent updates) to
guide the allocation of these recreation facilities with
a preference for youth and Palo Alto residents.
1.F Maintain a Field and Tennis Court Brokering and
Use Policy as well as the Gymnasium Use Policy (as
well as any subsequent updates) to guide the
allocation of these recreation facilities with a
preference for youth and Palo Alto residents.
1.H Incorporate diversity in projects and programs to
encourage and enhance citizen participation.
1.H Incorporate cultural diversity in projects and
programs to encourage and enhance citizen
participation.
1.I Increase volunteerism by creating and promoting
opportunities for youth and adults to participate in
parks, recreation, open space events, projects and
programs.
1.I Increase stewardship and volunteerism by creating
and promoting opportunities for youth and adults to
participate in parks, recreation, open space events,
projects and programs.
1.J Periodically collect and evaluate data on the
changing needs of the community and adjust
programs and plans accordingly.
1.J Periodically collect and evaluate data on the
changing interests of the community and adjust
programs and plans accordingly.
3.B Incorporate artistic expression into park design
and recreation programming (consistent with the Art
Master Plan).
3.B Incorporate art into park design and recreation
programming (consistent with the Public Art Master
Plan).
4.C Prioritize development of comprehensive
conservation plans for Baylands Preserve, Foothills
Park, Esther Clark and Pearson-Arastradero Preserve
to identify strategies to balance ecosystem
preservation, passive recreation, and environmental
education.
This has been moved to be a program under policy
4.H (now 4.G)
4.D Support regional efforts to enhance and improve
significant resources.
4.D (now 4.C) Support regional efforts that focus on
enhancing and protecting significant natural
Attachment A: Summary of policy revisions
(Strikethrough denotes deleted text; underline denotes added text)
resources.
5.C Expand the overall parks system through
repurposing public land, partnering with other
organizations for shared land, incorporating public
park spaces on parking decks and rooftops and other
creative means to help address shortages of available
land.
5.C Expand the overall parks and recreation system
through repurposing public land, partnering with
other organizations for shared land, incorporating
public park spaces on parking decks and rooftops and
other creative means to help address shortages of
available land.
5.E Encourage new parks and identified
neighborhood needs as part of the Development
Agreement process for new residential and
commercial developments.
This policy has been deleted.
6.A Continue to implement the Cost Recovery Policy
for recreation programs, refining the cost figures and
expectations using the most current information
available.
6.A Continue to implement the Cost Recovery Policy
for recreation programs, refining the cost and fees
using the most current information available.
6.E Continue with the Integrated Pest Management
(“IPM”) policy as written. While some parks may be
managed as “pesticide free” on a demonstration
basis, IPM should continue to be Palo Alto’s
approach, grounded in the best available science on
pest prevention and management.
6.E Strengthen the Integrated Pest Management
(“IPM”) policy as written. While some parks may be
managed as “pesticide free” on a demonstration
basis, IPM should continue to be Palo Alto’s
approach, grounded in the Best Available Science on
pest prevention and management.
6.G Continue to coordinate with and/or use other
relevant City plans, including:
o Urban Forest Master Plan;
o Urban Water Master Plan;
o Long-term electric acquisition plan (LEAP);
o Water Reclamation Master Plan;
o Recycled Water Project;
o Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan
o Comprehensive Plan; and
o Others adopted in the future.
6.G Coordinate with and/or use other relevant City
plans to ensure consistency, including:
o Urban Forest Master Plan;
o Urban Water Master Plan;
o Long-term electric acquisition plan (LEAP);
o Water Reclamation Master Plan;
o Recycled Water Project;
o Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan
o Comprehensive Plan; and
o Others adopted in the future.
6.H Continue to involve other relevant City
departments and divisions in planning, design and
programming, drawing on the unique and specialized
skills and perspectives of:
6.H Continue to engage other relevant City
departments and divisions in planning, design and
programming, drawing on the unique and specialized
skills and perspectives of:
Attachment A: Summary of policy revisions
(Strikethrough denotes deleted text; underline denotes added text)
o The Palo Alto Art Center;
o Library, including Children’s Library;
o Junior Museum and Zoo;
o Children’s Theatre;
o Public Art;
o Transportation;
o Urban Forestry;
o Planning;
o Public Works, and
o Palo Alto Youth and Teen Leadership
o The Palo Alto Art Center;
o Library, including Children’s Library;
o Junior Museum and Zoo;
o Children’s Theatre;
o Public Art;
o Transportation;
o Urban Forestry;
o Planning;
o Public Works, and
o Palo Alto Youth and Teen Leadership
6.J Develop a proactive Asset Management Program
for infrastructure requirements and costs.
6.J Develop a proactive Asset Management Program
to identify new, and maintain existing park and
recreation infrastructure.
Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 1
WORKING DRAFT 5/31/16
ATTACHMENT B: Goals, Policies, and Programs
Overview
This provides each of the six goals, numbered 1 through 6. Under each goal, the policies are
numbered for reference (1.A, 1.B, 1.C, etc.) as are the programs (1.A.1, 1.A.2, 1.A.3 etc.).
Goal 1: Provide high-quality facilities and services that are accessible, affordable,
inclusive and distributed equitably across Palo Alto.
Policy
1.A Emphasize equity and affordability in the provision of programs and services and the
facilitation of partnerships, to create recreation opportunities that:
o Advance skills, build community and improve the quality of life among
participants, especially Palo Alto youth and teens; and
o Are available at a wide range of facilities, at an increased number of locations
that are well distributed throughout the city.
Programs
1.A.1 Continue to implement the Fee Reduction Program for low income and
disabled residents and periodically evaluate its use and effectiveness.
1.A.2 Develop free or low cost teen programs that develop life skills, such as
leadership and community service.
1.A.3 Develop a teen advisory committee to provide feedback on newly
proposed parks, recreation and open space projects and programs.
1.A.4 Partner with local recreation providers to relocate existing programs or
offer new programs in Palo Alto parks.
1.A.5 Recruit or develop programs for additional and alternative sports that can
take place in existing parks and make use of existing outdoor recreation
facilities. Examples include cross-country running, track and field, bike
polo, parkour, cycling.
1.A.6 Expand offerings of preserves' interpretive facilities to area schools
through curriculum packages (backpacks, crates, etc.) that can be
brought into the field or the classroom.
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 2
1.A.7 Evaluate the geographic distribution of program offerings and make
adjustments to equally offer programs throughout the City.
1.A.8 Develop additional community gardens focusing on underrepresented
areas of the City.
Policy
1.B Use the National Recreation and Park Association standard as a guide (see sidebar)
for park development in Palo Alto’s Urban Service Area. New parkland should be
added to meet and maintain the standard of 4 acres/1,000 residents. Parkland
should expand with population, be well distributed across the community and of
sufficient size to meet the varied needs of neighborhoods and the broader
community. Maximum service area should be one-half mile.
Programs
1.B.1 Develop design standards for privately-owned public open spaces
(POPOS) that clearly set the expectation for public access, recreation
activities and natural elements. (Examples: NY POPS and SF POPOS).
1.B.2 Establish a system in the City's real estate office that identifies land being
sold and reviews it for park potential, prioritizing review of land within park
search areas. (See Figure X: Park Search Areas).
1.B.3 Review all city owned land and easements (starting in park search areas)
for potential parkland development or connection locations. (See Figure
X: Park Search Areas and Figure X: Bikeways and Pedestrian Routes to
Parks and Recreation Facilities).
1.B.4 Examine City-owned right-of-way (streets, which make up the biggest
portion of publicly owned land) to identify temporary or permanent areas
for improvements that connect or add recreation activity space.
(Examples: California Ave., Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Parklets).
1.B.5 Identify and approach community organizations and institutions that own
land in park search areas to create long-term agreements and
improvements for public park space. (Examples: Friendship Sportsplex,
New Riverside Park).
1.B.6 Create usable park space on top of utilities, parking or other infrastructure
uses. (Examples: Anaheim Utility Park, UC Berkeley Underhill Parking
Structure, Portland’s Director Park).
1.B.7 Monitor properties adjacent to parks that are smaller than the minimum
recommended size for potential acquisition to expand existing parks.
1.B.8 Develop a system to save and reserve funds for parkland acquisition so
that when appropriate land is available the City is in a position to
purchase it.
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 3
1.B.9 Construct a new park in park search area ‘E (See map X), which
represents the area in the City with the least park acreage and highest
density.
1.B.10 Develop a creek walk along Matadero Creek that links parks and creates
open space and habitat corridor.
1.B.11 Incorporate other underutilized City-owned outdoor spaces for park and
recreational programming.
Policy
1.C Ensure the maximum distance between residents’ homes and the nearest public
park or preserve is ½-mile, ¼-mile preferred, that is evaluated using a walkshed
methodology based on how people travel.
Programs
1.C.1 Maintain the City’s digital map developed during this Master Plan process,
updating for new activities and access points.
1.C.2 Establish a review step in the Planning and Community Environment
department for any major redevelopment or the purchase/sale of any City
land in the park search areas.
1.C.3 Acquire and develop a new neighborhood park in each park search area,
starting with the most underserved areas and targeting a central and well-
connected location to maximize access.
Policy
1.D Adopt the wayfinding signage used at Rinconada Park as the standard for Palo Alto
parks and provide standardized directory signs for all large parks, preserves and
athletic field complexes.
Programs
1.D.1 Create and implement a signage and wayfinding program that conveys the
park system identity, incorporates art, connects bike paths to parks and
enhances the experience of park visitors
1.D.2 Install directional signs at parks that include the walking time to the next
nearest park or parks.
Policy
1.E Apply universal design principles as the preferred guidance for design solutions in
parks, striving to exceed Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.
Programs
1.E.1. Create a process to address adaptive program requests for individuals with
cognitive, sensory, and physical disabilities (to be coordinated with
upcoming ADA Transition Plan).
1.E.2. Adopt a standard of universal park design for accessibility and upgrade play
areas and picnic facilities to meet or exceed the standard. (Note: a source
and reference will be added).
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Policy
1.F Maintain a Field and Tennis Court Brokering and Use Policy as well as the
Gymnasium Use Policy (as well as any subsequent updates) to guide the allocation
of these recreation facilities with a preference for youth and Palo Alto residents.
Programs
1.F.1. Periodically review the existing Field and Tennis Court Brokering and Use
Policy and Gymnasium Policy and update as needed.
1.F.2. Develop an annual field usage statistics report, including number of prime
timeslots that were unused due to field condition/resting and the number of
requests for field space that were unfilled due to capacity.
Policy
1.G Encourage walking and biking as a way of getting to and from parks, supporting
implementation of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan.
Programs
1.G.1 Select parks as destinations along routes for “Ciclovia” or “Sunday Streets”
type events where streets are closed to traffic and opened up for citizens of
all ages to interact with each other through exercise, entertainment and fun;
1.G.2 Provide bike parking for cyclists as a standard feature at parks, open
spaces, preserves and community centers;
1.G.3 Provide, identify and mark “Safe Routes to Parks” from locations such as
schools, shopping centers, libraries, after-school programs, community
centers, and residential neighborhoods;
1.G.4 Educate residents about the city’s Bike Boulevards – streets prioritized for
bicycles – to promote greater use, and plan new Bike Boulevard projects
that connect parks, open spaces and recreation facilities.
1.G.5 Identify gaps in the walking and cycling network to improve access to parks,
open spaces, preserves and community centers, including sidewalk repairs,
easements, trail improvements/repair and improved pedestrian visibility.
1.G.6 Collaborate with school communities to enhance routes to schools,
especially where they pass through parks; and
1.G.7 Integrate art and nature into bike lanes, routes and paths as appropriate.
1.G.8 Develop a regular bicycle and walking tour of Palo Alto parks and preserves
as a new recreation program. Develop online materials for self-guided
tours.
Policy
1.H Incorporate cultural diversity in projects and programs to encourage and enhance
citizen participation.
Programs
1.H.1. Conduct an annual survey of cultural groups to identify gaps in recreation
programming.
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 5
1.H.2. Provide multi-cultural and multi-lingual recreation programs.
Policy
1.I Increase stewardship and volunteerism by creating and promoting opportunities for
youth and adults to participate in parks, recreation, open space events, projects and
programs.
Programs
1.I.1. Create a robust volunteer recruitment and management program utilizing
the following steps:
o Explore funding a dedicated Volunteer Coordinator position with
sole purpose of recruiting, training, managing and appreciating
volunteers throughout the City.
o Have detailed job descriptions created for all volunteer needs and
make available at all City sites, as well as online.
o Conduct outreach to senior centers and senior housing facilities to
promote volunteer programs and opportunities.
o Provide volunteer opportunities for Palo Alto youth and students to
earn community service hours by offering programs like the
Counselor in Training and Junior Lifeguard programs and partnering
with Counselor in Training and Junior lifeguard programs and
partnering with PAUSD.
1.I.2. Continue to offer volunteer habitat and landscape improvement projects,
and support partnership organizations that offer volunteer programs in
Parks and Open Space areas.
Policy
1.J Periodically collect and evaluate data on the changing interests of the community
and adjust programs and plans accordingly.
Programs
1.J.1 Create pilot recreation programs to test the public's interest in new types
of classes, events and activities utilizing an evaluation process.
1.J.2 Initiate a community-wide focus group on an annual basis to provide
feedback on programs, facilities and long-term roadmaps.
1.J.3 Create a streamlined and effective quarterly survey system that solicits
feedback from customers, including program participants, facility renters,
and the general community.
Goal 2: Enhance the capacity, quality and variety of uses of the existing system
of parks, recreation and open space facilities and services.
Policy
2.A Sustain the community’s investment in recreation facilities.
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Programs
2.A.1 Continue to program and prioritize projects for existing facilities as identified
in the Independent Blue Ribbon Committee report, and plan the keep up of
new facilities as they come on line, recognizing their expected lifespan and
revised based on real-world experience.
2.A.2 Research best practices to design recreational facilities that can be
maintained with existing budgets.
2.A.3 Collaborate with Palo Alto Unified School District to develop a vision and
master plan for the future of the Cubberley Community Center.
Policy
2.B Provide opportunities for creative expression in park and recreation facilities and
programs.
Programs
2.B.1 Incorporate artists and art into youth recreation programming, particularly
day camps, utilizing the expertise of the Arts and Sciences Division.
2.B.2 Create outdoor studios and program spaces for creating art in parks
(Coordinated with the Public Art Master Plan).
2.B.3 Encourage the community to participate in more expressive projects lead
by the department, such as community mural projects in facilities, pop up
open mic’s in open spaces or chalk art programs in parks.
2.B.4 Continue to provide “maker” space to Palo Alto teens to encourage
creative thinking and expression.
Policy
2.C Design and maintain high quality natural turf fields with adequate time for resting to
support maximum use in parks by multiple organized sports and casual users with
areas large enough for practice or play.
Programs
2.C.1 Continue to monitor and track industry developments and the latest
reputable scientific studies regarding synthetic turf in order to: 1.
understand the environmental and human safety impacts of our existing
synthetic turf fields; 2. determine if the City should continue to use
synthetic turf; 3. determine which type of synthetic turf product to use when
it comes time to replace an existing synthetic turf field.
2.C.2 Sustain the existing synthetic turf fields, and, as they need to be replaced,
use the information learned from industry developments, scientific studies,
and best practices from leaders in the field to select the most appropriate
products (Reevaluate this policy based on the analysis from reputable
scientific studies).
2.C.3 Synthetic turf fields should be striped for multiple sports to maximize use.
Whenever possible, synthetic turf playing fields should have lights in order
to maximize use of the field.
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2.C.4 The City should complete an athletic field assessment and maintenance
plan, in an effort to improve the condition and sustainability of the City’s
natural grass fields. The report should include analysis and
recommendations regarding the soil profile, agronomy, irrigation systems,
field slope, drainage, field-use demand, and maintenance.
2.C.5 The City should review the various improvement options recommended in
the athletic field assessment, and fund the appropriate improvements.
2.C.6 Upgrade fields at select parks to high quality natural turf standards
including irrigation system upgrades, drainage improvements, etc.
Policy
2.D Actively pursue adding dedicated, fenced dog parks in multiple neighborhoods,
equitably distributed between north and south Palo Alto. The size of the dog parks
will vary, but should strive to be at least .25 acres. Dog parks should not be placed
in Open Space Preserves.
Programs
2.D.1 The City will evaluate and select at least six dedicated, fenced dog parks,
equitably distributed across north and south Palo Alto, from the following
list of potential locations:
o Eleanor Pardee Park (North, .41 Acres)-Near Term
o Bowden (North, .37 Acres)-Near Term
o Greer Park (Improve existing) (South, .87 Acres)
o Peers Park (North, .73 Acres)
o Hoover (Improve existing) (South, 1 Acre)
o Robles (South, .47 Acres)
o Mitchell Park (Expand existing) (South, 1.2 Acres)
o Kingsley Island (North, .27 Acres)
o Werry Park (North, .31 Acres)
o Juana Briones Park (South, .47 Acres)
o Heritage (North, .27 Acres)
o *El Camino Park (North, .5 Acres)
*Additional research is needed regarding El Camino Park as a
suitable location due to future transit improvements in the
proposed area. *We acknowledge that Hoover and Greer’s current
dog parks are inadequate in terms of size, and they should not be
counted in their current configuration towards the minimum of six
dog parks recommended in this program.
Policy
2.E The City will actively pursue adding park restrooms in parks that are approximately
two acres or larger, have amenities that encourage visitors to stay in the park, have
high level of use, and where there are no nearby public restrooms available.
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Programs
2.E.1 Develop a restroom standard, in collaboration with the Architectural
Review Board, for neighborhood parks.
2.E.2 The City will actively pursue adding park restrooms at the following
potential locations:
o Bol Park
o Bowden Park
o Eleanor Pardee Park
o Johnson Park
o Ramos Park
o Robles Park
o Terman Park
Goal 3: Create environments that encourage active and passive activities to
support health, wellness and social connections.
Policy
3.A Implement the Healthy City Healthy Community resolution with the community’s
involvement.
Programs
3.A.1 Convene and lead a Healthy City Healthy Community stakeholder work
group consisting of other agencies and nonprofit organizations to
collaborate on initiatives and benefit from existing programs.
3.A.2 Develop and annual plan that supports implementation of the resolution.
3.A.3 Achieve designation as an Age-Friendly Community.
3.A.4 Add drop-in programs (free or BOOST!) focused on physical and mental
health in settings that are near home/work and maximize the health
benefits of being outside and surrounded by nature.
3.A.5 Connect walking paths within and between parks to create loop options of
varying length that encourage walking and jogging.
3.A.6 Enhance seating areas to take advantage of quiet spaces or to create
opportunities for social interaction.
3.A.7 Promote and enforce the ban on smoking in Palo Alto's parks through a
marketing campaign and signage program.
3.A.8 Upgrade or add drinking fountains with water bottle filling and water for
dogs.
3.A.9 Develop adult fitness areas in parks including exercise areas for the
exclusive use of older adults (seniors).
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 9
Policy
3.B Incorporate art into park design and recreation programming (consistent with the
Public Art Master Plan).
Programs
3.B.1 Promote temporary public art installations in local parks.
3.B.2 Promote interactive public art features that also serve as play features
(i.e. climbable sculptural elements integrated into the natural environment
that invite touch and exploration).
3.B.3 Update park design policies to incorporate artistic elements consistent
with the Public Art Master Plan.
3.B.4 Commission artwork that interprets local history, events and significant
individuals; represents City core values of sustainability, youth well-being,
health, innovation.
3.B.5 Bring in performance-based work, social practice, temporary art and
community art.
3.B.6 Explore suitable art for preserves and natural areas.
3.B.7 Incorporate public art in the earliest stages of the design of parks and
facilities that may utilize wind direction, sunlight and ambient sound
(Coordinated with the Public Art Master Plan).
3.B.8 Install permanent and temporary installations and exhibits in well-
trafficked parks and plazas, following the guidance of the Public Art
Master Plan.
3.B.9 Integrate functional public art into play areas, seatwalls and other built
features in parks across the system.
Policy
3.C Require that proposed privately owned public spaces that are providing in lieu of
park fees, meet Palo Alto design guidelines and standards for publicly owned parks,
allow public access, and are designed to support self-directed exercise and fitness,
incorporate natural ecosystem elements and comply with the policies of the Urban
Forest Master Plan.
Programs
3.C.1 Develop and apply clear expectations and definitions of public access
(hours, rules) for privately owned public spaces
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 10
Goal 4: Protect natural habitat and integrate nature, natural ecosystems and
ecological principles throughout Palo Alto.
Policy
4.A Connect people to nature and the outdoors through education and recreation
programming.
Programs
4.A.1 Expand access to nature through elements and interpretive features that
explore ecological processes, historical context, adjacent waterways,
specific plant/animal species that can be encountered onsite and
elements tailored to be of interest to youth as well as other ages,
cultures and abilities.
4.A.2 Expand programs working with volunteers on invasive species removal
in preserves and creek corridors.
4.A.3 Improve and increase access to creeks for learning and stewardship
experiences by designing access points that minimize impact on the
waterway.
4.A.4 Expand programs such as Foothills camps to connect youth with parks
year-round.
4.A.5 Partner with boys/girls scouting organizations for outdoor education
programs and/or the Junior Rangers program.
4.A.6 Expand and increase events that educate and promote native plants,
species and wildlife.
Policy
4.B Connect natural areas, open spaces and vegetated areas in parks and on public land
to create wildlife, bird, pollinator and habitat corridors by planting with native oaks and
other species that support pollinators or provide high habitat values.
Programs
4.B.1 Develop a map that identifies locations for habitat corridors including the
appropriate plant palette for each corridor.
4.B.2 Work with local environmental groups to grow native plant species and
utilize their network of volunteers to install and maintain planted areas.
Policy
4.C Support regional efforts that focus on enhancing and protecting significant natural
resources.
Programs
4.C.1 Collaborate with regional partners in projects to control the spread of
invasive species and plant pathogens.
4.C.2 Join the Bay Area Children in Nature Collaborative/Children in Nature
Network.
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 11
Policy
4.D Promote, expand and protect habitat and natural areas in parks.
Programs
4.D.1 Promote urban greening by integrating storm water design into planting
beds, reducing irrigation and providing interpretive information about park
contributions to city water quality.
4.D.2 Train City maintenance staff and include specific standards and
expectations in maintenance contracts for the care of for low-water,
naturalized landscapes, natural play environments and other new types of
features in the system.
4.D.3 Ensure project designs for new facilities and retrofits will be consistent with
sustainable design principles and practices. This includes evaluating all
projects for opportunities to implement Green Stormwater Infrastructure
such as bioswales, stormwater planters, rain gardens, permeable pavers
and porous concrete and asphalt.
4.D.4 Identify locations and develop swales, detention basins and rain gardens
to retain and treat storm water.
4.D.5 Provide shade for play areas using shade trees as the preferred solution.
Policy
4.E Identify and pursue strategies and opportunities to expand native trees and planting
areas in urban parks.
Programs
4. E.1 Update the preferred planting palette and approved tree species list.
4. E.2 Partner with organizations such as Canopy and Acterra
4. E.3 Replace low-use turf areas with native shrubs and grasses, incorporating
educational elements about native habitats.
Policy
4.F Integrate and implement the Urban Forest Master Plan Policies and Programs as
applicable to parkland in Palo Alto.
Policy
4.G In Natural Open Space, focus on features and activities that are compatible with the
protection of nature.
Programs
4.G.1 Prioritize development of comprehensive conservation plans for Baylands
Preserve, Foothills Park, Esther Clark and Pearson-Arastradero Preserve
to identify strategies to balance ecosystem preservation, passive
recreation, and environmental education.
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Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 12
4.G.2 Continue to work with partnership organizations to remove invasive
weeds and plant native plants and trees in riparian and natural open
space areas.
Goal 5: Develop innovative programs, services and strategies for expanding the
park and recreation system.
Policy
5.A Identify and pursue strategies to activate underused parks and recreation facilities
Programs
5.A.1 Implement short-term placemaking improvements (flexible, small scale
interventions such as seating, art, programming or planters that have
minimal capital cost) to attract users and experiment with potential longer-
term options.
5.A.2 Emphasize flexibility and layering uses (allowing for different uses at
different times of day, week, etc.) in parks over installing fixed-use
equipment and single-use facilities.
5.A.3 Expand Day Camp program opportunities, utilizing all preserves and
more local park sites and additional topic areas, to meet excess demand.
5.A.4 Leverage social media and develop marketing materials to encourage
“pop-up” recreational activities in rotating parks.
5.A.5 Invite and encourage local businesses to utilize neighborhood parks for
weekly or monthly outings and lunches.
5.A.6 Create small (10-12 people) and medium-sized (20-25 people) group
picnic areas that can be used for both picnics and programming
5.A.7 Provide additional lighting to enhance park safety and expand park use to
dusk
Policy
5.B Support innovation in recreation programming and park features and amenities.
Programs
5.B.1 Review program data based on clearly communicated objectives for
reach, impact, attendance and financial performance.
5.B.2 Retire, end or refresh programs that require staff, facility and financial
resources but do not achieve program objectives, thereby freeing up
resources for new programs.
5.B.3 Actively develop a small number of pilot programs each year to test new
ideas, locations and target audiences.
5.B.4 Build on partnership with Avenidas to build intergenerational
programming as well as additional older adult programming.
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5.B.5 Expand BOOST!, the pay-per-use exercise class system to cover fees for
any drop-in classes or facility use (lap swim, drop-in gym time, new
programs in parks).
5.B.6 Set goal of 10% new program offerings each season; new programs
should be offered based on needs assessment, industry trends, and/or
class evaluation data.
5.B.7 Create a robust marketing and outreach program to highlight new and
innovative programs to community.
5.B.8 Develop short-term recreation access strategies (such as temporary use
agreements for vacant or park like property) and seek long-term or
permanent park and recreation space in each park search area. Actively
recruit property and facility owners to participate in the development of
the short and long-term strategies.
Policy
5.C Expand the overall parks and recreation system through repurposing public land,
partnering with other organizations for shared land, incorporating public park spaces
on parking decks and rooftops and other creative means to help address shortages of
available land.
Programs
5.C.1 TBD
Policy
5.D Explore and experiment with parklets and other temporary park spaces for both long
and short-term uses.
Programs
5.D.1 TBD
Policy
5.E Enhance partnerships and collaborations with Palo Alto Unified School District and
Stanford University to support access and joint use of facilities, where appropriate for
effective delivery of services and programs.
Programs
5.E.1 Partner with PAUSD to provide “Open Gym” programs to community
(basketball, badminton, indoor soccer) in the evening, in the evening,
during the summer months, and on weekend mornings.
5.E.2 Develop a steering committee that consists of key officials from PAUSD
and Stanford to develop partnership agreements and connect facility
managers and programmers with the PAUSD and Stanford staff that will
be providing the programs to develop, implement, and monitor program
success
5.E.3 Increase access to PAUSD public schools (outside of school hours)
schools to increase the availability of recreation activity spaces. Target
school sites that are within or adjacent to "park search areas".
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5.E.4 Work with Stanford to create or increase access to athletic facilities and
other recreational facilities for Palo Alto residents.
Policy
5.F Pursue other/private funding sources for recreation programming, capital
improvement projects and facility maintenance.
Programs
5.F.1 Encourage foundations to assist with soliciting sponsorships and grants.
5.F.2 Create a more formalized annual or one-time sponsorship program that
provides the donor with marketing and promotional opportunities.
5.F.3 Contract or add job responsibilities for managing fundraising and
developing donors for the park system to pursue funding opportunities
and sponsorships.
5.F.4 Engage nonprofit friends groups to seek donor funding, including
foundation grants, corporate giving and small and major philanthropic
gifts by individuals, for priority projects and programs.
Policy
5.G Partner with Mid-peninsula Regional Open Space District and other land conservation
groups to expand access to open space through new acquisitions and improved
connections.
Goal 6: Manage Palo Alto’s land and services effectively, efficiently and
sustainably utilizing quantitative and qualitative measures.
Policy
6.A Continue to implement the Cost Recovery Policy for recreation programs, refining the
cost and fees using the most current information available.
Programs
6.A.1 Periodically benchmark the City’s Cost Recovery Policy against other
Cities’ cost recovery models.
Policy
6.B Limit the exclusive use of Palo Alto parks (booking an entire park site) for events by
outside organizations that are closed to the general public.
o No exclusive use of parks by private parties is permitted on peak days (e.g.,
weekend, holidays) or peak times (e.g., evening hours on weekdays, 10 am –
6 pm on weekends) as defined by Community Services staff unless approved
in advance by the Director of Community Services. Exclusive use of certain
sites and facilities within parks, such as reservable spaces like picnic areas,
is generally permitted during peak days and times.
o Use of parks for locally focused events, where more than 50% of participants
are expected to be Palo Alto residents and that allow registration by the
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general public (e.g., events such as, races, obstacle course events,
triathlons, etc.) may be considered by staff if consistent with this Master Plan;
o Private events that are closed to the general public (e.g., corporate events,
private weddings) and are intended to use an entire park (rather than a
reservable space in excess of capacities as defined in the Special Event
Permit procedures) may only be considered outside of peak days and times
as defined by Community Services staff. These events should recover 100%
of all associated costs, including wear and tear on public parks and facilities.
o Events that allow public access are permitted, in accordance with Special
Event Permit procedures.
Policy
6.C Periodically review and update existing guidance for development, operations, and
maintenance of Palo Alto’s Parks, Trails, Natural Open Spaces, and Recreation
system based on the best practices in the industry and this Master Plan, including:
o Park Rules and Regulations;
o Open Space Policy & Procedure Handbook;
o City of Palo Alto Landscape Standards;
o City of Palo Alto design guidelines and standards; and
o Tree Technical Manual.
Policy
6.D Incorporate sustainable best practices in the maintenance, management, and
development of open spaces, parks, and recreation facilities where consistent with
ecological best practices.
Programs
6.D.1 Increase energy efficiency in Palo Alto parks, including allocating funding
to retrofit facilities for energy efficiency with increased insulation, green or
reflective roofs and low-emissive window glass where applicable.
6.D.2 Conduct energy audits for all facilities, establish an energy baseline for
operations, benchmark energy performance against comparable facilities,
and implement energy tracking and management systems for all park
facilities and operations;
6.D.3 Select Energy Star and equivalent energy-efficient products for Park
equipment purchases; and
6.D.4 Expand the collection and use of solar power (parking lots, roofs) and
other renewable energy sources at parks and facilities (e.g. pools).
6.D.5 Provide convenient and well-marked compost and recycling receptacles
throughout the park system, in recreation facilities and at special events;
6.D.6 Ensure that trash, recycling, and compost receptacles have covers
to prevent wildlife access to human food sources.
6.D.7 Review purchasing policies and improve employee education to reduce
overall consumption of materials throughout the system;
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6.D.8 Procure environmentally preferable products (as required by the City’s
Environmentally Preferred Purchasing policy) as the “default” purchasing
option;
6.D.9 Initiate composting of green waste within the park system.
6.D.10 Work with Public Works to replace the vehicle fleet with electric vehicles
whenever practical;
6.D.11 Install electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at park facilities with parking
lots;
6.D.12 Enforce a “No Idle” program with vehicles and other gas-powered
equipment. Conduct water audits for all parks and recreation facilities and
park operations;
6.D.13 Install high-efficiency urinals, toilets, sinks and showers in all facilities;
6.D.14 As infrastructure expansion allows, extend recycled water use to more
park sites;
6.D.15 Explore water capture opportunities in parks for irrigation and recycling;
6.D.16 Ensure any irrigation systems on public landscapes are run by a smart
controller and/or sensors and that staff are trained in programming them
6.D.17 Link all park facilities to a centralized irrigation management system to
maximize water use efficiency.
Policy
6.E Strengthen the Integrated Pest Management (“IPM”) policy as written. While some
parks may be managed as “pesticide free” on a demonstration basis, IPM should
continue to be Palo Alto’s approach, grounded in the best available science on pest
prevention and management.
Programs
6.E.1 Periodically review and update the IPM policy based on best available
data and technology.
Policy
6.F Strategically reduce maintenance requirements at parks, open spaces, natural
preserves and community centers while maintaining Palo Alto’s high quality
standards.
Programs
6.F.1 Locate garbage receptacles in a single-location that is easily accessible
by maintenance staff and vehicles.
6.F.2 Explore high capacity, compacting and smart garbage receptacles that
can reduce the frequency of regular collection; and
6.F.3 Select standardized furnishing palettes for durability, vandal-resistance
and ease of repair.
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Policy
6.G Coordinate with and/or use other relevant City plans to ensure consistency,
including:
o Urban Forest Master Plan;
o Urban Water Master Plan;
o Long-term electric acquisition plan (LEAP);
o Water Reclamation Master Plan;
o Recycled Water Project;
o Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan
o Comprehensive Plan; and
o Others adopted in the future.
Policy
6.H Continue to engage other relevant City departments and divisions in planning, design
and programming, drawing on the unique and specialized skills and perspectives of:
o The Palo Alto Art Center;
o Library, including Children’s Library;
o Junior Museum and Zoo;
o Children’s Theatre;
o Public Art;
o Transportation;
o Urban Forestry;
o Planning;
o Public Works, and
o Palo Alto Youth and Teen Leadership
Policy
6.I Participate in and support implementation of regional plans related to parks,
recreation, natural open space and trails, such as:
o 2014 Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District Vision;
o Clean Bay Pollution Prevention Plan; and
o Land Use Near Streams in Santa Clara County.
Policy
6.J Develop a proactive Asset Management Program to identify new, and maintain
existing park and recreation infrastructure.
Programs
6.J.1 Research asset management programs used by other City parks and
recreation departments.