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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 7373 City of Palo Alto (ID # 7373) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Action Items Meeting Date: 2/27/2017 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Summary Title: Planning Code Amendments - First Reading Title: Public Hearing: Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 (Zoning), Chapters 18.04 (Definitions), 18.30(F) Automobile Dealership (AD) Combining District Regulations, 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements), and 18.54 (Parking Facility Design Standards) Adding Sections 18.40.160 (Replacement Project Required), 18.40.170 (Deferral of Director’s Action), and 18.42.140 (Housing Inventory Sites Small Lot Consolidation) and Repealing Chapter 10.70 (Trip Reduction and Travel Demand). The Proposed Ordinance is Exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Sections 15061(b)(3). From: City Manager Lead Department: Planning and Community Environment Recommendation: Staff recommends Council adopt an ordinance (Attachment A) to amend Title 18 (Zoning Code) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code and find the ordinance exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Executive Summary: This report transmits proposed amendments to various sections of the Zoning Code of the Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) that were recently reviewed and recommended for approval by the Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) on December 14, 2016. The amendments are intended to implement the City’s Housing Element, modify code provisions to reflect current practice or policy, correct errors, and formalize and introduce some new policy initiatives related to affordable housing and transportation management plans. The proposed code modifications are focused on the items listed below. 1. Update two housing-related definitions as required by the Housing Element. 2. Correct the existing loading space requirements table and include Planning Director’s City of Palo Alto Page 2 discretion for adjusting loading zone requirements. 3. Add provisions to allow mechanical lift vehicle parking. 4. Require entitlement approval of replacement projects before demolition permitted. 5. Provide authority to the Planning Director to forward projects to City Council for action when deemed appropriate. 6. Add incentives to encourage consolidation of small-lots listed on the Housing Inventory Sites to support 100% affordable housing development as required by the Housing Element. 7. Clarify code language regarding when a Transportation Demand Management Plan (TDM) is required. 8. For projects with an Automobile Dealership combining district, exempt floor area dedicated to meeting minimum parking requirements for service areas and vehicle queuing of customer cars dropping off or picking up service repair vehicles. Background: Title 18 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code contains the City’s zoning regulations. From time to time, the City reviews the zoning code and makes minor changes intended to better achieve the City’s goals, better reflect historic practices, provide clarity, or improve a process provided for in the ordinance. There are also instances where code changes are needed to address changes in State law or changes in the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The various code amendments proposed are part of an on-going effort to bring the zoning code into alignment with current practices and regulations. Staff anticipates bringing another round of “clean-up” items later in 2017. PTC Review On November 9, 2016 staff presented a suggested list of code amendments for Study Session review with the PTC. There was one member of the public who provided comments related to changes to the loading requirements. For the majority of the proposed changes, the PTC indicated general support. For select topics (i.e. revising loading requirements, mechanical lift parking, small lot consolidation, and hotel conversions), the PTC provided more substantive discussion and comments that staff responded to at the following meeting. (PTC staff report available online: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/54585 ) The formal action hearing by the PTC was held on December 14, 2016 where the PTC unanimously recommended approval to support the proposed amendments. The motion reflected staff’s recommendation with a minor amendment to the language for mechanical lifts. For this hearing, there were no members of the public present that spoke on this item. (PTC staff report available online: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/55202) City of Palo Alto Page 3 The discussion at the December PTC meeting was brief, primarily because the PTC had conducted in-depth discussions on the issues at the November Study Session and staff was responsive to the issues that were raised; only a few modifications were needed for the formal hearing. The PTC’s primary talking points are highlighted in the related sections in the discussion section of this report. For specific details, please refer to the attached verbatim minutes for the two PTC meetings (Attachments B & C). Discussion: The proposed code amendments address different subjects as described below. The discussion includes the purpose of the amendment, PTC comments, and the proposed ordinance. Please refer to the attached draft ordinance (Attachment A) for the specific language of the proposed code amendments. I. Housing-Related Definitions The City’s adopted 2015-2023 Housing Element commits the City to make minor adjustments to the existing definitions of Supportive and Transitional Housing in the Zoning Ordinance. More specifically, Housing Element Program H3.5.3 directs the City to “amend the Zoning Code to revise definitions of transitional and supportive housing to remove reference to multiple-family uses, and instead state that “transitional and supportive housing shall be considered a residential use of property and shall be subject only to those restrictions that apply to other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone.” [Code section to be updated: 18.04.030(a)(135.5) & (138)] PTC Comments Other than staff providing clarification of the intent of the updating the definitions, there was no additional discussion on this issue. Proposed Ordinance The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Section 1) reflects the text changes referenced above to the transitional and supportive housing definitions contained in PAMC Section 18.04. II. Off-Street Loading Requirements Three proposed changes are recommended related to off-street loading requirements, including correcting an error, clarifying requirements for mixed use developments, and establishing an administrative process to reduce loading zone requirements. A. Corrections to the Minimum Off-Street Loading Requirements The City’s off-street loading standards are based on a scale that requires incrementally more loading zone spaces based on the size of the land use. Typically, a land use with less than 5,000 City of Palo Alto Page 4 or less than 10,000 square feet does not have to provide any loading spaces. One loading space is required when the use area exceeds a certain size and so on for still larger uses. In 1978, the off-street loading requirements were consolidated from the individual zone district chapters into a single parking chapter (then PAMC 18.83 “Off-Street Parking Regulations”). The specific loading requirements themselves have not changed since that time, but the format of the code has been revised over time. In the 1992 code update (Ord #4079), the loading requirements table was reformatted and information was erroneously omitted in the process. Those errors carried over into the 2005 and 2007 code amendments and are reflected in the current code. There are two errors that were made when this chapter was reformatted in 1992. First, under the Retail Services and Eating and Drinking Services section, there is a row missing to address land uses between 5,000 and 29,999 square feet (sq. ft.) in area. This row should be inserted and assigned a loading space requirement of one space. The second error was assigning a loading space requirement for smaller land uses between 0-4,999 sq. ft. in area. Historically, before the error, there was no off-street loading space required for this size of a retail store. A similar error occurred for warehousing/distribution and manufacturing uses. Additionally, there is another minor error for Hotel/Motel/Inns. The use size of 100,000 sq. ft. should have included the end range of 199,999 sq. ft. as reflected in the pre-1992 versions of the table. These changes are reflected in the attached ordinance. [Code section to be updated: 18.52.040(c) Table 3] B. Mixed-Use Projects The City’s practice has been to use the code provision for “other uses” from Table 3 Minimum Off-Street Loading Requirements (PAMC 18.52.040) when considering the requirement for mixed-use projects. The code specifies that the requirements for “other uses” shall be determined by the Director and have been waived for mixed-use projects when adequate on- street or alley loading areas can be made available. Community members and the City Council have recently questioned this practice, resulting in the need for clarification to this code section. The proposed text change specifies that each land use in the mixed use development shall be subject to the off-street loading requirements for those individual uses and combined for a total off-street loading requirement. [Code section to be updated: 18.52.040(c)] C. Director Approval for Off-Street Loading Adjustments At times there are circumstances that may arise with new construction where requiring off- street loading spaces (45 feet long by 12 feet wide, with 15 feet height clearance per space) is impractical to site development, creates unnecessary pedestrian/vehicle conflicts or adversely City of Palo Alto Page 5 impacts urban design objectives. Accordingly, to address these challenges, staff recommends that the Planning Director be granted the authority to make adjustments to required loading zone dimensions or modify the quantity of required off-street loading spaces. While this authority has been exercised in the past for mixed-use development, the proposed change would apply to all non-residential development. Requests for a modification would be evaluated based on the anticipated land uses, site conditions, availability of other alternative loading zone opportunities or solutions, and if providing the loading zone on-site would not advance city policies related to efficient circulation, safety, and urban design principles. Moreover, staff proposes limiting this discretion to permit the waiver of one space only. Some recent development examples that include loading space adjustments are provided in Attachment D. To provide for a Director’s adjustment for loading, two code sections are proposed to be modified, one that applies to sites within the parking assessment district (PAMC 18.52.080) and one that applies to sites not within the parking assessment district (PAMC 18.52.050, Table 4). The text would be the same for both sections. With support of the above mentioned Director’s adjustment, an additional administrative change would be required to address footnote 2 of Table 4. Footnote 2 states that no reductions may be granted that reduce required parking spaces to less than 10 spaces on site. Since the new row is being added to address loading zones, it is necessary to clarify this provision does not apply to loading zone spaces, which would not be able to meet this standard. [Code section to be updated: PAMC 18.52.050 Table 4; new section added: 18.52.080(e)] PTC Comments A majority of the commission appeared to support the three loading zone related amendments. There was a brief discussion regarding the loading zone waiver and the suggestion that the city explore eliminating the loading zone requirement in the downtown area and otherwise increase the threshold for when loading spaces would be required elsewhere in the city. There was also a request for more information about the circumstances of when the Director waived the loading zone requirements in the past, which was provided to the PTC. Proposed Ordinance The attached ordinance corrects the code errors from 1992, specifies how to address loading requirements for mixed use projects and grants the Planning Director the authority to waive one off-street loading space and dimensions subject to specific criteria. The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Sections 6-8) reflects the changes referenced above. City of Palo Alto Page 6 III. Mechanical Lift Vehicle Parking PAMC Chapter 18.54 Parking Facility Design Standards of the zoning ordinance specifies design standards for off-street parking facilities and does not currently contain standards applicable to mechanical stackers or lifts, despite the use of these in a number of development proposals in recent years. Mechanized lifts are becoming more commonplace in urbanized areas and can provide a way to increase parking supplies without devoting more land to surface parking and without the cost of structured parking. The purpose of this amendment is to formalize the requirements for the use of mechanical lifts in development projects subject to conditions and review by the Director or Council. The absence of such provision for supporters of this design solution is that the zoning code is, at best, unclear as to the applicability of mechanical lifts to meet off-street parking requirements or, alternatively, prohibitive. Addressing design standards for mechanical lifts in the City’s zoning ordinance would expressly permit these lifts to satisfy parking requirements and minimize unintended problems due to poor design, over-use, or the inability to access them efficiently. [Code section to be added: 18.54.020(b)(4)] PTC Comments The majority of the PTC comments supported the allowance of mechanical car lifts for use in the City; however, there were varying degrees of support and at times conflicting perspectives expressed by individual commissioners ranging from a full support of lifts to a more cautious tone and concerns about unintended consequences. Some comments that were expressed follow:  Expand the list of applicable land uses (initially proposed for residential and office) to include hotels, automobile dealerships and visitor parking;  Add standards to assure that use would not impact adjacent streets and sidewalks;  Remove requirements for parking management plan and leave that as a private matter for the building owner and tenants;  Should only be used indoors;  Require proper maintenance to provide parking for the life of the project; and  Allow the use of lift for residential guest parking. In addition to the above, the commission had different perspectives on whether the lifts should be designed to accommodate full-sized sport utility vehicles. Also, there was a discussion regarding whether the use of the lifts was a discretionary request or an administrative, by right action. Attachment E provides a list of recently approved projects that incorporated mechanical lifts into the project. Proposed Ordinance City of Palo Alto Page 7 The attached draft ordinance codifies the current practice to allow the use of mechanical lifts, on a case-by-case review by the approving authority, to meet the parking requirements for commercial and mixed-use projects. The new code language provides general direction regarding aesthetics, appropriate land uses, and site and systems analysis to support the proposed use of parking lifts for the associated project. All proposed lifts would be required to be located within an enclosed parking facility, screened from public views, and designed to be architecturally compatible with the site conditions. Lifts would be allowed in multi-family residential, office, hotel, automotive, industrial or institutional uses. The Director may approve the use of lifts for other uses, though such uses may be required to provide dedicated on-site valet assistance. Each proposal would include project specific details (e.g. circulation details, vehicle queuing, emergency procedures, etc.) that demonstrate the effectiveness of the lifts. The ordinance provides a defined framework for staff and applicants to work within while acknowledging each project will have unique circumstances to address. The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Section 9) reflects the updated code section in PAMC 18.54.020. IV. No Demolition Until Replacement Project Approval The City has had a longstanding practice to require the approval of a replacement project (i.e. planning entitlement) prior to allowing any related demolition to occur, for both residential and commercial developments. While staff has relied on this practice for many years, there have been times when the City has been challenged on this policy; codifying the requirement will eliminate any uncertainty as to this provision. Currently, the zoning code includes provisions in the Architectural Review permits section [PAMC 18.76.020(b) and (h)] that specifies the requirement for approval prior to demolition for projects requiring Architectural Review, but there is no language in the code to address all the other entitlements, including Individual Review of single family homes. Staff recommends adding a new code section to clarify this longstanding practice. [Code section to be added: 18.40.160] PTC Comments Two commissioners expressed concerns about the proposed code language, one citing concerns about negative implications to the deconstruction process and one suggesting the proposed language does not address an earlier stated goal of limiting vacant lots. Proposed Ordinance The proposed amendment seeks to codify the existing practice used in the City and does not seek to advance any new policy initiative or change. Since most new home applications are not City of Palo Alto Page 8 subject to architectural review, without the current practice and proposed code amendment, an owner could seek to demolish an existing home and leave the site vacant. Additionally, most new home construction includes a two story residence, which is subject to discretionary, Individual Review. Allowing demolition to occur before the filing or review of this application means the community would be unable to assess the potential loss of an historic resource. The proposed amendments would be a new section in PAMC 18.40 “General Standards and Exceptions,” see Attachment A, Section 3. V. Defer Director’s Decision Under the current review process regulations, when a project requires multiple entitlements that have different approval authority (e.g. Site and Design with Council action & Variance with Director’s action), each entitlement is acted upon separately by the respective approving body. Staff is seeking to amend the code to explicitly provide the Director the discretion to forward a project with multiple entitlements, where Council action is needed for at least one of those, as a complete package for Council review and action. The purpose of doing this is to provide Council a full understanding of all the project components and decisions that need to be considered prior to taking action on the project. This also avoids the scenario where the Director-level project component could be appealed to Council, resulting in possible multiple hearings on various aspects of the same project. [Code section to be added: 18.40.170] PTC Comments The PTC did not comment on this proposed code change. Proposed Ordinance The attached draft ordinance codifies this existing practice of deferring the Director’s decision on a case-by-case determination, see Attachment A, Section 4. VI. Housing Element – Small Lot Consolidation The Housing Element includes a program that calls for zoning changes to encourage the consolidation of “small” lots as identified on the Housing Inventory Sites list to facilitate the construction of affordable housing. With the adoption of the 2015-2023 Housing Element in November 2014, the City committed to meeting the specifications of the H2.1.9 Program within two years (by January 20, 2017). H2.1.9 PROGRAM: Amend the Zoning Code to create zoning incentives that encourage the consolidation of smaller lots identified as Housing Inventory Sites and developed with 100% affordable housing projects. Incentives may include development review streamlining, reduction in required parking for smaller units, or graduated density when consolidated lots are over one-half acre. Adopt amendments as appropriate. Provide information regarding zoning incentives to developers. City of Palo Alto Page 9 There are currently 27 parcels identified as “small” (generally less than 10,000 sq. ft.) on the Housing Inventory Sites (HIS) list, with the majority of them (21) in the Residential Transition RT-35 zone district, two in the Commercial Downtown CD zone, and four in the Commercial Service CS zone (see Attachment F for a map). The CD and CS zones allow for residential development only when part of a mixed-use project and the RT-35 allows both mixed-use and 100% housing projects. The Housing Element program suggested three types of incentives: development review streamlining; reduction in required parking for smaller units; and graduated density when consolidated lots are over one-half acre. Staff has developed incentives based on the first two concepts. Graduated density for lots over one-half acre was not pursued because it is highly unlikely that lots would be consolidated to create such a large parcel. [Code section to be added: 18.42.140] PTC Comments The majority of the PTC showed general support for new code language to implement the Housing Element program. The comments made by the PTC included:  Allow for larger “small” units (500 sq. ft. instead of 300 sq. ft.) to be exempt from parking requirements;  Allow mixed-use development;  Eliminate parking requirements altogether for projects that qualify for HIS small lot consolidation;  Perform specific outreach to the affected HIS properties; and  To support development of these lots without requiring consolidation, allow property owners to develop the existing lots following the same standards proposed for consolidated lots with the exception of waiving 100% of the parking requirements for the residential component of the project. Proposed Ordinance The proposed amendment implements Housing Element Program H2.1.9. and provides development incentives for those property owners seeking to construct affordable housing when consolidating qualifying HIS small sites. The provisions include the requirement that development follow the South of Forest Area (SOFA) Coordinated Area Plan RT-35 district development standards (for all non RT-35 and RT- 50 zoned sites). These standards were designed for transitional zones between low-density residential and commercial uses, which generally is the case for all these parcels. For the allowable commercial uses in mixed-use projects, they would be limited to ground floor retail/“retail-like” uses only and cannot be more than 15% of the project’s total gross floor area, leaving a minimum of 85% of the floor area to be dedicated to the housing units. City of Palo Alto Page 10 The development incentives proposed include:  Expedited entitlement review;  Waiver of planning entitlement fees;  Require ARB review and Parcel Map process only (instead of Site and Design and Tentative Map process, if normally required);  Waive parking for residential units smaller than 500 sq. ft.; and  Waive requirement for residential guest parking spaces. After reviewing the PTC recommendation to eliminate parking for all qualifying projects, staff believes that this allowance could result in significant parking impacts to existing neighborhoods and is therefore not included in the code revision. The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Section 5) reflects the new code section. VII. Transportation Management Plan (TDM) Requirements The City has long had an interest in reducing traffic and parking demand by discouraging single occupant vehicles (SOV) commute trips, and by promoting alternatives to the private automobile. Transportation Demand Management (TDM) programs are one way to do this, allowing greater ability to require site specific requirements. Currently the zoning code (PAMC 18.52.050) identifies TDM programs as one possible strategy for projects not located in a parking assessment area to request a parking adjustment. In this way, TDM plans are currently optional, at the discretion of the applicant. In order to address congestion management, staff proposes amending the code to require a TDM plan for all projects that generate 100 or more net new weekday (AM or PM peak hour) or weekend peak hour trips. In addition, there may also be a need to require TDM plans to justify requested parking reductions or lower vehicle trip generation figures. The specified trip threshold that staff is recommending is consistent with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Congestion Management Plan specifications for when a Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) is required. In addition, staff recommends additional text refinement of the TDM section of the code (PAMC 15.52.050(d)). Additional language has been added to reference guidelines for TDM measures, three-year monitoring schedule, and penalties. [Code section to be amended: 18.52.050(d)(1)- (4); code section to be added: 18.52.030(i)] PTC Comments The PTC had no comments on the proposed project triggers for TDM plans. A few comments were made regarding specific TDM measures. These suggestions included adding the option for City of Palo Alto Page 11 a project to join a Transportation Management Association (TMA) and studying what San Mateo has done recently on this issue. Proposed Ordinance The attached draft ordinance incorporates the thresholds mentioned above for when to require a TDM plan for a project. The intent of the code change was specifically to establish when a TDM plan was needed for a project and not the specifics of the TDM measures. Transportation staff drafted a list of acceptable TDM measures (TDM Guidelines Table) for applicants to use and is provided in Attachment G. The TDM Guidelines include joining Palo Alto TMA as one of the options that can be used in a TDM plan. The TDM measures have been divided into levels (i.e. light, moderate, heavy) and proximity to transit. If a development is close to transit and requires “moderate” TDM measures, the applicant would follow the measures for that project type and location (see Attachment G for details). The TDM Guidelines are not included in the ordinance, but instead referenced. This will allow staff the ability to update the incentives and respond more quickly to different strategies and technologies that become available. Staff has also included the repeal of a now outdated practice (PAMC Chapter 10.70) of transferring TDM authority to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). While the BAAQMD at one time was actively administering TDM programs for the region, over time, most Santa Clara county cities have elected to supplement BAAQMD’s programs with their own. The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Sections 10-12) reflects the updated TDM language. VIII. Automobile Combining District (AD) Regulations Staff is proposing an amendment related to the calculation of floor area for auto dealership projects subject to the Automobile Dealership (AD) Combining District. Several months ago the PTC and City Council reviewed plans for a new dealership near the Baylands. While there were a variety of perspectives about the project, at least some community members and City Council members were concerned that the project did not comply with the plain reading of the code with regards to the floor area calculation. The service/repair function is a fairly typical process among dealerships. Customers line up in a queue on a driveway, a service technician takes the customer’s information, and a porter takes the car to be worked on then or sometime later. When complete, the customer picks up the car and leaves. This drop-off/pick-up process is often done under a large “breezeway” type structure that is used to shelter customers and is open on two sides. City of Palo Alto Page 12 During the car service, the customer’s car is either parked in a parking space waiting for service, being serviced (in a mechanic’s bay), or re-parked pending the customer’s return. Staff has relied on the following code provision to exempt this customer parking space from the calculation of gross floor area (PAMC 18.04.030(a)65(B)(i)): B. Non-residential & Multifamily Exclusions: For all zoning districts other than the R-E, R-1, R-2 and RMD residence districts, “gross floor area” shall not include the following: i. Parking facilities accessory to a permitted or conditional use and located on the same site; The code also defines Parking Facility as follows (PAMC 18.04.030(a)111): “Parking facility” means an area on a lot or within a building, or both, including one or more parking spaces, together with driveways, aisles, turning and maneuvering areas, clearances, and similar features, and meeting the requirements established by this title. “Parking facility” includes parking lots, garages, and parking structures. It is clear from the code that the floor area for auto service and repairs (service bays) has associated required parking. Based on the definitions above, if this parking is within an enclosed and covered space, it is exempt from being counted towards a project’s floor area ratio. Based on this understanding, staff has not counted the area where a customer’s car is parked as floor area. The proposed text amendment would explicitly exempt this parking area from the calculation of gross floor area. A second point of concern related to the service drive aisle is where vehicles were queued with the driver, waiting for a service technician to take the customer’s information and where the porter drives the vehicle off for service. The zoning code provides guidance as to whether this area counts toward floor area (PAMC 18.04.030(a)65(A)(vii)): A. Non-residential & Multifamily Inclusions: For all zoning districts other than the R-E, R-1, R-2 and RMD residence districts, “gross floor area” means the total area of all floors of a building measured to the outside surfaces of exterior walls, and including all of the following: vii. Permanently roofed, but either partially enclosed or unenclosed, building features used for sales, service, display, storage or similar uses; and City of Palo Alto Page 13 For the previously referenced project, the service drive was roofed and partially enclosed. Staff’s perspective, however, was that there were no sales, service, display or storage taking place at this location. Other than checking in for a scheduled appointment or describing the nature of the service needs and handing over the keys, not much else is happening at this location. Payment is handled at a different location inside the building and the car is not stored or worked on in the drive aisle. The countervailing argument is the interaction between the customer and service technician constitutes a service activity and, therefore, the service drive aisle should count toward gross floor area. While it clearly was arguable that a partially enclosed and covered driveway leading to a customer drop off area should have counted toward floor area on a previous project, the purpose of this amendment is to clarify whether this area should or should not count as floor area on any pending or future applications. Given that there are incentives in the code today to encourage automobile dealerships, the unique space requirements for these uses, branding and manufacturing requirements, and the sales tax benefits of auto dealerships to the local economy, staff believes it appropriate to exclude these non-service areas from the floor area calculation. Any concerns regarding the size of auto dealerships, the mass or bulk of buildings can be addressed through existing, discretionary processes. [Code section to be amended: 18.30(F).050] PTC Comments The PTC had no comments on the proposed amendments to the AD overlay. Proposed Ordinance The attached draft ordinance incorporates modifications to how floor area is calculated for the automobile dealership use located in the AD overlay. The following shall not count toward an automobile dealership’s maximum floor area:  Parking facilities for required parking related to service and repair areas.  Covered area dedicated to queuing of customer vehicles for drop off and pick up of service vehicles. The attached draft ordinance (Attachment A, Section 2) reflects the updated code section. Policy Implications: The proposed changes are intended to improve the administration of the zoning code, implement the housing element, and comply with state law. Staff anticipates that this and future efforts can be used to ensure implementation of the planning codes to better reflect city policy, provide greater transparency and clearer expectations when applying these codes to City of Palo Alto Page 14 projects. Resource Impact: The proposed code change that waives Planning entitlement fees as a development incentive for the consolidation of HIS small lots would have potential fiscal impacts in the form of reduced fee revenues. Staff does not anticipate a “rush” of new development to occur with the implementation of the proposed incentives, and is unable to estimate the (likely small) resulting impact, which could be absorbed within the department’s budget. Timeline: With Council approval of these revisions or further modifications on the first reading, the second reading would be scheduled as a consent calendar review for adoption. Following the second reading, the ordinance would become effective 31 days after. Environmental Review: The subject project has been assessed in accordance with the authority and criteria contained in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the State CEQA Guidelines, and the environmental regulations of the City. Specifically, the proposed amendments have been determined to be exempt from further environmental review per CEQA Guideline section 15061(b)(3) (Review for Exemption) because the activity is covered by the general rule that CEQA applies only to projects which have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment, and it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significantly effect on the environment. Additionally, all future development that may be impacted by any of the proposed code changes will be subject to a project specific CEQA analysis as part of the required planning entitlement review (e.g. Architectural Review, Site and Design, Subdivision, etc.) to determine if there are any environmental impacts. Attachments: Attachment A: Draft Ordinance (PDF) Attachment B: PTC Meeting Excerpt Verbatim Minutes, 12/14/2016 (PDF) Attachment C: PTC Meeting Excerpt Verbatim Minutes, 11/09/2016 (DOC) Attachment D: Recent Development Proposals With Adjusted Loading Requirements (DOCX) Attachment E: Projects Approved with Mechanical Lifts (PDF) Attachment F: Map of Housing Opportunity Sites (PDF) Attachment G: Draft TDM Guidelines (PDF) NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 1 February 13, 2017 Ordinance No. ____ Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Title 18 (Zoning), Chapters 18.04 (Definitions), 18.30(F) ((Automobile Dealership (AD) Combining District Regulations)), 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements), and 18.54 (Parking Facility Design Standards) Adding Sections 18.40.160 (Replacement Project Required), 18.40.170 (Deferral of Director’s Action), and 18.42.140 (Housing Inventory Sites Small Lot Consolidation) and Repealing Chapter 10.70 (Trip Reduction and Travel Demand) The Council of the City of Palo Alto does ORDAIN as follows: SECTION 1. Section 18.04.030 (Definitions) of Chapter 18.04 (Definitions) of Title 18 (Zoning) is amended to read as follows: 18.04.030 Definitions (a) Throughout this title the following words and phrases shall have the meanings ascribed in this section. . . . (135.5) “Supportive housing” means housing with no limit on length of stay, that is occupied by target populations, as defined by Section 53260(d) of the California Health and Safety Code, and that is linked to on- or off-site services that assist the supportive housing residents in retaining the housing, improving his or her health status, and maximizing his or her ability to live and, when possible, work in the community. Supportive housing shall be considered as a multiple-family use and only subject to those restrictions that apply to other multiple-family uses of the same type in the same zone a residential use of property and shall be subject only to those restrictions that apply to other dwellings of the same type in the same zone. Supportive housing programs may use residential care homes wholly or as a part of their overall facilities. . . . (138) “Transitional housing” means buildings configured as rental housing developments, but operated under program requirements that call for termination of assistance and recirculation of the assisted units to another eligible program recipient at some predetermined future point in time, which shall be no less than six months. Support services may include meals, counseling, and other services, as well as common areas for residents of the facility. Transitional housing shall be considered a multiple- family use and only subject to those restrictions that apply to other multiple family uses of the same type in the same zone residential use of property and shall be only subject to those restrictions that apply to other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone. Transitional housing programs may use residential care homes wholly or as part of their overall facilities. [This is reflective of State law and implements Housing Program H3.5.3.] NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 2 February 13, 2017 SECTION 2. Section 18.30(F).050 (Site Development Regulations) of Chapter 18.30(F) ((Automobile Dealership (AD) Combining District Regulations)) of Title 18 (Zoning) is amended to read as follows: 18.30(F).050 Site Development Regulations The site development regulations in this Section 18.30(F).050 apply to automobile dealership uses in the (AD) combining district, in addition to the regulations of the underlying district. Where the regulations of the underlying district conflict with this Section 18.30(F).050, this section shall control. (a) Floor Area Ratio 1) The maximum floor area ratio for automobile dealership uses shall be 0.4 to 1. 2) An additional 0.2:1 FAR is permitted exclusively for automobile showroom space, for a total FAR of 0.6:1. "Automobile showroom space" is that area for the display of new automobiles, located only on the first floor and excluding all other uses associated with the automobile dealership including sales office and sale of related merchandise. The director of planning and community environment is authorized to determine whether floor area is automobile showroom space, as described above. Floor area used for automobile showroom space shall not be converted to any other use if the total floor area devoted to uses other than automobile showroom space would exceed a floor area ratio of 0.4:1 following the conversion. 3) Notwithstanding Section 18.04.030 (65), the following shall not count toward an automobile dealership’s maximum floor area: i. Parking facilities for required parking related to service and repair areas shall be excluded from the calculation of gross floor area as provided in Section 18.52.040(b)(2), however, any enclosed or covered parking in excess of this requirement shall count toward total gross floor area; ii. Covered area dedicated to queuing of customer vehicles for drop off and pick up of service vehicles shall be exempt from the calculation of gross floor area; only one contiguous designated area shall be excluded in a development. . . . [This codifies existing practice.] SECTION 3. Section 18.40.160 (Replacement Project Required) of Chapter 18.40 (General Standards and Exceptions) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: 18.40.160 Replacement Project Required No permit required under Title 2 (Administrative Code), Title 12 (Public Works and Utilities), or Title 16 (Building Regulations) shall be issued, except for tenant improvements or where necessary for health and safety purposes (as determined by the City’s Building Official), unless plans for a replacement project have been approved. [This codifies existing practice.] NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 3 February 13, 2017 SECTION 4. Section 18.40.170 (Deferral of Director’s Action) of Chapter 18.40 (General Standards and Exceptions) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: 18.40.170 Deferral of Director’s Action The director shall have the authority to forward projects to City Council for final action in the circumstances listed below. No action by the Director shall be required, and the appeal process and or request for hearing process shall not apply to such referred actions. (a) In the case of projects having multiple entitlements, where one requires City Council approval, all entitlements may be referred to City Council for final action; (b) Projects involving leases or agreements for the use of City-owned property; and (c) Projects, as deemed appropriate by the director. [This codifies existing practice.] SECTION 5. Section 18.42.140 (Housing Inventory Sites Small Lot Consolidation) of Chapter 18.42 (Standard for Special Uses) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: 18.42.140 Housing Inventory Sites Small Lot Consolidation The following incentives and standards shall apply to sites listed in the Housing Element’s Housing Inventory Sites list and identified as “small lot, co n solid at ion opportunity” that are merged to form a larger parcel for development of an 100% affordable rental or ownership housing project. For purposes of this section only, a “100% affordable rental or ownership housing project” shall include mixed use projects containing ground floor retail and retail like use provided the residential square footage is at least 85% of the project’s gross floor area. (a) All projects shall comply with the respective development standards and allowable uses as specified in the underlying zone district, except as modified below; (b) For HIS properties not located in the RT 35 or RT 50 zones, the RT 35 development standards shall apply and development of a mixed use development is not required; (c) In the case of a conflict between the provisions of this section and the RT development standards (Chapter V, SOFA 2), this section shall control; (d) Any HIS property in excess of 10,000 square feet prior to consolidation shall not be entitled to any of the incentives in this section; (e) The applicable Housing Inventory Site (HIS) can be merged with both HIS and non- HIS sites; (f) The housing units shall be deed restricted as 100% affordable housing units for no less than 30 years; (g) Rental units shall be made affordable to households earning no more than 80% o f the Count y’s Are a Median In co me (AM I) an d ownership un its shall be made affordable to households earning no more than 120% of AMI; NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 4 February 13, 2017 (h) Application processing shall be prioritized throughout the planning entitlement phase to the maximum extent feasible; (i) All such projects shall be subject to Architectural Review. Site and design review required in the Code for mixed use projects shall be waived for such projects; (j) All subdivisions, regardless of the number of parcels created, shall be subject to the administrative Parcel Map subdivision process; however, maps requiring exceptions as specified in PAMC 21.32 shall follow the standard review process; (k) No parking is required for residential units less than 500 sq. ft., regardless of bedroom count; (l) Guest parking for the residential use, as required by PAMC 18.52.040, shall be reduced by 30%; fractional amounts shall be rounded down; and (m) Waiver of planning entitlement fees: Waive all planning application fees except for direct costs for consultant fees associated with project review. This waiver shall not include applicable parking in lieu or development impact fees. [This implements Housing Element Program H2.1.9.] SECTION 6. Section 18.52.040 (Off-Street Parking, Loading, and Bicycle Facility Requirements) of Chapter 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements) of Title 18 (Zoning) is amended to read as follows: 18.52.040 Off-Street Parking, Loading, and Bicycle Facility Requirements . . . (c) Tables 1, 2 and 3: Parking, Bicycle, and Loading Requirements Tables 1 and 2 below outline vehicle and bicycle parking requirements in general and for Parking Assessment Districts, respectively. Table 3 outlines loading requirements for each land use. For mixed-use projects, the requirement for each land use shall be applied and required for the overall project. . . . Table 3 Minimum Off-Street Loading Requirements Use Gross Floor Area Loading Spaces Required RESIDENTIAL USES • Single-family residential use • Two-family residential use • Multiple-family residential use No requirement established 0 • Dormitory, Fraternity/Sorority, or group housing where meals are provided in common dining facilities • Housing for the elderly or other community facility, 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 5 February 13, 2017 where meals are provided in common dining facilities 100,000 sq. ft. or greater 2 HEALTH CARE SERVICES • Hospitals • Convalescent facilities 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 100,000 – 199,999 sq. ft. 2 200,000 sq. ft. or greater 3 NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 6 February 13, 2017 [Continued on Next Page] Use Gross Floor Area Loading Spaces Required SERVICE USES • Automotive Uses 0 – 29,999 sq. ft. 1 30,000 – 69,999 sq. ft. 2 70,000 – 120,000 sq. ft. 3 Each additional 50,000 sq. ft. over 120,000 sq. ft. 1 additional space • Financial services • Personal services • Administrative office services 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 100,000 – 199,999 sq. ft. 2 200,000 sq. ft. or greater 3 RETAIL USES • Hotel/Motel/Inn 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 100,000 sq. ft. or greater-199,999 sq. ft. 2 200,000 sq. ft. or greater 3 • Retail Services • Eating and Drinking Services 0 – 4,999 sq. ft. 10 5,000 – 29,999 sq. ft. 1 30,000 – 69,999 sq. ft. 2 70,000 – 120,000 sq. ft. 3 For each additional 50,000 sq. ft. over 120,000 sq. ft. 1 additional space OFFICE USES • Medical offices • Professional offices • General business offices 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 100,000 – 199,999 sq. ft. 2 200,000 sq. ft. or greater 3 NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 7 February 13, 2017 [This corrects clerical codifying errors and implements prior Council direction re how to calculate parking requirements for mixed use projects.] SECTION 7. Section 18.52.050 (Adjustments by the Director) of Chapter 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements) of Title 18 (Zoning) is amended to read as follows: 18.52.050 Adjustments by the Director Automobile parking requirements prescribed by this chapter may be adjusted by the director in the following instances and in accord with the prescribed limitations in Table 4, when in his/her opinion such adjustment will be consistent with the purposes of this chapter, will not create undue impact on existing or potential uses adjoining the site or in the general vicinity, and will be commensurate with the reduced parking demand created by the development, including for visitors and accessory facilities where appropriate. No reductions may be granted that would result in provision of less than ten (10) spaces on a site. The following are adjustments that apply to developments not located within a parking assessment district. Adjustments within the parking assessment districts are contained in Section 18.52.080. The decision of the regarding parking adjustments may be appealed as set forth in Chapter 18.78 (Appeals). Table 4 Allowable Parking Adjustments Purpose of Adjustment Amount of Adjustment Maximum Reduction 2a On-Site Employee Amenities Square footage of commercial or industrial uses to be used for an on-site cafeteria, recreational facility, and/or day care facility, to be provided to employees or their children and not open to the general public, may be 100% of requirement for on- site employee Use Gross Floor Area Loading Spaces Required MANUFACTURING AND P ROCESSING USES • Warehousing and distribution • Manufacturing 0 – 4,999 sq. ft. 10 5,000 – 29,999 sq. ft. 1 30,000 – 69,999 sq. ft. 2 70,000 – 120,000 sq. ft. 3 For each additional 50,000 sq. ft. over 120,000 sq. ft. 1 additional space • Research and development 0 – 9,999 sq. ft. 0 10,000 – 99,999 sq. ft. 1 100,000 – 199,999 sq. ft. 2 200,000 sq. ft. or greater 3 OTHER USES All uses not specifically listed To be determined by the director NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 8 February 13, 2017 exempted from the parking requirements amenities Joint Use (Shared) Parking Facilities For any site or sites with multiple uses where the application of this chapter requires a total of or more than ten (10) spaces, the total number of spaces otherwise required by application of Table 1 may be reduced when the joint facility will serve all existing, proposed, and potential uses as effectively and conveniently as would separate parking facilities for each use or site. In making such a determination, the director shall consider a parking analysis using criteria developed by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) or similar methodology to estimate the shared parking characteristics of the proposed land uses. The analysis shall employ the city's parking ratios as the basis for the calculation of the base parking requirement and for the determination of parking requirements for individual land uses. The director may also require submittal and approval of a TDM program 1to further assure parking reductions are achieved. 20% of total spaces required for the site Housing for Seniors The total number of spaces required may be reduced for housing facilities for seniors, commensurate with the reduced parking demand created by the housing facility, including for visitors and accessory facilities, and subject to submittal and approval of a parking analysis justifying the reduction proposed. 50% of the total spaces required for the site Affordable Housing Units and Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Units The total number of spaces required may be reduced for affordable housing and single room occupancy (SRO) units, commensurate with the reduced parking demand created by the housing facility, including for visitors and accessory facilities. The reduction shall consider proximity to transit and support services and the director may require traffic demand management measures 1 in conjunction with any approval. a. 40% for Extremely Low Income and SRO Units b. 30% for Very Low Income Units c. 20% for Low Income Units Housing Near Transit Facilities The total number of spaces required may be reduced for housing located within a designated Pedestrian/Transit Oriented area or elsewhere in immediate proximity to public transportation facilities serving a significant portion of residents, employees, or customers, when such reduction will be commensurate with the reduced parking demand created by the housing facility, including for visitors and accessory facilities, and subject to submittal and approval of a TDM program.1 20% of the total spaces required for the site. Transportation and Parking Alternatives Where effective alternatives to automobile access are provided, other than those listed above, parking requirements may be reduced to an extent commensurate with the permanence, effectiveness, and the demonstrated reduction of off-street parking demand effectuated by such alternative programs. Examples of such programs may include, but are not limited to, transportation demand management (TDM) programs or innovative parking pricing or design solutions.1 (note: landscape reserve requirement is deleted). 20% of the total spaces required for the site Combined Parking Adjustments Parking reductions may be granted for any combination of the above circumstances as prescribed by this chapter, subject to limitations on the combined total reduction allowed. a. 30% reduction of the total parking demand otherwise required NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 9 February 13, 2017 b. 40% reduction for affordable housing projects c. 50% reduction for senior housing projects Modification to Off- Street Loading Requirements The director may modify the quantity or dimensions of off-street loading requirements for non-residential development based on existing or proposed site conditions; availability of alternative means to address loading and unloading activity; and, upon a finding that the off-street loading may conflict with Comprehensive Plan goals and policies related to site design planning, circulation and access, or urban design principles. One loading space may be waived . . . 2. No parking reductions may be granted that would result in provision of less than ten (10) parking spaces on a site. SECTION 8. Section 18.52.080(e) (Modification to Off-Street Loading Requirement) of Chapter 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: . . . (e) Modifications to Off-Street Loading Requirements The director may modify the quantity or dimensions of off-street loading requirements for non-residential development based on existing or proposed site conditions; availability of alternative means to address loading and unloading activity; and, upon a finding that the off-street loading may conflict with Comprehensive Plan goals and policies related to site design planning, circulation and access, or urban design principles; maximum reduction is one loading space. [This is a new section, but also reflects past staff practice for mixed use projects.] SECTION 9. Section 18.54.020(b)(4) (Vehicle Parking Facilities) of Chapter 18.54 (Parking Facility Design Standards) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: 18.54.020(b) Off-Street Parking Stalls . . . (4) Mechanical lifts may be used to satisfy off-street parking requirements, subject to approval by the director or city council, as applicable, and in accordance with the following provisions: A. The regulations in this section apply to mechanical lifts, elevators and turn-around devices specified for vehicle use, and other mechanical devices that facilitate vehicle parking; NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 10 February 13, 2017 B. Mechanical vehicle lifts may be used for multi-family residential, office, hotel, automotive, industrial or institutional uses. Other uses may use mechanical vehicle lifts subject to approval from the Director of Planning and Community Development and may be required to provide dedicated on-site valet assistance for no fee to the user. C. The location of mechanical lifts shall be located within an enclosed parking facility. All lifts and associated equipment shall be screened from public views and the screening shall be architecturally compatible with the site conditions; D. Applicant shall submit an analysis and report, prepared by a qualified professional, for review and approval by the Director of Planning and Community Environment that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed parking lift system; operational details; schematic or technical drawings; regular and emergency maintenance schedule, procedures and backup systems; vehicle queuing, access and retrieval efficiency; and potential impacts, delays, or inconveniences to all of the following: i. site residents, workers, and visitors ii. pedestrian and bicycle movement and safety on and nearby the site iii. vehicular movement and safety on and nearby the site E. Mechanical car lifts shall not be used for accessible parking spaces or loading spaces; F. Mechanical car lifts shall accommodate full-size sport utility vehicles G. For all non-residential uses, a minimum of two spaces or 10% of the total number of parking spaces provided, whichever is greater, shall be provided as standard non-mechanical parking spaces. The required accessible spaces shall not be counted as one of the standard spaces for this requirement; H. Additional information, reports and analysis may be required and conditions may be imposed to ensure the use, operation and function of the lift system is not detrimental to the public welfare, property, land uses and users of the property, other properties, or the public right of way, in the general vicinity. I. The Director shall have authority to adopt regulations to implement this provision. [This new section is added to address new mechanical parking lift technology.] SECTION 10. Chapter 10.70 (Trip Reduction and Travel Demand) is hereby repealed in its entirety. SECTION 11. Section 18.52.030 (i) (Transportation Management Plan) of Chapter 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements) of Title 18 (Zoning) is added to read as follows: NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 11 February 13, 2017 (i) Transportation Demand Management Plan (a) Requirement for TDM Plan: A Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Plan to reduce and manage the number of single-occupant motor vehicle trips generated by the project shall be prepared and submitted by the applicant in the following circumstances: 1. For all projects that generate 100 or more net new weekday (AM or PM peak hour) or weekend peak hour trips; 2. For all projects claiming a reduction in net new trips due to proximity to public transit or the implementation of a TDM plan; and 3. For all projects requesting a parking reduction. (b) The Director shall have the authority to adopt guidelines for preparing TDM plans and when applicable shall coordinate such guidelines with the Transportation Management Authority. SECTION 12. Section 18.52.050 (d)(1) of Chapter 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements) of Title 18 (Zoning) is amended to read as follows: . . . (d) Transportation Demand Management (TDM) (1) A Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program may be (a) proposed by an applicant, or may be (b) required by the director for any project requesting a reduction in parking or generating 100 or more net new weekday (AM or PM peak hour) or weekend peak hour trips; or (c) may be required as CEQA mitigation for identified potential significant parking impacts. (2) Where a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program is proposed or required, the TDM program shall outline parking and/or traffic demand measures to be implemented to reduce parking need and trip generation. The Director shall have the authority to adopt guidelines for preparing TDM plans. Required mMeasures may include, but are not limited to: participation in the Transportation Management Authority or similar organization, limiting "assigned" parking to one space per residential unit, providing for transit passes, parking cash-out, enhanced shuttle service (or contributions to extend or enhance existing shuttle service or to create new shared or public shuttle service), car-sharing, traffic-reducing housing, providing priority parking spaces for carpools/vanpools or "green" vehicles (zero emission vehicles, inherently low emission vehicles, or plug-in hybrids, etc.), vehicle charging stations, additional bicycle parking facilities, or other measures to encourage transit use or to reduce parking needs. The program shall be proposed to the satisfaction of the director, shall include proposed performance targets for parking and/or trip reduction and indicate the basis for such estimates, and shall designate a single entity (property owner, homeowners association, etc.) to implement the proposed measures. (3) Monitoring reports shall be submitted to the director two years after building occupancy and again every three years thereafter five years after building occupancy, noting the effectiveness of the proposed measures as compared to the initial performance targets, and NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 12 February 13, 2017 implementing suggestions for modifications if necessary to enhance parking and/or trip reductions. (4) Where the monitoring reports indicate that performance measures are not met, the director may require further program modifications and may impose administrative penalties if identified deficiencies are not addressed within six months. . . . [Sections 10-12 are added to codify and standardize the City’s TDM requirements.] SECTION 13. Any provision of the Palo Alto Municipal Code or appendices thereto inconsistent with the provisions of this Ordinance, to the extent of such inconsistencies and no further, is hereby repealed or modified to that extent necessary to effect the provisions of this Ordinance. SECTION 14. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Ordinance. The City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of the ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional. SECTION 15. The Council finds that the adoption of this ordinance is exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA Guideline sections 15061(b) and 15301, 15302 and 15305 because it simply provides a comprehensive permitting scheme. SECTION 16. This ordinance shall not apply to any planning or land use applications deemed complete as of the effective date of this ordinance. SECTION 17. This ordinance shall be effective on the thirty-first date after the date of its adoption. INTRODUCED: PASSED: AYES: NOES: ABSENT: ABSTENTIONS: NOT YET APPROVED 161129 jb 0131563 13 February 13, 2017 NOT PARTICIPATING: ATTEST: ____________________________ ____________________________ City Clerk Mayor APPROVED AS TO FORM: APPROVED: ____________________________ ____________________________ Senior Assistant City Attorney City Manager ____________________________ Director of Planning & Community Environment Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Excerpt Minutes: December 14, 2016 2 Council Chambers 3 250 Hamilton Avenue 4 6:00 PM 5 6 7 4. Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) 8 Title 18 (Zoning), Chapters 18.04 (Definitions), 18.30(F) ((Automobile Dealership (AD) 9 Combining District Regulations)), 18.52 (Parking and Loading Requirements), and 18.54 10 (Parking Facility Design Standards) Adding Sections 18.40.160 (Replacement Project 11 Required), 18.40.170 (Deferral of Director’s Action), and 18.42.140 (Housing Inventory Sites 12 Small Lot Consolidation) and Repealing Chapter 10.70 (Trip Reduction and Travel Demand). 13 The Proposed Ordinance is Exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) 14 per Sections 15061(b)(3). 15 16 Chair Alcheck: It is 10:00. What I would like to do is see how much we can get through of this 17 item, Item Number 4. I’m wondering if are we comfortable setting a time limit of 10:30? Ok. 18 19 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Well what do we have to get done on this today? Is there anything we 20 have to get done today? 21 22 Chair Alcheck: I'm going to suggest that we just get let staff make their presentation and then 23 we can begin and we'll see how we're doing and if there's a concern we can sort of bifurcate. 24 Staff if you would? 25 26 Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: So due to the time and the Commission's interest we're going 27 to be have a we’re going to breeze through this presentation because we'd rather hear your 28 comments. Ok. 1 2 Clare Campbell, Senior Planner: Ok. Good evening, Commissioners. So basically tonight I'm 3 going to review the proposals that were the proposed amendments that were brought forward 4 to you last month on the November 9th study session. We've got some objectives that we 5 talked about before addressing state law, Housing Element implementation, updating the code 6 for text changes and such, and so forth. And these changes are related to our Affordable 7 Housing Code, our entitlement review process, our off-street loading requirements, and our 8 Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan. And we're adding a new topic tonight and 9 that is related to the floor area calculations for auto dealerships located in the AD, Auto 10 Dealership overly. 11 12 So I'm just going to jump right into it. So all of these amendments we had brought forward last 13 month to discuss it and basically I've made the notation for all of these if something's changed 14 we haven't changed anything unless noted on these slides. So we have proposed definition 15 updates for some housing related definitions and we're going to be correcting some loading 16 space or updating some loading space items. The first one is to correct the error in the loading 17 space requirement table. The second is to clarify the mixed use requirements for projects. And 18 the last loading one is to allow Director’s adjustments for loading spaces. And the next ones we 19 have to allow the deferral of the Directors’ decision to Council for action, establish standards 20 for when a TDM plan is required for a project, and the next one is to update the Housing 21 Density Bonus regulations. So this one is going to be deferred to next year; staff didn't have 22 enough time to prepare the appropriate ordinance language. So that will come to you soon 1 early next year. 2 3 The next one is the to allow to require discretionary approvals to be completed before the 4 demolition permit is approved and no changes there. And the next one is to allow the use of 5 mechanical lifts in projects. So this one and the following one we did have extensive 6 conversation at the last meeting and staff has basically incorporated your comments and 7 feedback into the draft ordinance that's attached to the staff report. So allowing the kind of 8 lifts and the next one is to provide incentives to encourage consolidation of small housing 9 inventory sites. 10 11 And the very last one that we also discussed was to allow hotel conversions to affordable 12 housing units. So we're not planning to pursue this at this time. It was clear that there was 13 definitely more analysis needed. So that's going to be postponed to a future time. 14 15 Alright so the very last one here is the newly added item. So we have some changes being 16 proposed for floor area for auto dealership uses in the AD overlay. So the first one is to exempt 17 a floor area used for customer vehicle queuing for service drop off and the second one is to 18 exempt floor area used for parking requirements related to service areas. 19 20 So that was a quick wrap up that's all of them. So basically upon your recommendations were 21 we've got this tentatively scheduled for Council review on February 13th. Thank you. 22 1 Chair Alcheck: Ok thank you, staff. We did review this very recently and if you reviewed the 2 minutes and you looked at the current staff report then you know that a majority of our 3 comments are included. I think that the actually the best I'm going to ask if anybody wants to 4 speak on anything that they believe is controversial, but if someone is inclined I will absolutely 5 accept a Motion to make this recommendation and give people an opportunity to make 6 adjustments in the same process that we've used now for two meetings which is by 7 amendment, by unfriendly amendment. So I see one light, Commissioner Tanaka is that you? I 8 see a… you… I see another light so do you want me to call on that person? Ok, alright. So 9 Commissioner Rosenblum I see a light. Go ahead. 10 11 Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah, I this item I know that we reviewed for also something like 12 three hours the previous time and I was gratified to see all of our comments included and also 13 just the changes included. I'd be prepared whenever we want to make the Motion and go by 14 our previous process where if anyone wants to add an amendment, but I found it consistent 15 with our discussion. Everything was reflected. I think that we had a pretty deep discussion on 16 each of these items previously. So whenever it's time to make a Motion I'm happy to make it. 17 18 Chair Alcheck: I will accept Motions now. 19 20 Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok, I'd like… 21 22 Chair Alcheck: I have no other lights, so… 1 2 MOTION 3 4 Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok then I'll make a Motion to accept staff recommendation as 5 written. 6 7 SECOND 8 9 Chair Alcheck: Do I have a second? I have a second. Would you like to speak as a second to 10 your Motion? Ok. Commissioner Tanaka. At this time if anybody would like to amend to 11 suggest an amendment this would be the time. Commissioner Tanaka. 12 13 UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 14 15 Commissioner Tanaka: So page, Packet Page 87. So I see that E. says mechanical car lifts shall 16 not be used for required guest parking residential developments and I don’t see a good reason 17 why not so I think we should strike that. Page, Packet Page 87 E. basically I think we should 18 allow… Yeah. I can’t see why, why would we not want it to use in residential unless staff has a 19 good reason, but I don’t I can’t see why not. 20 21 Chair Alcheck: Ok, so the proposed amendment is to strike Item E. Do I have any seconds? 22 1 Commissioner Gardias: I’m sorry, which one? A? 2 3 Chair Alcheck: So this is Page 87. The proposal is to lift the restriction that mechanical car lifts 4 shall not be used for any required guest parking in a residential development or for accessible 5 parking spaces or loading spaces. Or is it actually just to remove it for guest parking? Let me 6 clarify. Are you suggesting that parking lifts could be used for accessible parking and how 7 (interrupted) 8 9 Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah, no. I was really talking about the guest parking (interrupted) 10 11 Chair Alcheck: Ok, so it's, sorry. 12 13 Commissioner Tanaka: Sorry. 14 15 RESTATED UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 16 17 Chair Alcheck: Proposed amendment is to modify E. and remove the words “required guest 18 parking in residential development.” So that would mean that mechanical boat [Note-car] lifts 19 could be used for required guest parking in a residential development. Like an apartment 20 complex that had to have a certain number of guest spots those could be operated with 21 mechanical lift. 22 1 Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, I agree with this. 2 3 Chair Alcheck: You second it? 4 5 SECOND 6 7 Commissioner Gardias: I second it. 8 9 Chair Alcheck: Ok, great. Would you like to speak your second? 10 11 Commissioner Gardias: Yeah I just I don't see justification for not applying the car, the 12 mechanical car, the car lifts for this purpose. 13 14 Chair Alcheck: Ok. 15 16 Commissioner Tanaka: Oh, should I speak or no? 17 18 Chair Alcheck: Would you like to speak to it? 19 20 Commissioner Tanaka: Sure, real quick. So I mean land value is real expensive in Palo Alto. We 21 should maximize the use of our land. Having mechanical car lifts does that so I can't see why 22 we should not allow that. 1 2 Chair Alcheck: Do you mind if I ask of staff a point of clarification? When we're talking about 3 just so I'm clear I used the example of an apartment complex and guests which I assume are 4 overnight guests or maybe even evening guests. Is there another subset of residential guest 5 parking different than what I'm thinking of in this scenario? 6 7 Ms. Campbell: No. So for residential projects there is a requirement that there's a certain 8 number of guest parking spaces. So it could be used for just a short term visit, something 9 overnight, but there are no other types of guest parking. 10 11 Chair Alcheck: Would like a prospective tenant, someone who wants to apply to live at a 12 residential apartment complex be considered a guest? 13 14 Ms. Campbell: Yeah, I would assume so because guests’ spaces are the ones that are not 15 dedicated to the units. 16 17 Chair Alcheck: Got it. Ok. Thanks for that point of clarification. Does anybody else have a 18 question or clarification on this item? Ok, so let's put it to a vote. All those in favor of removing 19 the language that I’ve identified in Section E. please raise your hand. All those opposed? 20 Would the opposition like to speak to their opposition? That's three for and two opposed. 21 Please do. 22 1 UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #1 PASSED (3-2-0-1, Commissioner Fine absent) 2 3 Commissioner Rosenblum: The reason the language was inserted I believe was that there’s 4 skepticism that if you have mechanical lift people will actually use it. So if you're short term 5 guest and so that will lead to more on street parking. So part of the parking requirements for 6 residential is to assuage neighbors for example that you’re not going to create parking 7 problems in the neighborhood. So counting their parking requirements for short term being 8 mechanical left I think will be met with skepticism by neighbors and I think rightfully so. 9 10 Chair Alcheck: Thank you. Would you like to speak your? 11 12 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: I concur with Mr. Rosenblum’s comments. 13 14 Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. I think Council will appreciate that information. Are there any 15 other amendments? Ok. 16 17 Commissioner Gardias: If you don't mind I just I'm trying to find I was on the phone back then 18 and so I'm trying to find out I proposed insertion of removal of the small lots that are subject of 19 the consolidation. I proposed removal of those small lots from the parking requirements and I 20 was going through the 18.42.140 on Page 81 trying to find where this found its place. 21 22 Ms. Campbell: So I can respond to that. We did not eliminate the parking requirements for the 1 small lots. 2 3 Commissioner Gardias: Ok. 4 5 Ms. Campbell: Because that [unintelligible] recommendations. 6 7 Commissioner Gardias: So it means that not all of the comments were inserted so then I have a 8 following questions, which items were not inserted or were changed from [unintelligible] 9 conversation? So I would like to get the list of those. That's Number 1 because it just puts into 10 doubt the this whole Motion. 11 12 Chair Alcheck: Ok, hold on. Hold on. I need to clarify something here. We went through this 13 process last time and it was the onus was on staff to determine based on our process whether 14 there was support for certain changes. And that is a tough process to determine whether or 15 not there's enough support for a proposed change. The flipside of that is the onus is upon us 16 during our review of this project, this item to determine whether or not our proposed changes 17 were incorporated and if they weren't to re-suggest them as amendments now and have an 18 opportunity to make a case to your fellow Commissioners. I don't think that there it would be 19 possible for staff to prepare a list of which of your comments last time were incorporated or 20 not. Do you have that list? 21 22 Ms. Campbell: So for the specific item it's actually I did call it out in the staff report. It's on Page 1 9 of the or Page 9 of the staff or Page 72 of the packet on the top and then it includes our staff 2 response. So basically our staff response was that we felt that eliminating parking 3 requirements altogether for these types of projects could have a significant parking impact so 4 that's something that we didn't pursue at this time. So definitely if it's a recommendation 5 (interrupted) 6 7 Commissioner Gardias: Right. So on which page it is? 8 9 Ms. Campbell: It is on Page 72 of the packet and the bullet points up at the top it's the third 10 bullet down and it says, “Eliminate parking requirements altogether from projects.” 11 12 Chair Alcheck: What I really want to highlight real quick is this process that I’ve set us in for the 13 last few meetings is really designed for us to be very specific about our changes, make cases for 14 them, to really have an opportunity to address everybody's specific concerns. The onus though 15 is upon each of us to do the homework to know what has changed in a particular ordinance and 16 how staff has dealt with it and if they feel like the staff response still doesn't address your 17 concern to make your concern to your fellow Commissioners in the in this amendment process 18 so that we can deal specifically with an issue and determine whether or not there's consensus. 19 If there isn't consensus regardless of how anybody feels then that amendment is not going to 20 happen. So what I suggest we do is if you feel strongly about this why don’t you make 21 (interrupted) 22 1 UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 2 3 Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, so I'm going to just it’s just responding to this, right? I mean just 4 took me by surprise because I heard different story as a neutral direction, right? I understood 5 that all of them were incorporated and now I understand that not all of them, right? So this 6 was one of them. 7 8 So let me just make a case why I proposed this because there is number of the small property 9 owners that would have ability or that to develop and care about their properties. If we 10 propose a policy that pretty much drives this specific the specific consolidation of the small lots 11 we pretty much select the winners and we select the losers. And the losers may be those that 12 because of some reason will not be will not have comparable power, economic power, to 13 develop their property as the guys that have ability to buy them out and then develop the 14 property. And then I think that from perspective of our City that has number of the small 15 business owners and the property owners it's not the right move. So for this reason I think that 16 we should support those small property owners as we would support others equally. For this 17 reason I propose that we should remove the burden on the parking requirements to set the 18 field straight. So I would like to propose Amendment to Paragraph 18.42.140 to remove 19 parking requirements on the for the small properties subject of the consolidation. 20 21 Chair Alcheck: Ok before I ask for a second does anybody want to ask any clarifying questions or 22 need clarification on this? Commissioner Tanaka. 1 2 Commissioner Tanaka: So wait, so which there’s A through I. Which one did you want to 3 change? 4 5 Commissioner Gardias: This is 18, this is Page 81. 6 7 Commissioner Tanaka: Oh, I know. I’m on there. Wait, wait… 8 9 Commissioner Gardias: On Page 81 there is a Paragraph 18.42.140 Housing Inventory Sites 10 small lot consolidation. It is pretty much expression of the policy that we define in the Housing 11 Element in 2014 and that policy was to drive number of the affordable units by allowing parties 12 to consolidate small lots into larger lots (interrupted) 13 14 Commissioner Tanaka: No, I get that, but did you want to change on… like so I see sub-bullets A 15 through I. Which bullet (interrupted) 16 17 Commissioner Gardias: I would like to add the sub-bullet to this whole section that would allow 18 owners of the small lots subject of the consolidation to be exempt from the parking 19 requirements. 20 21 Mr. Lait: So I think that’s specified if I may Chair. That’s specified on Packet Page 82, letter J. 22 where we stay no parking is required for residential units less than 500 square feet regardless 1 of bedroom count. If I'm understanding the Commissioner's comment there's no parking 2 requirement for any units produced. 3 4 Commissioner Gardias: That's correct. 5 6 Mr. Lait: So it's an amendment to the Letter J. on Packet Page 82. 7 8 Chair Alcheck: So if you turn to Page 82, Number J., Letter J. on Page 82 you would amend no 9 parking is required for residential units less than 500 square feet regardless of bedroom count 10 you would amend that to no parking is required for residential units. 11 12 Commissioner Gardias: Right, but there would be (interrupted) 13 14 Chair Alcheck: Am I understanding that right? Is that what your question was? Ok. 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: There would be distinction, right? Because I believe that if they are 17 they would be under this Paragraph 18.42.10 that they would have to contribute to the 18 affordable units. 19 20 Mr. Lait: Well so these are for 100 percent affordable this is for the production of 100 percent 21 affordable rental. So you're not paying into a fee also for that. 22 1 Commissioner Gardias: Right. So if you if we exempt them under this section then if they 2 contribute to the affordable rental or ownership units then they would be exempt fully from 3 the parking restrict… the parking requirements? 4 5 Mr. Lait: So just so I'm clear, this provision would only apply for these I don’t know, 20 some 6 odd properties where they were to join with another and build 100 percent affordable housing 7 units. 8 9 Commissioner Gardias: That's correct. 10 11 Mr. Lait: Ok. And so what I'm hearing you're saying is that if somebody were to do that you 12 don't want to have a parking requirement for the residential units that are produced. 13 14 Commissioner Gardias: On their own before without consolidation. 15 16 Mr. Lait: Oh, without consolidation. 17 18 Commissioner Gardias: Without consolidation. I understand that this is applicable for the 19 consolidation so if the room is somewhere else that you know (interrupted) 20 21 Chair Alcheck: Maybe this (interrupted) 22 1 Commissioner Gardias: [unintelligible] relevant for this. 2 3 Chair Alcheck: Maybe I'm hoping staff can help us figure this out. Maybe you can identify the 4 concern. What are you trying to prevent? 5 6 Mr. Lait: It’s the existing Housing Inventory Sites so it has nothing to do really with this because 7 this is seeking to consolidate. 8 9 Chair Alcheck: This is pre-consolidation I think is what (interrupted) 10 11 Mr. Lait: But you're saying for the existing parcels as they exist today you want to create 12 incentives (interrupted) 13 14 Commissioner Gardias: Exactly. 15 16 Mr. Lait: For those owners to build housing. Affordable housing? 17 18 Commissioner Gardias: Yes, exactly. 19 20 Mr. Lait: And not have parking be a part of the (interrupted) 21 22 Commissioner Gardias: Subject to the same condition as those that would be subject of the 1 consolidation conditions give them credit for parking. 2 3 Mr. Lait: So if you can give, so let can we just talk about that while you move onto the next, if 4 there is another? 5 6 Chair Alcheck: So just so I’m clear is staff understanding this as an entirely new section or do 7 they perceive this as an amendment to an existing section? 8 9 Mr. Lait: Yes, we do believe that it’s a new section. What we're trying to do and what the 10 objective here is is to implement the Housing Element which is seeking to encourage lot 11 consolidation so that you get more efficiency, probably more units, and so what I'm hearing is 12 to create an incentive to not keep them, to not consolidate them by means of having parking be 13 not provided, not required for the development. 14 15 Chair Alcheck: Ok. What I would like to do if are you open to suggesting that as a second 16 Motion after we deal with this Motion? 17 18 Commissioner Gardias: Well I mean it could be considered in a number of ways. I mean I 19 understand that because of the policy that we have and we have to implement it under 20 Housing Element we are pursuing the lot consolidation, but we can either create a separate 21 section or we can just pretty much change the title of this section and then or just pretty much 22 create exemption under the same section. It would meet the requirements. 1 2 Chair Alcheck: Ok. I'm trying to figure out how we can proceed with this so there’s sort of two 3 questions. Number 1 is we don't really have precise language to review on this item and so 4 without that I think what I would like to do is suggest that you propose and see if there's a 5 consensus for asking staff to create that language and bringing it to us to review. 6 7 Cara Silver, Senior Assistant City Attorney: And I think what staff is struggling with here is that it 8 appears to us that your recommendation is to give some zoning incentives to a few properties 9 in town and that has not been agendized. 10 11 Commissioner Gardias: I totally understand, but I also have a concern that just by meeting this 12 without creating a level playing the level fields that we incentivize some over the others. And I 13 totally understand that this hasn't been agendized so for this reason I was proposing this as a 14 either exemption or change of the title of the section so we can still meet this proposal from my 15 perspective. I might be the only one. My colleagues may might disagree with this, right? But 16 from my perspective if this passes without the other it just pretty much it shifts the balance of 17 power toward certain property owners. 18 19 Chair Alcheck: Ok so I'm not really sure how to proceed. What I would like to do is suggest that 20 either we operate on the premise… yeah. We operate on the premise that this is an 21 amendment and I ask for a second or we treat it as a Motion to ask staff to come back to us and 22 see if there’s support for that. Either way we get to vote on whether or not there’s support for 1 this. 2 3 Mr. Lait: Ok. So I think our perspective on this is that this is not been properly agendized to 4 establish that (interrupted) 5 6 Chair Alcheck: Ok. It would be fair though to have a Motion to see if we could revisit this at a 7 next meeting and see if there's consensus for that. 8 9 Mr. Lait: You could. 10 11 Chair Alcheck: Ok. So what I'm going to do is suggest that we vote on the Motion on the table 12 as amended and then I'll allow Commissioner Gardias to make another Motion tonight asking 13 staff to bring this item back to us and see if there is a second for that Motion. So wanted… are 14 you comfortable with that? 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: Could you repeat it please how we? 17 18 Chair Alcheck: Ok, so the issue is that you would like to discuss a topic that hasn’t been 19 agendized. So the process for doing that would be to make a Motion tonight and see if it 20 carries requesting that staff bring us this item agendized for the purposes of reviewing a 21 Planning Code amendment that would (interrupted) 22 1 Commissioner Gardias: As a separate topic? 2 3 Chair Alcheck: As a separate topic because it hasn't been agendized. 4 5 Commissioner Gardias: Ok, but I can also just propose another Motion? I can propose a Motion 6 to remove this section entirely from tonight's consideration. 7 8 Chair Alcheck: Yeah an amendment to remove this from the current Motion. You can propose 9 that. 10 11 UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 12 13 Commissioner Gardias: Yes so I'm going to propose this Motion [note-Unfriendly Amendment] 14 to remove this section because of that reason from the consideration tonight. 15 16 Chair Alcheck: Ok, alright there is an amendment. I under (interrupted) 17 18 Commissioner Gardias: Section 18.42. (interrupted) 19 20 Chair Alcheck: The entire Section A. through J., Page 80. So if I'm stating correctly there is 21 currently an amendment to remove the Housing Inventory Site small lot consolidation section. 22 Do I have a second? Do I have a question about a second? 1 2 Commissioner Tanaka: I… ok. Can the maker talk about rationale why he wants to do that? 3 4 Commissioner Gardias: So rationale is pretty much this that it would elevate some property 5 owners over the others. That the consideration. That’s the concern, I'm sorry. So for this 6 reason I would like to just change the language of this, have the staff come back to us on a 7 separate time, and then revise it so similar rights of building out their properties would be 8 giving to those owners that want to build affordable housing, but doesn't want to consolidate. 9 10 SECOND 11 12 Chair Alcheck: Any more questions? Ok so we have a second of the amendment. 13 14 Mr. Lait: Chair? Just one comment; this section is the reason we're here. This is the reason why 15 we're moving this ordinance forward. 16 17 Chair Alcheck: I understand that. 18 19 Mr. Lait: Ok. 20 21 Chair Alcheck: I’m… I understand that. Ok, so I have a second for an amendment to the 22 proposed Motion. Do you want to speak your second? 1 2 Commissioner Tanaka: Sure. So the reason why I support it is although I’m a little bit confused 3 by it, but the reason why I support it is because I think he's trying to fix a problem and I think 4 the Commission should have time to fix the problem because I think if we’re trying to fix it on 5 Council we’re going to be even more confused. So that's why I’m entertaining it. 6 7 Chair Alcheck: Ok. Does anybody else wish to address this issue before we vote? 8 Commissioner Rosenblum. 9 10 Commissioner Rosenblum: Yeah I want to address this issue. So this does gut the entire 11 purpose of this of a lot of our discussion. The City's policy is to state that in trying to create 12 affordable housing we need to have enough lot liquidity you need to have a large enough lot to 13 have the Below Market Rate (BMR) housing be offset by market rate housing. And when you 14 have small lots the reason that we're doing this is because empirically we found that small lots 15 don't result in affordable housing for that reason. And so the whole reason to have this there is 16 to force this incentive towards consolidation. So you're right it is providing incentives for 17 certain kinds of property owners specifically to achieve a policy goal. So yeah so this does 18 confuse me because this is the empirical result of observing that small lots don't provide the 19 opportunity to have either BMR be offset or just an efficient place for someone like Palo Alto 20 Housing Corp. to develop a property. That's just not the way to do it. 21 22 VOTE 1 2 Chair Alcheck: Ok. I literally couldn't agree with you more. At this time though I'm going to put 3 this proposed amendment to the current Motion to a vote; all of those in favor please raise 4 your hand. We have one in favor. All those opposed? We have three opposed. All abstaining? 5 We have one abstainer. So that fails. So we have a Motion on the table as amended. Would 6 staff like to clarify the current Motion as amended? 7 8 UNFRIENDLY AMENDMENT #2 FAILED (1-3-1-1, Commissioner Fine absent) 9 10 Mr. Lait: So I have move the staff report amending Section 9 to Item E. removing the required 11 parking, the lifts for guest parking to allow that. 12 13 VOTE 14 15 Chair Alcheck: Ok, so all those in favor of the Motion as amended please raise your hand. It’s 16 unanimous; unanimous support for the Motion. Ok. That concludes Item Number 4. 17 18 MOTION PASSED (5-0-0-1, Commissioner Fine absent) 19 20 Commission Action: Recommend that the City Council Adopt the staff recommended 21 ordinance. Motion made by Commissioner Rosenblum, seconded by Commissioner 22 Tanaka motion is APPROVED 5-0. 23 Amended Motion: 1 A. Amend Section 9 - 9.18.54.020(b) Item E to remove required parking in guest 2 parking, motion made by Commissioner Tanaka, seconded by Commissioner 3 Gardias, APPROVED 3-2 Commissioner Waldfogel and Rosenblum AGAINST. 4 B. Amend the ordinance to remove Section 5 18.42.140 from the ordinance. Motion 5 made by Commissioner Gardias, seconded by Commissioner Tanaka; motion FAILED 6 3-1-1; Vice-chair Waldfogel and Chair Alcheck Against; Commissioner Rosenblum 7 Abstained. 8 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Regular Meeting Agenda: November 9, 2016 2 Verbatim Minutes 3 EXCERPT 4 5 5. Study Session to Review Modifications and Updates to Title 18 to Implement Housing 6 Element Programs and Zoning Code Clarifications 7 8 Chair Alcheck: [recording starts in progress] would be the Planning Code Amendments study 9 session. 10 11 Jonathan Lait, Assistant Director: Thank you, Chair Alcheck. We're going to, I’m going to ask 12 Clare Campbell who has recently… who's been with the City for some time, but has now 13 switched over to our Long Range Planning Team to help us with our list of policy items to lead 14 you in the presentation and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. 15 16 Clare Campbell, Senior Planner: Great, thank you. Good evening, Commissioners; Clare 17 Campbell, Senior Planner. So tonight we have a collection of proposed code amendments for 18 our zoning code that we'd like to get some direction from you. We’re looking to get some 19 comments and suggestions for our code language so we can bring that forward for 20 recommendation next month. So tonight we're basically focused on four different areas. 21 We've got some housing related amendments, some review process modifications, corrections 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and modifications to our off street loading and parking standards, and a brief discussion on our 1 Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan requirements. 2 3 So the first one up today is our housing definitions. So in our Housing Element the City 4 committed to updating these two definitions for transitional housing and supportive housing, 5 to remove the references to multiple family uses. And the text that we're using or that we're 6 proposing is taken directly from the Housing Element program language and it's shown here on 7 our screen and it's also in the staff report. 8 9 The second item is for our housing inventory sites small lot consolidations. With the adoption 10 of our Housing Element the City also committed to meeting specifications of Program H2.1.9 by 11 January 2017 which involves amending the zoning code to create incentives that encourage 12 consolidation of smaller lots that are specifically identified on our housing inventory sites and 13 developed with 100 percent affordable housing units. So here I have a map it's not as clear as 14 I'd like it to be, but I have a separate one if we need to pull that up. But basically here we have 15 the distribution of our housing inventory and we have a cluster in the Downtown, we have 16 some along the El Camino corridor, there's a cluster in the Cal Ave. area, and also along the San 17 Antonio corridor. So there are 27 sites that have been identified as consolidation opportunities 18 and these cluster basically in the Downtown area and near the Fry’s site. So in the Downtown 19 area we've got two lots that are zoned CD and we have 21 lots in South of Forest Avenue 2 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. (SOFA 2) which are RT35. So this is the majority of the lots that have been identified as a small 1 lot opportunity sites for consolidation. So RT is the predominant zone for these properties. 2 3 So the next one is in the Fry's area, we have four CS lots near the Fry's area and so for moving 4 forward we've come up with some suggested standards and incentives for these consolidations. 5 So as far as the standards go basically we're saying we'd like to recommend that these housing 6 inventory sites can be merged with both inventory sites and non-inventory sites. The units 7 have to be deed restricted for a minimum of thirty years as 100 percent affordable housing. 8 We've established or suggested some affordable levels of income for these for ownership units 9 and for rental units and we're also suggesting that we use RT35 development standards for all 10 of these project types. For the incentives we're suggesting that the these projects have priority 11 processing for their entitlements, that we streamline the subdivision process for the project, we 12 would establish a legal conforming status for non RT35 lots, we would eliminate parking for 13 small units that are less than 300 square feet (sf), and we would provide a reduction in the 14 required guest parking for the project. 15 16 Alright, so moving on to housing density, so earlier this year we had four bills that were related 17 to density bonus that were adopted and we have some recommended amendments or 18 amendments that we have to comply with. And basically we've got a 20 percent density bonus 19 where at least 10 percent of the total housing units are designated for foster youth, disabled 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. veterans or homeless persons and are offered at the same affordability levels as very low 1 income units and this is AB 2242. Another amendment is to adopt specific procedures and 2 timelines for processing a density bonus application and this is related to AB 2501. And the last 3 one is guidance on what to do you when a density bonus replaces existing housing units and 4 this is related to AB 2556. 5 6 Alright, so the last housing item is a new policy and it's related to converting older hotels or 7 motels to housing units and if we assume that we want to go in this direction we've been 8 thinking about what can the City do to facilitate the change in use. So we know that we have 9 these types of projects we have code required upgrades for life and safety issues that those 10 cannot be waived whatsoever, but we are suggesting to waive some other types of zoning 11 requirements when it when there's a change in use such as changing the parking requirements 12 and for example, open space requirements for residential units. So we would ask the question: 13 what do we do to encourage this type of housing and what would we want in return for this? 14 So some of our suggested terms or requirements for this project would be a 30 year term for 15 affordable housing, 100 percent affordable housing, and priority given to Palo Alto residents or 16 employees. 17 18 So the next item is our first process item and this is regarding approvals. So we have a 19 longstanding practice of requiring all relevant planning entitlements to be approved before any 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. consideration of acting on the associated demolition permit. The zoning code has specific 1 requirements for this when it relates to architecture review applications, but it’s silent on its 2 applicability to any other type of entitlement. So we're looking to update the code to require 3 entitlement approvals prior to related demolition approvals for all projects and not just the 4 architecture review, so just to be explicit about that requirement. 5 6 Ok, so the next one is forwarding entitlements to Council for action. So when a project requires 7 multiple entitlements where the required action is split between the Planning Director and City 8 Council for example, site and design where that needs Council action and a variance which 9 needs a Planning Director's action maintaining separate authority can be a drawback to the 10 overall review of the project. We're suggesting that we make some code changes to allow the 11 Planning Director to forward all relevant planning entitlements to the Council for action where 12 Council action is required for one of those entitlements as a complete package for 13 consideration. So this allows the Council to get a complete picture of what's being proposed for 14 this project and can act accordingly. There are also other scenarios where forwarding projects 15 to Council for action may be recommended such as when projects involve leases or agreements 16 with City owned property and if on a case by case basis when the Director deems it to be 17 appropriate. And we can get into discussion a little bit more about that later. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ok, so moving on to TDM plans. We’d like to establish when a TDM plan is required for a 1 project. Our code includes references to TDM plans in association with requested parking 2 adjustments in non-parking assessment areas and we’d like to establish some citywide 3 standards for when a project triggers the preparation of a TDM plan. So some of the 4 recommended thresholds are 100 or more new weekday trips, a.m. or p.m. peak hour or 5 weekend peak hour trips, reduction on onsite parking or in order to support claims for projects 6 for a projects lower trip generation when the applicant claims that. 7 8 And the very last… oh no, next we’re moving on to loading. So our loading table was basically 9 established in 1978. There was a consolidation of the parking chapter to create a one parking 10 chapter information was consolidated from the individual zone districts and basically over the 11 years through formatting changes and updates some information has been lost in the updates 12 and erroneously emitted from this table. So here we have a red line version of the errors that 13 we need to correct. So basically I mean it's pretty straightforward. So somehow we've dropped 14 this upper threshold here for the for this room or area size for this building. So this is to put 15 that back in. We have a threshold here from 0 to 4,999 that was dropped off the table before 16 so we're putting that back in and adding this second level of square footage where it requires 17 one. So this is all what was consistent in the original tables for the loading requirements 18 previously and lower for manufacturing processing. We have the same error that was made 19 when the format was changed for this particular table. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Alright, so the next loading item is adjustments. So some developments in dense areas like the 2 Downtown can be significantly impacted when required to provide the off street loading space 3 and this space by our code definition is 45 feet long by 12 feet wide and requires a 15 foot 4 height clearance. Staff is proposing to allow the Planning Director the discretion to reduce or 5 modify this loading requirement when conditions are appropriate. And later on we do have 6 some examples of some site plans that we can show you to kind of help with this discussion. 7 8 Ok and then we need to clarify mixed use loading requirements. Our current loading table 9 doesn't specifically have a line item that's for mixed use, but basically we just want to make it 10 clear that loading requirements shall be based on the specific land uses that are being proposed 11 for that project. So it's just a clarification that we’ll change there. 12 13 And the last item is regarding mechanical lifts for the parking. And basically the proposed use 14 for mechanical this is becoming more popular. We're seeing more applicants coming in and 15 suggesting it or wanting to use these types of mechanisms to help satisfy the parking 16 requirements. We've had several projects and maybe in the last five years that we've 17 approved. It's gone through the process and we've approved them. They've all been mixed use 18 projects, residential and commercial, and they've all been projects where these lifts are in a 19 garage facility. So nothing is outside that’s visible. So we'd like to have some parameters in the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. code to basically allow this type of solution for parking and these are some of our suggested 1 standards for these lifts. So we want to clarify that we would it would be for residential or 2 office land use only, not to be used for guest parking, accessible parking or loading zones, it 3 needs to accommodate a full size sport utility vehicle (SUV), and basically to have some 4 provisions for nonresidential use to have some non-mechanical lift spaces so if someone needs 5 to just pull in and park real quick they have that opportunity to do that. So we can talk through 6 that. 7 8 We can also include in the past with some of the projects that I've personally worked on we've 9 had conditions of approval that there's parking management plans and plans that provide 10 emergency guidelines for when something goes wrong so that way everyone in the building is 11 aware of what they need to do and what, who you're supposed to call when something isn't 12 working the way that it needs to. And we can definitely include provisions in the code to 13 require maintenance and usability for the life of the project. I know that that can be a concern 14 so we can specify that as well. 15 16 Ok, so next steps. So we're looking to get your feedback today for these changes and we're 17 hoping to return in December with some of the supported changes that we're talking about 18 tonight for formal recommendation and ideally we would go to City Council in early 2017 with 19 your recommendations for these code amendments. Thank you. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Mr. Lait: And Chair we didn’t have a chance to strategize about how we might approach this. 2 So I might unless you have some ideas I might recommend that we go through the items in the 3 staff report starting on packet Page 16, Page 2 of the staff report where we list through Roman 4 numbers perhaps? 5 6 Ms. Campbell: Yes. 7 8 Mr. Lait: The nine proposed amendments. That might provide the process and I would just like 9 to make one other point that and we included some staff report last year there was a little bit 10 of awkwardness and when staff approached this last time and we're, we want to not have that 11 this time around. So I want to be clear that whatever the recommendation is from the Planning 12 Commission that's the recommendation we're going to advance to the City Council. There's not 13 going to be a staff recommendation and a Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) 14 recommendation. That didn't turn out the way that we thought it would last time and so we 15 want to be making some changes this time around. There is I think one or two state mandated 16 changes. Those ones we do need to move forward regardless of where the PTC may be on that, 17 but we can include the policy conversation in the staff reports. So with that we're here to help 18 with that discussion. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Alcheck: Alright, so we do have a speaker card so let’s see, Steve Pierce, if you could come 1 up and I’ll give you five minutes. 2 3 Steve Pierce: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, I'm Steve Pierce of the 4 Downtown North neighborhood. Like to speak to you for just a few moments about the loading 5 zone changes that are before you and I certainly support what's in the staff report, but I don't 6 think it really goes far enough to cause to kind of remedy a problem I think is in the code. 7 8 Now this off street loading the zones are huge 45 feet long, 12 feet wide, 15 foot vertical 9 clearance and they apply to many uses such as restaurants and retail and so forth. So they 10 really don't apply to a number of the areas that we have in town. So if you consider for 11 example the Apple Store that was built some years ago, spectacular glass building, they being 12 more than 5,000 sf would have been required to have somewhere within those premises a 13 truck loading zone which obviously is absurd. I'm involved in a project on Cambridge Avenue 14 which is recently been rezoned so that the first floor is supposed to be retail and then again 15 now we're supposed to provide a loading zone somewhere within that small footprint which 16 basically is impossible. So while the City on one hand saying hey we want retail here, the 17 loading zone provision makes it impossible to even provide that. The result is you don't do 18 anything because you can't. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. So I would recommend… well, let's put this way I mean the loading zones certainly have their 1 purposes for shopping centers, grocery stores, your large box stores of which I don't think we 2 have any in town. Well, maybe one. So basically we know as Clare mentioned they really don't 3 work in our urban centers. So they don't work in Downtown, there's no purpose for them 4 there. There's alleys, there's off site loading zones. Cal Ave. area really doesn't work and 5 there's probably the other areas in town where it doesn't work either. So what I would suggest 6 is that we actually do a couple things. Number one, with respect to loading zones that we 7 exclude certain areas of town such as the Downtowns that we have and also that we really pick 8 up the need for the loading zones at a much higher threshold where now it's anything over 9 5,000 sf which is a reasonable size restaurant it really needs to be geared more to the grocery 10 store, to the shopping center so we're probably talking 30,000, 50,000 sf and above should 11 have a loading zone and requiring it for at these much smaller levels and areas of the City which 12 are just can't accommodate them basically just pushes a lot of projects through. Well, if you 13 approve this sort of Director approval and having to consider these things a lot of which just 14 don't make sense on the face of it. So I would just suggest that we change the criteria so that 15 this loading zone requirement is made more operable. Thank you. 16 17 Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. I do have an idea of how I'd like to do this tonight. And I actually 18 really appreciate you sort of setting the framework for how we're going to get through this 19 process because in the past it's been a little, it has been a little hairy. This is what I would like 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to do. Since this is going to be a two meeting study session what my preference tonight is for 1 us to go through the items that each of us feels particularly interested in discussing and being 2 very specific about a change that you'd like to see. I'd like to go one at a time and not 3 necessarily item by item. I'm going to let each individual sort of go through the items in this 4 packet that they'd like to comment on. I am hopeful that staff can essentially take notes, 5 copious notes. And what I would like to see if a Commissioner either feels, finds himself in 6 strong agreement with some other comment just make that point. Like oh, I agree with that, 7 I'd like to see that. And if they feel strongly against it make that point and if there isn't a strong 8 opinion about a particular change don't. 9 10 And my response, my request also will be that for example, I imagine maybe some 11 Commissioners will respond to our speaker’s comments. Ideally if staff feels like let’s I’m going 12 to use this as an example, we had a suggestion tonight that the loading sites not apply to 13 certain areas like Downtown. If for example a Commissioner suggests that we adopt that into 14 this study session or that we should pursue that what I'd love to see is staff come back in the 15 follow-up meeting if they believe that that change could result in sort of a negative 16 consequence. Like for example, tonight you don't really know if that is an applicable or suitable 17 adjustment if when we come back in the next study session we could say ok we know we 18 explored this idea of certain zones and here's where we think that could be problematic or 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. here's where it isn’t so that we get sort of immediate feedback on the suggestions we make 1 tonight. Ok, so that's my suggestion. 2 3 I'm going to go first by way of example. And I'm going to speak to the issues that I'd like to 4 speak to and everybody can kind of jump in on their issues. So I'll just reiterate that I think that 5 the comments related to the off street loading made by our guest are interesting to me and I 6 would like to see sort of a little bit broader discussion about whether or not we can eliminate 7 some of those requirements in the certain zones specifically in Downtown so that we can 8 alleviate some of the tougher standards where they really potentially aren't possible. And I 9 don't know that I need to explore the anymore except that if staff feels strongly and what I'll do 10 is after we finish we can have staff respond. Ok? 11 12 The next item I want to talk about is mechanical lifts. I thought it was particularly unappealing 13 for these lifts to only apply to residential and office land uses. I know from personal experience 14 that they can be very effective in hotel uses and so I find that the fact that it's not included as 15 potential uses… I almost think that maybe restricting the use is not a suitable way of doing this. 16 I think we should leave it open and if there is a specific concern that a mechanical lift isn't 17 suitable for a specific use I think we should sort of highlight that as opposed to having to 18 continue to broaden. Well, ok we’ll use them in residential maybe in office. Ok, maybe in 19 hotel. Ok, maybe in retail. I would prefer almost that we eliminate that distinction. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 I felt the same way about the notion of guest parking. I wasn't entirely sure why certain types 2 of users couldn't necessarily use of a mechanical lift. That felt overly restrictive. Even the 3 Bullet 3 about full size utility vehicles I wondered if there wasn't some sort of data where 4 certain populations, our population uses a certain percentage of full size and a certain 5 percentage of small size. Do they all have to accommodate what would be a full size SUV. That 6 seems a little onerous. 7 8 And then I'm going to skip forward the no demolition until replacement project approval; one 9 of the concerns I've had throughout this process of what was initially described as cleaning up 10 the code is that I think sometimes when we attempt to sort of create clarification by subtle 11 adjustments in the language we don't realize that we're actually making policy changes. So I'll 12 give you an example, right now if you don't have a project that's subject to the review you can 13 theoretically get your permit to demolish or even more importantly deconstruct your project in 14 anticipation of approval. And I think the reason why that's the case is because when you know 15 the rules going in your application is more likely to comply with those rules as opposed to with 16 the review board there's so much grey area to how your project could go and it could take 17 months before you have resolution. So having a site that's basically demolished is unappealing 18 in our neighborhoods. I will say this, there we this is an example of an area where I think more 19 thought should take place. Are we theoretically discouraging deconstruction? Deconstruction 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. typically takes a lot longer than demolition. Being able to get started on a project’s 1 deconstruction which is a very green way of dealing with old materials is something that if you 2 can get started with earlier in your process you have an incentive to do it. Time is money when 3 it comes to this process and so if for example you have to wait till the very last minute to 4 demolish your structure you may elect to demolish instead of deconstruct. I think we're 5 creating incentives here. So I would love to see us either table that one or spend a little time 6 talking about that. 7 8 And those are my comments on the items. So what I'd love to see is you guys light up the 9 board and we and go through your things. If you have specific comments just make them and 10 we'll give staff an opportunity I think at the end of this first round to sort of respond so that you 11 can kind of understand where we're at. And then if we need to we can do more discussion and 12 then finally we can let staff come back to us in the following study session. Ok, Commissioner 13 Rosenblum. 14 15 Commissioner Rosenblum: Thank you. I'll try to use this process. We’ll see how I do. I want to 16 divide this list into big things and small things. And I agree with the comment that these for the 17 most part are not wording changes. These are all kind of big items. So just I know that we had 18 the discussion before. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Lait: We did. 1 2 Commissioner Rosenblum: And I don't want to revisit it. 3 4 Mr. Lait: I just want to so on this process I want to… I hope there's an opportunity for a little bit 5 of give and take because my concern is we're going to hear from all six of you about something 6 that I might want to clarify so we don't have to have that conversation. 7 8 Chair Alcheck: Absolutely, if you have a clarification just jump in. 9 10 Mr. Lait: Great, thank you. And just on that point we were, I feel like we were clear in the 11 report summary we're not expressing the... we don't have the position that these are minor 12 tweaks. I mean 80 percent of them, 70 percent of them may be, well actually less than that I 13 mean there may be a I’m just picking a number. Like 20 percent may be like legitimate code 14 errors that we just need to fix. There's another percentage that reflect City policy and how 15 we've done things. And that’s we're not do anything really new, we’re just memorializing how 16 we've done it. And then there are definitely some new concepts that we're introducing and we 17 talked about that. And we say that there are new policy new initiatives related to affordable 18 housing and transportation management plans and so forth. So I agree, some of these things 19 aren't little tweaks. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Rosenblum: Ok. So in my category of really big things I think that the City's 2 affordable housing crisis and housing in general is top of the list we look at our City’s citizen 3 survey around greatest source dissatisfaction is the affordability and availability of housing. So 4 the two items the consolidation of small lots to encourage denser affordable housing units I'm 5 quite supportive of this and the map identifying the actual places they all seem to be clustered 6 around our two major transit hubs. The item I would suggest for consideration by Council is to 7 have and one of the big incentives is that units under 300 sf are exempt from parking 8 requirements regardless of number of bedrooms. I would like to see that increased to 500 sf, 9 300 sf is an extraordinarily small unit and again we're building affordable housing close to 10 transit. It's a significant incentive to give a parking reduction and this one would be in 11 combination with the TDM measures that we’ll talk about in one moment. 12 13 The second implementation of state law density bonus 20 percent where at least 10 percent of 14 total housing units are designated for foster youth, disabled veterans, homeless people, 15 etcetera. My gut on that is given the nature of these units a 20 percent bonus may still not 16 make it attractive to build these units for this population. This is very low income units and so 17 again my advice to Council would be consider to go up to 40 percent or at least study that, to 18 study the economics of building something with 20 percent bonus for very low income and that 19 you may have to increase the density bonus. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 TDM I think is the last of the really big ones to me. I like the staff suggestion which is 100 net 2 new trips fires off the TDM requirement. The advice that I would have as part of the packet 3 that goes to Council is to study what San Mateo did. So if San Mateo has implemented 4 something like this around basically what measures seem sufficient in order to basically you're 5 having TDM measures in place in exchange for some sort of parking reduction I think is part of 6 the intent of this. That you're going to have to have some measures in place in exchange for 7 that the benefit is that you build fewer parking spaces. And so my advice is I don't have any 8 specific input on levels, but that San Mateo has gone through this process quite recently and so 9 for Council to consider that would be germane information. 10 11 And then the things I think are a little bit smaller, I agree with our Chair for the most part on the 12 use of mechanical parking except on two items. I agree with him that we should not restrict 13 use types meaning I see no reason why hotels or auto dealerships, etcetera wouldn’t benefit 14 from mechanical parking. However, I do agree with staff’s recommendation that you have to 15 have normal guest parking of people coming in and out I think it's a serious impediment to have 16 100 percent mechanical. And I also think that we do need to accommodate full sized SUVs and 17 not get too fancy around having different proportions of different kinds of mechanical lifts that 18 support different sides of cars. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. The loading zone I am persuaded by our speaker that there are certain parts of town and 1 certain size of buildings where it doesn't make sense and undermines other ordinances like our 2 want for retail in the Downtown cores and I understand that and agree that that's an important 3 distinction and would encourage staff to look at exemptions for certain areas for certain types 4 of uses. 5 6 And then the final one that I think is a little bit niche is around the hotel conversion for 7 affordable housing. This seems to make sense to me. It seems to have been done once. Staff 8 doesn't think that's necessarily going to be done quite often, but has identified seven other 9 sites. The incentives seem to make sense to me. So this is one I don't have any… I would pass 10 this one. That’s it. 11 12 Chair Alcheck: Thank you. That was excellent. Commissioner Fine. 13 14 Commissioner Fine: So thank you very much to staff for this. I was particularly pleased to see 15 some of the small lot of maps. That was actually really helpful to envision what those changes 16 might look like. Some information that might help us make a decision here on 17 recommendations or for Council; how many of the loading area exceptions have been made 18 across the City in the past few years? Are they concentrated in the Downtown area? I was 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. persuaded by the speaker and by my colleagues here. I’d just like to know what are the 1 exceptions there? Why have they been made? What are the specifics? 2 3 On terms of lifts I agree about the additional uses, I'm just wondering how they've been used at 4 all in Palo Alto. Do you guys, do any of you know of mechanical lifts used in the City so far? 5 6 Ms. Campbell: We have, so we have some projects that have been built. One’s across the 7 street, the 240 Hamilton. So that one has a unique system where it's not actually it's an 8 elevator so you drive in there's an elevator that takes you down into the basement and it has a 9 turnaround system that helps the car get turned around and you can come back out and you 10 can drive out. So that's one example of a mechanical assisted parking system. There's another 11 project at 102 University where that also has a lift. You park, you drive in and then the lift will 12 take you down into the basement where it's a full parking lot for cars. And that's also a mixed 13 use building just like 240 Hamilton. 611 Cowper that is a mixed use project where they've 14 added lifts, a few lifts, so basically it's just the two and it just goes down. I have a couple 15 pictures of what these lifts generally look like, but and they have that it's not a full load of lifts 16 like against a wall or something like that. But there is the 2500 El Camino project that's a 17 housing project and they have a significant number of lifts that they're using for their housing 18 parking requirements. And they’re actually staggered like you've got one set against the wall 19 and another set so you actually have to drive through two sets of or if you’re in the back you 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. could drive through the two. So we do have projects that we've reviewed that we've approved 1 lifts for. 2 3 Commissioner Fine: It would be nice just to have a quick index of that for those things. Two last 4 points. So one TDM, there may be something in there in terms of when we're triggering TDM 5 for that user or entity or building to look at the Transportation Management Association (TMA) 6 and see if there's any way to opt in to some of their projects, just kind of backfill on the efforts 7 the City's making with the TMA. 8 9 And the last one is kind of on the replacement projects. So I've heard from some folks that 10 generally after the first round of plan checks you're still allowed to go to the Chief Building 11 Official to get your demo permit and this can cut a lot of time off the project as a whole. I just 12 want to make sure we retain that flexibility here. That if you're going through plan check you 13 would still get your demo permit if things look good. And that's all for me. 14 15 Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Commissioner Tanaka. 16 17 Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah, thank you. So… yeah so… ok, yeah so I agree with the comments 18 about the lifts. I think in general it makes better utility of the land so it makes total sense. So 19 what the parts that I thought I wanted to have more discussion on is around the fact or around 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the proposal to have as you consolidate small lots to make it 100 percent affordable housing 1 and we certainly have affordable housing crisis here, but some of these locations are actually in 2 areas where there's retail and I think it can't be 100 percent because I think if you convert like 3 especially ground floor to housing that could be a bit of an issue. So I think for areas there are 4 in retail areas we need to actually have some retail facing businesses because it really hurts the 5 other retailers around there. So I think that's important. I don’t know if staff has any 6 comments on that? 7 8 Mr. Lait: So what staff is contemplating here is the reason this is before us is because of the 9 Housing Element policy that was adopted and the requirement is that in the Element is that it's 10 for we do this to accommodate 100 percent affordable housing. So the question that we're 11 asking ourselves is the question that you've asked us which is: does that preclude an 12 opportunity for some kind of retail mixed use component? I do think housing projects with 13 mixed use sometimes they get a little more challenging on the financing and that might be a 14 reason why it was discouraged, but we can take a look at that and then we can also take a look 15 at this in the context of the other work that we're doing right now with retail preservation and 16 our expanding of the ground floor protection to make sure that we're not having a conflict 17 between that effort and this one. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah. I mean because I think for retail especially we have blank spots 1 (interrupted) 2 3 Mr. Lait: Right. 4 5 Commissioner Tanaka: In the retail for frontage, right? It’s just not good. You don’t want to do 6 that. 7 8 Mr. Lait: Right. 9 10 Commissioner Tanaka: So. 11 12 Mr. Lait: Ok. 13 14 Commissioner Tanaka: I think it's a intention, but I think you have to also think about what 15 happens, right, to retail. I think the other aspect is converting the hotels to housing. So hotels 16 we get quite a bit of money from, right? From the hotel tax essentially. So it doesn't sound like 17 this is going to impact [unintelligible] it’s not going to have a really big impact or not maybe you 18 could tell me, how many properties could be affected by this? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Ms. Campbell: In our analysis of the hotel properties there's probably just a handful like maybe 1 six or seven sites that we think that maybe are in a older condition that they might have 2 consideration for taking advantage of this change in use. 3 4 Commissioner Tanaka: Ok, because hotels are top three revenue generators for the City and 5 right now we’re in kind of a booming economy, but it's not always going to be like this and their 6 might be a time when we actually want that revenue. And if you convert it to housing we lose 7 it forever. So I think that's something we have to consider as well. So how many rooms are we 8 talking about? You said a handful of properties, how many rooms? 9 10 Ms. Campbell: I’ll look it up in a sec, thanks. Ok so the total for the rooms in Palo Alto that we 11 have available now is 2,133. 12 13 Commissioner Tanaka: 2,000 rooms? 14 15 Ms. Campbell: So that's total, all hotels. So these represent roughly 250 rooms. 16 17 Commissioner Tanaka: 250 rooms, ok. So I’m going say (interrupted) 18 19 Ms. Campbell: That's roughly 10 percent. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Tanaka: Ok. Ok, so how much of a revenue loss is that? So we take our hotel tax 2 times the average rate of room times… what would that be in a yearly number? 3 4 Mr. Lait: Great. In this what you're asking for basically is an economic analysis of what this 5 impact may have if we were to go forward with that and we don't have that information today 6 and I do need to note that Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenues are protected and we can't 7 share with the public that information. But the bigger issue is that you don't want to advance a 8 policy to the Council without knowing what the economic implications are and I think that 9 might be a comment we hear further on in the discussion. So it may be that this one requires a 10 little bit more research and analysis before we advance it on to Council. 11 12 Chair Alcheck: Before we sort of leave this topic can either one of you sort of talk about how 13 this because I the way I understood this is this was a very unique amendment that sort of 14 specifically applied to this specific situation. That's how I read it. And so I'm wondering if I just 15 want to if you guys could provide a little more clarity on how you got to this specific notion. 16 17 Mr. Lait: Yes. So this was this concept comes about from a recent article that you may have 18 read where a local building used as a, approved as a hotel and still considered a hotel for 19 planning purposes was… a deal was made with the between a third party and the property 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. owner to rent out those spaces for low income housing. And what we were talking about when 1 this conversation was going on with this with the individual was gosh, it's kind of a shame 2 because we're not going to get any credit for providing low income housing for this use because 3 we still consider it a hotel. And the reason we consider it a hotel is because that conversion to 4 residential would have required parking and it wouldn’t have met different standards. 5 6 And so and the hotel I’m talking about is Hotel California. And so this isn't just for Hotel 7 California though it in theory could apply for it, but that type of hotel that you we see in Palo 8 Alto and we think there's about a half dozen of these kind of if you imagine that as a profile or a 9 prototypical type of hotel that we have in the City then we thought it would be an interesting 10 policy conversation to advance to this body and then on to Council. Is this something where if 11 it didn't have a significant impact to our TOT revenues and impact our that revenue stream is 12 there a good opportunity for here for us here to provide affordable housing, get credit for it in 13 the eyes of Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), and in doing so we 14 would just we would be yielding on a couple of zoning issues which wouldn’t really change how 15 the building exists on the land today. They just don't provide additional parking and maybe 16 they have to do some egress or access to the building for stairways and things like that and we 17 would say ok if that's the case we would look favorably upon providing that access and so we 18 may have to make some deviations from the code. There’s also open space and some other 19 things, but this is a new policy initiative. It’s an interesting concept and we also recognize that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. there may be some more work that we need to do on this before we move it forward, but we're 1 we welcome the Commission's comments. 2 3 Chair Alcheck: Do you have any more comments on that? 4 5 Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah I just… yeah, I think that so hotels tend to be in kind of busy 6 locations, right? And they definitely tend to be in different locations, in busy visible locations, 7 and I think what residential tends to be is not necessarily that. It tends to be in other areas. So 8 I think that I would definitely love to learn more about how this works, what projects are 9 affected, [honeymoons] what the revenue impact is because I think that at this I think it’s 10 definitely a noble goal, but I think we have to be careful as to when we lose revenue generating 11 properties. 12 13 Chair Alcheck: Ok, thank you. Commissioner Gardias, would you like to? 14 15 Commissioner Gardias: Yes, thank you very much. So I will add to the discussion, but I will 16 share some other items, right? So when I was looking and thinking about this chapter about 17 the hotel conversion I had similar feelings that my colleagues had and I pretty much would 18 require that would go forward some analysis that would prove truly that the objective or the 19 noble goal is truly supported with some fiscal analysis of the all the type overthrow of the other 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. on the other hand there is there is a question about what could be on the site. Also the other, 1 on the other hand there is a question about what could be on the site if that hotel investment is 2 replaced by something else. So I don't believe that we can just tweak it in a vacuum because if 3 there is always opportunity to build some more affordable housing on that site and then maybe 4 even have more appropriate units then the hotel ones that maybe not are appropriate for all 5 the types of populations that we would like to have in there. So that’s about this point. 6 7 If I may just go to the other one I have a question about the housing related definition and the 8 change that was that it made for the Paragraph 135.5 and 138 before I proceed with my 9 question. So there is a change that calls to remove that multiple family use in both cases and 10 replace it with the residential use of property. What’s the intention of those changes? 11 12 Cara Silver, Senior Assistant City Attorney: Thank you, Commissioner Gardias; Cara Silver, Senior 13 Assistant City Attorney. So these changes are something that are required by state law. The 14 state law says that cities in their housing elements need to provide for supportive housing and 15 transitional housing along the same rules that apply to all residential neighborhoods. So our 16 current code permits supportive housing and transitional housing only in multifamily and 17 residential zones. And so we need to now just align our local law with the state law 18 requirement that requires that this housing also be permitted in single family neighborhoods. 19 So we agreed to implement this state law change in our Housing Element and the Council 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. adopted this Housing Element and directed us to do it. And this ordinance is just implementing 1 that prior directive. 2 3 Commissioner Gardias: So what I would like to understand if that change would have any 4 impact on the code compliance because California has some codes that are specific for the 5 multifamily housing. So if we adopt this change would this would the code would be 6 disregarded or they would that they still apply? Because those would be truly multifamily 7 housing, right? That’s what we are going to have in those area regardless that they would be 8 called differently. 9 10 Ms. Silver: Right. So if supportive housing and transitional housing is implemented in the single 11 family neighborhoods they need to occupy single family dwellings in a similar manner as other 12 single family dwellings are occupied. So if there are… you can't subdivide a house into separate 13 units because that would be converting a single family home to a multifamily home, but 14 provided that these types of housing are contained in a in a single family dwelling they really 15 are very similar uses to other comparable properties. So that's really the intent of the state 16 law. 17 18 Commissioner Gardias: Ok, very good. I just was looking for more understanding of this so 19 thank you very much Cara. So I'd like to move go move to the off street loading requirements 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and a question I have is very simple. If we're going to change the bracket and then we going to 1 have we’re going to insert that omitted 0 to 4,999 sf requirement will there be any properties 2 that would be relieved of this out of this requirement after this change? 3 4 Mr. Lait: So Jonathan Lait, the Assistant Director; so Commissioner Gardias when you say 5 relieved I’m trying to understand what you mean by relieved. 6 7 Commissioner Gardias: So the question I have, right, because right now in the code we have 8 that there is the one loading space required for up to 5,000 sf. If we're going to change the 9 code to zero are there any properties that because of this historical [unintelligible] we’re 10 burdened with this requirement now under the change would be relieved from the 11 requirement. 12 13 Mr. Lait: So thank you. I think I understand what you're saying. So in in the past if there were a 14 project the short answer is yes. If in the past there was a project that we required an offsite or 15 an onsite loading zone because it was between zero and 4,999 sf then yes by changing that 16 they're no longer required to have that loading zone. And our perspective on that is they 17 shouldn’t have ever been required to have that loading zone because that's the way the code 18 was originally drafted. This is a formatting error and we believe that the loading zone for that 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. size building shouldn’t be required, at least historically it has not been. The intent has been 1 that it has not been required. 2 3 Commissioner Gardias: Understood. But the question was pretty much are there any physical 4 properties that we can list today that are under this requirement, this erroneous requirement? 5 6 Mr. Lait: There may be. I don't know because this error occurred back in what was it 1992. So 7 it’s (interrupted) 8 9 Commissioner Gardias: My let me just get where I am getting to, right? If there are any if we 10 make this change probably it would be proper to also follow up and then identify if there are 11 any properties that are currently meeting this requirement and then follow up with the owner 12 and then allow them to remove this requirement or convert the space to something else. 13 14 Mr. Lait: So thank you. I have the comment written down. 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: Ok. So the next question that I have is about… if I may come back to 17 this? Let me just speak to the lift. So that’s a third item that you're proposing to change. So in 18 terms of the lift in that preamble or in the paragraph following it’s on Page Number 21. In the 19 requirement that the mechanical lift may be used to satisfy off street parking requirements 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. subject to approval by the Director or City Council. I'd like to propose that there is a change of 1 this language to some performance that would need to be attained by the property owner. 2 This way it would relieve the owner from the requirement to seek the Director or the City 3 Council approval or review and approval for this change. It would make it may be simpler and 4 easier for the owner to implement as opposed to just going through the process and be a 5 subject of the of maybe various factors, judgmental factors. 6 7 Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Gardias can you, would you mind actually repeating the specific 8 suggested language? 9 10 Commissioner Gardias: Yeah, so what the proposal is like this to change the requirements of 11 the approval by the Director or City Council to the performance base of the site that it would 12 have to meet when it has mechanical lift. 13 14 Chair Alcheck: Which paragraph are you suggesting be changed? 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: So under it’s on Page Number 21 under the title Number 4, mechanical 17 stacker and lift. There is a paragraph that starts with mechanical lift may be used to satisfy and 18 then it ends with the following provisions. So I would propose to change the part of this 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. paragraph that talks about the approval of the Director or City Council to the performance 1 metrics that this site would have to meet. 2 3 Mr. Lait: So I can speak to that. The reason we have that… so there are two entities that 4 approve projects, discretionary projects, in Palo Alto it's the Director of Planning and 5 Community Environment and the City Council for some applications or on appeal of certain 6 applications. So it's pretty standard language that we say these lifts are approved subject to 7 the review of the Director. We review every project that's submitted to the City and it's just 8 pretty standard language that we include that. 9 10 Commissioner Gardias: Ok, I totally understand this, right? But for the ease of the developer or 11 the owner of the property (interrupted) 12 13 Mr. Lait: Ok, so (interrupted) 14 15 Commissioner Gardias: I thought it would be may be easier for them if we just tell them that 16 pretty much that requirement is of this that we're not uploading or unloading the car or parking 17 or bringing up back to the street the cars, they pretty much they cannot [unintelligible] blow up 18 the street. They, this needs to be done in the in some indentation so pretty much it doesn't 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. stop the pedestrian or the vehicular traffic from continuing. So I think that this would be the 1 performance threshold. 2 3 Mr. Lait: So if I can I think Commissioner Gardias the interest that perhaps you were speaking to 4 a moment ago was that it's not an ask of the Director for an adjustment, but rather a right that 5 somebody can do this. And I think that's an important conversation that I think the Commission 6 should discuss. We would be interested in getting guidance from the Commission on that. It 7 does have implications on how an applicant would be designing their project at the conceptual 8 stages and could have some implications that might be better addressed early on. They would 9 be able to go forward with a certain amount of understanding if it were by right. Obviously 10 there's a little more uncertainty if there's a discretionary component. 11 12 Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Gardias I think what we'll do is we'll give other individuals an 13 opportunity if they wish to to sort of reiterate their support for that. So why don't we move 14 on? 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: Ok. 17 18 Chair Alcheck: Do you have any other items that you'd like to touch upon? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Gardias: Yes I do, but if you want to move on (interrupted) 1 2 Chair Alcheck: No, I mean I'd like you to move on to the next item. 3 4 Commissioner Gardias: Oh you want me to move on? 5 6 Chair Alcheck: Yeah, we’ve made a note of it and then we’ll give others an opportunity to 7 comment on your comment on your language recommendation. 8 9 Commissioner Gardias: Ok. 10 11 Chair Alcheck: So I'd like you to move on to the next item on your list. 12 13 Commissioner Gardias: Just a moment I'm going through my notes. 14 15 Chair Alcheck: That’s fine, take your time. 16 17 Commissioner Gardias: Also there is another comment that I had to the Section 18.52.080e, a 18 modification to off street loading requirement. It’s on Page 20. So my proposal is that is to 19 notify PTC writing within the 30 days before granting such exceptions and this is to pretty much 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to allow Commission if that is, if that review under this paragraph the Director may modify the 1 quantity or dimensions of off street loading requirement. It would allow the Commission to 2 pretty much keep track of any specific exceptions that were done for the off street loading. 3 4 Mr. Lait: So if I’m understanding it, it's related to the off street loading and wherever there is a 5 modification made or granted by the Director that the PTC be notified within a certain number 6 of days. Is that? 7 8 Chair Alcheck: Yeah, 30. 9 10 Mr. Lait: Ok, 30. Ok. So yeah, I mean that can certainly be a thing that be we discuss. I will tell 11 you that there's a lot of items that we report out on and we're not hitting that 100 percent. So 12 unless we’re really critical to do that I would have some concerns. 13 14 Commissioner Gardias: Ok, thank you. And then just going back to the item about mechanical 15 lifts that we discussed I propose to add a paragraph about unloading the impact on the 16 adjacent streets. I don’t have a precise language, but pretty much there would have to be a 17 requirement that unloading or loading the cars on the lift, right, should have very limited and 18 just it would need to be somehow quantified impact on the adjacent street. And that goes back 19 to the comment that I made before so the traffic is not blocked extensively. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 The next question that I, now I have a question about Paragraph 5 under the same section of 2 the lifts, the mechanical stopper and lifts. It just talks about the Paragraph Number 5 it talks 3 about if the spaces are not independently accessible for individual user a parking management 4 plan should be prepared for review and approval and approval that details the operations, 5 emergency procedure, and appropriate contact. So I am not really sure if that need to be, if 6 there needs to be a plan that needs to be reviewed. I propose just to change it to reduce it to 7 the requirement that such plan needs to be prepared or need to be, needs to exist. I think that 8 this would be left between to resolve between the owner of the property and the users of the 9 parking. 10 11 Chair Alcheck: Ok. 12 13 Commissioner Gardias: That’s it. Thank you very much. 14 15 Chair Alcheck: Ok, before I call on Commissioner Tanaka I just I want to shed a little light about 16 how I’d like this to work. Ideally in places where you haven't gotten a specific recommendation 17 on language I'd like you to create a placeholder. I’ll give you an example; Commissioner 18 Rosenblum suggested exploring the idea of increasing the percentage for the density, right? 19 What I would like you to do is if he didn't provide specific language, you provided sort of 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. general guidance there. I'd like staff to explore that concept and if we, if staff can't get to a 1 place where they can give sort of specific new idea or response to that what I’d like them to do 2 is create a placeholder. Similarly for next meeting, for our next time we agendize this topic… 3 similarly in the suggestion here where Commissioner Gardias specifically said he doesn't really 4 have language the comment that he made just before this last comment about he doesn't really 5 have specific language for how he would word this, what I’d ideally like to do is if staff doesn't 6 sort of appreciate his goal and create an opportunity for a little sort of placeholder that we… of 7 specific language they could create a placeholder about potentially achieving his goal. And 8 what I would ideally like is that at the next time we review this packet if individual 9 Commissioners have specific ideas of specific language that they spend the time and they come 10 to that meeting with that language and ideally what we'll do is we will review these ideas with 11 that specific language and we can quickly up or down vote across the board how we feel about 12 it. 13 14 So I don't intend for tonight for example for us to all get on the same page about whether SUVs 15 have to be specifically lifted. I would like us to have sort of a discussion in general based on the 16 feedback you've got and then if somebody wants to make specific changes to language next 17 time we’ll say hey, anybody in favor of this… That will actually give the opportunity for anybody 18 that's paying attention to this discussion to come back and opine on some of these changes and 19 provide any of their specific language edits. Ok, so let's keep going Commissioner Tanaka. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah actually I had another thought about hotels being converted into 2 affordable housing. So instead of taking a old rundown hotel and leaving it as an old run down 3 hotel that now has residential units maybe what a better idea or something that staff could 4 consider and maybe flush out this idea fully is maybe some sort of density bonus where if 5 because there's actually a lot of hotels now that actually have a mix of hotel plus residential. 6 And then I think but the nice thing about hotels is the rooms are actually kind of small. They 7 are by nature generally small compared to a housing unit. And so I think Commissioner Fine 8 and myself talked a lot about micro units. So maybe this is an area to actually explore where 9 you can get a density bonus if you actually have kind of a mix of hotel units where we're not 10 going to lose the hotel revenue, but we get more affordable units. And it’s more affordable 11 because units are smaller and inherently they will be more affordable and they're going to be in 12 kind of a busy transit areas because that’s where most hotels are. And so I'm just trying to 13 think about kind of a more of a win-win solution where instead of just keeping a old rundown 14 hotel an old rundown hotel that's now housing units it's at least still a revenue generator and 15 yet it’s also providing affordable housing. So I’d like to throw this idea out there and maybe it's 16 something that could be developed further as we get to our next meeting. 17 18 Chair Alcheck: Commissioner Waldfogel [note-Vice-Chair]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Thank you. Let's see, I have a couple questions for staff. One is in 1 districts with that where we might exempt loading areas would those properties be entitled to 2 a street loading area? Maybe time of day street loading area or is that something we'd have to 3 think about relative to this? 4 5 Mr. Lait: So thank you, Commissioner or Vice-Chair. We are not proposing to exempt loading 6 zones from geographic areas in the City. And that it is not our interest that we understand the 7 public speakers (interrupted) 8 9 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah well if we were to contemplate that, would that be a feasible 10 tradeoff if we were to allow street loading areas say 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. or something like that? 11 I just wonder if that's a possible tradeoff we could make? 12 13 Mr. Lait: It is. I think it would require more study and exploration than we were contemplating 14 for this particular ordinance, but it doesn't mean we need to abandon the thought. I mean we 15 could (interrupted) 16 17 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah, no I don't want to push you into more work, but I would hate to 18 just see loading turn into something that just blocks the street. So. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Mr. Lait: Again our, I kind of feel like our recommendation addresses the issue of graphic areas. 1 We have projects that have been reviewed in the Downtown area for instance where we've 2 made the determination that on site loading was not practical due to urban design 3 considerations or the availability of on street loading or an alley. And so we are already doing 4 this and what we're trying to do is memorialize our practice. 5 6 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Ok. That's great. On the demo permit question on the staff report talks 7 about avoiding vacant lots or preventing vacant lots as an objective of this change and I support 8 that objective although I'm not quite sure that this is the perfect tool to get there. I mean in old 9 Palo Alto I can think of three demos that have resulted in multi-year vacant lots. I can just think 10 of one 5 plus year stalled project on Mariposa Street. And so we're trying to reduce vacant lots 11 I would just encourage you to bring something forward that actually goes after vacancy because 12 I'm not sure this is either necessary or sufficient, but just a thought on that. 13 14 On the Housing Element small lot consolidation I think that any feedback on just what will 15 happen if we make these changes. Do we, have we talk, have we reached out to any of the 16 property owners? Do we think that these incentives will cause anything to happen? I mean I 17 would just hate to go down this track if nothing will happen. So it’d be great to get some 18 positive reinforcement just to know that whatever we do will matter. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I agree with several of my colleague’s suggestion on hotels that we need a economic impact 1 study on the TOT. Ironically I can think of two cases where low income housing has been 2 converted to hotels, but now we're thinking about the reverse case. So that's a I'm not sure 3 how many more of those we'll see. 4 5 Then on everybody's favorite topic mechanical lifts, seems to have been a popular one. My 6 view on this is that it feels a little bit like it's still early days with this technology. We're tying 7 this to buildings have 60 to 100 year life spans. We don't really know about the life spans of the 8 technology. So I would strongly encourage you to what you might want to do is have less 9 prescriptive or proscriptive language here, but be thinking about how do we learn more about 10 this? How do we try this? How do we set up performance requirements that ensure that these 11 will function for the life of the project? They that they'll do the things that we are saying here? 12 The other comment I have is I am uncomfortable with authorizing these for outdoor use. I 13 think indoor use only may be a reasonable first step to take with mechanical lifts so that would 14 be the other thing that I would explore. And it doesn't sound like there have been any cases 15 where applicants have requested an outdoor lift to date. Is that true? 16 17 Ms. Campbell: I don't know if anything has been requested, but I don't think anything’s been 18 approved. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah. 1 2 Ms. Campbell: I can say that. 3 4 Vice-Chair Waldfogel: Yeah, so I mean I think until we know more until we sort of know more 5 about how this ties into architectural review it's really hard to say if this is something that that 6 we want to do at this point. I mean just again I just want emphasize it feels like early days with 7 this technology and I would love to learn more. 8 9 Chair Alcheck: Ok. So I want to be really clear the goal is not to sort of cut anybody off or not 10 give anybody an opportunity to speak. I do want to sort of highlight something that Assistant 11 Director commented on which is that some of these topics may have large policy implications. 12 And to the extent that when we meet next we feel like some of them really need a little bit 13 more extensive study I hope that we will feel comfortable tabling those and moving forward 14 the suggestions that we are comfortable moving forward and that's really the goal. I would like 15 us sort of perfect is the enemy of good here. So I would like us to accomplish as much as we 16 can and if there are items that we feel like we need to spend more time on we will identify 17 those in our next meeting as items that we just don't feel comfortable moving forward and 18 we’ll set those aside. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I also just want to acknowledge that Commissioner Waldfogel [note-Vice-Chair] made a really 1 great point here which is that the concept of using prescriptive language on items that are so 2 new to this to the area is I think something that I personally would love to see less of. It's an 3 opportunity for us to create. I know we always want to sort of protect ourselves from some 4 result we can't imagine, but yeah, this technology is new and particularly with parking I feel like 5 what we're going to see in the next 10 to 15 years is such a dramatic change in our relationship 6 with cars that it's this is and car ownership and car sharing that I almost it’s hard to imagine 7 that anything that we do today or even next year could literally be relevant in 15 years. 8 9 Ok. I want to give anybody else an opportunity to make a comment about specific language. 10 Commissioner Gardias, do you have something you’d like to say? 11 12 Commissioner Gardias: Yes I’d like to talk to a different paragraph. 13 14 Chair Alcheck: Please do. 15 16 Commissioner Gardias: But also for the record, right, I mean I just I think that the technology on 17 the [auto league] has been for the last 60 years and I think that in terms of the maturity it being 18 popular at many places around the world I think that maybe we should be open to move 19 forward in some areas of Palo Alto it may serve us better. But the comment that I want to 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. make is about the combination of the lots. And this is the, this is Housing Element the small lot 1 consolidation 23. I remember when we talked about the Housing Element in 2014. We 2 [unintelligible] policy requirement and I'm totally conscious that we need to pretty much meet 3 our own obligations and do something with this because that’s the goal that we our goal that 4 we want to obtain. But what is amazing here is pretty much some nods of approval for the 5 small property owner that we, that would be a subject of this consolidation. We are, we have 6 this policy that would make it easier to consolidate the lots, but we have still number of the 7 small property owners that I think that it would be proper to retain and that may be at risk, we 8 may be at risk of losing them with this small consolidation for of course the noble objective that 9 we have. 10 11 But I would like to propose I would like to in addition to this I would like to propose that we 12 remove the parking requirements for [RT35] for those small property owners to allow them 13 [spur] investment on their own. And then I think that in addition when we going to come back 14 next time it would be also valuable I know that we have around 30 properties or so. We talk 15 with Jonathan Lait about this at the pre-Commission meeting and I thought that it would be 16 good to understand those small properties that are on the map at the back of the of today’s 17 handout. That’s the comment I wanted to make. Thank you. 18 19 Chair Alcheck: Ok. Commissioner Rosenblum did you have a final comment? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Rosenblum: [Unintelligible] comments I had given kind of an overview of the 2 things I think are big versus small and so the two housing related issues and TDM. I want to just 3 add a couple of specific items to the TDM thing. What you've done here is suggest a trigger 4 point. So 100 net new trips generated will trigger TDM requirement for the building and I think 5 Commissioner Fine had a great idea which is around adding language that has the option of 6 them joining an existing TMA versus being their own TDM program. I think it's also an 7 opportunity to add the some definitions around TDM components. I know this is something 8 that based on the paragraph description in this package has already requested, but around 9 specific guidelines for parking reductions, unbundling parking, etcetera. So ultimately it's really 10 about what kinds of transit benefits you're giving in exchange for some sort of parking 11 alleviation. And so this is a good chance to cross-reference. Because just having the trigger 12 won’t really mean much if you don't define what happens when you cross that threshold. So I 13 guess the language request is that Council consider the two things together. Consider the 14 implications on parking along with the threshold. That’s it, thank you. 15 16 Chair Alcheck: Ok, so when we come back together on this topic my hope is that we will have 17 we’ll be very familiar with it. We can look at the items that have been changed and then we 18 can begin as we do our round to sort of up and down indicate where we stand on any changes 19 and any particular terms. And finally I just want to say I want to suggest that if anybody on the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commission comes has a comment that they'd like to make that they didn't make tonight and 1 they come up with it next week or tomorrow or whenever just send it. Forward it to Planning 2 so that they can incorporate it and we'll treat those as sort of comments made in anticipation 3 of the next meeting. Ok, with that I'd like to close this particular item on the agenda and unless 4 staff has any other comments they’d like to make? 5 6 Mr. Lait: Is it fair to us, is it fair to conclude that the items that were not discussed are good as 7 presented? 8 9 Chair Alcheck: Yeah. I think what I do think that what will happen is that we’ll probably have a 10 moment where we'll ask, I’ll ask individual Commissioners to sort of suggest are they 11 uncomfortable moving forward some of these topics without a greater discussion and when we 12 start next meeting. And if that's the case will probably set those aside and deal with the items 13 that we're comfortable moving forward. And then we'll probably have to figure out how we 14 want to deal with the items that require greater debate whether we want to create a study 15 session for those or simply I’ll ask staff what they would like to do also. 16 17 Mr. Lait: Great, just one last question. To advance that effort do you want to see an ordinance 18 that reflects our interpretation or no ordinance at the next meeting just a staff report? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Alcheck: No I'd love to see an ordinance that reflects your interpretation of the 1 discussion. I think you may have received some (interrupted) 2 3 Mr. Lait: Language. 4 5 Chair Alcheck: Competing ideas here. 6 7 Mr. Lait: Right. 8 9 Chair Alcheck: And I think I wouldn’t want you to spin your wheels too long on whether or not 10 lifts should handle sport utilities or micro compacts. 11 12 Mr. Lait: Ok. 13 14 Chair Alcheck: I would just suggest that you write the language sort of with your interpretation 15 of what's the best way forward based on the discussion and then if we want to make changes 16 we will get really specific. I said I suspect we won't have tremendous disagreement here on 17 some of the specific language items. 18 19 Mr. Lait: Ok. And then we can simply just strike the ones that don't get advanced. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Alcheck: Exactly. 2 3 Mr. Lait: Perfect. And so we’ll agendize that as a public hearing excuse me, because ordinances 4 are public hearings. 5 6 Chair Alcheck: Yeah and I think would be fantastic if that language was specific so people could 7 respond to it. 8 9 Mr. Lait: Fantastic. Thank you. 10 11 Commission Action: None 12 3225 El Camino Real  Mixed-use project  Required 1 loading space for the commercial use (retail & office) Solution: Utilized 5 on- site parking spaces for a time-limited loading zone area (mornings only) 2515/2585 El Camino Real  Mixed-use project  Required 1 loading space for the commercial use (retail & office) Solution: Add an on-street loading space on side street 411 Lytton Avenue  Mixed-use project  Required 1 loading space for the commercial use (retail & office) Solution: No loading space proposed 429 University Avenue  Mixed-use project  Required 1 loading space for the commercial use (retail & office) Solution: Utilize the existing loading space on Kipling Street, across from the site. Address Project Type Approved Status Spaces Required # Lift Spaces Comments 2555 Park Blvd Office Aug-15 Entitlement Approved 93 89 Puzzle lift systems in below grade garage 2500 El Camino Real Mixed-Use Apr-14 Under Construction 145 95 Tandem puzzle lifts, standard stacker inside garage 636 Waverley St Mixed-Use Dec-13 Under Construction 21 20 Standard stackers in below grade garage 240 Hamilton St Mixed-Use Dec-13 Constructed 4 4 Standard stackers and turn-around inside garage 3159 El Camino Real Mixed-Use Nov-13 Entitlement Expired 216 196 Puzzle lift systems in below grade garage and parking deck 611 Cowper St Mixed-Use Aug-13 Constructed 60 2 Standard stacker in below grade garage 420 Cambridge Ave Mixed-Use Mar-09 Constructed 10 8 Standard stackers in garage 102 University Ave Mixed-Use Sep-06 Constructed 10 10 Elevator to basement Approved Projects Using Car Lifts/Mechanical Devices El Camino Real El Camino Real Alma Street Alma Street Alma St University Avenue Foothill Expr S. Rengstorff Avenue Independence Avenue Del Medio Avenue Los Altos Avenue Bay Laurel Drive Peter Coutts Circle Lasuen Street Panama Dr Governors Ave University Drive Cambridge Avenue Middle Avenue Arbor Road Creek Drive Escondido Road Olmstead Road Middlefield Road Middlefield Road Middlefield Rd Bayshore Fwy Bayshore Fwy Embarcadero Road Charleston Rd Sand Hill Road Loma Verde Ave Lytton Ave Homer Ave Channing Ave Cowper St Emerson St Addison Ave E Meadow Dr W Meadow Dr Maybell Ave Stanford Ave California Ave Chimalus Dr Heather Ln Churchill Ave Park Blvd Raimundo Way Bryant St College Ave Louis Rd Greer RdColorado Ave Ross Rd Arastradero Rd Los Robles Ave Georgia Ave La Donna St Laguna Ave Amaranta Ave Barron Ave Matadero Ave Seale Ave South Ct Park Blvd La Para Ave Birch St Lincoln Ave Page Mill Rd El Verano Ave El Dorado Ave Emerson St Amarillo Ave N California Ave Hawthorne Ave Ash St Olive Ave Ventura Ave Alma St Wilkie Way Ferne Ave San Mateo Drive San Antonio Ave Junipero Serra Blvd Sand Hill R d Palm Dr El C a m ino R eal Alm a St Middlefield Rd E m b a r ca d e r o Rd Oregon Expwy Wa v erley St Louis Rd Old Middlefiel Rengstorf f Ave astradero Rd E ast Me ad o w D r C h a r l e s t o n R d C a m p us D r E a st Dr supmaC E West Los RoblesAve Junipero Serra Blvd SanAntonioRd Encina Grand e Dr Cereza Dr Los Robles Ave Villa Vera Verdosa Dr Campana Dr Florales Dr Maybell Way Maybell Ave Frandon Ct Florales Dr Georgia Ave Amaranta Ave Term Baker Ave Vista Ave Pena Ct Coulombe DrCherry Oaks Pl Pomona Ave dero Road Abel Ave Clemo Ave Villa Real El Camino Way Curtner Ave Ventura Ave Cypress Ln Fairmede Ave Irven Ct Alta Mesa Ave Kelly W ay Lo s P alos A ve S uz a nne Dr El C amin o R e al M c K ellar La n e Jam e s R d Maclane Second St Wilkie Way Thain Way Barclay Ct Carolina Ln Tennessee Ln Park BoulevardWilkie Ct Monroe Dr Whitclem Dr Duluth Cir Edlee Ave Dinah's Ct Cesano Ct Monroe Dr Miller Ave Ben Lomond Dr Fairfield Ct Ferne Ave Ponce Dr l Ruthelma Ave Wright Place Shasta Dr Mackay Dr Diablo Ct Scripps Ave Scripps Ct Ne lson Dr Tioga Ct Creekside Dr Greenmeadow Way Parkside Dr Dixon PlEly Place Dake Ave Ferne Ave San Antonio Ct Ely Pla ce N els o n Ct Keats Ct Middlefield Rd Carlson Ct D u n c an PlMu mford Pl C h arlesto n R d San Antonio Rd Leghorn St Montrose Ave Maplewood Ave S e min ole W a y Sutherland Dr El C apita n Pl Fabian St Bryson A v e Midtown Ct Cowper St Gary Ct Alma Street Coastland Dr Byron St Gaspar Ct Moreno Ave El Carmelo Ave Campesino Ave Dymond Ct Martinsen Ct Towle Way Mackall Way Lo ma Verde Ave El Verano Ave Wellsbury Way St Claire Dr Alg er DrMaureen Ave Co w per Ct Rambo w Dr Murdoch Dr et St Michael Ct t Mayview Avenue E n sign W ay Gaile n Av e Grove Ave Commercial St Industrial Ave Bibbits Dr E Charleston Rd Fabian WayChristine Dr C orina Way Ross Road Corina Wa y Nathan Way Transport St Ortega Ct E M e a do w Dr Allen Ct Ross Ct Richardson Ct H olly O a k Dr Ames Ave Middlefield Road Ames CtRorke Way Stone LnToyon Pl Torreya Ct Lupine Ave Thorn w ood Dr Talisman Dr Arbutus Ave Aspen Way Evergreen Dr E Meadow Dr Corporation W ayElwell Court Janice Way E Meadow Cir Ellsworth Pl San Carlos Ct Wintergreen Way Sutter Ave Price Ct Stern Ave Randers Ct Ross Road Sevyson Ct David AveStelling Dr t Kenneth Dr Stockton Pl Vernon Ter Louis Road Thomas Dr Morris Drive Porter Drive Hillview Ave Hanover Street Mir Amherst St Columbia StBowdoin St Dartmouth St Hanover St College Ave Ramos Way Barron Ave Josina Ave Kendall AveMatadero Ave Ilima Way Ilima Ct Carlitos CtLa CalleLaguna Ave Paradise Way R o ble Ridg e Chimalus Dr Paul Ave Kendall Ave Whitsell Ave Laguna Way La Para Ave El Centro St Timlott LnLa Jennifer Way La Donna Av Manzana Ln HubbarttD Willmar Dr Donald Dr San Jude Ave Magnolia Dr Military Way Orme St Fernando Ave Lambert Ave Hansen Way Margarita Ave Matadero Ave Wilton Ave Oxford Ave Harvard St California Ave Wellesley St Princeton StOberlin St Cornell St Williams St Yale St Staunton Ct Park Ave Escobita Ave S e q u oia Ave Mariposa Ave Castilleja Ave M adrono Ave Portola Ave Leland Ave Stanford AveBirch St Ash Street Alma St Grant Ave Sheridan Ave El Camino Real Sherman Ave Chestnut Ave Portage AvePepper Ave Olive Ave Acacia Ave Emerson St Birch St Ash Street Park Boulevard College Ave Cambridge Ave Birch St California Ave Rinconada Ave Park Blvd Washington Ave Santa Rita Ave Bryant Street High St Ramona St Bryant St South Ct Alma Street Washington Ave Nevada Ave North California Ave Marion Ave C olorado A ve Waverley St Kipling St Nevada Ave Tasso St Middlefield Road Warren Way Iris Way Tulip Ln Garland Drive Louis Road Hilbar Ln Alannah Ct R Marshall Dr Dennis Dr Agnes Way Blair Ct Santa Ana St Elsinore Dr El Cajon Way S yca more Dr Amarillo Ave Bruce Dr Colonial Lane Moreno Ave Celia Dr Indian Dr W es t B aysho re R oadSandra Pl Gre er Road C olorado Ave Simkins Ct Otterson Ct Higgins PlaceLawrence Ln Maddux Drive Genevieve Ct E ast B ays h ore Road Santa Catalina St Chabot Ter Carmel Dr Tanland Dr Ivy Ln St Francis Dr Wildwood Ln Watson Ct La O'Brin e Lane E m barcadero RoaGeng Road dero Way Pasteur Drive Quarry Road Welch Road Encina A ve Urb a n Lane W ells Ave Emerson Street Alma Street El Cam ino Real Mitchell Lane High Street Gilman StreetUniversity Ave Florence St Tasso St Ruthven Ave Hawthorne Ave Everett Ave Poe St St Lytton Ave Churchill Ave Lowell Ave Seale AveTennyson Ave Cowper St Tasso St Webster St Byron St North California Ave Coleridge Ave Emerson Street Portal Pl Oregon Avenue Embar c a d ero Rd Forest Ave Homer Ave Hamilton Ave Webster Street Waverley Street Kipling Street Bryant Street Ramona Street Scott Street Byron St Fulton Street Kellogg Ave Tasso St Addison Ave Lincoln Ave Boyce Ave uinda Street Middlefield Road Channing Ave Regent Pl Fulton Street Melville Ave Byron Street Kingsley Ave Melville Ave Somerset Pl Fife Ave Fulton St Northampton Dr W Greenwich Pl Newell RdGuinda St E Greenwich Pl Southampton Dr Kent Place Tevis Pl Martin Ave Harriet St Wils o n S t Cedar St Harker Ave Greenwood Ave Hutchinson AveHopkins Ave Emba rcadero Ro a d Arcadia Pl Louisa Ct Newell PlSharon Ct Erstwild Court Walnut Dr Parkinson Dr Pin e St Mark Twain St Barbara Dr Primrose Way Wa lter Hays Dr Jordan Pl Lois Ln Heather Ln Bret Harte St Stanley Way De Soto Dr Alester Ave Channing Ave Kings Ln Jeffe Patrici Madi McG regor Way Silva Ave Silva Ct Miller Ct Bri arwood Way Driscoll Pl Ore g o n Ex pre s sw a y Oregon Expressway Page Mill Road Miranda Avenue Foothill Expressway Cerrito Way Calcaterra Pl CalTrain ROW CalTrain RO W Kipling St D ura nd W ay Swain Wa y Clark W ay Mos her W ay C harles Marx W a y Orchard Ln Vineyard Lane O ak R o ad Blake Wilbur Dr Campus Drive East Campus Drive W est Campus Drive West Palm Drive Ca m pus Dr ive East Bayshore Free w ay Palo Road Shopping Ctr W ay Shopping Ctr Way Shopping Ctr Way London Plane Way Plum Lane S w eet Olive Way Pear Lane Stanford Avenue Arguello Way Galvez St Arboretum Rd Lausen St Museum Way Roth WayLomita Drive Serra St Bowdoin Street Escondido Road Comstock Cir Pistache Place Santa Ynez St S alva tierra St L a n e B Alvar a do Ave Mayfield Ave Costonzo St Cabrillo A v e San Juan St Lane C Coronado Ave Dolores Ave Clara Drive Bellview Dr Mor t o n S t El Dorado Ave Aztec Dr Van AukenCir So uth CtBryant StRamona St El Cerrito Rd Rincon Cir Glenbrook Dr S uza n n e Dr Hemlock Ct V arian W ay Clark Way Newell Rd Fab er Place Galvez Mall Santa Teresa St Panama Mall Panama St Lane L Lasuen Mall Stanford Ave R aim u n do W ay Peter C outts R d Cedro Way Lathrop Drive Esplanada Way P i ne Hi ll Rd Lane W Lagunita Dr Gerona Rd Frenc hm a ns R d Rosse Ln Searsville Rd Welch Rd C a m p u s D r Campus Dr k Farm Rd Via Pueblo Mall Nelson Rd Nelson Mall Churchill MallSam M cD onald Rd Serra St Olmsted Rd Links Rd Bonair Siding Escondido Mall Serra Mall N/S Axis Los Arboles Ave Crothers Way Junipero Serra Blvd Alta Rd Vista Ln T o l m a n Dr Allardice Way W e bster St St Francis Dr Sierra Ct Bowdoin Lane Governors Ave O'C o n n or L n Downtown North Crescent ParkDuveneck-St. Francis Duveneck-St. Francis CommunityCenter OldPalo Alto University South Leland Manor MidtownSouthgate Evergreen Mayfield VenturaCollege Terrace Palo Verde Adobe Meadows Meadow Park CharlestonGardens CharlestonMeadows Fairmeadow WalnutGrove Greenmeadow MonroePark Barron Park Palo AltoOrchard Greenacres I Greenacres II Matadero Creek Charleston Slough Matadero Creek San Francisquito Creek Matadero Creek Barron Creek Barron Creek Adobe Creek Adobe Creek Adobe Creek Adobe Creek E mily R enzel W etla nds Adobe Creek Coast Casey Forebay Matadero C r eek Matadero Creek A dobe Creek Dry Creek Dry Creek LagunitaLake San Francisquito StanfordUniversity Mountain 120-28-091 120-28-085120-28-084 120-28-051 120-28-090 120-28-082120-28-081120-28-080 120-28-036120-28-099 120-27-073 120-27-072120-27-049 120-15-007 120-15-090 132-38-047 132-38-017 132-38-018 132-41-025 132-41-085 120-30-048120-30-049 120-28-092 120-28-093120-28-094 120-28-004 120-28-005 120-28-033 120-28-003 Landscape Overlay70' from center line ofpublic right of way Landscape Overlay50' from property line Landscape Overlay100' from property line 65' 75' Landscape Overlaymeasured fromcenter line ofpublic right of way 20' Landscape Overlaymeasured fromproperty line 20' LandscapeOverlay from property line 100' Landscape Overlay measured from centerline of public rightof way Landscape Overlaysmeasured fromproperty line5' 5' For location of zone boundarySee Ord. # 4848 PF PF PF PF RP(L) PF RP(L) CC(2) PF RP RP RMD(NP) RP PF(AS3) CS(AS1) R-1 RP-5(D) PF(R) PF(R) RM-15 R-2 R-2 RM-15 RM-30 CN RM-30 R-2 PF(R) CC(2)(R) RM-30 CC(2) PF R-2 PF(R) CC(2)(R) PC-4127 PF(R) R-1 CC(2)(R) R-2 CC(2)(R)(P) RM-30 PF RM-40 R-2 PF RM-15 RM-15 R-1 CS PFRP(L) CS RM-30 RM-30 RM-15 RE CNRM-30 RM-15 PF PF CS(H) RM-30 R-1(10000) CS R-1 R-1 PF PC-2930 R-1(S) RM-30 R-1 PF CN CC RM-40 CC(2)(R) CN PC-2224 RM-15 R-2 PF PF PC-4268 PC-2293 RM-40 PC-4354PC-4463 PC-3028 PC-4637 PF RM-30 RM-30 PC-2952 RM-30 PF RM-15 PF R-2 PF RM-30 RM-30 PF RM-15 R-1 RM-30R-2 RM-30 R-2 CS RM-15 RM-30(L) GM GM RM-30 RM-15 CS CS RM-40 ROLM GM CS R-1 RP R-1 R-2 R-2 RM-15 RM-15 R-1 CN CN(GF/P) RM-40 HD PC-1992MOR MORRM-30(D) CS CC R-2R-2 R-2 R-2 R-2 RP R-2 RM-15 R-2 R-2 R-2 R-2 R-1(10000) R-1 R-1(10000)PF R-2 PC-2967PC-3266 PF PFPF RM-15 HD CN R-1 PC-4182 PC-3707 PC-4283 PF RT-35 PC-4389 CS CS PC-4465 CS CD-C(P)R-1(10000) RM-30AMF(MUO) DHS R-2 CD-S(P)AMF PC-4612 R-1 PFCC PF PF PC-4426 CC CN(L)(GF/P) PF R-1 RM-30 PFPF RM-30 PC-4063 PC-3872 PF PF PC-2130 PFCD-C (P) PC-4374 PF PF PF CD-C(P) CD-C(P) CD-N (P) PF PC-3111 PC-3007 PC-3974 PFPF PC-4262 PC-4243 PC-4195 RM-15RMD(NP)RM-40 PC-3429 CD-N (P) CD-C(GF)(P) RM-40CD-C (P) CD-C (P) PFAMF DHS DHS PF PC-4611 CC(L) PC-4053 RMD(NP) RMD(NP) RM-30 PF PC-2049 PC-3102 R-2 RM-15 R-1 RM-30 PC-4339 RM-30 RM-30 PF PC-4052PF PC-2545 RM-40 PC-2145 RM-30 PC-2968 PC-3995 R1 RP(AS2) CN R-1 (S) RM-30 PC-2656 R-2 R-1 CN RM-15 RM-30(L) PC-2218 PC-5116 PF R-1 PC-3023 RM-15 PC-4511 R-1 PC-3041 RM-15PF RM- 30 PC-5034 RM-30 CS CS(H) RM-15 PC-3133 RM-40 RM-30 PC-4190 RM-40 RM-30CS CS(L) R-1(S) R-1 PC-4448R-1 CS(L) PC-3036CS CS RM-30 RM-15 R-1 CS PF RM-15 CS(H) R-1(10000) RM-15 R-1(8000) R-1 R-1 R-1(S) PF CS(L) RM-15 RM-30 PC-3517 PF CN RM-15 R-1 PF R-1 ROLM(E)(D)(AD) ROLM(E)(D)(AD)ROLM(E)(D)(AD) PC-3753 R-1(S) PC-4782CS PC-4753 RT-50 CD-S(P) RT-50 RT-35 RT-35 R-2 RT-50 RT-50 CC(2)(P) R-1(S) GM GM(AD) CS(AD) CS CSCS(AD) CS PC-4779 CS(AD) PC-4831 PC-1643 RMD RM-30 CD-C(P) PC-2649 PC-4296 RM-15 PC-4173 PC-4436 PC-3437 RM-15 RM-30PC-8659 PC-2836PC-2152 R-1PF R-1 RM-15RM-30 PF R-2 RM-30 R-2 R-2 R-1 (S) R-1 PF PF RM-30 RM-15 RM-30 RM-15 PC-3405 RM-30 PC-4956 PF R-1(8000) R-1(7000) R-2 R-1(7000) R-1 R-1 PF RM-15 PC-3623 R-2 CS PF PC-3693 GM PF CS(AD) RM-30 R-1(8000)(S) R-1(8000) ROLM PF R-1(7000)(S) PC-2711 ROLM PF CS R-1 R M-3 0 RM-30 ROLM(D)(AD) R-1(8000) PC-2236 PC-2640 RM-15 PC-1417 PC-4843 RM-15 R-1(7000) R-2PF(D) RM-15 PC-2744 R-1(8000)(S) R-1(8000) GMR-1(8000) ROLM PF CN(GF/P) PC-2197 R-2 R-1 R-2 RM-15 RM-30 RM-15 PC-3183 RM-15 R-2 PF PF PC-1752 PC-1889 ROLM R-1 PF(D) RM-15 PF PC-3726 R-2 PF(D)R-1 PF PF ROLM PC-3020 PC-2962GM PF PF(D) PF ROLM(E)(D)(AD) ROLM(E)(D)(AD)PC-4847 CS(D) PC-4846 CN PC-4917 PC-4918 CD-C(GF)(P) PC-4973 R-2 CN (R) PC-5069 CN RM-15 CS(L)(D) RM-40 PTOD CC(2)(R) CC(2)(R) PTOD(R) PC-5158 PC-5150 CS(D) CD-C(P)CD-C(GF)(P) CD-S(GF)(P) PF(D) R-1 (7000)R-1 (7000) (S) CC(2) CC(2) CC(2) R-1 (7000) This map is a product of the City of Palo Alto GIS This document is a graphic representation only of best available sources. Legend Housing Opportunity Sites (2015-2023 Housing Element) Small Lot Consolidation Housing Opportunity Sites 0'1800' Ho u s i n g O p p o r t u n i t y S i t e s 20 1 5 - 2 0 2 3 H o u s i n g E l e m e n t Sm a l l L o t C o n s o l i d a t i o n S i t e s CITY O F PALO A L TO I N C O R P O R ATE D C ALIFOR N IA P a l o A l t oT h e C i t y o f A P RIL 16 1894 The City of Palo Alto assumes no responsibility for any errors. ©1989 to 2016 City of Palo Altoccampbe, 2016-10-20 10:22:15 (\\cc-maps\gis$\gis\admin\Personal\ccampbe.mdb) TDM  Levels TDM Measures Within ½ Mile of Transit TDM Measures More Than ½ Mile From Transit Light •Transportation Kiosk •Website •Rideshare promotion •Carpool/vanpool parking or permit •Join Palo Alto TMA •Bike parking: required + 10% •Promote flexible work schedules/telework •Guaranteed Ride Home program •Provide transportation information to all new employees •Transportation Kiosk •Website •Rideshare promotion •Carpool/vanpool parking or permit •Join Palo Alto TMA •Bike parking: required + 10% •Promote flexible work schedules/telework •Guaranteed Ride Home program •Provide transportation information to all new employees Moderate Light program plus: •Annual transportation fair •Protected long‐term bike storage/lockers •Shower access (on‐site or gym) •Subsidized transit passes (at least 50%) •Carshare membership Light program plus: •Annual transportation fair •Protected long‐term bike storage/lockers •Shower access (on‐site or gym) •Bike subsidy •Carpool/vanpool subsidy •Partially subsidized employer‐specific rideshare/vanpool  program/TNC provider •Carshare membership Heavy Moderate program plus: •Parking cashout for tenants •Unbundled parking for tenants •On‐site transportation coordinator •Fully subsidized transit (pass or paid) •Commute planning for employees •Shuttle program to/from home or transit •Provide on‐site amenities •Add real‐time amenities to existing bus structure *Annual monitoring required if requesting a reduction in required parking. Additional  measures may be necessary if not meeting parking reduction goals. Moderate program plus: •Parking cashout for tenants •Unbundled parking for tenants •Paid parking for tenant employees •On‐site transportation coordinator •Fully subsidized employer‐specific rideshare/vanpool  program/TNC provider •Commute planning for employees •Fund a new shuttle program or buy into existing shuttle to/from  home or transit •Provide on‐site amenities •E‐bike program •High quality bicycle/pedestrian connection to existing network Suggested TDM Guidelines*