HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005-02-07 City Council• Restrict funds received from sale ofTDR to approved rehabilitation projects;
• Revise timing requirement to allow sale of TDR after approval of the historic/seismic
rehabilitation plan but prior to construction;
2. For all historic rehabilitation projects applying for floor area bonus, change the review
process to:
• Require a Historic Structure Report;
• Allow the Director of Planning and Community Environment, considering the
recommendation of the HRB, to determine that the rehabilitation plan complies with the
Secretary's Standards;
• Require historic rehabilitation plans to show any material proposed to be removed or
replaced;
• Require the owner of the historic property to enter into a Protective Covenant with the
City.
3. To encourage use of TDR for housing in the Downtown, allow mixed use site development
and density standards from the SOFA 2 Coordinated Area Plan to be used in the CD
Downtown District, until such time as new Downtown mixed use regulations are adopted in
the Zoning Ordinance Update or until February 1, 2007, whichever occurs first.
In addition to these proposed zoning code changes, two other possible code changes that have
been suggested by some property owners and developers are presented for Council discussion
-and direction to staff. These two possible changes are:
• Increase the maximum allowed bonus floor area parking exemption from 5000 square
feet to 10,000 square feet;
• Decrease 'the required distance between Downtown "receiver" sites and residentially
zoned property located across a public street.
BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Planning and Transportation Commission: On December 8, 2004, the Planning Transportation
Commission voted 6-0-1-0, Commissioner Holman absent due to a conflict of interest, to accept
staff's recommendation to approve the proposed zoning code changes. The PTC also
recommended that City Council direct staff to further explore two other zoning code changes
suggested by Downtown property owners and developers, provided additional staff resources are
identified. These changes would increase the maximum bonus floor area parking exemption
from 5000 square feet to 10,000 square feet; and allow otherwise eligible "receiver" sites to be
located across a public street from residential property.
Commissioners thought that further consideration of increasing the maximum parking exemption
to 10,000 square feet would require an economic analysis to determine how much incentive in
the form of parking exemption is needed to market the floor area bonus. There was concern
about impacts on the parking assessment district, and a desire to avoid a change that would
benefit a few property owners at the expense of the district. With regard to allowing location of
"receiver" sites across the street from residential property, Commissioners suggested two
considerations might be whether the new development on the "receiver" site had a residential
component, and whether the new development had a lower FAR than the residential property. It
CMR:I08:05 Page 2 of4
,<.,
should be noted that the current CD zoning regulations stipulate that projects located within 150
feet of any residential zone are subject to the height limit of the most restrictive residential zone
within that radius.
Beth Bunnenberg, 2351 Ramona Street, representing the Historic Resources Board, supported all
of the proposed zoning code changes to the TDR program. Speaking as an individual, she
recommended requiring a protection plan when City buildings are undergoing historic
rehabilitation, since it is much cheaper to protect historic materials than to replace or repair after
they have been lost or damaged. Jim Baer, 172 University Avenue, spoke in support of all the
. proposed zoning code changes. He explained that the main benefit of allowing the more flexible
SOFA 2 mixed use standards to be used in Downtown is increased density, since existing zoning
will allow only one or two dwelling units on the average size lot. He also supported further
study of increasing the maximum bonus floor area parking exemption from 5000 square feet to
10,000 square feet, and of relaxing the distance requirement between a "receiver" site and
residential property located across a street. Tony Carrasco, 583 Glenbrook, supported the
proposed zoning code changes, except he did not support including the average unit size limit in
the SOFA 2 mixed use standards, stating that more larger units are needed to attract retirees
interested in relocating to the Downtown. He also stated that increasing the· maximum allowed
parking exemption to 10,000 square feet needs to be explored to increase the demand for TDR,
because there is no market for TDR that is not exempt from parking.
Architectural Review Board: The PTC asked staff to consult with the ARB regarding the
proposed change to the review process for historic rehabilitation bonus floor area projects in
PAMC 18.49.060(c)(2)(B). With this change, most historic rehabilitation projects would be
reviewed by the HRB for recommendation to the Director of Pla.nning and Community
Enviornment, rather than by both the ARB and the HRB as currently required. This is consistent
with the ARB review process in PAMC 18.76.020 and 18.77.070, which provides for minor
projects to be decided by the Director without review by the Architectural Review Board.
Nearly all historic rehabilitation projects meet the definition of a minor project. Major projects
would continue to be review by both the Architectural Review Board and the Historic Resources
Board. This proposed change was presented to the ARB at its January 13,2005 meeting, and all
comments made by ARB members supported the proposed change.
RESOURCE IMPACT
If the City Council wants staff to further explore the two additional issues described above that
have been suggested by developers, this could be most efficiently addressed in the Zoning
Ordinance (ZOU) update process which is reevaluating the Downtown CD Zone District. In
. developing new mixed use standards for the commercial districts including CD, the ZOU is
reviewing height restrictions within 150 feet of residential property, and the question of locating
receiver sites across the street from residential properties could be incorporated with minimal
impact on the ZOU process. However, staff has determined that studying the potential impacts
of increasing the maximum parking exemption in the Downtown from 5000 square feet to
10,000 square feet would require additional staff time as well as financial resources to hire
consultants to analyze urban design site constraints/opportunities, and assess economic and
parking impacts on the Downtown Parking Assessment District. This analysis is not within the
existing scope of the ZOU consultants, and staff estimates that approximately $40,000 in
CMR:I08:05 Page 3 of4
follows:
NOT YET APPROVED
ORDINANCE NO.
ORDINANCE OF THE COUN,CIL OF THE CITY OF PALO
ALTO AMENDING TITLE 18 [ZONING] OF THE PALO ALTO
MUNICIPAL CODE TO AMEND CHAPTERS 18.32 [PUBLIC
FACILITIES DISTRICT REGULATIONS], 18.49, [CD
COMM:ERCIAL DOWNTOWN DISTRICT' REGULATIONS], AND
18.87 [TRANSFERABLE DEVELOPMENTS RIGHTS] TO
INCLUDE CERTAIN CITY -OWNED BUILDINGS AS SENDER
,SITES IN THE TRANSFERABLE DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS
PROGRAM
Attachment A '
... --;-.~ -----_. '-.-..
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto does ORDAIN as
SECTION 1. Findings. The City Council finds that:
(A) On June 7 ~ 2004, the City Council initiated changes
to the 'City's zoning regulations that allow eligibileeligible
City-owned buildings ,to participate as sender sites in the
City's existing "transfer of development .rights" program for
encouragement of the historic rehabilitation and seismic
retrofitting of structures within the City;
(B) Such an expansion of the program is consistent with
the Comprehensive Plan of the City and implements Land Use Goal
7 and Land Use Policies L-51, L-52, L-57, and L-60;
(C) The Planning Commission, after duly noticed hearing
held December 8, 2004, has recommended that Title 18 [Zoning] be
amended as hereinafter set forth;
(D) The City Council, after a duly noticed hearing held
2005, has consider~d the recommendation, and all
public comment, and finds that the proposed amendment is in the
public interest and will promote the public health, safety and
welfare.
SECTION 2. Section 18.32.090 is hereby added to Chapter
18.32 [PF Public ~acilities District] to re~d as, follows:
18.32.090 Transfer of Development Rights
(al The city council by resolution may, from time to
time, desiqnate one or more city-owned buildings that are
Category 1 or Category 2 on the city's historic inventory and/or
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Category 1, II, or IlIon. the city's . seismic hazards
id~ntification list as eligible to participate as "sender sites"
in the Transfer of Development Rights program as provided in
Chapters 18.49 and Chaptei 18.87.
(b) Before any transferable development rights are
offered for sale, the city manager shall establish, in writinG,
a public process using formal. bidding procedures to sell bonus
floor. area development rights from any si·tes so designated by
the city council.
(c) Before formally soliciting the participation of
other orqanizations or agencies in the rehabilitation of a city-
owned historic building, the city should have a historic
structures report prepared by. a qualified expert in accordance
with the standards and guidelines of the California State Office
of Historic Preservation.
(d) Before concluding a sale of transferable development
rights for any city buildinq~ the city shall comply with section
18.49.060 (c).
(e) The city manaGer shall establish and maintain a
special fund into which all·proceeds of the sale of transferable
rights, and any interest thereon, shall be deposited. Upon
receipt and entry into the accountinG records for the fund such
monies shall be considered committed to the rehabilitation of
the. ci ty-owned building from which the development rights were
sold, or in the event· funds remain following the completion of
the approved rehabilitation project, to the rehabilitation of
other city-owned buildings in historic category 1 or 2 or
seismic hazard categories I, II, oi III.
SECTION.3. Subsection 18.49.060 (c) of Section 18.49.060
[Site development regulations] of Chapter 18.49 [CD Commercial
Downtown District] of the Pa.lo Alto Municipal code is hereby
amended to read as follows:
18.49.060(c). The floor area bonuses described in
subsections (b)(2) and.(b)(3~ of this section shall be granted
in accordance with the following requirements:
(1) An application for such floor area bonus (es) shall
be filed with the director of planning and conimunity environment
in the form prescribed by the director I stating the amount of
such bonus (es) applied for, the .basis therefore under this
section, and the extent to·which such bonus (es) are proposed to
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be used on-site and/or for transfer. An application for floor
area bonus for rehabilitation of a Category I or 2, historic
building shall include a historic structures report prepared by
a gualified expert in' accordance with the standards and
guidelines of the California State Office of Historic
Preservation. It shall also include a plan for rehabilitation;
if any part of the existing building is proposed to be removed
or replaced, the historic rehabilitation project plans submitted
for review shall clearly show and identify any and all material
proposed for removal or replacement.
(2) The director or the director's designee shall
review the completed' application and make a Upon completion of
such application, written determination of the' sender site's
eligibility for the bonus or bonuses that have been requested.
Thc decision shall be (cs) has been (sic) (may be?) issued by
the director of planning and cOffiffiunity environment, or the
director's designee, based upon the following:
(A) In the case of the floor area bonus for seismic
rehabili tation, , the chief building official 'has made a
determination that the project complies with or exceeds the
analysis standards referenced in Chapter 16.42 of this code;
(B) In the case of the floor area bonus for historic
rehabilitation of a building in Historic Category 1 and 2, the
architectural revimJ board' director, taking into consideration
the recommendations of the historic resources board, has found
that the proj ect complies with the Secretary of the Interior's
"Standards for ,Rehabilitation and Guidelines for rehabilitating
Historic Buildings"; and
(C) In the case of cumulative seismic and historic
rehabili tation bonuses which are proposed to be used on-site,
the city council has made the findings set forth in subsection
(b)(3)(B) of this section.
(3) The city may retain an expert in historic
rehabilitation or preservation, at the applicant's expense, to
provide the city with an independent evaluation of the project's
conformi ty with the Secretary of 'the Interior's "Standards for,
Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic
Buildings."
(4) As a' condi tion precedent to being credited with a
historic rehabilitation floor area bonus, whether for use on-
site or for transfer, the owner of the site shall enter into an
unsubordinated protective covenant running with the land in
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favor of the city, (or if the city is the owner, in favor of a·
gualified and disinterested third party,) in a form satisfactory
to the city attorney, to assure that the property will be
rehabilitated and maintained in accordance with the Secretary of
Interior's Standards for Rehabili ta tiori of Historic Buildings,
together with the accompanying interpretive Guidelines for
Rehabili tation of Historic Buildings, as they may be amended
from time to time.
SECTION 4. Subsections 18.49.060 (d) of Section 18.49.060
[Site development regulations] of Chapter 18.49 of the Palo Alto
Municipal code are hereby amended to read as follows:
18.49.060(d)., The floor ·area bonuses described in
subsections (b) (2) and (b) (3) of this section may be used on the
site 6f the proposed seismic or historic rehabilitation project
and a building permit issued therefore only upon satisfaction of
all of the requirements in subsection (c) above. . Upon
determining that the project has been completed as approved, or
in· the case of city-owned buildings upon completion of all the
requirements in 1.8.32.090, the director or director's designee
shall issue a· wri tten certification which shall state the total
floor area bonus utilized at the site (in the case of buildings
in the CD':"Commercial Downtown District,) and the amount (if
any) of remaining floor area bonus, ·which is eligible for
transfer to. another site pursuant to the proviSions of Chapter
18.87 of this. code. The certification shall be recorded in the.
office of the . county :(ecorder and a copy shall be provided to
the applicant.
SECTION 5.
Commercial Downtown
follows:
Sec·tion 18.49.070 of Chapter
District] is hereby amended
18.49.070 Additional
subdistrict.
regulations in
18.49
to read
[CD
as
the CD-C
The following additional regulations shall apply in the
CD-C subdistrict:
(a) Outdoor Sales and Storage. Except in shopping
centers, all permitted office and commercial activities shall be
conducted within a building, except for: .
(1) Incidental sales and display of plant materials and
garden supplies occupying no more than one hundred eighty six
square meters (two thousand square feet) of exterior sales and
display area.
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O]2tional Modified Residential Mixed Use Standards
Maximum Height 50 feet
Setbacks 15 feet, but may be reduced to zero by the
Director or Council, following review by the
Architectural Review Board, if consistent
with the established building ]2attern in the
area.
Permitted In accordance with Section 5.030 {f} of the
Setback SOFA 2 Coordinated Area Plan.
Encroachments
Daylight Plane None
Residential 40 units ]2er acre
Density Limit
Maximum Average 1250 sguare feet
Unit Size
Private and In accordance with Sections5.030{j) ; 5.050
Common Useable {k) and {l) ; and Definition's' in A]2]2endix C-1
0]2 en S]2ace {a) , (h) and (j) of the SOFA 2 Coordinated
Area Plan.
(c) Daylight Plane. Sites sharing any lot line with one
or more sites in any RE, R-1, R-2, RM, or any residential PC
district, shall be subj ect to a maximum height established by
daylight planes' that are identical to the daylight plane
requirements of the most restrictive residential ' district
abutting each such side or rear site line.' Such daylight planes
shall begin at the applicable side or rear site lines and
increase at the required slope from these site lines until
'int'ersectirig the height limit otherwise escablished for the CD-C
subdistrict.
SECTION 6. Section 18.87.010 of Chapter 18.87
[Transferable Development Rights] is hereby amended to read as
follows:
18.87.010 Purpose and Applicability
(a) The purpose of this chapter is to implement the
Comprehensive Plan by encouraging seismic rehabilitation of
buildings in Seismic Categories I, II and III, and encouraging
historic rehabilitation of buildings or sites in Historic
Categ,ory 1 and 2, and by establishing standards and procedures
for the transfer of specified development rights from such sites
to other. eligible sites. Except as provided in Sections
18.32.090 and 18.87.080, this chapter is applicable only to
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properties . located in the CD zone, and is the exclusive
procedure for transfer of development rights for properties so
zoned.
(b) The city may from time to
application forms, submittal requirements, fees,
requirements· and guidelines as will aid in
implementation of this ·chapter.
time establish
and such· other
the efficient
SECTION 7. The City Council finds that this project, a
minor alteration in land use limitations, is categorically
exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act· under CEQA
Guideline 15305.
SECTION 8.. This ordinance shall be effective on the
thirty-first day after the date of its adoption.
INTRODUCED:
PASSED:
AYES:
NOES:
ABSENT:
ABSTENTIONS: .
ATTEST:
City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
Senior Asst. City Attorney
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7
APPROVED:
Mayor
City Manager
Director of Planning and
Community Environment
any zone district to be "sender sites" under the TDR ordinance, tran~ferring historic or seismic ·
. rehabilitation floor area bonuses from these sites to eligible "receiver" sites located in the
Downtown CD Zone District; modify the procedures and requirements for granting floor area
bonuses; modify the residential density and site development requirements for residential mixed-
use projects located in the· CD-C zone district to facilitate use ofTDR for residential use; aild 2)
Discuss and direct staff to initiate zoning code changes to Chapter 18.87.040 to increase the
maximum parking exemption for bonus floor area, under certain conditions, from 5000 square
feet to 10,000 square feet; and to Chapter 18.87.055 to reduce the required distance between
certain TDR "receiver" sites and residentially zoned property.
SUMMARY OF KEY ISSUES:
The city's Downtown development standards provide a floor area bonus for the qualified
rehabilitation of Category I and 2 historic buildings and Seismic Category I, II, and III
building that are located in the Downtown CD zone district. The size of each of these
bonuses is 2500 square feet, or 25% of the existing building, whichever is greater. The·
Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program provides that floor area bonuses may be
transferred (sold) from eligible "sender" sites for use on eligible "receiver" sites in the
Downtown .. The city owns several historic buildings that may otherwise qualify for the
rehabilitation floor area bonus as "sender'.' sites, except that they are not in the CD zone
district; all city-owned properties, whether located in the Downtown or in other parts of the
city, are zoned PF Public Facility, or PF Public Facility (D) Site and Design Combining
District.
On June 7, 2004, the City Council initiated changes to the zoning regulations that would
allow city-owned historic buildings to participate as "sender" sites in the TDR program. To
accomplish this, zoning code changes are being proposed to Chapter 18.32 (PF Public
Facilities Zone District), to Chapter 18.87 (TDR Ordinance), and to Chapter 18.49 (CD
Downtown Zone District).
The proposed zoning, code revisions would make the following changes to the current
Transfer of Development Rights program:
( For eligible City-owned historic buildings
City of Palo Alto
A. Allow sale (transfer) of historic and seismic bonus floor area to eligible
receiver sites in the'Downtown;
B., Establish a publiC process for the City to advertise and sell TDRs;
C. Restrict funds received from sale ofTDR to be used only for approved,
rehabilitation projects;
Page 2
D. Allowed TDR to be sold after approval of the historic/seismic
rehabilitation plan but prior to construction;
2. For all "sender" properties applying for historic rehabilitation floor area bonus
A. Require a Historic Structure Report;
B. Allow the Director, considering the recommendation of the HRB, to
. determine that the rehabilitation plan complies with ~he Secretary's
Standards;
C. Require historic rehabilitation plans to show any material proposed to be
removed or replaced;
D. Require a Protective Covenant.
3. To encourage TDR to be used for housing in the Downtown, revise CD Downtown
District residential mixed use site development and density standards to allow SOFA
2 Coordinated Area Plan standards as an optional alternative to some RM-40
standards, until such time as new Downtown rrlixed use regulations are adopted in the
Zoning Ordinance Update, or until February 1,2007, whichever occurs fIrst.
Two additional possible zoning code changes that would expand the use of transferable
development rights in the Downtown have been suggested by some property owners and
developers. Because these proposed changes have potentially signifIcant policy implications
beyond the City Council-initiated zoning code changes for City-owned historic buildings,
staff is bringing these ideas to the PTC for discussion and direction. The two possible
changes are:
-Increase the maximum bonus floor area parking exemption from 5000 square feet to
10,000 square feet;
-Decrease the required distance between Downtown "receiver" sites and residentially
zoned property.
·PROPOSED ZONING CODE CHANGES:
1.A. City participation inTDR program. Changes are proposed to the eligibility criteria for
the TDR program that would allow City-owned historic buildings (Category land 2) located
in any zone district, to participate in the bonus floor area program. The purposed is to
encourage and support the rehabilitation of City-owned historic buildings, since. sale of the
bonu.s ·floor area would help offset the costs of building rehabilitation. See proposed code
changes in Attachment A, Chapters 18.32.090, and 18.87.010(a).
City of Palo Alto Page 3
It should be noted that the proposed code changes will not have any physical effect on the
city's historic buildings, except to encourage rehabilitation of City-owned historic buildings.
Historic rehabilitation consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's StandardS will continue
to be required, and transfer of development rights will be possible only to eligible non-
histQricreceiver sites located in the Downtown.
The city owns sixteen historic' buildings that are Category 1 or 2 on the City's Historic
Inventory, or they have been determined eliiiblefor the National Register and so would meet
Inventory criteria Category L An additional two buildings are over 50 years old, thus
meeting the minimum age threshold for consideration for historic merit, but no historic
evaluation has been conducted on these two buildings. The zoning for all these properties is
(PF) Public Facility, or PF(D) Site and Design Overlay. Several of these buildings have
undergone historic rehabilitation within the recent past and so are not likely candidates for
the rehabilitation program. Buildings for which there is a current active. interest in
rehabilitation are the Roth Building at 300 Homer; the Children's Library at 1276 Harriet;
and the Sea Scout Building at 2500 Embarcadero Road. City-owned historic buildings are
shown in Attachment B.
Currently, no City-owned buildings are on the seismic risk list, Seismic Category I, II, or III.
However, inClusion in seismic Category II or Category III depends on number of occupants,
S'O itis possible that one or more of the City's historic buildings would qualify as, a seismic
Category II or Category III when they undergo rehabilitation and a change of use.
Definitions of the three seismic categories are: Category I -all Unreinforced Masonry
Buildings (URM); Category II -allpre-1935 buildings other than URMwith 100 occupants
or more; Category III -all buildings with 300 occupants or more constructed between
January 1, 1935 and August 1976. If a property that is both a seismic risk'and historic is
rehabilitated, both rehabilitations must be done in order to qualify for floor area bonus. The
proposed TDR ordinance revisions would allow City-owned historic buiidings that also
qualify for the seismic rehabilitation program to receive, and transfer, both bonuses.
The amount of bonus floor area that theoretically could be generated by rehabilitation of
City-owned historic buildings is relatively small, compared to the amount of bonus floor area
that could be absorbed by eligible "receiver" sites in the Downtown. The three most likely
city rehabilitation projects could produce between 9000 and 16,000 square feet of bonus floor
area. The theoretical maximum amount of bonus floor area possible 'from historic andlor
seismic rehabilitation of all the City's potentially eligible historic buildings would range from
about 47,000 to 80,000 square feet. When the TDR ordinarice was adopted in 1996, the
amount of seismic and historic bonus floor area determined to be potentially available from
City of Palo Alto Page 4
45 "sender" sites was about 140,000 square feet, compared with approximately 74.0,000
square feetthat could be absorbed by 165 eligible "receiver" sites. In fact, the 740,000
square feet llnderestimates by an unknown amount the space potentially available at
Downtown receiver sites, due to assumptions that were made in the assessment. Since 1996,
there have been approximately eight seismic or historic bonus floor area projects in th~
Downtown, using about 28,000 square feet ofbomis floor area, mostly seismic rehabilitation
projects using the floor area bonus on site. Consequently, the potential for receiver sites to
absorb transferable development rights remains at least four ,or five times as great as the
amount of bonus TDR that could be produced by sender sites, including· City-owned
properties. The amqunt of transferred floor area allowed 0 n any receiver site or in the
Downtown generally would continue to be subject to all of the limits currently in place, .
including the Downtown development cap.
1. B. Process for saleofTDRs by the City. A public and formal process will be established
by the City Manager to provide for fair and equitable advertisitig and sale of bonus floor area
development rights from eligible City-owned historic properties. The process would likely
use an open.bid procedure similar to that used for sale of surplus city property. See proposed
ch~ges in Attachment A, Chapter 18.32.090(b).
,
'I.C.Funds to be used only for approved rehabilitation projects. Funds received from the
sale ofTDRs will be deposited into a special accountthat can be used only for the approved
historic or seismic rehabilitation of the building producing the bonus floor area, or if the
funds generated exceed the cost of that rehabilitation, the funds may be used for approved
historic or seismic rehabilitation of other eligible City-owned historic buildings. See
proposed code changes in Attachment A, Chapter 18.32.090( e).
I.D. Timing ofTDR sale by the City. The TDR ordinance now requires the rehabilitation
of the historic building to be completed as approved prior to the sale (transfer) of bonus floor
area. A change to the ordinance is being proposed to provide that Transferable Development
Rights from City-owned properties may be sold after a historic rehabilitation plan has been .
reviewed by the Historic Resources Board and approved by the Director of Planning, and the
City has entered into a Protective Covenant. The reason for advancing the timing in the case
of City-owned properties is to facilitate the involvement of community groups in the
rehabilitation and reuse of City-owned historic buildings, as is the case with the current
proposals to rehabilitate the Roth Building, the Children's Library and the. Sea Scout
Building, by making the funds from sale of the TDR available for carrying out the approved
rehabilitation project. See proposed code changes in Attachment A, Chapter 18.49.060(d)~
and 18.32.090(d).
City of Palo Alto PageS
The following proposed changes to the process for granting historic rehabilitation floor area
boimses would apply to all eligible "sender" sites,. both City-owned and privately owned
historic properties .
. 2. A. Require a Historic Structure Report. A Historic Structure Report will be required as
part of the application for historic rehabilitation floor area bonus. Preparation of a Historic
Structure Report is considered good practice prior to planning or designing any modifications
or additions to a historic structure and is recommended for all such projects by the State
Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and the Department of Interior; A Historic Structure
Report includes a description of the building's architectural history,its original appearance,
what changes have been made and when, and its present condition. This is necessary
information for making appropriate decisions on restoring or removing building fabric,
considerh1g possible additions, and estimating the cost of rehabilitation. Early access to this
information will be valuable to the design team and will facilitate a more efficient city review
process. For City-owned buildings, preparation of Historic Structure Reports will help
inform City decisions about possible future use of historic buildings, and will provide useful
infonnation to potential respondents to City-issued Request For Proposals to lease and
rehabilitate historic buildings. See Attachment C, Historic Structure Report Format; and
. Attachment A, proposed code changes to Chapter 18A9.060(c)(1).
2.B. Bimplify review process for historic rehabilitation project Under the current provisions
of the code, the proposed historic rehabilitation plan is reviewed both by the Architectural
Review Board and by the Historic· Resources Board; the ARB, considering the
recommen,dation of the HRB, deteimines if the proposed historic rehabilitation project is
consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. However, both the ARB and the
HRB are advisory to the Director of Planning and Community Environment, who is the
actual decision making authority, and the review board with designated expertise in
application of the Secretary's Standards is the HRB. Consequently, the most expeditious
review process would be for the 'Director to make the findings that the proposed historic
rehabilitatipn plan is consistent with the Secretary's Standards, based on a recommendation
by the HRB. See proposed code changes in Attachment A, Chapter 18A9 .060( c )(2)(B).
2.C. Require all proposed changes to be shown on rehabilitation plans. The Secretary of the
Interior's Standards call for identifying, retaining and preserving character defming materials
and features of the historic building. In order to evaluate any proposed removal or
replacement of building materials, it is essential for this information to be shown clearly and
City of Palo Alto Page 6
completely on the rehabilitation plans submitted for review .. See proposed code changes in
Attachment A, Chapter 18.49.060(c)(1).
2.D. Require Protective Covenant. Under current code, bonus development rights certified
for use on an historic site, or for transfer to another site at some time in the future, are
required to be recorded in the office ofthe county recorder.· When transferable development
rights are sold by their owner to another party, recorded documentation designed to run with
the land and satisfactory to the city attorney is required. The revised ordinance would
formalize these requirements by requiring a protective covena,nt on historic properties for
which bonus floor area is granted,whetherthe bonus is used on site, transferred to a receiver
site, or held for future transfer.. See proposed code change in Attachment A, Chapter
18.49.060(c)(4).
Since the protective covenant would limit the actions offuture City Councils, requiring that
they maintain the historic structure consistent with the Secretary ofInteriors Standards, the
City will not be able to hold a protective covenant on its own buildings. Another entity ml:lst
be identified that is willing and able to hold the protective· covenan~. Staff has been
discussing this possibility· with The· California Preservation Foundation (CPF). CPF
recommends that protective covenants be held by a local preservation group when such a
-group exists, such as Palo Alto Stanford Heritage (PAST) in Palo Alto. However, regarding
the Roth Building PAST would have a COllflict of interest as the. future leasee, and so would
not be eligible to hold .the protective covenant in this case, and CPF may be willing to hold
the protective covenant for the City under these circumstances. Usually a fee is charged by
the holder of the protective covenant to cover expenses of periodic reviews and inspections .
necessary to assure compliance with the terms of the covenant.
3. Modify Residential Mixed Use Standards in the CD-C Downtown Zone District. Under
the current code, residential development, or the residential portion of a mixed use
development, in the CD-C District is subject to the site development and residential density
standards of the RM-40 Multiple Family Zone. These RM-40 standards discourage
development of housing units in the Downtown by requiring overly restrictive daylight
planes and setbacks that are difficult to achieve and often not appropriate in the CD-C
environment, and by limiting the number of units that can be provided, resulting in a very
small number of overly large units.
In the SOFA 2 CAP, site development standards more appropriate for an urban environment
were developed, as well as a different approach to residential density. The SOFA 2 CAP site
City of Palo Alto Page 7
development standards have a height limit of 50 feet, no daylight plane requirement, and
flexible 15 foot setbacks that may be reduced to zero through the design review process.
They also require both private and common usable open space designed to meet specific
performance standards. Instead ofsetting a limit on the number of units , density is controlled
by the limitations of the FAR, the site development standards, and a requirement that the' ,
average size of all units on the site not exceed 1250 square feet, within the density liniits of
the Comprehensive'Plan. This approach to density is likely to produce more, smaller units
and a greater range of unit sizes. The overall Downtown density limit of 40 dwelling units
per acre is not being changed, but the SOP A 2 CAP approach to density will make it possible
to achieve 40 dwelling units per acre on small sites. For example, under RM-40 zoning, a
,5000 square foot lot is allowed only one dwelling unit, but at 40 dwelling units per acre five
units could be provided on that site, with no change in allowed floor area. A density greater
than 40 dwelling units per acre could be achieved with the affordable housing density bonus
under state law and the Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan. '
To encourage useofTDR to provide housing units in the Downtown, a change to the CD-C
zoning code is being proposed to allow optional, temporary use of the SOF A 2 CAP
standards to modify some of the RM':40 standards for residential mixeduse. The SOFA 2
CAP:standards had extensive public review during the SOFA 2 CAP review process and do
-not appear to raise significant policy issues in the Downtown. The optional SOFA 2 CAP
standards would be in place 'only until the new Zoning Ordinance' Update regulations for the
Downtown are adopted, or February 1, 2007, whichever occurs first. In the meantime, an
applicant proposing a residential mixed use project in the CD-C would have the discretion to
use the SOFA 2 CAP alternative standards or theRM-40 standards currently in place. See
proposed code changes in Attachment A, Chapter 18.49.070(b)(3).
POSSIBLE INITATION OF ADDITIONAL ZONING CODE CHANGES:
Two additional changes to the zoning code have been sugge,sted by some property owners
and developers to increase the market for sale of transferable development rights. These
suggested changes are: 1) increase the maximum amount ofTDR that is exempt from parking
from 5000 square feet to 10,000 square feet; and 2) remove the requirement that a receiver
site which is located across a street from residentially zoned property also be separated from
that property by a non-residential parcel at least 50 feet wide. Both of these suggested
changes have potentially significant policy implications that would need to be studied. Staff
recommends' that the PTC initiate zoning code changes and direct staff to analyze the
potential benefits and impacts of these changes, meet with interested stakeholders, and
develop recommendations to the PTC regarding both potential code changes. Some of the
City of Palo Alto Page 8
issues that have been discu~sed regarding these two possible code changes are summarized
below.
Proposed increase in TDR parking exemption. Currently, the TDR ordinance provides that
the first 5000 square feet of transferred bonus floor area is exempt from otherwise-applicable
on-site parking requirements. Two possible changes to the TDR parking exemption have
been proposed to staff by Downtown property owners. One is to exempt the first 20 required
parking spaces, rather than exempting the parking for up to 5000 square feet. This could
encourage the use of TDR for housing, since the parking requirement for housing units is
approximately one-half that for the same amount of floor area in commercial ·use. For
example, the parking requirement for commercial use in the Parking Assessement District is
1 space per 250 square feet, or 20 spaces per 5000 square feet, while the same number of
exempt parking spaces could meet the parking requirement for 10,000 square feet of
residential use, at 2 spaces per 1000 square foot unit. Another suggestion is to increase the
maximum TDR parking exemption to J 0,000 square feet, regardless ofthe use. This would
allow some of the larger sites in the Downtown to use the maximum allowed 10,000 square
feet ofTDR without having to provide parking or pay the Parking Assessment District in-lieu
fee, thus possibly increasing the market for TDRs. Some property owners and developers
!eport that the high cost of the in-lieu parking fee eliminates the incentive for using TDR
beyond the 5000 square feet that is exempt from parking. Possible negative impacts of both
of these proposals is an increase in the Downtown parking deficit, which is currently about
800 parking spaces.
Proposed change to location of receiver sites .. Currently, sites that are located across a street
from residentially zoned property cannot be receiver sites unless they are also separated from
the residentially zoned property by an intervening parcel that is at least 50 feet wide. A
proposal has been made to eliminate the requirement of the intervening lot, thus allowing
sites· across the· street from residentially zoned property to use transferable development
rights for new development. A few Downtown properties, such as 480 Lytton, that would
otherwise be eligible to use the maximum allowed 10,000 square feet ofTDR are currently
not eligible to be receiver sites because of the "intervening property" requirement. The
advantage of eliminating this restriction would be to potentially increase the market for
TDRs. Possible impacts to be explored are the relationship of new commercial development
to the residential properties located across the street. An option that could be explored is to
allow TDR to be transferred to receiver sites located across the street from residential
property if the TDR is used for residential or residential mixed use.
City of Palo Alto Page 9
. REVIEW BY BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS:
Review by Historic Resources Board. The Historic Resources Board at their meeting on
August 18, 2004 unanimously recorrimended allowing the city to participate in the TDR
program by selling development rights from city-owned historic buildings. Their motion
included two suggested additions to the TDR program: assure that the proceeds from the sale
of TDRs would be used exclusively for historic rehabilitation of city-owned historic
buildings; and expand the program to include all publicly owned buildings; such as the Post·
Office. As noted above, the proposed process for city sale ofTDRs includes the requirement
that funds received for the sale ofTDRs will be deposited into a speCial account that can be
used only for the historic rehabilitation of City-owned bUildings. On advisement from the
City Attorney's Office, staff is not recommending inclusion in the TDR program ofbuildings
, owned by other public entities; the Post Office is the only such building in the Downtown.
The federal government bureaucracy differs so significantly from city government that it is
considered inadvisable to attempt to accommodate participation by the federal govermnent in
the TDR program.
TIMELINE:
Action:
HRB Meeting:
P&TC Meeting:
Required Action by Council:
. Date:
August 18, 2004
December 8, 2004
No time limit; expected review by Council
in February, 2005
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW: Categorically Exempt under provision 15305, Minor
Alterations in Land Use Limitations, of the CEQA Guidelines.
ATTACHMENTS:
A. Ordinance: Revisions to Chapter 18.32, PF, Public Facilities Zone District; Chapter
18.87, Transfer of Deyelopment Rights Ordinance, and Chapter 18.49, CD Downtown
Zone District
B. List of City-owned historic buildings
C. Historic Structures Report Format
City of Palo Alto Page 10
Attachment C
CURRENT ACTIVE INTEREST IN REHABILITATION
Address Size of Potential Year Historic Zone
existing historic/ Built Designation District
building seismic bonus
1. Roth Building 17,000 4250/ 1932 Cat. II PF
300 Homer 4250(?)
2. Childrens Library 3264 2500/ 1940 Cat. II PF
1276 Harriet 2500(?)
3. Sea Scout Building 2209 2500 1942 NREligible PF(D)
2500 Embarcadero Rd.
SUBTOTAL: 9250 to 16,000 bonus square feet
PARTIALLY REHABILITATEDAND/OR UNCERTAlNREHAB PLANS
4. Water Tower 1040 2500 1900 NR .Eligible PF
Alma at Hawthorne
5. College Terrace Library 5050 2500 1936 .. Cat. IV PF
2300 Wellsley Park
6. Hale Well 265 7500 1924 NREligible PF
999 Palo Alto A venue
7. Children's Theatre/Scout 17,619 4400/ 1932 Cat. I PF
Center 4400(?)
710 Melville
8. Community Theatre 21,513 5378/ .1932· Cat. I PF
1305 Middlefield 5378(?)
9. Lucie Stem Wing 12,203 .3050/ 1934 Cat. I PF
1305 Middlefield 3050(?)
10. Palo Alto Cultural Center 26,441 6610/ 1951 NREligible PF
1313 Newell Road 6610(?)
11. Main Library 26,582 6646/ 1958 NREligible PF
1213 Newell Road 6646(?))
12. Federal Telegraph ? ? 1920-NREligible PFCD) .
Company; Marsh Station' 1935
2601 East Bayshore Road
SUBTOTAL: 33,584 to 59,668 bonus square feet
. PREVIOUSLY REHABILITATED
13. Gamble House and 8593 2500 . 1900 Cat. II PF
outbuiidings
1431 Waverley
14. WilIams House and 6487 2500 1907 Cat. II PF
Garage
351 Homer
15. Harbormaster's House 945 2500 1937 Cat. II PF(D)
2500 Embarcadero Road
16. Senior Center 18,115 4529 1927 Cat. II PF
(Garden Room) (810) 0.950) ---
450 Bryant Street
SUBTOTAL: o bonus square feet
OTHER POTENTIALLY HISTORIC BUILDINGS
17. Junior Museum 9048 2500 1953 ---PF
1451 Middlefield
18. Bowling Green Club 2124 2500 1954 ---PF
House
474 Embarcadero Road
SUBTOTAL: 5000 bonus square feet
TOTAL POTENTIAL (THEORETICAL MAXIMUM) BONUS SQUARE FEET: 47,834 to 80,668
Attachment D
mSTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT FORMAT
Historic Structure Reports provide a valuable foundation for the rehabilitation, restoration,stabilization or
, reconstruction of an historic building. They are particularly important if the proposed work involves fabricating
significant missing architectural or landscape features, recapturing th,e appearance of a property at one
particular period of its history, removing later additions, or substantially modifying'existing historic fabric. This
document provides a project architect with the information necessary for making appropriate decisions on
restoring or removing fabric, and on period of restoration, as recommended in ~he "Secretary of the Interior's
Standards forihe Treatment of Historic Properties." The report should basically provide a cleClr description of
the building's architectural history: its original appearance, what changes were made and when, and its present
condition. In addition, it should provide guidance with respect to any proposed new work.
The following is the recommended format for a historic structure report:
Table of Contents
Forward or Introduction (when appropriate)
Purpose of the report
Preservation objectives
Brief History of the Property
Significance and historic events, local and
regional, persons associated, ownership
history, etc. (Much of this information should
be available in existing local/national
nomination forms.) ,
Construction History ,
(original, and subsequent alterations)
Chronology "
Historical documentation (letters, diaries,
vouchers, new~pa.per articles, etc.)
Site work (inclUding ordering of materials,
construction, unl,lsual craft work, etc.)
Reference to craftsmenlbuilders/architects
associated with the propertY
Ear.ly views" photqgraphs, etc., showing
appearance at different periods .
Physical investigation (e.g. analysis of paint
layers relative to construction events) may
be necessary to clarify which construction
events are historic.
Architectural Evaluation
Assessment of all exterior and interior features
and finishes.
Identification of those architeCtural features,
materials and finishes that are· character-
defining and therefore significant, and which
must be preserved in the course of project work.
Prioritization of these features (premiere,
important, contributing, non-contributing).
Room-by-room evaluation, including.
identification of materials, construction
techniques, features (lighting,' paneling,
wainscoting, radiators, glazing,
cabinetwork, fireplaces) and finishes.
, Prioritization of architectural significance of
,spaces (premiere, important; contributing,
non-contributing).
Description and evaluation of building
mechanical systems (heating, lighting,
plumbing, electrical, etc.)
Existing Conditions '
Analyze existing conditions, damage, structural
problems, materials deterioration, etc.
Prioritize repair/stabilization work.
Assess the need for materials conservation.
Maintenance Requirements
Outline the need for a plan and program for
general and periodic maintenance, recognizing
that deferred maintenance is not an option fo~
historic resources.
Arcbeology ,
Depending on the nature of the property, its site
and setting, and on potential funding ,sources,
it may be desirable or necessary to include this
section to address any archeological concerns
associated with any proposed stabilization plans
or project work. . ,
Proposed Work
Recommendations for any proposed work bas,ed
on existing conditions and preservation objectives
(this might include a list of work priorities, phasing,
estimated costs)
Categories of work: Architectural, structural,
Mechanical, Electrical, Archeoiogical,'
Conservation, and others.
Drawings and Photographs
Copies of original drawings and specifications,
along with similar documentation of subsequent
alterations are of great importance.' Drawings of
the existing facility are also important. Historic
and current photographs are of critical importance.
A good, clear set of current photographs in 35mm
format is indispensable in understanding the,
building; use at least one 36, print roll each for the
exterior and also for the interior, including overviews
and details. As complete a package as possible of
this type of documentation should be provided,
Bibliography (as needed)
References (as needed)
Appendices (as needed)
OHP~HSR format-2-03
CONTINUANCES
The Architectural Review Board will review the agenda at or around 10:00 A.M. to determine if the
remaining items on the agenda can be completed by 12:00 Noon. In the event that the ARB
determines that specific items will not be heard at today's meeting, review o/such items will be
continued to a date certain.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS. Members of the public may speak to any item not on the agenda
with a limitation of three (3) minutes per speaker. Those who desire to speak must complete a
speaker request card available from the secretary of the Board. The Architectural Review Board
reserves the right to limit the oral communications period to 15 minutes.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES NONE
AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS AND DELETIONS. The agenda may have additional
items added to it up until 72 hours prior to meeting time.
The order of the agenda was changed, (3-0-0-0, Board member Wasserman moved, seconded by
Board member Maran) to have item #2 Mayfield first, item #3 Welch second, and item #1 third.
-NEW BUSINESS
Public Hearings (Minor)
1. 164 Hamilton Avenue [04PLN-00048]: Request by David Brett on behalf of 164 Hamilton Ave
LLC for a Preliminary Architectural Review for the conversion of an existing commercial site, the
Craig Hotel, to a 9,950 square foot commercial office building. Zone District: CD-C(P).
Public Hearings (Major)
2. 2650,2700 and 2780 EI Camino Real (Mayfield site) [04PLN-00061]: Application by Community
Services Department, City of Palo Alto, on behalf of Stanford Management Company (property owner)
for Architectural Review Board review to allow for the construction of the proposed jointly sponsored
Stanford-Palo Alto community sports field facility. The proposed project includes the installation of six
stadium pole lights, artificial turf athletic fields, a service building, landscape buffer, and 92 parking
spaces. This application involves a zone change from High Density Multiple-Family Residence District
with Site and Design Overlay (RM-40 (D)) to Public Facilities District (PF) with a zoning overlay to
allow for light poles up to 70 feet in height and fencing up to 14 feet in height, and a Comprehensive
Plan land use designation change from Multiple Family Residential to Public Parks. Environmental
Assessment: A Draft Environmental Impact Report will be prepared.
Staff Recommendation:
Page 2
Public Testimony:
Roger Kohler, 731 Colorado Avenue: Stated on behalf ofthe HRB Board the unanimous support of the
project. He also stated the Board's hope the name Mayfield would be incorporated into the site name,
because the site was in the heart of the old Mayfield town. There was also a request for some sort of covering
at the site to shield the children from rain during the wet seasons.
Beth Bunnenberg, 2351 Ramona Street: Stated some history regarding the Page Mill Rd. and EI Camino
Real area. She also reiterated the Palo Alto Historical Association's suggestion regarding placing plagues at
the site.
435 Sheridan Avenue: Stated his concern regarding the glare from the lighting into their windows and how
the lighting compared with the Stanford stadium.
Julia Mayberry, 425 Grant: Stated her concern regarding the noise level and didn't want any amplification
of noise, 811d concern about the playing trees. She stated her request for some other type of tree to be looked
at and if there would be, any alcohol or bleachers on site.
Joy Ogawa, 231 Yale Street: Stated her concern regarding the width of the sidewalks on the street and a
time limit on the use of the site. .
Architectural Review Board Action:
The Board moved, (Board member Wasserman moved, seconded by Board member Maran) to approve the
'project with conditions stated in the staff report, with the following additional conditions: a) wood be FSC
certified, b) plywood be FSC certified, c) time limits for play be on posted the site, landscape architect work.
with the HRB regarding a plaque Concrete include 30% more fly ash, come back with something concerning
the trash issue
3. 777 Welch Road [04-P AR-02]: Request by Jim Cox of the Dental Plaza General Partnership on
behalf of The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University for preliminary
Architectural Review Board review of a new 35,000 square feet three story medical building with
below grade parking and related site improvements. Zone District: OR
Information item:
4. Report from Advance Planning staff regarding proposed changes to the Transfer of Development
Rights Ordinance for review of historic rehabilitation projects.
DISCUSSION ITEM.
5. Zoning Ordinance Update (ZOU): Discussion of draft Mixed Use land uses in the Neighborhood
Commercial (CN), Service Commercial (CS), and Downtown Commercial (CD) Zone Districts .
. BOARD MEMBER QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, AND/OR ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Page 3
SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING
Board Members:
Judith Wasserman
Drew Maran
STAFF ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
Project Review of a master sign program which consists o/three wall mounted signs, two directory
figns, andfive tenant identification plaques.
Applicant: Raeleene Williams on behalf of Sign Solutions
Address: 251 Lytton Avenue, 04PLN-:00083
Approval Date: December 14 2004
Project Review of two new illuminated wall signs.
Applicant: Sign Services Inc. on behalf of Mike's Bikes
Address: 3001 EI Camino Real, 04PLN-00lll
Approval Date: January 05 2005
Project Review of a non illuminated wall sign and a non-illuminated projecting sign to be mounted
on an existing canopy structure at an existing business office.
Applicant: Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce on behalf of Tony Carrasco
Address:122 Hamilton Avenue, 05PLN-000I0
Approval Date: January 10, 2005 ..
ADA. Persons with disabilities who require auxiliary aids or services in using City facilities, services, or programs or who would
like information on the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact (650) 329-2550
(voice) or 650-328-1199 (TDD)
Posting of agenda. This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956.
Recordings. An audiotape ofthe proceedings may be obtained/reviewed by contacting the Planning Division at (650) 329-2440. A
videotape of the proceedings can be obtained/reviewed by contacting the City Clerk's Office at (650) 329-2571.
Page 4
18
EXCERPT FROM MINUTES OF THE
PLANNING TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION
DECEMBER 8, 2004
19 2. Revisions to the Transfer of Development Rights Ordinance for City-owned
20 Properties and Revisions to the Downtown CD Zone Ordinance to Increase
21 . Residential Density Limits: 1) Review and recommendation regarding proposed
22 . revisions to the Zoning Code, Chapters 18.87, 18.49 and 18.32. The proposedzone
23 changes would allow eligible City-owned historic properties (Category I or Category II)
24 located in any zone district to be "sender sites" under the TDR ordinance, transferring
25 historic or seismic rehabilitation floor area bonuses from these sites to eligible "receiver
26 sites" located in the Downtown CD Zone District; and modify the procedures and
27 requirements for granting floor area bonuses. Proposed changes to Chapter 18.49 also
28 would modify site development requirements and replace maximum residential density
29 limit with a required maximum average unit size for residential and mixed-use projects
30 located in the CD Zone District to encourage use ofTDR to provide housing units. The
31 residential density on a mixed-use site or residential site would be limited by the floor
32 area ratio (FAR), site development requirements, parking requirements and
33 Comprehensive Plan density limits. 2) Discussion of possible changes to Chapter
34 18.87.040 and 18.87.055 to increase the maximum parking exemption for bonus floor
35 area from 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet; and to reduce the required distance
36 between TDR "receiver sites" and residentially zoned property.
37 SR Weblink: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/citvagendalpublish/planning-transportation-
38 meetings/3174.pdf .
39
40 Mr. Dan Sodergren. Special Counsel to City Attorneys: I just wanted to briefly point out that I
41 have advised Commissioner Holman to abstain from participating in this matter due to her
42 employment with the Palo Alto Historical Association.
43
44 Chair Cassel: Thank. you. Would the Staff like to make a report?
45
46 Ms. Virginia Warheit, Senior Planner: I will make a brief report. I have four slides to put up on
47 the wall to help guide us through this. In the first slide I very briefly want to say what the
48 Transfer of Development Rights Ordinance is. The City currently has a Transfer of
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 3 of43
1 Development Right Ordinance, and I think it would be helpful to the public to know what it is
2 before we talk about the changes that we are proposing to make to it.
3
4 The City has a Downtown bonus floor area program for certain qualified historic buildings or
5 seismic risk buildings that grants a floor area bonus, that is some additional development rights
6 equalto 2,500 square feet or 25% of the building whichever is greater, when one ofthose
7 buildings undergoes a qualified rehabilitation. That has been in place since the 1980's. In 1996
8 the City adopted a Transfer of Development Rights Ordinance for the Downtown. So since 1996
9 if you own one of those qualified buildings, you can do a rehabilitation and get this bonus floor
10 area and you don't have to use it on your site. You can sell it to someone else in the Downtown
11 who can use it on a qualified so-called receiver site. There are qualifications to be a sender site;
12 the building has to be Historic Category I or II or on the seismic risk list. To be a receiver site
13 there are certain limitations of proximity to residential, and the building can't be an historic
14 building. So we talk about the historic or seismic buildings that can earn these bonuses as sender
15 sites and the places or sites Downtown that can receive them as the potential receiver sites.
16 There are about four or five times as many receiver sites as there are sender sites.
17
18 The purpose of the TDR Ordinance when the City adopted it in 1996 was specifically to help
19 protect historic buildings so that when they took their bonus they didn't have to put that floor
20 area on top of the historic building. That had apparently become a problem. This came up in a
21 conversation with some Commissioners, that we had seen some comments made by then Council
22 member, now State Senator, Joe Simidian, when the Council adopted the TDR ordinance in
23 1996, and the Commissioners asked if we could give you that, so you will find a one-page .
24 excerpt from those minutes there at your places where Mr. Simidian very nicely and succinctly
25' describes what the Council was trying to do, and essentially that is what he says. That the
26 program, when it was just the bonus floor area program and you couldn't transfer it, when people
27 upgraded an historic building in order to take advantage oftheir bonus they had to add it on to
28 the historic building and they had a lot of floor area going on top of historic buildings that wasn't
29 appropriate. So they established the TDR program so that you could take advantage of your
30 bonus and you could sell it to someone else who could build it on a non-historic building. He
31 clearly makes the point there that Council did not intend to create new entitlements by
32 establishing this program. They just intended to make it easier to use your entitlement of a
33 qualified bonus to put it on a more appropriate building. So that is the program that is in place
34 right now.
35
36 What is before us is to just make some minor changes to three parts of the code, actually the
37 Downtown Ordinance, the Transfer of Development Rights Ordinance, and the PF Zone
38 Ordinance which is for Public Facilities, to say in those codes that City-owned qualified historic
39 buildings can now participate in that program. The program is currently limited to buildings
40 zoned CD, Downtown. Even.the one or two City-owned buildings that are Downtown are not
41 zoned CD, they are zoned PF. All the City's buildings are zoned PF. So this code change would
42 say City-owned historic buildings which otherwise meet all the criteria of the program could
43 participate as senders in this program.
44
45 Now I will go on to the next slide and just walk through what recommendations we are
46 proposing. You will see Recommendation One, two parts to the recommendation. One part is a
47 series of changes to the code, and we have actually three parts there one, two and three. Then
48 there is a second recommendation, not for action tonight but just to consider some additional
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 40f43
1 changes to the TDR Ordinance not specifically related to the City-owned buildings that have
2 come up in our discussions with the development community in this process. So under the first
3 recommendation there are actual proposed code changes for eligible City-owned historic
4 buildings. That is City-owned Category I or II historic buildings no matter where they are
5 located, we would allow the sale or transfer of bonus floor area which the City would get in
6 exchange for doing a qualified rehabilitation; we would allow the City to sell those. Then we
7 would set up a public process for the City to advertise and sell the TDRs; obviously this would
8 have to be done in a fair way, to advertise and sell to the highest bidder those development
9 rights. The code would say that any funds the City gets from such a sale would be used only for
10 approved rehabilitation projects; it wouldn't go into the General Fund. This is not an entitlement
11 program; you don't just get the money. You get the money in exchange for doing something
12 very specific which is a qualified rehabilitation of your building, so the funds could only be used
13 for that purpose. Lastly, we would allow the City to sell those bonuses a little earlier in the
14 program than the current program allows. Currently, if a private party does a qualified historic
15 or seismic rehabilitation they can only transfer the bonus to someone else after their
16 rehabilitation has been signed offby the City as done according to the approvals. The City, to
17 the extent that the City uses this program, might very well be doing it in coordination with a non-
18 profit community group, and it would facilitate that a lot if that money was available to be used
19 for the rehabilitation project. So what we are proposing is that for the City-owned building the
20 money would go into a special fund, and when the rehabilitation plan is approved then the
21 money would be available to be used for the rehabilitation.
22
23 Then there are another four changes that we would make to the existing TDR program. This
24 would apply to all sender sites, not just City-owned buildings but all historic buildings that
25 -participate in the TDR program. These are just some minor refinements to the process. When
26 they make the application that they want bonus floor area we would ask that the application also
27 include at that time an historic structure report. There is a sample of an historic structure report
28 attached to your Staff Report. That is considered good practice. It actually makes things a lot
29 better for both the building owner and the City as the review body to have a thorough analysis of
30 the qualifications of the building before you start the rehabilitation process.
31
32 Second, presently the way the code is written the proposed rehabilitation project which is on an
33 historic building because is it is in the Downtown goes to the HRB and the ARB and then the
34 ARB makes a recommendation taking into consideration the recommendation of the HRB. But
35 they both actually recommend to the Director, who the decision-making authority. The body in
36 the City which is qualified and appointed to determine whether or not an historic rehabilitation
37 meets the Secretary Standards is the HRB not the ARB. So we thought the most straightforward
38 way to do this is just to have the project go to the HRB, who makes a recommendation about
39 whether the rehabilitation project meets the Secretary's Standards and then the Director makes
40 the decision and it doesn't go to the ARB. So that change is being proposed.
41
42 Third, the rehabilitation plans will show any material that may be proposed to be removed or
43 replaced. The Secretary's Standards advise to save historic buildings as much as possible in their
44 historic condition. So to the extent that anything may be proposed to be removed or replaced,
45 before you can evaluate whether or not that is going to interfere with the historic significance of
46 the building you have to know what it is, so it will just facilitate the review and make the plans
47 work smoother if that is very clear. So we would add that requirement.
48
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 5 of43
1 Then the last is requiring a protective covenant. That is already being done. The Transfer of
2 Development Rights Ordinance says that when a sender site sells their development rights to
3 someone they have to enter into an agreement satisfactory to the City Attorney saying that they
4 will uphold the conditions of the TDR program. So this is just kind of formalizing that, and
5 calling it a protective covenant. Now the City holds the covenant for private owners; private
6 owners enter into a covenant with the City. The City can't hold a covenant with itself so the City
7 would have to enter into a covenant agreement with some other qualified third party. We have
8 talked to California Preservation Foundation about this, and they advise that if a community has
9 an historic preservation group that's the group that should hold the covenants. Of course we do
10 have Palo Alto Stanford Heritage. I have a correction to your Staff Report that says we might
11 have a case in which PAST might be involved in an historic building with the City and therefore
12 would have a conflict of interest, and we might have to look for some other third party. That is
l3 why we are talking to CPF, would they perhaps be willing to do itifwe got into a spot like that.
14 Although we may of course in the future have such an issue, right now we don't because
15 Commissioner Holman's conflict is not because of an association with PAST, it is because of an
16 association with potential users of that building in a private agreement, so it has nothing to do
17 with PAST. PAST would not be disqualified from holding the protective covenant, as I thought
18 . they were when I prepared the report. So there would be a protective covenant between the city
19 and a qualified third party before TDRs are sold.
20
21 The last part of the code changes that we are recommending is something that has been
22 mentioned when we were doing the SOFA II Coordinated Area Plan. Developers mentioned this
23 and then when we started working on the TDR Ordinance it came up again, and we looked into it
24 and thought this would be appropriate to recommend now. Some people who buy transferred
25 -development rights for increased development in the Downtown may be interested in using it for
26 housing, but doing mixed-use Downtown is now kind of difficult because RM-40 regulations
27 apply to any residential in the Downtown and it has various setbacks and height limits and things
28 that aren't really appropriate Downtown and they end up having a whole lot ofDEEs or
29 variances to make it work. In the SOFA II Coordinated Area Plan we worked out a set of
30 development standards for mixed-use in an urban area, and it had lots of review and it seemed to
31 work out fine. So the suggestion was why not let developers of mixed-use in Downtown use
32 those standards. Because we would just be trying it out and because the CD Ordinance is
33 currently being rewritten right now as part ofthe Zoning Ordinance Update, we are proposing
34 that it would just be temporary and optional. So if a developer wants to use the RM-40 standards
35 that are in place they could do that. If they wanted to use certain ofthe SOFA II standards,
36 which we have included in the ordinance, it is just certain ones to replace certain ones of the
37 RM-40, they would have the option to do that. That would be in place for two years or until the
38 ZOU for Downtown is written, whichever occurs first. So those are the only things that we are
39 proposing that you actually have code changes before you.
40
41 In addition there are two possible changes that members of the development community have
42 recommended and they require more study. We are just bringing these ideas before the
43 Commission. If you want us to we will go back and pursue these and investigate them and
44 develop possible code change language and return. One of them is to increase the maximum
45 parking exemption from 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet for bonus floor area. For a
46 receiver site Downtown, there is a limit on how much transferred development rights they can
47 buy and build.on their site. It is .5 of the FAR ofthe site ifthey are outside the assessment
48 district and 1.0 ifthey are in the assessment district. But no matter how big the site is or how
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page60f43
1 much they are allowed to buy, only 5,000 square feet of it comes free of parking and that is the
2 real value ofTDR, that it is free of parking requirements. So you can build 5,000 square feet of
3 Downtown development and you don't have to provide the parking for it. You can imagine that
4 is a huge financial benefit. What is being proposed is that that 5,000 square foot cap on the
5 parking exemption be lifted so that if you had a 10,000 square foot lot and you wanted to buy
6 10,000 square feet ofTDR, all of it would be exempt from parking. That of course has
7 implications for unmet parking need in the Downtown. So the pros and cons of that would have '
8 to be examined.
9
10 The second item, we think this second part only applies to one or two sites in the Downtown,
11 maybe three at the most. This is what we would investigate and bring back to you. There
12 currently are two or three sites that might otherwise be eligible and good receiver sites for
13 transferred development rights but they happen to be across the street from residentially zoned
14 property. Currently the code says if you are across the street from residentially zoned property
15 you have to be separated from residentially zoned property by at least another 50 foot wiae
16 parcel plus the street or you can't be a receiver site. So if you are right directly across the street
17 from residentially zoned property you are not an eligible receiver site. If there is an intervening
18 commercial parcel and the residential doesn't start until one parcel over down the street then it is
19 okay. So you would have commercial across from commercial but you can't have a receiver site
20 directly across the street from residential. The proposal is to eliminate the requirement of the
21 intervening lot. So if you were across the street it wouldn't disqualify you from being a receiver
22 site. So that is the proposal.
23
24 Chair Cassel: Thank you. If anyone would like to speak to this item they need to fill out a card
25 . up here and leave it up here and the Secretary will bring it to me. If you are here for the first
26 item on the agenda that item was continued until January 26,2005. Does anyone have a question
27 they would like to ask of Staff at this time before I go to the public? Pat.
28
29 Commissioner Burt: Has the ARB commented or had any input on whether they believe they
30 have any additional value that they have been adding to this process or would want to continue to
31 add?
32
33 Ms. Warheit: No.
34
35 Commissioner Burt: Have they had the opportunity to comment on that?
36
37 Ms. Warheit: No.
38
39 Commissioner Burt: Okay.
40
41 Chair Cassel: Lee.
42
43 Commissioner 'Lippert: Currently in the Municipal Code under Public Facilities the site
44 development regulations for Public Facilities have a floor area ratio of 1:1. Why wouldn't the
45 City take these TDRs and apply them to public facilities? I am just throwing out that we are
46 looking at a potential police station building coming forward. That is over the FAR for Public
47 Facilities. Shouldn't the City hold those in reserve for their own use?
48
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 70f43 .
1 Ms. Warheit: This program is only for historic buildings. So I guess it will probably be a long .
2 time before this building is an historic building so the police building wouldn't qualify to be part
3 of this program. There is a list attached to the Staff Report of 18 City-owned buildings that
4 would qualify. They are Historic Category I or II. The City has no buildings that are on the
5 seismic risk list. So this is strictly an expansion of the City's historic program essentially. It is
6 for City-owned historic buildings. Then taking your question to the historic buildings except for
7 the old police building, the Avenidas Senior Center building Downtown, I don't know what the
8 FAR is but it is a several story building so it might be over 1: 1, but it is hard to tell where the site
9 is. Does it include the park? City buildings tend to be located on large pieces of land, for
10 example the Roth building is on a large piece of land, the Sea Scout building is on a very large
11 piece ofland, the Children's Library, which is a possible user of this, is inside the Lucie Stem
12 Community Center. So they don't really need, they are not 1:1, they will probably never be at
13 1: 1, they don't really need it in terms of development potential. The reason the program was
14 proposed is that what was needed was funds to try to help pay for proposed rehabilitations. So
15 what was desired was that the City's historic buildings could become sender sites in order to sell
16 off development potential that they didn't need on their own site in order to help pay for
17 rehabilitation. That is the purpose of the program.
18
19 Commissioner Lippert: I think you misunderstood. What I am saying is that if you were to say
20 take the Roth building and the TDRs from the Roth building and here we are building a police
21 facility. It wouldn't be able to be applied to the police facility that is doubling in size because
22 the police facility is not an historic building?
23
24 Ms. Warheit: What you can do with the development rights off the Roth building is sell them ..
25 -Now the City could buy them from themselves but the City doesn't need to. They can build the
26 police building without buying the development rights.
27
28 Commissioner Lippert: But Public Facilities are supposed be a 1:1 FAR and this is over.
29
30 Ms. Warheit: I can't answer how that is being done.
31
32 Chair Cassel: Does anyone else have a question before we go to the public? Bonnie.
33
34 Vice Chair Packer: With regard to the proposal to allow developers to use the SOFA II
35 Coordinated Area Plan development standards that would apply whether or not the developer
36 was buying TDRs, is that correct?
37
38 Ms. Warheit: Yes, that is correct. The reason that we put it in as a general set of standards is
39 that any mixed-use project that is more than just one level of housing will be using TDRs.· That
40 is the only way you can do it. The FAR is 1.0 you get another 1.0 for residential, and if you want
41 to do more than that the only way to do it is to do a PC or buy the TDR. Then also you might
42 have a project in which some ofthe floor area in the building is under CD Zoning, the extra 1.0
43 for residential and some of it is TDR and you sure wouldn't want to have two different
44 development standards being applied. It just didn't seem relevant where the square footage was
45 coming from as long as you had it; if the standards were appropriate then they were appropriate.
46
47 Chair Cassel: Michael.
48
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page80f43
1 Commissioner Griffin: Virginia, you said that one of these proposals would only deal with a
2 very few number of sites. In your Staff Report you referred to 480 Lytton. Can you describe
3 that property? Is that on the corner of Lytton and ... ?
4
5 Ms. Warheit: I think it is on the corner of Lytton and Cowper and it is currently a two story
6 probably 1970s office building.
7
8 Commissioner Griffin: Is there an architect's office in there, do you know?
9
10 Ms. Warheit: I am not sure what offices are in it. I noticed that it was recently repainted a kind
11 of terra cotta color. It is kind of what you might call a Monterey style office building with a '
12 balcony along the second floor and parking lot behind it.
13
14 Commissioner Griffin: Thanks.
15
16 Chair Cassel: Then I will go to the public hearing. At this time I have three speakers. The first
17 one is Beth Bunnenberg to be followed by Jim Baer. You have five minutes to speak and would
18 you please give your name and your address? Thank you.
19
20 Ms. Beth Bunnenberg, Historic Resources Board, 2351 Ramona Street, Palo Alto: Thank you.
21 Tonight I am the HRB rep for this meeting. Speaking as that representative I want to convey to
22 you very strongly the HRB supports this proposal. As public funds are shrinking more and more
23 this is a way for the City to leverage some funds without having to appropriate public money and
24 then the City can partner with other groups toward a joint goal of restoring and seismically
25 -upgrading the City's historic properties. The HRB strongly recommended that monies for the
26 sale of the TDRs be placed in special and separate funds to make sure that the money is spent on
27 the restoration of the property that sold the TDRs. That proposal is in what you see.
28
29 By the way, it is an excellent suggestion that the TDRs be sold after the approved plans in order
30 to be able to utilize those funds as the rehabilitation is going on, because it would be very
31 difficult for non-profit or other groups to be able to borrow the kind of money and hold it until
32 the project is finished. So that one is a very good suggestion.
33
34 The HRB also supported the idea of the plan being extended to all publicly owned historic
35 properties.
36
37 Now then the idea of requiring an historic structures report is very, very much in line with
38 HRB's actions. Increasingly the HRB has been more specific about identifying historic fabric or
39 features to make sure that the applicant understood which things were important in the building
40 to meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. The historic structures report is a recognized
41 organized format done by a qualified third party. It does incur some cost at the front of the
42 project but that money is usually saved because you know then which pieces are important so
43 that it saves in the planning as that goes along.
44
45 Now then this one is a personal observation in the area that I think still needs to be strengthened
46 in the Staff Report. That is that it is not enough to simply identify those features that are to be
47 saved but a protection plan needs to be put in place to make sure that it is communicated from
48 the top all the way down to the hardhat that is working on the building that these things are
City o/Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 90/43
1 important in terms of preserving the integrity and meeting the Secretary's Standards. In touring
2 the Roth building it seemed very clear that where protection plans were in place things were
3 saved very well. The murals, some of the windows that were boarded up with plywood survived
4 very well. Where there was not a real protection plan damage occurred. It is much, much
5 cheaper to protect in the beginning than to replace, replicate at a very high cost and then repair,or
6 replace. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards strongly stresses saving the original materials ..
7
8 Then we also need accountability to ensure that the plans are followed. Perhaps the Advance
9 Planning or Historic Preservation Staff could do periodic inspections and report to the Director
10 of Planning. The TDR program has been working very well down in the CD Downtown Zone
11 District. Let's extend it to our City-owned structures. Thank you.
12
13 Chair Cassel: Thank you, Beth. We appreciate the opinions of the HRB. Thank you for
14 bringing it. Jim Baer to be followed by Tony Carrasco.
15
16 Mr. Jim Baer, 172 University Avenue, Palo Alto: I admire the great effort Staff has put into
17 taking what was a good idea and thought to be simple and executed it through its many ripples
18 through the Municipal Code. In November 2003 policies and procedures unanimously
19 recommended that TDR be reviewed and considered for City-owned historic buildings and I
20 think it was June or July 2004 that the City Council then suggested that take place. I think it is a
21 beautiful execution by Staff in the way they have weaved the complex issues together and
22 welcome the strengthening of the requirements for City and non-City-owned historic buildings to
23 qualify.
24
25 -Real quickly on the second active recommendation that the SOFA II design standards for
26 residences be applied in the CDC its source is not because of the inconvenience of daylight plane
27 and setback and open space which is going to be addressed in the mixed-use ordinances
28 throughout the City but the RM-40 overlay zone has this problem. A 5,000-foot parcel, which is
29 a common parcel Downtown, is allowed one unit. That is how the density works. Density and
30 FAR are not subject to Variance or Design Enhancement Exception you need a Planned
31 Community Zone, an anathema to where we would like to be. So this is partially brought about
32 that Radio Shack a year ago was considering adding a number of units rather than commercial
33 space on upper floors and ldw and behold we found that using TDR rights from Harrison Plating
34 Works. What we found was we couldn't overcome the obstacle that density was the limitation.'
35 So this is a really welcome circumstance and absolutely necessary to get small units in the
36 Downtown. One of the tradeoffs that Staff wisely suggested was that you have to live with the,
37 average 1,200 square foot unit size in order to take advantage of the site development regulations
38 and relief that were adopted in SOFA II. It shouldn't be controversial.
39
40 I am not sure how to use an overhead but I can answer Commissioner Griffin's question easily
41 about 480 Lytton. This is, boy it is flattering to call it a Monterey style building, and it is not
42 1970s it is probably late 1950s or early 1960s. What I want to point out is that the provision and
43 much of the TDR Ordinance got negotiated at the podium by City Council. There were some
44 major issues that were clearly worked through and number that were adopted from the podium.
45 This is one of those which is that to protect residential properties we wanted to make sure you
46 couldn't be adjacent to or within 150 feet of a residential property unless you were separated by
47 a street and then it was added separated by a street and a 50 foot commercial parcel. So for
48 example all up and down Lytton most of those satisfy that because along Lytton there are small
City 0/ Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 100/43
1 commercial properties. It is not directly across the street that impacts this building owned by the
2 Thoits family, it is kitty-corner across the street that is a residential property. Across the street
3 are Fran's shop and the dry cleaner and all of that. So this is allow Staff to explore whether there
4 aren't a couple of these circumstances where the ordinance didn't allow a suitable receiver site I
5 think is worthwhile.
6
7 Now to the second recommendation for consideration of should the cap of5,000 feet of parking
8 limitation be relieved to 10,000 feet. Here is the challenge, which is that TDRs have not been
9 easy to use. There has only been one that I am aware of that has directly been used and that is
10 Warren Thoits to himself with what is now Vivre and with the fire damaged building and his
11 historic Victorian transferred to the 200 Hamilton Court, Hamilton Anderson Building,
12 internally. The problem is you have to have a time and Tony Carrasco now has an ARB
13 application approved using some TDR. The problem is you have to have a receiver site that
14 hasn't gone through the redevelopment cycle or that is just now ripe for redevelopment in order
15 to sell your TDRs. These parcels are all 10,000 feet or larger and are located near public
16 parking.
17
18 Chair Cassel: Does anyone have any questions of Mr. Baer? Thank you, Pat.
19
20 Commissioner Burt: Jim, can you explain why the fact that they are located near public parking
21 impacts this consideration?
22
23 Mr. Baer: Thank you. So that if one of the challenges is to create an economic environment for
24 receiver sites to buy Transfer Development Rights some Of these are 10,000 square foot parcels
25 -that are underdeveloped and will go through redevelopment in some ten or 15 year timeframe. If
26 they are near a public parking facility they are taking advantage of the relief of parking
27 associated with 10,000 feet rather than 5,000 feet. For example what used to be TOGO's,
28 Warren Thoits building on the corner of Cowper and University is a one story building in an
29 urban design environment that should be larger than one story and it is right next door to the 700
30 car parking garage at the Cowper Webster parking garage. That is an appropriate site to receive
31 more than 5,000 feet ofTDR. The only value in TDR is if you have relief from parking. So to
32 limit the parking to 5,000 feet, which was one of these negotiated and adopted not through
33 extensive Staff analysis but at the City Council hearing, this is one that is at least worth asking.
34 There are ramifications that may not be likely, it is at least worth giving Staff the opportunity to
35 consider this as it goes forward in ordinance drafting and that is as long of an answer as you
36 need.
37
38 Chair Cassel: Thank you. Pat.
39
40 Commissioner Burt: Jim, the Staff is talking about essentially a bank to be able to list the
41 available TDRs from public buildings. Would that also be beneficial for the private sector so
42 that there is some place where everybody can go to and know what TDRs are available for sale?
43
44 Mr. Baer: How am I going to make a living? It would be valuable if there were open
45 information about the availability not just publicly but privately. I do want to add that it
46 continues to be a very difficult transaction because while it appears that the number of receiver
47 sites is many, only a building that hasn't gone through substantial new life renovation would
48 burden itself by adding another floor or adding more square footage for what has already been
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 11 of43
1 made a modern highly useful building. You wouldn't demolish a building to add TDR for a
2 highly productive building.
3
4 Chair Cassel: Thank you. The person to speak is Tony Carrasco. I have no other cards.
5
6 Mr. Tony Carrasco, 583 Glenbrook Drive, Palo Alto: Madam Chainnan, members of the
7 Planning Commission. Firstly I wanted to commend Virginia for taking what we thought was a
8 simple ordinance and looking at the ramifications as to how it impacts. several different
9 ordinances. She has'done a really good job.
10
11 I want to start where Jim left off. This issue of exempting the next 5,000 square feet in other
12 words'10,000 square feet instead of 5,000 square feet from parking is critical to being able to sell
13 10,000 square feet ofTDRs from public buildings that are dearly in need of money to renovate
14 them. Here is why. If you have to park that extra 5,000 square feet there is no need to buy those
15 TDRs. You can just park it at cost about the same or a little more to park it than to buy TDRs.
16 The cost per square foot ofa TDR today is about $120.00 per square foot and parking cost is
17 about $100.00 a square foot. TDRs are more expensive. If you have to park it and buy the
18 TDRs you are not going to be able to sell TDRs. So might as well forget that second 5,000
19 square feet. I know it has policy implications and I know we need to study what those
20 implications are in tenns of parking demand in Downtown but from an economic point of view if
21 you want to upgrade your historic buildings you cannot require that parking and expect that you
22 have a market.
23
24 The second issue is related to page six in which you talk about using the SOFA study density or
25 -at least the FAR average caps on housing units. Most of the properties Downtown are about
26 5,000 square feet. You can get one maybe two units. To limit those units to 1,200 square feet I
27 think eliminates a large percentage of our population who have worked in this City who now
28 want to retire and be close to the services Downtown. They are not going to be able to fit into a
29 building that is 1,200 square feet into a unit that is 1,200 square feet. They need it unit that is
30 2,000 or maybe more like 2,200. To take a person who wants to finish out their life in
31 Downtown Palo Alto who want to sell one of their big homes and move closer into the facilities
32 that Downtown provides you need to be able to allow a unit that is 2,200 square feet and not the
33 1,200 square feet. So I would suggest allowing any parcel that has less than three units to allow
34 a larger unit to be built rather than use the SOFA standards at 1,200 average square foot. Thank
35 you.
36
37 Chair Cassel: Thank you. I have no other cards so I will bring the discussion back to the
38 Planning Commission. Do we have any more questions of Staff? Lee.
39
40 Commissioner Lippert: With regard to TDRs and selling off for housing would a developer who
41 was doing a housing project and buying the TDRs applying it to housing would they need to
42 provide BMRs for those TDRs?
43
44 Ms. Warheit: This would not change the BMR requirement.
45
46 Commissioner Lippert: Okay. So in other words if I understand it correctly if a developer was
47 building a nice multi-family project and they buy these TDRs and they apply it so they can
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 12 of43
1 actually add more housing they would have to provide the units necessary for the base of the
2 building not for the additional housing units.
3
4 Ms. Warheit: I didn't understand. Are you saying would they not have a BMR requirement for
5 some part of that?
6
7 Commissioner Lippert: Correct.
8
9 Ms. Warheit: No, the BMR requirement is completely unaffected by this.
10
11 Commissioner Lippert: Okay, so they would still have to provide BMRs equal to the square
12 footage in the TDR that would be transferred.
13
14 Ms. Warheit: Yes.
15
16 Commissioner Lippert: Okay, thank you.
17
18 Chair Cassel: Pat.
19
20 Commissioner Burt: I am trying to recall the history on why Downtown was the only receiver
21 location considered. Has California Avenue been considered as a potential receiver location for
22 the TDRs?
23
24 Ms. Warheit: The question of whether to limit it to the Downtown was discussed somewhat in
25 -the Policy and Services Committee of the Council. There was a memorandum prepared by the
26 Attorney's Office to kind of flush out what the issues were and of course what they identified is
27 that the Downtown is the high density area and it can absorb the un-built square footage between
28 the cap and what is down there now. So if you put it down there you don't have to up-zone to
29 accommodate it. If you go somewhere else you are probably going to have to up-zone in order
30 to allow it to go in there. So that is another big complicated separate project. The purpose here
31 was just to allow the City to start participating like everybody else does. We didn't then also
32 look at expanding the entire TDR program to include a different receiver area. So that has not
33 been looked at and that's why, because it would be a rezoning of another area.
34
35 Chair Cassel: Bonnie.
36
37 Vice Chair Packer: I have a question about the relationship of this buffer between the current
38 requirement that there be a commercial buffer between residential and receiver sites. If a
39 receiver site under the new scheme decides to also take advantage of the SOFA II cap
40 requirements for a mixed-use residential project wouldn't it be odd to require a commercial
41 buffer between a residential project and another residential project? Has Staff thought about that
42 and thought about making an exemption if the receiver site uses the bonus to create residential
43 use?
44
45 Ms. Warheit: Yes, I think that is an interesting idea. It was something that we thought that we
46 would explore more if you wanted us to-do this. I think the expectation with it is that the TDR is
47 going to be used for commercial purposes. But you are absolutely right, if it is used for mixed-
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 13 of43
1 use and what they are creating is residential then it would seem that that issue would go away.
2 There wouldn't be any need to have an intervening parcel.
3
. 4 Vice Chair Packer: But that would require a specific language change.
5
6 Ms. Warheit: Yes it would require a language change.
7
8 Chair Cassel: Michael.
9
10 Commissioner Griffin: I found myself empathetic to Tony Carrasco's comments about the
11 maximum average unit size being 1,250 square feet and that being on the small side. Is there any
12 way that this formula could be modified at all in order to yield some larger units than 1,250
13 square feet?
14
15 Ms. Warheit: The Zoning Ordinance for the Downtown is currently being rewritten right now.
16 If there is to be any permanent change in the site development standards for mixed-use
17 Downtown, the density requirement, whether or not the City wants to incentivize smaller units,
18 all of that, essentially the whole question of what kind of requirements are going to shape
19 Downtown housing needs to be worked out in that forum. We have pointed the developers and
20 property owners who have come to us in the TDR process interested in this issue to the ZOU
21 process and they are actively now, Staff is working on that, meeting with developers who are
22 interested in Downtown housing. So what we were attempting to do here was to pick up the
23 SOFA II standards as an option right now for the Downtown. It was all developed as a package,
24 and if we start taking it apart that is a much bigger project. It just seemed like ifit is going to
25 -start coming apart and being a new animal it needs to be done in the ZOU process. That is why
26 we just left it as a package.
27
28 Chair Cassel: Annette.
29
30 Commissioner Bialson: With regard to the simplifying of the review process and the removal of
31 the ARB is the charter so to speak in the review ofthe~e processes the same as for the HRB?
32
33 Ms. Warheit: I think what we need to remember is that these are sender sites not the receiver
34 sites. So these are historic buildings undergoing only historic rehabilitation under the Secretary's
35 Standards and not receiving new development. They are not using their TDR. That is the
36 HRB's charge, to look at exactly that kind of a project, and the ARB really looks at when a
37 building is changing.
38
39 Commissioner Bialson: So we haven't had any of these go before the ARB yet or we have?
40
41 Ms. Warheit: I have to stop and think if we have even had any. Let me think about that.
42
43 Chair Cassel: Let me see if! can summarize what you are saying. What you are saying is these
44 guidelines are going to be applied to the building that is sending the TDR and that is why it
45 doesn't have to go to the ARB because we are just doing an assessment of conditions of the
46 historic building and it has not yet reached the stage of needing an ARB review.
47
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 14 of43
1 Ms. Warheit: Well, the only thing that is going to happen to it is there is a rehabilitation under
2 the Secretary's Standards, which should be very little change. That is what the Standards are
3 about. The building is sending the new floor area off the site, it is not adding any new
4 construction.
5
6 Chair Cassel: In other words you are going to preserve what is there and since you are
7 preserving what's there and keeping it as close as possible then it doesn't need an ARB review.
8
9 Ms. Warheit: What the ordinance says is currently the ARB and HRB are reviewing is whether
10 or not the rehabilitation plan is consistent with the Secretary's Standards. That is what the code
11 says. So if that is all the code says they are doing, then there is only one Board that needs to do
12 that, not both of them.
13
14 Commissioner Bialson: That was my question whether they had the same charter or not. What
15 you are saying is with respect to review in these areas they have identical charters.
16
17 Ms. Warheit: Yes, that is the only issue they would be looking at now.
18
19 Commissioner Bialson: Thank you.
20
21 Ms. Julie Caporgno: Can I just say one thing? The attempt by Staff was to streamline the
22 process primarily. Ifit would make the Planning Commission more comfortable we could
23 because we haven't gone to the ARB after your recommendation and before this goes to Council
24 we could have a discussion with the ARB to let them know of the process change but right now
25 . the way it currently is structured is the HRB recommends to the ARB who recommends to the
26 Director of Planning. We are just eliminating the ARB review process.
27
28 Chair Cassel: Thank you. Lee, you have another question?
29
30 Commissioner Lippert: Yes. In the sale of these TDRs or the auctioning would the City be able
31 to do a Dutch auction in which they could sell off or break up the amount of square footage and
32 sell it off in whatever lots people wanted to buy at the maximum cost?
33
34 Ms. Warheit: That is a really interesting idea.
35
36 Commissioner Lippert: It is a question. IUs not an idea it is a question.
37
38 Ms. Warheit: Well, it is an interesting idea for us to pursue. The process has not been
39 developed. The code just says under the City Manager's direction the City will develop a
40 process and there has been a lot of conversation with the real estate department, with the finance
41 . department about how these things could work. It will certainly add that to their ideas. I guess
42 we were kind of thinking that people always want to buy them in big chunks but that may not be
43 the case especially ifthere is a bank so it becomes much more public knowledge that
44 development potential is out there for sale. Maybe there would be buyers for smaller bits of it.
45
46 Chair Cassel: Pat.
47
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 15 of43
"
1 Commissioner Burt: Regarding the parking exemption for the second 5,000 square feet Tony
2 Carrasco had made a point that if they were charged full parking for that second 5,000 it would
3 not make good economic sense. Has Staff yet or would they review prior to our filial
4 consideration of this whether some partial exemption would still incentivize the sale? Say it is a
5 50% exemption for the parking on the second 5,000 square feet would that still incentivize
6 someone to want to buy a TDR or not?
7
8 Ms. Warheit: It seems like that is something we need to add to our considerations.
9
10 Chair Cassel: Bonnie.
11
12 Vice Chair Packer: Has Staff done kind of a market analysis ofthe potential of these TDRs
13 listed in Attachment B the square feet that are potentially available for sale on the three current
14 sites, have you done analysis on whether there really is a market for this considering some of the
15 concerns that the public has raised?
16
17 Ms. Warheit: The real estate department intends to include an independent appraisal as part of
18 that selling process.
19
20 Vice Chair Packer: That is not my question. The question is we have 4,250 square feet from the
21 Roth building, about 2,500 from Children's Library and another 2,500 from the Sea Scout
22 building. So all together there is maybe a total of 10,000 square feet and whether there really is a
23 potential out there of actually some developer really wanting to buy these.
24
25 . Ms. Warheit: Anecdotally we know there is a lot of interest. There are people who have talked
26 about wanting them. Jim has just shown five sites that expect to redevelop at some point and
27 .couldn't redevelop to the maximum 3.0 on the Downtown without getting bonus floor area. So
28 anecdotally we believe there is a market for them. I thought you were asking something more
29 specific about do we have a sense of what they are really worth and whether there really is a
30 market for any of it that doesn't come exempt from parking, and real estate feels like they need
31 to explore that question.
32
33 Vice Chair Packer: Okay, so they will explore the issue with or without the exemption from
34 parking.
35
36 Ms. Warheit: Right, how that would affect the value and the marketability.
37
38 Chair Cassel: Michael.
39
40 Commissioner Griffin: Getting back to this recommendation number two that the development
41 community is interested in pursuing does Staff have time on their schedule to really pursue this
42 and develop the different implications that these two recommendations entail? Is that going to
43 happen if-we approve pursuing this recommendation? Is that a loaded question? I see a lot of
44 arched eyebrows.
45
46 Ms. Caporgno: If in fact the Council authorizes us to pursue that our recommendation is that we
47 think that there is possible merit to this and that it should be explored. However, the Council
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 16 of43
1 would have to authorize Staff to pursue that and to allocate. sufficient Staff time or prioritize
2 some other work items or reprioritize work items to enable that to occur.
3
4 Chair Cassel: Are there any other questions? Pat.
5
6 Commissioner Burt: Attachment B lists not only the current active interest in rehab but these
7 other sites that have already been partially or fully rehabilitated. Is Staff talking about this bonus
8 being retroactive on City sites or only sites going forward?
9
10 Ms. Warheit: It would not be retroactive. In fact when the Council adopted the TDR Ordinance
11 in 1996 the whole question of retroactivity was one that they had to give very serious
12 consideration to because Phyllis Muncie had just done beautiful restorations of some of her
13 buildings a few months before and the attorney's concluded that it would essentially be a gift of
14 public monies to grant bonus for work that was already done. So that absolutely can't be
15 considered.
16
17 Commissioner Burt: So the ones that are listed as partially rehabilitated and/or have uncertain
18 rehab plans how would they fall into this?
19
20 Ms. Warheit: They probably would never have anything to do with this. We were just trying to
21 make a complete list.
22
23 Chair Cassel: Are there any other questions? Then I will close the public hearing and bring the
24 discussion back to us. '
25-
26 Do you want to discuss it as a whole or do you want to discuss it section by section. Then let's
27 discuss it as a whole. Do you want to start, Lee? No, okay. Anyone else like to start? Go
28 ahead, Annette.
29
30 Commissioner Griffin: Well it seems that I don't want to call it a slam-dunk but to all of us
31 would appear to be fairly straight forward and has received a good deal of attention from both
32 Council and Staff. I am pretty satisfied with the general thrust of it. I am questioning the
33 recommendation number two and I gather that that would have to go to Council in order to get
34 any prioritization but in the meantime it is interesting to have the concept out there. I am glad
35· we had a chance to listen to members of the public speak on the item so that we can start mulling
36 it over. Generally, I am pretty content with this.
37
38 Chair Cassel: Thank you. Anyone else want to make a comment? Pat.
39
40 Commissioner Burt: Well first regarding recommendation number two as I mentioned before I
41 would like to hear back on what different economic formulas might work to incentivize folks
42 whether it requires a full parking exemption or some partial parking exemption.
43
44 Then as far as the distance between the receiver site and residential property not only do I share
45 Bonnie's concern if the receiver site is residential should it still apply, the restriction on the
46 distances, but also if the receiver site is a lower FAR than a residential property that may be
47 adjacent to it then should there still be a restriction. There are a couple of high density
48 residential properties Downtown so I would think that is less sensitive of a receiver site if it is
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 17 of43
1 adjacent to a high density residential property than ifit is adjacent to a low-density residential
2 property. So I would be interested in exploring that.
3
4 Finally, I think that the explanation by Staff as to why in all likelihood there is no need for ARB
5 review ofthis that it would be duplicative sounds sound to me but I think as a courtesy it would
6 be appropriate to make sure that ARB doesn't have some perspective that the rest of us are
7 missing.
8
9 Chair Cassel: Is there anyone else that would like to make a comment? Then could someone
10 make a motion? Lee, you want to make a comment?
11
12 Commissioner Lippert: I will make several comments and I am going to make them in the form
13 of some cautionary notes. First of all I want to say that I really thought that Beth Bunnenberg's
14 presentation in the beginning was really great and I really appreciated the concept or the idea of
15 being able to take the funds generated from TDRs and having them applied to the public
16 facilities that the TDRs are coming from. The one example that I can think of is the library, the
17 main library building, which is almost an historic structure if not an historic structure. It is really
18 struggling under funding and this would be a great way to put that back into that facility and
19 have that sort of building realized. So I think that is really a great suggestion, Beth.
20
21 Where I have a couple of concerns are that the City really needs to sort of set a good ~xample
22 and with regard to Public Facilities the ones that are over-built or oversized and not meeting the
23 PF regulations for 1: 1 FAR those TDRs really need to be applied to those public facilities. The
24 City really needs to follow their own example. If they are going to overbuild something apply
25 -those TDRs to City sites rather than sell them off first. This is just a cautionary note.
26
27 With regard to recommendation number two to increase the maximum parking exemption from
28 5,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. I think there are some real implications here because of
29 the parking assessment district. What we could actually be doing is actually giving away a free
30 lunch so to speak in the way of somebody buying a TDR, getting the parking exemption and
31 because the parking exemption would not put that amount of square footage into the parking
32 assessment district I think there might be a horse trade there and we might be getting the lesser
33 valued horse.
34
35 A couple of thoughts with regard to some comments that my fellow Commissioners made. With
36 regard to Commissioner Griffin's comment with regard to the 1,250 square feet on residential
37 units one of the things that the D&E Committee is looking at right now is looking at average unit
38 sizes in mixed-use buildings so that it wouldn't be locked in at 1,250 square feet but we would
39 allow for some larger units but it would have to be balanced out with some smaller units. That is
40 one way and I think Commissioner Packer can back me up on that.
41
42 I think that this is a great idea and I really like the idea of what is being proposed here.
43
44 Chair Cassel: Go ahead, Bonnie.
45
46 MOTION
47
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 18 of43
..
1 Vice Chair Packer: Just listening to my fellow Commissioners it seems to me that we are ready
2 to make a motion to recommend to City Council that they support the Staff recommendations on
3 the changes to the three parts of the zoning code to allow the transfer of development rights from
4 City-owned buildings to eligible properties in the CD District with all the important changes that
5 are recommended in the ordinance, the covenant that goes with it, the allowing just HRB to
6 review it from the sender site, the bidding process for the City-sites. All those different
7 proposals work very well. I think it is very clever. So I will make the motion that we support
8 that and I would also include in my motion that we explore the issue ofthe commercial buffer for
9 any properties that are going to be residential or a lower FAR than the adjacent buildings. As to
10 the parking recommendation if City Council feels that there is any room in Planning
11 Department's work program to explore that that will be up to them but it certainly does need to
12 be studied to see whether it is a good idea economically.
13
14 SECOND
15
16 Commissioner Bialson: Second.
17
18 Chair Cassel: Seconded by Annette. Bonnie, would you like to speak to your motion?
19
20 Vice Chair Packer: I think I was making my motion kind oflong and speaking to it as I was
21 doing it, I am sorry about that. I think I have already spoken to why I think this is a good idea. I
22 would like to also include in my motion that we do tell the ARB about the change.
23
24 Chair Cassel: Is that okay with you?
25"
26 Commissioner Bialson: That's fine with me, yes. I don't feel the need to comment.
27
28 Chair Cassel: Thank you. I think she is saying what you were saying.
29
30 Commissioner Burt: Bonnie, did you mean consult with, you said tell the ARB about the
31 change, did you mean ask for their input as opposed to inform them because they will get
32 informed either way?
33
34 Vice Chair Packer: I suppose asking for their input would be appropriate.
35
36 Chair Cassel: Yes, that sounds good. All right then I will put that into the motion.
37
38 Commissioner Burt: Then my other question is I wasn't clear on how the motion was addressing
39 what Staff asked about the parking bonus for the second 5,000 square feet. The Staff Report had
40 asked us to discuss and direct Staff to initiate changes. Are we saying that we are supporting that
41 or we are asking Staff to come back with proposals in response to some of the issues that were
42 raised tonight?
43
44 Vice Chair Packer: My motion would recommend that Staff ask City Council to see if they want
45 to direct them to do the studying that is necessary. I am not including in my motion that it is a
46 good idea or a bad idea. I think whether or not it should be studied should be a question asked of
47 City Council.
48
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 190f43
t.
1 Chair Cassel: May I try wording that such that we would say we recommend that the Staff
2 discuss with City Council exploring these two issues so that we would have more information to
3 make decisions on the subject. Is that acceptable, Bonnie?
4
5 Vice Chair Packer: I think it also includes Staff explanation to City Council as to whether there
6 is room in their work plan.
7
8 Chair Cassel: Is that okay, Annette? I think that is getting at what 'you are trying to say, Pat.
9
10 Commissioner Burt: I think so. Has Staffhad any direction on this second 5,000 square feet or
11 was this something that Staff brought up because they recognized it was an issue and Council
12 hadn't specifically addressed it as of now?
13
14 Ms. Caporgno: The recommendations under item two were not part of the original referral from
15 the Council. It came out of meetings with developers. So we thought they were worthy of
16 exploring but we haven't done the work nor have we been directed to do the work. So we were
17 asking for the Planning Commission to give us their input, their recommendation, as to whether
18 they agreed with us that it 'was something that should be considered to pursue and then to
19 forward that to Council to see if they thought it was something that they wanted to initiate a
20 rezoning to address those issues then that study would be done and it would come back to
21 Planning Commission and go to Council.
22
23 Commissioner Burt: So was it the intention to not only have Staff go to Council to ask them but
24 that the Commission is recommending that these issues be in fact explored?
25'
26 Vice Chair Packer: I think my motion is that they ask Council; if somebody wants to make an
27 amendment to the motion that is up t6 you.
28
29 Commissioner Burt: I would like to introduce a friendly amendment then that the Commission
30 recommend to Council that the issues raised by Staff under recommendation two that the two
31 items identified by Staff under recommendation two that the Commission recommends to
32 Council that Staff further explore these two items.
33
34 Chair Cassel: Do you accept that, Bonnie?
35
36 Vice Chair Packer: Yes I will accept that.
37
38 Commissioner Bialson: Agreed.
39
40 Chair Cassel: That is so accepted. Thank you very much, Pat for the wording.
41
42 Vice Chair Packer: Chair, with your indulgence I would like to make sure that it is clear,
43 because I wasn't explicit in my motion that my motion, that my motion is also recommending
44 that the revisions to the Downtown CD Zone Ordinance allowing developers to choose as an
45 option the SOFA II Coordinated Area Plan development standards that we recommend that that
46 be adopted also.
47
City of Palo Alto December 8, 2004 Page 200j43
1 Chair Cassel: Yes. Thank you. I am presuming then that that means all of sub item one, two
2 and three are included in your motion then.
3
4 Vice Chair Packer: Yes.
5
6 Chair Cassel: Okay. Is.there any other discussion? Seconder? Is there any other discussion?
7 Lee.
8
9 Commissioner Lippert: I just want to make a comment again in recommendation number two
10 increasing the maximum parking exemption from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet, I think that that is
11 . going to have to be done with an appraisal or some sort of analysis by the City with regard to that
12 versus the value of what the parking assessment district is ..
13
14 Chair Cassel: Thank you. Any other comments? I think I should say thank you for a good job.
15 I initially was wondering and one of my biggest questions was not the details but the big one and
16 that was should we be making this transfer off of public property at all to other sites, and I think I
17 feel comfortable that that's okay and that puts everything else in perspective.
18
19 MOTION PASSED (6-0-1.,0 Commissioner Holman abstained due to conflict)
20
21 Let me call for the motion. All those in favor please say aye. (ayes) That motion passes six to
22 nothing with one person abstaining.
(23
24 Virginia, did you want to say something?
25
26 Ms. Warheit: I just wanted to make a clarification about the 1,250 square feet average unit size .
. 27 It is precisely what Lee just described. It is not a top limit. It is just that all the units in the
28 project have to average 1,250 square feet so you can have one that is 3,000 square feet and a 500
29 square foot one if you want. That is how it works in SOFA II. .
30
31 Chair Cassel: Thank you. Thank you very much Staff for this. We appreciate your coming and
32 niaking a good presentation. At this point we will take a ten-minute break. We need to allow the
33 Staffto come so we can do it in less if all the Staff arrives. Make it seven minutes but we will
34 see if we have all the Commissioners here at that time. Thank you.
35
'.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES. Approval of minutes of Historic Resources Board
meetings of May 19 and July 21,2004.
Approval of the minutes were deferred to the next HRB meeting.
NEW BUSINESS.
Public Hearings
1. Board review and recommendation regarding proposed revisions to the Transfer of
Development Rights ordinance, Municipal Code Chapter 18.87, and to related provisions
in Municipal Code Section 18.49.060: The proposed changes would allow eligible City-
owned historic properties located anywhere in the city to be "sender sites" under the TDR
Ordinance, transferring historic preservation floor area bonuses from these sites to
eligible "receiver!i sites located in the Downtown CD Zone District.
Chair Roger Kohler: The first item is public hearings. One of the public hearings is Board
review and recommendation regarding proposed revisions to the transfer of Development Rights
ordinance, Municipal Code chapter 18.87, and to related provisions in the Municipal Code Sec.
18.49.060. The proposed changes would allow eligible city-owned historic properties'located
anywhere in the City to be "sender sites" under the TDR Ordinance, transferring historic
preservation floor area bonuses from these sites to eligible "receiver" sites located in the
Downtown CD Zone District.
I don't quite understand this program that got switched around from [how] we used to do this,
-but I'm opening the public hearing for this item, and we want to hear from staff first.
Mr. Dennis Backlund: Thank you Chair Kohler and members of the Board. I would like to
introduce this morning Virginia Warheit who is Senior Planner with the Planning Division. She
has been working on the expansion of the TDR program as you have seen it in your packet; and
she'll explain the program to you and its expansion.
Ms. Virginia Warheit: This proposal is to make a change to the TDR ordinance that would allow
the City to participate in the same way other property owners now participate. What we've laid
out before you is the reason for making the change and what change we think we would be
proposing. The attorney's office is still working on the actual ordinance. If something emerges
while they're working on the ordinance, that it's not as straightforward as we think or there's
some substantive issue that arises, we'll come back to you with it. But this is the outline of
what's being proposed and why.
First, let me just point out that attached to your staff report was a list of the 18 historic buildings
owned by the City of Palo Alto. It might be safe to say the City is the largest owner of historic
buildings in Palo Alto with this list. The way we compiled the list was that we got a list of all
the City'S properties and looked for the ones that were at least 50 years old. I was rather
surprised to see that of the 18 that are over 50 years old, all except two have ah'eady been
evaluated for historic importance, and all of those are either category 1 or 2 or eligible for the
National Register. So the City not only owns historic buildings, it owns high quality historic
buildings.
The two that have not been evaluated are the Junior Museum which was built in 1953, so it's just
passed its 50th birthday, so it's just a technical issue. It would technically meet the minimum age
requirement to be considered as possibly haying historic merit. That is, I'm not saying it's
Page 2 of 13
.i historic, but it meets that minimum threshold of ag~. The other one is the Bowling Green Club
House over at the Bowling Green.
For all the others, they're either already on the City's inventory as a category I or 2, or they were
evaluated in the 1997 historic survey and are National Register eligible.
As I'm sure you are all aware, the current TDR ordinance allows owners of historic buildings a
bonus floor area if they rehabilitate their buildings according to the Secretary of the Interior's
standards, and that bonus is equivalent to either 2500 square feet or 25% of the existing historic
building, whichever is greater. The Transfer Development Rights ordinance allows them to sell
that development right to somebody else and not put it on their own building. The intent of that
was to move development rights off historic buildings tO'help preserve the integrity of the
building, and also to allow people who may not want to expand their own building -to have the
same benefit. Get rewarded for rehabilitating the same as other people do -because then they
could sell that right to somebody else who would use it somewhere else, then that would help to .
pay for the rehabilitation. So that's the intent ofthe program.
The current ordinance as written allows that the only buildings that can participate are buildings
in the CD zone, which is the downtown zone. The senders have to be ill the downtown, and the
receivers of the floor area have to be in the downtown. All the City's buildings are zoned PF.
Even the few that are located in the downtown are not zoned CD, so even they couldn't
participate. And of course, they're located all over town. If they were not zoned PF they might
be zoned anyone of a whole lot of other things. But because they're public buildings they're
zoned PF. So at minimum, the ordinance would have to be changed to allow City-owned
buildings zoned PF to participate in the program. I'm not sure how that'll be written. It might
be written that City-owned properties zoned anything can participate in the program. But all of
the floor area would still only be able to be used in the downtown. So that's why we're saying
the City buildings could be sender sites. That is, they could rehabilitate, take their bonus, sell it
to somebody else, but the receivers (where that floor area actually goes and gets built) remains
the same. That is, it has to be buildings in the downtown. And there's some other restrictions.
They can't be historic buildings for obvious reasons. They can't be right next to residential
property and so on. And those criteria for the receiver sites would not be changed.
There's one other change in the CD that was brought to our attention by a local developer that
we're gOIng to recommend changing at the same time. To encourage this transferred floor area
to be used for housing -and that is the way the code is currently written; the floor area is exempt
from parking. And of course that's one ofthe real values qfthe bonus floor area, is you can
build it and you don't have to park it. So that has a tremendous economic value. But the way
that parking exemption is written is that the first 5,000 square feet is exempt. Downtown, the
expectation was that it was all going to be built as commercial space, and that translates into
about 20 parking spaces (4 per thousand x 5,000 square feet) is 20 parking spaces. But if you
build 5,000 square feet of residential, you're probably only using about 10 parking spaces.· So
it's a disincentive to use that bonus floor area for housing because you only get half as many free
parking spaces come with it, as if you're using it for commercial, because the housing parking
requirement is lower. The impact of cars is going to be the same, of course, whether they're for
residential or for commercial use. . So what was suggested and what we think makes sense is to
change the ordinance so that instead of the parking bOl.).US being tied to square footage, is just tied
to required parking spaces, and it would say your first 20 required spaces that would otherwise
be required for that floor area are exempt. So if you're using that floor area for housing or using
it for commercial, no matter what you're using it for, your first 20 parking spaces that would
Page 3 of 13
otherwise be required, you would not have to provide. So then that it won't work against using
that floor area for housing.
So that's essentially what's being proposed. We just wanted to let the Board know about it, see
if we've overlooked anything that you can think of, get your comments, and hopefully a
recommendation to support this activity.
Board Member Kohler: Thank you, Virginia. Are there any questions for staff?
Board Member Haviland: Thanks, Virginia. Thank you so much for bringing this to us. I have a
couple of questions. 1 must admit, I'm not as familiar with the TDR program as perhaps I should
be. So if some of these seem very naIve, please bear with me.
One question 1 had was do you know what the reason was initially for the restriction to
properties within the downtown commercial district?
Ms. Warheit: Y 01,1 mean why was the TDR ordinance not just made available across the City?
Board Member Haviland: Exactly.
Ms. Warheit: Yes, 1 think the reason is that the City planning policy, including the citywide land
use and transportation study some 20 years ago, and comprehensive plan policies and everything,
anticipate increased development in the downtown, and there's a 300,000 square foot cap. And
until that cap is reached the impacts of that development are accommodated. So there wouldn't
be any new kind of unforeseen development impacts beyond what the City policy already
anticipates if this program encourages development downtown. Ifit could happen anywhere-
well actually if you're talking about receiver sites or sender sites -maybe you're talking about
sender sites.
Board Member Haviland: Currently I understand it's simply both receivers and senders are
restricted to the CD, and 1 imagine that there was some thought that went into that restriction.
I'm just wondering what that was, if you know.
Ms. Warheit: Well 1 think for the receiver sites it's what Ijust said, which is that's the safe place
to put new development. For sender sites, I'm not sure what the reason would be except that
almost all the historic commercial buildings are in the downtown -maybe you could say all of
them are. So the only other buildings that would apply then would be residential buildings. And
then if you open that door, it's a hugely different kind of project because then those are
hundreds, maybe even more than hundreds of buildings, all over town that could conceivably
apply for this. So I know the project was already very complex in the mid 90s when they did
this, just to deal with the commercial buildings, because you had to figure out how many there
were, how many square feet would be involved, what would be the impacts and all ofthjs, and it
was a very big project. So I expect that's Why. Partly it was the reality of having a discrete
project that you could start the TD~ program. And then in the future, there may be reasons to
want to consider expanding it to residential. But it's very different, and it's a far bigger project
to start including the residential projects. So I suppose that was the reasoning.
Board Member Haviland: And I suppose it was never anticipated that the City would want to
take advantage itself of the program, because the other large group of historic buildings, or
potentially historic buildings, are indeed these City-owned buildings that" you brought to our
attention.
Page 4 of 13
'.
· i Ms. Warheit: Yes. I think it's fair to say, myself being one of them, that there maybe wasn't as
much awareness of the City's historic buildings ten years ago and subsequently, we've had the
historic survey completed and now there's more information about it. I hadn't heard anybody
talking about the City participating back in the mid-90s when we were doing this.
Board Member Haviland: Thank you. And then I have one other question which is why not
simply allow any owner of a historic building -and it could be restricted to nonresidential
buildings -to be eligible as a donor site. Rather than specifically limiting the change to City-.
owned properties, why not open that up? Is that's something that's been considered?
Ms. Warheit: There has been an acknowledgement ofthe awareness that there might be reasons
we want to expand the program because it's a good incentive. I think right now the reason it
wasn't taken on with this is that there is an active interest now in restoring several City-owned
historic buildings. And community groups are involved in these. Such as the Roth building, the
children's library, and so on. So there's an intent to get it done so that those real projects can
move forward and benefit from this. And any expansion, when you expand you never know
what you're going to find when you. open that door. And also, because as I said earlier, virtually
all nonresidential historic buildings are in the CD. Now if someone is aware of some that are not
in the CD for which this might be an issue, you could at least let us know and we could take a
look at that.
Board Member Haviland: I think part of the issue is that as years go by, there are more and more
buildings that qualify. As you cansee on the City's own list, the two that have not been
evaluated are two that are either just this year or last year become eligible. So if we're thinking
ahead to the future and we're thinking about changing City rules in a way that is principled and
'general, it makes sense to not focus on a specific owner, which is what we would be doing in the
case of the City, but simply on enlarging the poolof donor sites. I'm just trying that out because
you know as a group here, we would like to see that incentive used as much as possible.
Ms. Warheit: Right. And I'm remembering that the memorandum that the attorney's office
prepared a couple of years ago when this issue was first presented or last year at least, does
mention that one reason for doing this is that it helps to expand the program and it can be another
way of seeing how it's working as a kind of first step towards further expansions. So there is an
awareness that it's a valuable program or it can be a valuable program, is that there are public
benefits to achieve by expanding the program, so' future expansions might very well be
appropriate.
Board Member Haviland: Thanks very much.
Board Member Kohler: Beth.
Board Member Beth Bunnenberg: Thank you. Two or three comments or questions. First of all,
I notice in the list that the Sea Scout building was mentioned as a potential National Register I,
believe. And according to my records, the Sea Scout base was designated by the City Council as
historic on May 6 of 2002.
Ms. Warheit: What was that date again, Beth?
Board Member Bunnenberg: May 6, 2002.
Ms. Warheit: Was it given a category?
Page 5 of 13
Board Member Bunnenberg: Category1.
Ms. Warheit: Okay. So it's both National Register eligible and it's category 1.
Board Member Bunnenberg: Yes. There was a motion to the Council that it be category 1.
Ms. Warheit: Great; thank you.
Board Member Bunnenberg: Then the second kind of thing is 1'd like to make sure that I'm
understanding the requirements by looking at two buildings. The Roth building is 12,000 square
feet, and so by my calculations that would be about 3,000 that would be available for TDRs. Is
that correct?
Ms. Warheit: That's correct.
Board Member Bunnenberg: Then the Sea Scout building is of course a quite small building. It's
2,209. Would it then still be eligible for 2,500?
Ms. Warheit: Yes.
Board Member Bunnenberg: All right. So that's the way that works.
Ms. Warheit: Thank you. Those were two very good examples to illustrate that.
Board Member Bunnenberg: So the Sea Scout building might th~m get ten parking spaces and the
Roth building maybe about 12. This is rough calculation.
Ms. Warheit: Right. Those amount of exempt parking spaces would go with that floor area.
Board Member Bunnenberg: All right, good. Then that one helps me a lot. Now then, one
question that came to mind was that in that we are talking about public buildings and in a sense,
we the people own them all, I also wondered whether any consideration had been given to the
downtown post office in that it is a public structure. It's federal of course, but just whether that
would be ~ thought, because that building is in need of some restoration. I don't know, that's
one of those good questions for the attorney probably. .
Ms. Warheit: That's an excellent suggestion -other publicly owned buildings. We'll raise that
with them. Thank you.
Board Member Makinen: I just had a couple of questions regarding this Program. It seems like
it's going in the right direction. Your paragraph here on page 2 of 4 that allows the City to
participate in the bonus and TDR programs will support the rehabilitation of the City's historic
buildings. Is it the intent that the funds will be dedicated for the purpose? And if they're
dedicated, are they dedicated to the specific building or a pool ofbuildmgs that the City would
own?
Ms. Warheit: No. The fmance department will have to decide how they would deal with the
money that's brought in, and I'm not sure how they will do that. But I didn't mean to imply here
that there would be designated dollars, only that somebody has to pay for the rehabilitation, and
that's a cost. When this something is sold, then they get money back into the public domain.
Whether there'll be a fund or if it just goes to the general fund, I don't know, and I'm not sure'
Page 6 of 13
I.
that would be necessary to achieve the same ends that we're trying to achieve. The point is the
building will have to be rehabilitated. You can't just sell the benefits and then go put the money
onto something else and leave the building. You have to rehabilitate the building. .
Board Member Makinen: The similarity I want to cite here is under the National Historic
Preservation Act. If the federal government owns historic properties and they lease them out, the
funds derived from that leasing activity can be used for rehabilitation of those properties, and it
has to be dedicated to historic properties. So this is a s4nilar process that we're bringing to bear
here.
Ms. Warheit: So the National Preservation Act. ..
. Board Member Makinen: Restore properties that the federal government owns. If they do enter
into leases,. they can retain those proceeds for use on those specific properties in the historic
inventory'. (Has to be dedicated)
Ms. Warheit: And who retains the money? Do you know where it's ...
Board Member Makinen: The agency that has control of those properties. They can't be put into
a general pool funds. It has to be used and applied to those specific properties. So what I'm
saying is when you start generating money, the money could go into different places that didn't
anticipate it to go into. The money never gets applied to these restoration activities. I'm
suggesting that there be some mechanism where it be tracked so that it is applied to the
rehabilitation process.
Ms. Warheit: All right; great. Thank you.
Board Member Makinen: I'm just citing a policy at federal level that applies is similar to this
proposal. That allows the federal agency to have funds available beyond their appropriated
funds, which normally isn't permissible for agencies, to use non appropriated funds, but you can
use those funds for rehabilitation of historic properties.
Ms. Warheit: I notice you're saying they can use. Are they required to use?
Board Member Makinen: Yes, they're required to use.
Ms. Warheit: So lease income off historic buildings is required to go into a fund that's then used
for rehabilitation purposes, is that what you're saying?
Board Member Makinen: Yes, within two years also.
Ms. Warheit: Oh, within two years. And it's also for the building. That was a question. Does
the money have to be spent on that building? What if the lease generates more money than the
rehabilitation requires, I'm wondering?
Board Member Makinen: If you have a pool for buildings like a historic district, it can go into
buildings in the historic district, not that specific building. You have to be kind of careful how
you word this legislation, it's earmarked for that particular building or a pool of buildings. It's
how to settle these issues that has to be addressed.
Ms. Warheit: All right; thank you.
Page 7 of 13
Board Member Kohler: Carol, do you have any questions?
Board Member Murden: I don't actually have any questions. I think it's ~ good program, and I
very much agree with what Michael has said. I think that's a very good idea.
Board Member Kohler: I have kind of a dumb question. How much money does this generate?
Does anyone have any idea? Do you sell them for $1.50, or is it $50,000 a space? How does
this work? I don't know.
Ms. Warheit: I don't know what the market value is right now on these. But I know the real
estate office is looking at how you would structure the process for selling them, and they'll be
looking at a process that would have full disclosure and a fair way of getting a fair market value
for the sale of the development rights.
Board Member Kohler: I underlined one thing. The comment was, "The process will be
developed to provide a fair and equitable advertising and sale." In other words, you could put an
ad in the paper -We're selling this - a garage sale.
Ms. Warheit: Yes. That would be one way to do it. The point is somebody wouldn't just buy it
without other people having a fair shot at it.
Board Member Kohler: We now can open to take comments from the pUblic. We have one card
from Karen Holman .. If you'd like to come forward.
Ms. Karen Holman: Good morning and thank you for letting me speak. I typically wouldn't
come to speak to this since I see it when it comes to the Planning Commission, but I think we
benefit from input on some of these things. I've a clarifying question for staff, which is this
program seems to refer to just the historic preservation TDR, and I'm wondering .also about
seismic, because a lot of the buildings that are identified here, seismic would also apply, and
that's the program for downtown.
Ms. Warheit: Yes. I'm assuming that it will include both because that's in the program now.
And the only change is that the City would start participating, not that we would change the
program. So we should change how we word that.
Ms. Holman: Okay, great; thank you. And also I would like to apologize to staff because I just
sat down last night to read this and haven't had a chance to give them a heads up on anything, so
my sincere apologies to them on that.
A little bit of background on how this came about; and that is that as you probably know, I've
been working on the Roth building. And in working on that project, it seemed likely that it
would be eligible for TDRs. But also in thinking broader than that, it seemed like there were
other City-owned and public buildings that would benefit from·this program. So the impetus
behind this was that there's a process in place, so why not allow the City to take advantage of a
program that has in place for private property owners, and cities, not just Palo Alto, are pretty
renowned, unfortunately, for not attending to its own infrastructure as much as we might all
appreciate. So this is one way to provide incentive to the City if you will, to preserve and
maintain its own historic buildings.
This isn't a small undertaking. These are public benefits if you will. The ownership of the
property is, and there's a responsibility. As one of you said, these are City-owned buildings and
Page 8 of 13
., .
that means the public owns them. So it's a very important program because the public's property
is being restored and maintained through an incentive program such as this. So I really think it's
a great pro gram.
Also, one point is that the focus is on buildings, but it is the property of course that's a resource,
and I know all of you know that. But just so that the language doesn't get too focused onto
buildings, that it is the property that's the resource.
Also, when it comes to the bidding -and I know this has to do with the process -but I would
like to bring it up. Now when it comes to the bidding, if there's a nonprofit involved, then the
City can hold the nonprofit responsible for hiring appropriate contractor, architect, and project
manager. And sometimes there's crossover in those for managing the project. But if it's a City-
owned -and I don't know the answer this, so it's a question -if it's a City-run project, there's a
bidding process that goes on. And I would suggest that there should be a process in place by
which the City is required to hire not just the lowest bid, but those professionals who are
experienced and trained, in Secretary of the Interior standards. That would apply to both
architect, contractor, and project manager. It's the implementation sometimes where the process
can go awry. '
Also, I have another suggestion which is the City does own several of these buildings, and I
think I have referenced this to staff previously. A historic structures report would be a very
appropriate project to undertake, because as maintenance on buildings happens -again, what·
defines maintenance -it's two issues here. One is what defines maintenance because what one
person might consider maintenance could be something that absolutely affects the historic
~haracter ofthe building.
And the other thing would be a historic structures report could outline in detail what those
features are so that if some entity -whether it be a nonprofit or the City or subcontractor,
whatever -is going to go in and do some work to a building, they would be knowledgeable about
what could be impacted and what should not be impacted.
I thought Michael's comments were excellent about the National Preservation Act and how to
manage the funds. I thought those were excellent points. And Beth's [comment] also about the
downtown post office. When I looked at the list I noticed one that seemed to me should be a
consideration. That would be the downtown library. It's 40-something years old if not close to-
is it there and I overlooked it? Anyway, that's just a thought. I would think that that building
might have some consideration, too, for designation .
. One lastthing. Whiie I'm here, I would like to thank Susan Haviland. This is a little bit off
track, but I would like to thank Susan Haviland for her participation in the design committee
about the zoning ordinance update. The committee came to the Planning Commission a while
back and made a presentation and I was quite impressed and pleased that Susan is participating.
Thank you.
Board Member Kohler: What is staff expecting from us today? . Is this just input update, take
votes, or anything like that? '
Ms. Warheit: Well everything you're doing is wonderful. Thank you very much. This is one
reason I wanted to get here early and see what you might have to add to the process. And if you
think of something else after the meeting, don't hesitate to call me and tell me, because we're
now in the process of thinking this through and deciding how to take care of it.
Page 9 of 13
In tenns of your action, I think what we're suggesting is that you hopefully will recommend that
we proceed with this proposed change.
Board Member Kohler: I just had one last question. I guess I was thinking about it. So in this
program, what happens is that the historic building is giving up some development rights which
he is selling to somebody else, which means in the future, for some reason somebody wanted to
do an addition or expand the historic building, they would be limited because they've sold off
some of their development rights, is that how this would work?
Ms. Warheit: You have touched on a very interesting thirig, and that is since the City's buildings
are zoned PF, most of them - I think the FAR is 1.0 in the PF zone -and most of them are
located on sites where they have fairly generous sites. They ahnost certainly would be able to
add as much as they could be able to appropriately add to a historic building anyway and still
have bonus to sell. The program was originally built for downtown, and most of the downtown
buildings are already at 1.0 because they cover their sites. So in that case, if you're a building
that covers your site -and many of them more than cover their site -you've already maxed out
your floor area. So when you get this bonus, you have to decide -do I want to build it, or do I
want to sell it? But if a building is· only covering 20% of its site, has an FAR of.2 -you're a
historic building, you'ry not going to waIit to double or triple your size anyway -then you get a
bonus on top of that. So it's unlikely that the City-owned historic buildings would want to build
all their FAR and then the bonus on that'very site anyway.
Board Member Kohler: Even if they did they could change the zoning ordinance.
Ms. Warheit: I doubt it.
Board Member Kohler: That's what they do, they vote on zoning ordinances. So if they want to
add some to their historic building and they don't have any more left, they could change the
ordinance for that site.
Ms. Warheit: Well remember -with an historic building, the reason that the bonus is only 2S% is
because if you add 2S% to an historic building you're changing the massing and·the volume and
all those things that are apart of its character.
Board Member Kohler: I'm thinking of your saying these are on large sites. So they could do
something over in the comer that doesn't even do anything to this building.
Ms. Warheit: You mean a completely separate site? You're right. If you're out at Lucy Stem
and you want to build a whole new building someplace. But then as we've seen, as Beth's
pointed out, we're talking about 2,SOO, 3,000 square feet. We're not talking about 10-IS,000
square feet. You're right. In theory, if you sell it, you can't also build it. You can't have your
cake and eat it, too. But in practicality it probably won't have much effect on actions on historic
properties.
Board Member Kohler: That's what I was thinking. I don't think in practicality it would have
any impact. Ijust thought I'd bring that up.
Boardmember Haviland: I have a couple more questions. In the TDR program itself, is it only
the bonus square footage that can be transferred, or is it just any excess square footage that a
building owner does not wish to use? .
Page 10 of 13
Ms. Warheit: It's only the bonus square footage. You can't transfer off other unbuilt FAR.
Board Member Haviland: I am looking forward to the future. Suppose in 50 or 100 years"the
City needs to do another rehabilitation of the building and these rehabilitations - a building lasts
for so long -would another bonus then come into effect, or is this just a one-time thing?
Ms. Warheit: The code currently says you can only use it once. In 50 years, then it'll have to
change the code and let people do it again. Ifwe've got a hundred 50-year old building and now
it needs some care, that's out there. But currently the code says you can only do it once.
Board Member Haviland: Thank you.
Ms. Warheit: Does anyone have any other comments, anybody? Beth.
Board Member Bunnenberg: I would just like to say that I very much support this proposal and
would like to see the things explored that have been mentioned. But I do want to stress that I
feel that in a sense, this is not giving one property owner a special deal. It's not just giving the
City a special deal, this is giving the entire public. So in a sense, this is spreading the benefit
across the whole community. So that's one of my real reasons for backing this. It does apply for
everybody because everybody gets to use these buildings.
Board Member Kohler: That's right. Okay. Thank you very much, Virginia, for coming down
" this morning. You will be keeping us updated on progress? When do you expect to have this go
before Council?
-Ms. Warheit: W.e have a Planning Commission date of September 29. Council probably October
12th. Are you going to make a motion? ""
Board Member Kohler: Oh, you do want a motion? Who'd like to make a motion? Michael.
Board Member Makinen: We recommend certain modifications be appropriate to fine tune the
proposal as we have discussed.
Board Member Kohler: Second.
Board Member Haviland: I'll second that.
Board Member Kohler: Is discussion of the motion?
Board Member Haviland: I'mj'ust wondering if we want to be more specific about the
modifications. It seems to me that the expansion to all publicly-owned buildings was one that
was very important, and the other was that the monies generated be used for rehabilitation of
buildings, that there be some way of tracking the funds.
Board Member Makinen: I think it's very appropriate that a mechanism to incorporate all the
funds are applied and they're committed to the rehabilitation of historic properties and a ~racking
system be incorporated into the legislation.
Board Member Haviland: I'd like to see that be part of a motion if that meets with your approval.
Board Member Makinen: I will accept your modification to the original proposal.
Page 11 of 13
Board Member Kohler: Anything else? We have a motion on the floor. All those in favor?
[all say "aye."]
Board Member Kohler: That passes with five members attending, voting, and two members
absent.
Historic Resources Board Action: Boardmember Makinen moved, seconded by Boardmember
Murden to recommend approval and support for the proposal to allow city-owned historic
buildings (Category I and II) located in any zone district to be eligible forhistoric rehabilitation
floor area bonuses, and to allow transfer of the floor area bonuses to eligible receiver sites in the
Downtown. The Board also recommended that the proposal be expanded to include all qualified
public-owned buildings in Palo Alto, that all monies reserved in a pool and generated by TDR
sales be used for rehabilitating public-owned historic buildings and that a tracking mechanism is
developed to ensure the monies are appropriately targeted.
Vote: 5-0-0-2 (Bernstein and DiCicco absent)
UNFINISHED BUSINESS.
2. Review and discussion of administrative procedures for the bonus square footage historic
preservation incentive included in the City's Zoning Ordinance in the Municipal Code.
As provided by Municipal Code Section 18.49.060, a Historic Inventory building in
Category 1 or 2 that is located in the downtown CD-C zone district may increase its floor
area by 2,5.00 square feet (or by twenty-five percent of the existing building, whichever is
greater) without having this increase count toward the Floor Area Ratio provided that a
historic rehabilitation ofthe building is undertaken that complies with the Secretary of
the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, or this square footage may be transferred to an
eligible non-Historic Inventory receiver site in the CD-C zone asset forth in Municipal
Code Section 18.49.060 and Chapter 18.87 (Transfer of Development Rights program).
Karen Holman·spoke regarding item #2.
Historic Resources Board Action: Boardmember Bunnenberg moved, seconded by
Boardmember Haviland to support the proposed administrative procedures developed by staff for
the bonus square footage historic preservation incentive provided in Section 18.49.060 of the
City's Zoning Ordinance.
Vote: 5-0-0-2 (Bernstein and DiCicco absent)
BOARD ITEMS.
STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS.
STATUS REPORTS ON HISTORIC PROJECTS/SITES.
CORRESPONDENCE.
REPORTS FROM OFFICIALS.
BOARD MEMBER QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, AND/OR ANNOUNCEMENTS.
Page 12 of 13
* Historic Resources Board representative at City Council meetings:
Project Meeting date Representative
Agenda changes, additions and deletions. The agenda may have additional items added to it up until 72 hours prior
to meeting time.
Questions. If interested parties have any questions regarding the above applications, please contact the Planning Division at (650) 329-2441. The
files relating to these items are available for inspection weekdays between the hours of8:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM and staff
reports will be available for inspection on 2:00 PM the Friday proceeding the hearing.
ADA. Persons with disabilities who require auxiliary aids or services in using City facilities, services, or programs or who would like
information on the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact (650) 329-2550 (voice) or
(650)328-1199 (TDD)
Page 13 of 13
Attachment F
Attachment F Background
In response to inquiries from the public, the City Council asked the City Attorney's
Office to look into possible expansion of the City's existing historic and seismic
rehabilitation floor area bonus program on a limited basis to City-owned historic
structures. The City Attorney's Office prepared a memorandum, dated December 4,
2003, that explored various options for such a program expansion, and this was discussed
at a. Policy and Services Committee meeting on D~cember 9, 2003. In the discussion,
Commission members identified the following issues to be addressed in developing the·
ordinance: whether receiver sites would be limited to the Downtown; how Transfer
Development Rights would be marketed; enforcement of conservation easements; which
City-owned buildings would be potential sender sites and the amount of floor area that
could be transferred; and the pros and cons of identifying specific sender buildings as part
ofthe ordinance, or on a case-by-case basis. Policy and Services Committee m~mbers
voted to recommend to the City CoUncil implementation of a City-owned Historic
Building Incentive Program. On June 7, 2004, the City Council adopted a motion to
initiate a change to the zoning regulations to implement a Historic Preservation Incentive
Program for city-owned structures. The City Attorney's memorandum dated December
3,2004, and the staff reports and minutes of the Deceinber 9, 2004 Policy and Services.
Committee meeting and the June 7, 2004 City Council meeting are attached.
\
,
}
OFFICE MEMORANDUM,cont.
Steve Emslie, Director of Planning and
, Cornmurii\:tyEnvironment
Decernber,4, 2003
Page 2
RE: ,Preservation Incentives for City-own~dHiEltoric
Structures
•
•
'.
Continue to use a' TDROrdinan'~~ to' allow transfer
of development rights from de~ignated buildings of
historic :"si9-nif'icance in the Commerd_al Downtown
(CP) zone to non-historic receiver sites in the CD
zone . Planned Community "(PC) zones prop~rties hi.
the Downtown also qualify for' "this 'program.
(Program L-60)
Develop incentives for the retenti,on 'and
rehabili t:a t;i.o~ ~'~f'biliia.i-ii'g~~ wi th -histoiic meri t in
-all-zones ."('P:¢6grairtL,-:~7) "
Encoura,ge,and " a's,sIs-{ 'owners of 'historicd.11Y'
significant'bui'idings' ,in:fin:ding ways 'iciadapt'i3.nd
r-estore'th~se buildings" {riciudin'gparticipati-on'~'in
state and federal tax reli:e:f',programs .'(Pr6gi~ :L -6'4 ) - -", "" '
;~. . . . :" ; .....
" .:;"",'
,C~mmercial' Prope:r=ti~s vs :::Ci ty"':ownedPrope:r:ti'es
As recogni~ed ,in p~Ogram.L~5.7,,·'-b()th th~: ,state and' federal
government have provided tax -'{ncemtives wh.lch -may cover a
significant percent of the,' costs of historic rehabilitation for
corrunercial structures. Bowever'~-s:Lnce:"the City pays neither income
taxes nor real property, taxes,l .city-owned historic buildings
cannot benefit from:these :programs. ,Por examplel .the Mills Act,
which provides a reduction in,a.rinual property 'taxes in'return fora
preservation covenant" 'is of no' use when the properties are already
exempt from real property taxes. Furthermore, this program reduces
the genera1 revenues of both the City and other local agencies,
most notably the FaloAlto' Unified School District. The tax credit
programs spOnsored 'by the ,federal government' 'similarly are of
little or no use to the income tax~exempt City.' In areas such as
,the provision of, low-income housing, public agencies can partner
with for ,profit "tax credit investors.I/We hav.e ,not located any
comparable program':for historic prese-rvation.Even if it were
feasible ,to lobby 'for such ,a new'taxbr-eak, the City may not wish
1 When City property is leased, the tenant's leasehold may be
subject to real property taxes in some cases.
031204 syn 0091384
OFFICE MEMORANDUM, cont.
Steve Emslie, Director of . Planning and
Cormnunity'Environment
December 4, 2003
Pag.~ 3
RE: Preservat·ion Incenti vesforCi ty:~owned Historic
Structures
to do 'soat a" some of significant buqg~i:.shortfalls and deficit
spending at both . the 'state and feder·allevel. There'fore,'
implementation of Program L-64. for C~ity-owned historic buildings
requires a differen~t. ap,proa:ch ;'~"',.' . . ... :;.:,:'
Residential v. Non-Residential Buildings
. The·vast. majority '~o'f buildirigsinP~lo Alto are single-
famiiy r·esio.ences. ' Some of theseare:'el±gible"for the Natiorial .
Register o{Historic Places and a larger group is 'eligible ;f:or"the
California Register. of Histori.c Resources. In 1999, after several
years of study aIld:;lht-eJiim~.:'brdiri.ance$~': ,·:the·:iCity~Couhcil<passed a
comprehensive program for preservation.of historic homes. This
ordinance. establ1$hed .. a. ,ii'1:unber' o'r~' J:ncentive's:\Eor "voluntary
preseryation 'of. priva·tely-owned . 'hi'sb:iricbu)ilaings ," including
fl'6or~;a:rea 'allowances '·.greater .::thari ',s'imilariy siz-ed·lCi'tS without
.histori.c names .. However " the ,ordinance :was rejected"by the voters .. '
CoUncil gave instructions tOith$P'lannil'"ig'Divi'slon "tore:t:uIn with a
program of'·:voli.lritary~~];)reserYation·iribe.ntives~::~:This.:~emorandum:.does
not try to :adCii.ess· that.!'nuchlarger.is8ue,fbcusin,g instead' on the'
much . smaller . Ii{nnber' ofbuildings'··:pWhed·::by;:::tb,e. City itself .
. ' '.~ -:~. ,: .. , .. ;,. . .. : .......... ;. '.~ '-, .( .. ; .. ~ .. , , ... ;.\~!.:
'Transfer of·DevelopmenfJ{ig'ht.~.;j;:>r6grart
Tn 1986.; when, rezOnirig£he'q~~e~Cral':D~wntdWri .('CD) 'area,
the Ci·ty·esta:blished a -progr:am, to grant '. floor·areabonuses::to
encOurage '''seismic' and historic rehab11i tation-ofibuildings:
(Ordinance·No. 3696\.' The sizE;i"of the bonus. was based on the size'
of the~building: the gr~ate:r: 'of 25%01 theex{sting'ahove...,ground
floor area" 'or 2 ,500 ·sgUarefeet :"Iri time,'i:t ':'became 'apparent
that for many' historic 'buildings', '1 twouldbe better nottO'use the'
"bonus 'floor area'" on site. '. A transferable' development -rights
ordinance was established in 19'97 to" permit buildings,thatwer.e
eligible for a bonus to transfer it, providing an' incentive for
rehabilitation of historic buildings that could. not easily use a
bonus on the same site. . Prior to·that ,a' TDR .prdgram.exi s ted in
the Comprehensive Plan, but was .not used frequently du~ to the
cumbersome .process reqUired to transfer 'bonuses. The current
program has ,been used several ·times .It peimi.i::s 'bonuses to be
transferred within 'the 'Downtown district and restricts the floor
area ratio that may be achieved.usingbonusesto ;2:1 'in theCD...,S
031204 syn 0091384
"
OFFICE MEMORANDUM, cant.
Steve Emslie, Director of Planning and
Community Environment
December 4, 2003
Page 4
RE:Preservation Incentive.s for City...,owned. Historic
S.tructures·
and,C:O~N: districts; and 3.~ 1 in. ·the .cD-C distri<;::t.
receiver sites ar:e ·any DClYJIi~:O~ ~o·~~historic. $.ite ... · .....
Adaptin:g the TDR Program ,to:Historic
Preservation of City-Owned Buildings .
Eligible
If ,the ...city . wi she~ .• ;t()_ .. adopt .a· .. TDR . prqgram . for
preservatioI;!. of ·ci tY""'()Wn,ed .hi13toric ,buildings.., among .the. issues to be d~cided a,re.: . . .. ' ., ... .' .... ' . ,.":' . ..,
:.; •• : ,.' .0"
1. .:Which .buildings should be ,e;ligib:i~' \;:~ertders'?'~;"
: .. : .. .··~Y:.s.ende~·:. b~:Llding~~u~.~·::·'.~f:a ':.' mi~~in~.b~,-'ic?~ally.
identifi~d. as,l1:Lstoric:res'ources .··The, :lTLO.S.t . ,widely '" reco9'nized
method. for:doJng ~thi~ is .1i's±::C:6.ga. E;trti:dture::~ither .~h the .National
Regis,·ter of··Hi~t.6ri'c. ,:j:eli.fldings;br ;the. C~;lif,o'rn'ia -':Regiifte-r cif
Historic .Resources.·: ·::pa::lo..·]I~i to'aiso"·ma.iritainsi ts·:<own. 'invent'ory of
historici.:buLLi:;l,il19"s,.· .·,Some .citY:':'6~ed bU:ildings:,havebeen :pr·eviously identi:f;Led;,a~;(~'.:eligibie: .forli.sti~·g "thr6ugh·.aD.··~nvit.oIrmeI;l.tal· review'
process. For:.'e;x:ample, ·· .. the ,'Chi:ldre~·, s: ,:Lib:diry was ·ident.ified ':as a histor~c building duringth~L'ibra:G·:S~ndM~a:stire·piaimlng. pro'tess.
A sencle:(;buildi~g',must ,also be one that the· ,City Council
identifies as su'{ table' f6i·;::essent'iaTly·pe·i:marle'nt'rhaintenance in a
manner consistent;. ... y.rith :the.s~cretSlIY .0:1: ,.:the ,In:te.riorls Guidelines.
The fac.t that a.J:niilding.is·,l}s.ted. on .the .. Nat~ona~ ,R~,gJs:terneither
requires ,no.r guarant~e:p ;its /preseryatibp. -Selling'TDRS . would:
change this:~ There:fore"r ·.th~.:,cit.Y CoUncil must determineund~:r what
circumstances this .$ijbstantial .limitation ~on' the City's' right to
alter. the .building or use bf the site ,in the future is .apprqpriate.
We believe this determination ~couldbemade ;}J.y the Ci tyCouncil 'on
a .case~by-case basis, once·the general' .program'. ~as .adopted.
Alternatively, the .eligible site .or site~ ,could .be· part of the.
enabling ordinance.
2,. What .bonus formula is ,.appropriate?
The City ':a ,existing formula has the .advantageof being
tested with' previous use and generally ,understood .in· .the
development-commuriity. We favor extending existing formulas rather
than inventing new ones -whenever appropri ate. . (See 200.3 ~udi tor's
031204 syn 0091384
OFFICE MEMORANDUM, cont.
Steve, Emslie,' Director of'Planning and
Community Environment
December 4, 2003 '
Page 5
RE : Preservation Incentives for ' City-owned Historic
Structures
Report. ) However, further' stud}' by, your d~par':bnent is advisa:ble.
The existing formula is intended to operate for private investors,
not a public agency. A complicating factor is the recent creation
of a new kind of TDR, the SOFA2 TDR, which can only be used to
create :housing.
3. Which sites should be eligible "receiver" sites?
'The 'City,j s "existin,sj'TDR prbgram identifies eligible
receiv,ersJ.tesand'will 'bE;! amendedto~:i~plemeht'thepic)"v1s:\;ons of,
the South of"Forest'Al:-$a' ,t.oordlriateQ.Are:ci Plan "Phase 2. , 'A 'policy
issue will be: 'whet'her,~,the"same:"'de~'ini,tJ_on;of ~ligible ',receiver
sit'es is", appropriate'.' Aga±n:"':'we favor,simpli:cl ty:, !J,1the planning
analy-,s~s' o,ftb,is proposaT" abasic\{:juestiou'issueis'how many new
TD:R:s',:shmilq '"the:City 'cre'ate::;;Eio th~t:':;i t,~~adva:ric~s"thego'al'" o,f'
pre.serv.irigimpor'tant,";City:"':6~ed' '\:)ublic-' resources ',without
"unintent'ionally j~6pardizirig":its,:p;r-6gram, for the,:preservat:i.on,,'of
, private property. 'A ,related "issue, is' 'w',hether,these 'TDRs should
carry parking exemption with them, be confined to certain areas, or
be limited to certain uses, e,g Hho'l,l.singbut not office.
, .,'~ .. " .... ~." -, . ~"-
5 . "How should' theseTDRs be marketed? .:\
, ExistingTDR"Eransf$rs a:r$ privci::t-e transactions and
oftenlnvol ve, ,twosi tE:;!s:ow.ued'by 'the' sE?rne' persOn. This 'perroi ts
coordinated plarin.i'ng ,~.' sinceou:(' rulesreqriJ..re, 'that the historic
res,torat'ionwork ·'be. Clone :p'efore'the "developmen't,rightstransfer.
However,' this"'maynot,'ma:K~c~ens~'for:ci ty-:-'ownedbuildings .,' 'First',
the proceeds of the'TDR-would>be' intendedt'o 'fund'the preservation
or restoratio work and the City cannot borrow in the same manner as
a private investor. Second, ,the City is a regulator, with the
power to determine if 'TDRs can in fact be used on a pa'rticular
site.
The City's existing TDR programs specify that the program
can go away at any future time; there 'is no guarantee that the TDR
can be used. This leads to the current practice of getting a
development approval befo're paying for TDRs. If the City is to
,sell TDRs, it must be able to guarantee their future utility for'
some period of time. To do this, it would need to execute a
development agreement with the TDR purchaser., In that case, it may
031204 syn 0091384
OFFICE MEMORANDUM, cont.·
Steve Emslie, Director of Planning and
Community Environment
December 4, 2003
Page 6
RE: Preservation Incentives .for Ci toY-owned Historic
Structures
6. ·How would the City guarantee prese'rvation of .its own
property as a historic resource?
The current Ci.ty. council ,cannot .. bind the hands of future
Ci ty ~ouncils:a'bsept an~gr~$ment ,w,ith 'f3..third-:pa~ty .We require
pri vately':"owned . sender:.si t~s.to.;grant ,the .. , City":.aconse~vation
easemEmt .. giving. it: the r,ight,to:·,.$u'i."(a:nci recov.eicos.ts·) : iithe
proper.ty· : is'nOt maintained' ... In· a 'manner' .. celli-'si s'tel)t' .:wi ththe
Secreta~y. of the InteriorFs,;Guidelines.'·:· ;The Ci·ty "cannotgrant a
conserva tioneas~me:h.t·to 'i t.sei,f~~ .':HoV;e\r~r, ·;.it:".can· gr,ant. bnetoan
inde]H:nden t . nOI"l,proii tdedic13,ted ":toadvab'c:Lri..g:": hi$tori c',preserVai ton.
As:Lmilar. ;a:p'proac:h is' ··,:Commorily'·'·,us~d. .tc;" ;ensli're long-i:-erm
preservation, of,public.l,y-.o;wned.open $paces. '.' .,. .
, '. . . ,. " .": ~.-" ": .::' '; .. ';---' .... -. :'" '":.' ' .. :~\"~' ... }";.~:'" :::~'.' ,,,:" . :., ',.
',.',;: .,.':,-".," :, ..... . , "
'1' ,',," .• ,:,'"
_, ....... : ~. .:' j i __ ' ':" .. ,',. "'.. : Next Steps
Although we, i~rid ·"':'df.h~f.~ ,:':h~ve':de':\ro:t:ed "as:Lgni f :Lean t
amount of time to researching a Ci typroperty TDR program, more
legal reseq,rch, as';\JJel(as,planing' arld .. iisc::~lanalysis, is required
if the Ci tyCounc'ilW'ish~s ".toproc:Eie~:. . 'We' ~wo1ild do furth~r
analysis of the ,fundamental'le.gaii,ty.of.slich a program as 'wellas'
operational. details, ~ .•. :Our/,work ·tD.¢l.a1:e""l?~~ges~s· .th'at .. ~ucha -program
is feasible if·the ;CityCouncilwishes ·to·proceed. ". . '.
, '. "' ... :.... . ','~: '" . -". .".. .' . '. .. . ,-
WSF:syn
031204 syn 0091384
Jim Baer, 532 Channing Avenue, said the 1986 Downtown :Ordinance
established seismic and historic upgrade bonuses 'includin,g a tagline that
suggested 6-eating TDRs.Subsequently, there Was impleme,htation after the
new Varsity Theatre. The new Varsity Theatre,'didbbth historic and seismic
bonuses. Under former staff member] Nancy Lytlf2r ,the TDR Ordinance was
managed tlirough the process with enormous constraint. The concern wciS(not
to have receiver sltes create 'im'patts on neighbors. The cbnsequencewas that
only one ,project had ,a TDR accoTll,p,lished. Staff, tJeeded to be, ,given the
opportunity to "create 'a workcfble, and with 'a pbtentiar'for"valLie~' TDR. Staff
should b~ allowed toworkon the pool of users and theappropriate cOl1trql$Jor ' rnaximu'm square footage;" ,,' ,,',' ,,' ,,', ," ',:' , ',,', ,', :' ":i " "
, Gail Woolley 1685 Mariposar urged the P&S Committee to support the. staff
recbm'menda'tion. TtieTDRtool had been around for;quite a while']n thefjeldof
historic preservation and was used several times in Palo Alto. The'propc:i:saIwas"
a great public'benefit. '
" ~ c ; ~ ~ " , " ;
Karen Holman said ,constraints Vl(ere placed on City-o.Wned properties. The City
had ,the' "c>ppbrtuDity 'to' ac:tas;an' :':exam,ple':'to,', private,~parSY" own,ehL -The'
opP9rtu'nitYexiste:d. to TDake'the;prdcess6p~ri'g~n'OPU~bIiC:""v ':' ::!,',,",;;"', " ,
• • • -. • • .,. . .~ ',:, ••. " :: '.",,~\ :.; .:. -;". • .. :., :: . .,:. :.. .~: ,-.: ••• ~,"'. .: ", •• ': ! ~ -'
cb~~~ir":~~erribe(,;Kleirf/:)'er9,sa;ia:f~f()'C:'ity>~ttqr,n~'y~~":~~~or~ndun1,;'d,at'e~"
Dec:Ednber 4,2'00'3, ora ised;issues th'afthe':P&S"'Cbmmlttee "ne-eded'tcf discuss:,
Referring to page 4; item no. 1., ,she noted the conclusion was the City Council
could make,a determination on, a, case-by-case bas.isor the eIigibl,~ ~iteor site$
cou:ld';'be ,part of the ,'enabling >ordina)\ce.:orhe 'staff.'~{Nas'aSked',l:6,'i)rovid~
, infqrr:;,atio'n ~n ~b'~_prpsari9::c?nS6fth~e,:~~~':~Pt"i?ns:",: : -,',!',"~:;~:"'i1 '" ,;IF '
Ms. Furth said it was good to have prl;n'cip;jesth:~t appi'ie8 ~~to :'cat~;gbfies.
Designations could be made ear-Iy if there were obyious,examplesthatfit :in,
and 'there could'be a procedureforCiesrgnatihg:additiorii:iI bLIHdihgs\I~'ter" '
. ~:. . . . .... •... '-,. . '. .": . '. .....• .' ::. _ /'.... _ \.' t : :~:, ',; . '. .. -;:. . .:;.:. .: ,:' .
Mr. E:lTlslie said desi,gnating an initial list wCls important. Value was gaJneq"by
broadcasting' the 'biJildingsto'be looked at. Anon,g'6ingoversi,ght of the 'list 'was
important as well as a mechanism for review.The'HRBwou'ld :be a 'great t'f"ustee '
of the list.
Ms. Furth assumed the list of City-owned buildings might be categorized as
historic for the California Environmental QLJCllity Act.cCEQA). ,
Council Member Kleinbergsaid some' building's did not have rights to :transfer.
She asked staff about a potential bonus density.
1~/09/2003 P&S:3
Mr. Ernsliesaid. sta.ff ,Jooke~Lat parody with the existing prQgram ..
'.' ':. ' ,". t. • '. , .'" ". ,", •.• "', •
Ms. Furthsaid.-knownCityqistoric bufldj'ogscoWld :be"ranked ,in terms -of tbe imPQrtan¢e of:theiripreservC3tion. .' .-.. . .,: .. ,... .-. . . .....
~. . ... ".,'".. , . -", .. ", ..' . ..;".' "", .', .. . ':. .,'
Council 'Memher kL~inbefg ·said.her .prefer:eoce .was . .for·asuppl~mentary Jist
and., wjt~. ~ss.J~~q.~ce9f tq~. HR$l~~RJl.e em a.,c.a~:e.~by:-.c?$e b:.asis, .. ' .... .'
: • .' <, . : ,"; .: •. :,':: .!. ": .' '. ...". , .' •••. .. "',. :::. . .•
COlJl)cil Member. Qjak!ah··a$,.k.~:c{.w}1Y!o~IYt.he Dovv.nt·ownar~a. was' :invoiy~d. .... .: :.-.. " '";' :. :' L:.,' ~ . . ~: .. ", '.: .; :. ," .,' '.' , ", :. ," ,.:) ," .: "'; :,' .. ,. !-'-,: , ... ' . :. -•. >-•. :
M·r.'\~rhslie res:p'o'nded ':Hlat t~e' D6~rltO<V\I'h ~as the traajtio:nafi~c:ei~~rsit~:th:at
did not tend to impact neighborhoods and where theirtfrastructureexisted.
Council.:Nem·b.er, :Klejnber:g~aske.d whether:,Mi-.. ~l::mslie;meant ~he' sender sIte or the receiver site. .. .... '., . . :. . .. ' .. . ,."'.. . .
.. ;....... . ... ,:.
Mr. Emslie said he meant the receiver site.
: .... -'.': . \' ~ ',' ::'. ';: .. ; ;::', j. ~'. \ .... ,,: ;'.c,: .• _ ,:.:::;. ',-.' ",1' .'-:".~:':/.:::.~.:' •. ;. -: -',~ ..... :.: :' :'.' •.• ., .... r' <:.:; '; .. :::' ",:'''. ':.~'.;f: :" '.~ ", ' ... :;. . .~,: ':.\ ,'_: ' .. ; >'Y':'" ,:.J .:: j. ;, ", . :-", ,:.... . >. .
M.s.~FLirt'h sa}d th~;D.c)W)1tQW.D had twqm~xirnU'm .Floor Areap .. priosTfARs.). On~
Ft\R wc{s' allowed' ·uride.f~~~D,~;~:!?·~se;:z,9,[lin.fi',:en.9. anoth~r,t~a:t,;vy'a.s,~]iq.Mre.d . .-v~i~ti· ...
transferable' developmentcred'it,· ReceiVing districts' needed td'be zoned: A
c;sqA~nal:¥,s,.!~;yyo~l:qilpa,IYf.~ . .tb.~Hot~n;ia'!'J81P~p~.:in~t~Fm?;,(JfiCity bqilcjing?9pd
the:tran;;;f~r:Qf.:~qevelo"pm:E:!rj'trigli)'t$':;'PQ.wntb>w.n:W,a.?,zon~c:I::tO:qcqQ.mmodqte·.the ..
prog··.···'i-a,··· m.:·.· .... ·.: .. r:.' • ,:"":,' .' ... '{'! ..... ".'.' .. .,.. •. " .....•.. '. '::'.':,,~ .'" .... , ,.: . ." '. :'. f.:.' :::'i.".';:-:··'· ..•.... ,~' .... '.~ .. :'," .. , .• , ...... ":".:' ...•. -.. ;!":.-~
. ~.,.' :"'. d ",: ". ,". :. , :\':" 5:" . :;0.. •.... :", > ".""':-('I,;:", . , . ," i: . ~.:
" ,. r···
, '.:"') "~ . '" .... !" , .\. :>::.::\ : .~ ": ',', .... ::;.: :--,,;' :,' :.,i : ,: 'j.: ... ,.:~:< / ~.; ..... :. ';'.':> .. : . :.'~.:.;.". ~,1,.:.:", " ;.,;", '~'-.::'~ .. "",' ,!) {:-> ... :-~, : .. ". :' .. J ;:"( ~ . .:-,"; .', ..:", Cd:ur,i·cU"M~tnber·j~ytle .. $ala,.:~he~.pIjly .:are.a.,:anoweG.lbY.;th~:.6rdlnance·\N.as the. DdWntdwndistfi2t"beCause·''it>N~cis:~'~96si8$rEkftQ;be.ttie commercia'lgf .tb:e City
and a good place to. put 'mass;' height/ ana :hulk.The programcOU'ld be
ree.val.,41.atec:l·to.aIIQ~Jpf h)g~er.;de.nsit.Y~.. .' .. -,' .... ."":;~::''';':.'>.~,~ ",:" ':"'·:;·;;'~~:"'l.:'''[:': '.'~' ... : -;"';> ;~.:> ..... ;.": "'.
~,:.~:·l . ;·::!:.:f""~.h'~'-"'.:"> ... : ....... .' .... /.;. ;·":~:'·:I .. : ,:,.' .:: .... _...,' ..... : .... ' _.~
Council.MemQ.er;Qjakian ,sa·ic:l:be,did.Jl0t.s.e.e a:good.reason toAimittheTDR'if
'there we're anopportu'riity :io :use 'the{TD-R somewhere else .. ,'. ......":.
~:ifn~~bi~b~~t:: ~~~~~~~r~;~;is~~~.prqg;~~· ~o ~ldbecompIicated becb~se
Council Member Ojakian said it was helpful to know the list of buildings and
whatthep,otential.TD,Rs would ,be, '. ., ~ ,.,.' . . .: .. .. .
Mr. Emslie said staffcoLdo'\oc:>k at areas/ other than the :D.owntowrl,to see what
development potential :existed.under .existing zoning.
Ms. Furth said upzoning was ne'ede'd in order to accommodate TDRs.
12/09/2003 P&S:4
Council 'MemberKleinbergdarified'if th.erewere more 'flexibility in the receiver
site, the value of theTDRs wasintreased."·· '.' '
Ms. Furth respori'ded:if the'number Ofeligibl~buyers were increased, the unit
cost increased. Rezoning in the receiver sites needed to be consistent with.the
Comprehensive Plan {Co'mp 'PI,an).' :,. '.' . . .' .
Council' M~mber Lytle ~s~ed which bU,iI,diD9$ '~ere clearly high v~lue historic pro'perties: ' ... ' . . ',' , . ,. . .
;." • " • , • :. • • ~.~l. • • : ..
Ms.Bunnenbergre~sp:ond-ed tl:ie;\blJildings lnduded the L~Cie 'SterOConim'unity
Center and the Childreds:;Llbreny;the\Nater Tower; the "Wilifams:Holj'se, 'the
Roth Building, the Sea Scout I?ase, anc:lthe Senior c:enter,the Main'Library, and the Ganible 'House> ,. " ., , " . "" " .... ;'
" " '
Coundl Member'Ly'tle':askea "whether 1:here\Nas a':pOteritiaI tha'rthe Citymig'ht'
. de~O:J.i~?:·~hiOf:~h:f;~'jstorlF:',?;Undin'~.~~;. ';",:;",;' >::,;.:.;.::,;':.:"" . '. ":" ..... ,,';';. '
Ms: ";Furfti's~rid the:actio=n':'woLild tle'th;eh~M'tis o'f'-fUhJr~'Cityt6unclis.,Theqt:y .
would enter into an agreement to put a historic preservation coven EiI1'f;'or(its,
property, which would be covenanted to a third ,PC!rty .. ·
~~.";,, .. ;::.~ " ... ,;.{ : ..... ~.~',' ::',,~"':'~ .. :'" :.' ',~·.1><;,>"': ' .. ~.':/' "A~~ '~'L';"~: ~:'>:~:;':;~'. C":,::':, , .. ,'\''''_ "J:
CcH}r{cil' :Member ,:'KieIribefg +~f~'rr~d'to\:pa:g'e~·:~:,~hd"~5.'6f·:tfl~..qity',Attorney's
Memorandum~ dated 'December 4/ 200~, "'3nd'askedwhaf~gu;iaan:ce";coLfid De
given for the .sOFA'.i:TDR'to·;lrisurfFii1'ore':'hoeislng 'Downtown."':':; -, '.'",
. M r ;-,j3~:er 'sa'id~heiCote::CD'¢ ,::rl'ad ttl'~:"a;6f'lit~F to';~crCJ~'\Jj~'tOi:1 :':c>',;;:FAR"qf~'oUSi ng J
,
untrerex'istiilg zo:ning: The)s:am'e\fv2lS 'truein'ithe ·'CDS,"<SOFAione. '. ' ....
Mr. Emslie sa'id there were dther'disincentiv¢s. Densities' were' hig'h ,el:roo.9h ~6
promoteChavhig;;large'units. ' , '" " .
".' '.;' ,':',' . ,,~ .:: "_:',':' ,.'
Ms. Furth said she an.d_ Mr. Emslie f~lt stronglY,thatTDRs shouldnot be
reZDtiings,but'stlOufd be ':a'way '6f'~impl$melltfD.9 .. z~hing; ;iIi·'the'·recelver?ite.
Shaping was impo'rtant in 'the zoning 'fofthe're.ceive(sites. ", '. .
Council Member Kleinberg referred to page ~, item no; 3 in the City Attorneyls
memorand'um, dated' 'Decembe'ril:, 2'003; regarding "\,yhichsites 'shotJld "be
eligible for 'receiver' sites:"'Guidance'from staff was reques~ed regarding pros
or cons.
Mr. Emslie said expanding receiver sites re'qUired upzoning.
12j09i2003 P&S:5
Dr. Bob Golton, Deputy Superintendent, Palo Alto .. Unified School District
(PAUSD), said the PAUSD' was at fault because, while it did not correctly
understand the. boqndaryc1 the ,·pon;ables ,and ,plqygroL!nd e,ncroached :0\1
parkland. . . .' " '.
The,PAUSD believed:thetra.de .wasequjtaple andappealeci to;-th~City,C6Llncil.to
app.rov~ ,the,tGade~ , .' . '," ." .' ' .
Tom Jordan! 474 Churchill Avenue, said onceth:e mistake was madel the cost to
the PAUSD of correcting the mistake was the same. If the.Ci~Y~9.ho;;e.!torelievE!·
the PAUSD of the cost, the City also absorbed s'ome cost. The'ordinance was
illegal" ',and(citizensint:~~··C.i~Y,wo~uld.Ji.9htit.,;,The p,ALJSD,;should"corr:,ect their
mi~t~fke: T.he' tradeiwas,fairi:but theptocedureV\[as,;nobright."Articl~ VIII ·of the
Charter w.as c1eart8':1t . .nq:dis,pOSitjOn. ,of,prqperty cqul.dbe,JrTIade¥Ji~bo~t a'vote
orithe peo.ple.'AttaChm.ent :A~d,emoris:tra:tedjprocedur.es,;in c2IseoLan';el.e.ction.
The Charter specified, '{'AnY' election ,and related proce'dur~$r'!Jn'aec)A(t:iGIs: VIII
shall conform to the provisions." There were 17 sections hi' Attach'ment AI of
wbiC;h 14 .. v.verE? proce9ur~lp Qpe jPfi:tb.~jir£?mfl,inin.g·,:~'hree<w..as",~~,Clt,JQ.r.r.p,e.~~;CJ~Y Attorn~y,~rieJ CCllqnn~; s.6ii,ght,tq~:pLJ.j]d,6n,:,for :minot~x.,c:ha,ngie:Si" '\o/h,icb,didTlot
ap,ply;;to,,,thiE;,,qha,rter.:,T~,~rf::~:,!!er~.lbH~f'.in'di:¢ato.rs.tpsti8W;,Wh;Y~he,~gecti,on·,dj4not
.ap,RJy,:.,:trne;.~es~imony,ln;thl:e',;n~Gore qr~~;~li~(,proG~:ecUfl9s,JJy.;J:riid)Pea.tson;,an .
. ;!:j~i~~~~fd:~~~:~!~~~~~~~~!::i~{~a~~:!f~~~:i~
AttprneYAriel,C~IO'r:\.!i,~;gCly,eJh,e sarr;i~,~:ad.¥jceto the,,poLimdl II) ,t/1le e9rlylS)9o.~.
Th.e 'Dl a.tte.r; :~~e.~~;~,:;~R :',Q9 :it), ;~h~" v:o~~:r~ .. ,",. ",;. ," '.' ,"',-.<; ,:.':::" ,.' ',.; " ". ",
. '. . . i·"~~.' ~':; r~~ .::' ~\ . ::-{ 1,., ~., 'J ~,~'.;. ~ ... ~'\': ~ .... : "', : ;'{. ,:'''::::.~ ~ :;.; .. ,L .. < .;: .... : :. ; ;/~ ." .. ~,'.:' ,,:.';-;. ,:; <~~" ... , ~ ; .. ) .-.~.! " ;~' .: .... / . '. \'.". :-'. { i ...... ~.: :'",; '(.f:,· ~. ,'" ~
JeR,nifer;"Hagan,,/pa'rk~;Cl.rld'!R~cr::e~ti,qn.·G6I:Prr1j~sl()ner;i-3S.o .. qambridg€.j¥ue"
scf.:i(j,,.the, "Hi?,:D1<s.iiind, ,Re,creatiQ.'l. P9:h\iy1i,s§iq:n"K:!1A RC:Jj~xte,n.~i\lely.·;reYt~Vyed.:,th~,.··
niatter·on~:Novel[.pb~r 12, 2PD3/',~'and.~Y(Jfe;d~iunanimo,uslyJo-"r;eject:theJ:irqposed
. orci:i'nanqe ,be.calJse,tQe:prO,G~:a..ure.:Jor"tMeOi~na,bling;9rdil1aRce.".wa~~,riot.le.,gal,and
was.,a 'violation',of ,the Chai1:~,f:;'T:he.:pARC~;urged,the ~R&.S ,Corl1!Tlitteelo send 'th~
m~s~a,g~·~0"the:;C'i~Y,;Co4rc[GJller~J?(Y hq,noriD9Jbe.,PARCs;r:e.corDmend,i;I:tion,
.' '. • •• { ~ " ',' ,. • • h ' : ~ ••• , •••• • ; '. • • , : ,', -. -.' " •• • C": '..
In~er:i m .City,Attorney, 'VVj~0ne,;,f:utth,~'~i.dtnere:; \o/~r~::.tw,~ s.u f~ey ·~r;rors. ·,on' the
PAUSD:s,[te,. The,parkf:'~s Jtl,presentiS' .$xi~ted,<dicf"notclose;.~nd there"were;no
defined boun d'a.Gies lor t.helpar.k.:.The PAUS;P;built, ~Jooki!}..9.;atimp(ovements,on
the·ground. Asurvey,iwas pr~p.ar~d. when ,a,fen.ce "wa:,'requested,:-attwhich,point
the, line;in the 'records w..as,.reaiized.,p, schooJ,buJlding was not an appropriate
park use. The 'Cnarter ,was,;amended.twjce,to ')preserve<·and .protect Palo ,Alto's
parks to .makesur{they -were .. used forpark.,purposes. The,qLlestionaroseasto
whether a sman boundary adjustment, swapping equal land value ,and area,
amounted to disposing of parkland. The responsibility landed on the. Council.
12/09/2003 'P&S:8
The Charter incorporated language about ele-ctio'n's ahd other prbcedures. The
Chapter specified, ."Lands owned or cOl1tro\ledbythe City, which wm.be used
for.park,;,:playgroundj·and recn3ation·'purposes·;shalr·bedediCated::bY·ordinance,
and land dedicCited for thosepurposes,shali notbe'soldorotber;vyisedisp6sed
of, nor shall its use be abandoned or discontinued except'pursuantto majority
vote of the electorate. Any election and rela.ted procedures Lmder,Artlcle vnI .
shall conform to provisions set forth in Ge-rieral'La w:as . itexisf~tlJan'tjary i, '.
1965. U The General Law,tal.ked aboutnqtgetting rid of or.abandonin.g. Cjty
parks vifi~hoUtf6iloWing'·a·set. pfprc)cet:fures,lndU:din.g'a·[f election',"';fhe,'Ge'r1eraf'
Law ·started out'''by accepting ··pr1e·':type.ofren10val of 'parklanq for park :
purpbses,and thatwas'an:exchang:ef"or'~clna /:swap~ There; was no'defin"i:tive
word until the matter went to a judge. ",.".",. '. . .
MOTION: Council Member Kleinberg moved, seconded bYLyt{~:"'to ~'e~:k~ote~
approval of a Charter..A.meJid\.Tlen.tto.E!x~hangel!1in,or. portion? ·.of .parkland for
contiguous lands oLan equal or greater area or value in ordert'o implement
Article VIII of the Palo Alto City. (:harter, to.in.c.lLJcl.~:.in·n~x-tregular".'.M~mjcip~l. Election in November 2005 for voter approv21i. .":,".',' . ':;':;"::".; .:"'i; "':': .... l .•...
'. :.;.:~\ .. ~.(.,::j . ':',", ~"::'.'.' . .'. ":' ; ... ~~ .. \,;.;::> • ':.~:": ';<:,~!' .. <,;::.<~;~~ ,',>,:.{.;. ,.:..:~;:::.:.,.., -,: .," .~ ,::~.;<,;.; .. <,;~\)~, ":>".:'~"'~"'~:~: .'~:, .
Council .Member·Kleinberg·.saJd·the.·.:realitywas·,a'·.::smaIIJandswap~.~.precedent.
was .sr.~.at.~d"by.:n9tfo~II~Win~Lihe,~,I~t~~r,:~9!-the .. ).~vy,,"Ti1~:··.bJ~fqcy':;~9t.the·:ia·lj:,Nya~.·
. thatAJ Y\fas ,.Cre·ated.olitqta la.¢k,;pf;,:adh.ererice:by;.~h~" cOI1}TTlunity::tq .,paCk
. pres§:rvati9n:~'There \N~t~ hi:c:iny y,~~;rs'Qf q}~c~s.sj.6n··~.rld9I1'·ev6IHti.On ofx~'ILl'e~Jn .
the'cOrnlTluriity', Then~suJt, was'th.t: ;park.d~dj(::a;ti9.ri:ord.ina-~ce,', CQn¢eql was
expre"ssed about the cost of a·speda'leJectioh.······ . ';.: .... "'. '. "",';,':; ..
• , ,",: 1
Council Member Lytle agreed with the appropch to go to ·the voters. The Park
Charter Ordinan'ce needed to be updated to reflect the currentinterpretation of
uses that were allowed on parkland as well as handling the· minor ex'Change of
property issue in the way voters of the comm~nity intended wh~n the Cha~ter
was written. . " .
Council Member Ojakian said he would hot support the motion. Item number' 3
needed to be dealt with separately, A decision should be made on the school
land without going·to the voters.
Chairperson Burch said he did n.ot believe· the people who passed the law
dreamed the Council would face such a minor issue.
Council Member Kleinberg said former City Attorney Ariel Calonne was clear
that the City did not ha've the power, by ordinance, to alter the Charter, There
was nothing in the recordthat gave flexibility. .
12/09/2003 'P&S:9
CONSENT CALENDAR
,Excerpt from the
City Council
Mhiutesof June 7, 2004
.. ,., J .. :'
Council Member Mossar stated she would not partidpatein Item -No. 7' due
to a conflict of interest because her husband was employed by Stanford
University.
Council Member Cordell stated she would not participate in Item No.7 due
to a conflict of interest because she was employed by Stanford University.
Council Member Kleinberg stated she would not participate in Item No.7 due
to a possible conflict because her new employer, the American Electronics
Association, has an organizational institute at Stanford University.
Council Member Freeman said her first question regarding Item No. 14 was
the request for authorization to request an opinion from the Attorney
General about the ability of a Council Member to participate in decisions
regarding Stanford University, which was what was the Palo Alto's City
Attorney's Office opinion.
Interim City Attorney Wynne Furth said there were no conflicts to the
Po'litical Reform Act, under Government Code Section 1090, which pertained
only to contracting. The City Attorney's Office believed there was a
-possibility of a remote interest, but did not believe there was the kind of
direct interest that would prohibit contracting. They believed there was a
possibility of remote interest· that would preclude Council Member
Kleinberg's partiCipation, although the City Attorneys were not In a position
to provide her with . sUc:h .ale;vel of assurance that she could participateinthe
discussions. The Attorney General, who regularly issued opinions on Section
1090, was in a position to do so.
• J'"
Council Member F~eeman said her second question was regarding Item No.
16. The agenda showed three recommendations coming from the Finance
Committee, but the staff recommendation only showed two
recommendations. She needed clarification as to which recommendation was
to be voted on.
Assistant Director of Public Works Mike Sartor said the initial Finance
Committee recommendation was to include a portion of the bond buy-down
to reduce the assessments to property owners in the parking district. The
Parking Committee preferred having the entire bond buy-down be for the
actual bond and not include an assessment reduction on .an annual basis.
Council Member Freeman registered a "no" vote on Item Nos. 2, 3, 10, 12
and 16.
Council Member Kishimoto registered a "no" vote oli Item No. 10.
Council Member Morton noted a correction on Item No.2. The first reading
was on May 10, and noton May 03, -2004.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Burch moved, seconded by Council Member Ojakian,
to approve Consent Calendar Items Nos. 2-5, 7-16.
Beth Bunnenberg, 2351 Ramona Street, spoke regarding Consent Item No.
15.' She supported extending, the Transfer Development Rights, CTDR)
, Program to the City-owned historic structures. The Historic Resources Board
(HRB) had requested historic designation that would lead to TDRs. TDRs
were valuable incentives -and should be coupled with the protection of
h istoricfeatures. '