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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPartB Proposed Arts & Innovation District Master Plan Information and FAQ (Attachment no staff report)1 PROPOSED ARTS & INNOVATION DISTRICT MASTER PLAN INFORMATION AND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ) Introduction__________________________________________________________________ The master plan for a potential Arts and Innovation District along El Camino Real and University Avenue, between Downtown Palo Alto and the main entrance to Stanford University is in its early stages. The plan is an opportunity to shape the project concept as proposed by developer and philanthropist John Arrillaga and address the City’s long-term needs to identify uses and enhance connections to Downtown, Stanford, and the Stanford Shopping Center, as anticipated and funded in the Stanford Hospital Projects Development Agreement. The City recognizes this is a unique moment to initiate planning for this area, especially if Mr. Arrillaga proceeds with a development application on the site. This plan and any associated projects will be subject to an open, public, and thorough review as they go forward, including an advisory vote by the Palo Alto electorate that is now planned for June 2013, early in the review process. When initially presented to Council in September, a vote in a March 2013, was suggested. It is clear that schedule would be too soon to allow enough initial public review. The concepts and plans for the Arts and Innovation District will evolve significantly with city commissions, city advisory boards and community input. This is an extremely important location in Palo Alto and there are many different objectives, opportunities, and impacts that must be reconciled appropriately. This is a prime location with the possibility to create a legacy project. The plan will need to be right for Palo Alto and the City’s future, if it is to occur. Recent Project Changes The initial Arts and Innovation District Master Plan concept was presented to the City Council on September 24th. Following Council feedback, staff engaged the Planning and Transportation (PTC) and the Architectural Review Board (ARB) in public meetings and received additional community feedback in October and November. At the December 3, 2012 Council meeting, a number of changes to the original concept and Draft Master Plan will be presented. That will include new building heights, massing, and site layout plans and potential. That plan review and discussion will likely initiate analysis of additional ideas and perspectives. Additional details are provided in the FAQ section below and will be presented at the December 3rd City Council meeting. Key revisions are as follows: Reduced Office Building Heights and Mass: The previous version featured two larger office buildings, each of which had two towers. The current proposal reduces and separates the footprints of these office towers, only linking the buildings through pedestrian bridges. Building orientation has remained the same, with two towers facing University Avenue and two facing Theater Plaza. There are significant reductions to the height and mass of all buildings, with the exception of the western building facing Theater Plaza, which has been increased in height by 11’. The following table compares the version of the office buildings which was presented to the Council in September, with the current version that will be reviewed on December 3rd. University Ave. West Tower University Ave. East Tower Theater Plaza West Tower Theater Plaza East Tower 9/24 Version 10 stories (150.5') 9 stories (136') 6 stories (92.5') 7 stories (107') 12/3 Version 7 stories (103.5') 6 stories (89') 7 stories (103') 6 stories (89') 2 Reduced Overall Office Square Footage: The overall amount floor area of the office buildings has been reduced from 260,000 to 210,300 square feet. This has been achieved by significantly reducing the footprints and/or heights of the buildings. Julia Morgan Hostess House Building in El Camino Park: In the revised master plan the historic Julia Morgan Hostess House is proposed to be relocated to El Camino Park between the soccer and softball fields. Future use of the Julia Morgan Hostess House building has not yet been determined, but the location in the park suggests a community-oriented use. New Lytton Bike and Pedestrian Underpass: The revised master plan concept includes a new pedestrian and bike underpass beneath the Caltrain right-of-way, at the terminus of Lytton Avenue (just north of the existing tunnel). This underpass adds a direct connection between Downtown, the Arts and Innovation District and Stanford Shopping Center. Dedicated Bike Route Connection: A new two-way, 10-foot wide dedicated bike route has been added to connect the proposed bike route north of the Caltrain station to the existing bike route south of the station. This would create a continuous bicycle network linking local and regional destinations, as well as directly linking bikes to transit. In addition to the revisions above, there have also been significant changes made to the configuration of dedicated parkland, to the relationship and integration between the theater and park, and to the overall landscaping plan. Additional research related to potential retail at the site has also been completed. All aspects of this new proposal will be elaborated upon at the December 3 City Council meeting. The following FAQ’s were requested by Council at their last meeting and are being assembled and made public by City staff to support understanding of the plan and respond to many of the questions being asked. The FAQs are not likely to cover all the questions about the project, and will be an evolving document, updated as the plan and the process move forward. More information about the project can be found on the City’s website: http://cityofpaloalto.org/artsandinnovation A. Master Plan Overview and Purpose 1. What is the purpose of the Arts and Innovation District? An Arts and Innovation District has been proposed for a key site that sits between Downtown Palo Alto and Stanford University. The site is approximately 4.3 acres in size and is owned by Stanford University. Bounded by University Avenue, El Camino Real, Alma Street and the rail corridor, and El Camino Real, the site has a history of master planning that goes back decades. The location is unique in Palo Alto in its commercial, cultural, transportation, economic, and social opportunities. The proposed master plan concept responds to a number of needs and opportunities that are inherent in the site:  A desire to improve the pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular linkages between Stanford University, Stanford Shopping Center, Stanford Hospital and the downtown business and residential areas of Palo Alto;  A need to modernize the transportation center to accommodate current and future demand and to facilitate easier and effective transit use that reduces auto traffic;  A desire to accommodate employment uses that spur innovation, in state-of-the-art facilities adjacent to transit, in a signature location in Silicon Valley; 3  An opportunity to provide a performing arts theater (TheatreWorks) as a complement to Downtown. The Arrillaga proposal is philanthropically motivated, therefore it gives the City more latitude to explore creative opportunities and identify public benefits than would be possible with a typical development. This is a rare opportunity that the City may not encounter again for many years and merits consideration through the planning and review effort that is beginning to unfold. The preliminary concepts that have been prepared for the master plan envision a cohesive district with the performing arts theater, a collection of mid-rise office buildings, and ground floor commercial uses, a variety of open spaces, and a redesigned transit center. The proposed building program reflects the unique nature of the site, and would not be considered appropriate for any other location in Palo Alto. Preparing a master plan for the site allows the City to balance the range of elements and potential trade-offs in a comprehensive manner. The initial building heights proposed in the master plan reflect the financial yield to incent a wide range of possible public uses and benefits, as well as the functional requirements of the theater, along with the initial square footage Mr. Arrillaga was suggesting for the site. In exchange, the increased height allows a greater proportion of the site to be retained for open spaces and plazas. The ultimate height and form of the buildings in the district, however, will be further refined through the community input process. Transportation will be an important aspect of the master plan. While the project would be fully parked per zoning code requirement and would allow parking to be shared between uses, aggressive Transportation Demand Management (TDM) measures would be incorporated, to take advantage of the transit-rich location and to reduce and manage project impacts. A significant amount of parking could potentially be utilized by surrounding uses in Downtown as part of shared parking agreement negotiations with the property owner. The master plan process is ongoing, and will continue to be shaped by community input. These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provide information on key elements of the proposed plan and the review process. B. Site and Project History and Plan Description 1. What planning efforts for this area have preceded this effort? This site has been the focus of planning efforts nearly continuously since 1880. Three recent efforts are particularly important to the development of this master plan: (1) Multi-Modal Transit Station studies in 1993, 2002, and 2007, (2) a Performing Arts Initiative in 2000, and (3) the Stanford University Medical Center (SUMC) Development Agreement in 2011. These plans are posted on the City’s website. The transit and theater studies were not implemented, but provided valuable ideas and concepts to consider. The SUMC Development Agreement provided substantial impetus and funding to improve the bicycle and pedestrian connections from Downtown through the site and on to Stanford Shopping Center and the Medical Center and campus. The master plan incorporates the purposes and objectives of these efforts and addresses the deficiencies of the existing Intermodal Transit Station, but produces an alternative solution to those investigated by the Multi-Modal Transit Station Project Implementation Plan. 4 This master planning process is different than prior efforts in that a potential plan for implementation (The Arrillaga proposal) could unfold in conjunction with the plan. Other plans, despite their ambitions, have “sat on the shelf” with little potential for real life implementation. 2. How was the current planning effort for this area initiated? In August of 2011, Mr. John Arrillaga, a well-known local developer and patron of many public and private community projects, who has built and donated over 90 buildings to Stanford and other schools and communities, approached the City to discuss the possibility of developing an office building at 27 University Avenue. Staff responded that this was a critical piece of land that should satisfy key community needs, such as facilitating connectivity, providing a community “sense of place,” and perhaps a live performance theater, given past interest and studies. The theater emerged as a potential key component of the proposal concept, and considerable work ensued to define the nature of public spaces and theater needs that may make the project viable. In March of 2012, the City Council authorized the use of Intermodal Transit Funds set aside in the Stanford University Medical Center Development Agreement to initiate the study of a master plan concept for the areas around 27 University Avenue to understand how this area can better serve the City. The City embarked on a comprehensive master plan effort, with weekly meetings of staff, consultants and key players. City staff and consultants have been collaborating extensively with staff of the major public transit agencies, and with Stanford’s Marguerite planners, to create long-term, sustainable transit solutions serving Palo Alto, Stanford and the region. Representatives from TheatreWorks and the patron/developer have been involved to contribute to a full and accurate understanding of needs and opportunities for various uses. The City Council reviewed master plan concepts in a study session on September 24, 2012 and provided direction to staff to meet with boards and commissions. The Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) and the Architectural Review Board (ARB) reviewed the master plan in a joint meeting and separate meetings. Also, in response to Council’s direction, the PTC and the ARB discussed height limits of buildings in Palo Alto in separate study sessions. Additional sessions are planned to present the concepts to and receive feedback from the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Historic Resources Board, as well as the broader community. There has been some criticism of the initial process employed by the City, as it worked to develop the foundation for a plan to present to the Council. The plan, however, has been intended only as the beginning point for the public review, dialogue, and discussion that is now unfolding. It was important that a starting point be established, as staff and consultant worked “behind the scenes” to generate ideas, recognizing they could not perfect the starting draft proposal. This was unavoidable, as the process included not only a master planning component but a simultaneous reaction to and consideration of a potential development proposal on the site. The plans will change and adapt as they move forward through the public process. The master plan concepts have continued to evolve to consider input from the public meetings. In response to input from the public, City Council, PTC and ARB, the most recent plan concepts will be presented at its December 3, 2012 City Council meeting, and will explore reducing the amount of office floor area and building height, refining the open space concepts, and further developing the connectivity network for pedestrians, bicycles, autos, and transit. The plans will also consider the relocation of Julia Morgan Hostess House building to El Camino Park and potential programming and uses at that location. 5 3. What are the boundaries of this Master Plan? Why is this project commonly referred to as “27 University”? The initial development proposal only included office buildings on the 27 University Avenue site, and that site has been referred to as the site address for notification purposes. While the original proposal from Mr. Arrillaga focused primarily on the 27 University site, the City has now expanded the scope of the potential Arts & Innovation District planning effort to include the multimodal transit center, El Camino Park to the North and Urban Lane to the South. 4. What exactly is being proposed as part of this project (height of buildings, etc.)? And how does the current version of the Master Plan compare to the version presented to the City council in September? Below is a table that outlines the details key site data for both the September and December versions of the project. A more detailed description of the entire Master Plan can be found in the City Council staff report and will be presented to the City Council on December 3rd. September 24, 2012 December 03, 2012 Commercial Square Footage (gross): 262,580 210,300 Office Ground Floor 23,080 24,600 Office Floors Above Grade 239,500 185,700 Office Height(s): roof/mech roof/mech University Ave & Mitchell Lane Tower 136'-0" / 147'-0" 89'-0" / 99'-0" University Ave & El Camino Tower 150'-6" / 161'-6" 103'-6" / 113'-6" Quarry & El Camino Tower 92'-6" / 103'-6" 103'-6" / 113'-6" Quarry & Mitchell Lane Tower 107'-0" / 118'-0" 89'-0" / 99'-0" Office Number of Floors: University Ave & Mitchell Lane Tower 9 6 University Ave & El Camino Tower 10 7 Quarry & El Camino Tower 6 7 Quarry & Mitchell Lane Tower 7 6 Theater Square Footage (gross): 80,000 80,000 Ground Floor 35,000 35,000 Floors Above Grade 45,000 45,000 Fly Tower Height: 100 95 6 C. Land Uses, Intensity, and Design 1. What are comparative building heights for existing buildings in Palo Alto? Yr Bldg Roof Highest Point 1929 480 University , President Hotel 80 ft - 1930 360 Forest , Casa Real 70 ft - 1931 Hoover Pavilion 50 ft 105 ft 1941 Hoover Tower 285 ft - 1942 Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital 98ft 114 ft 1943 Main Stanford Hospital 153 ft 180 ft 1958 101 Alma 123 ft 143 ft 1962 850 Webster , Channing House 142 ft - 1965 501 Forest, The Marc 152 ft - 1966 525 University - Bldg 237 ft - 1970 250 Hamilton , City Hall 122 ft - 1972 3000 El Camino Real Palo Alto Square 132 ft 143 ft 1975 180 Hamilton, Casa Olga/Hotel 76 ft - 2006 2050 University EPA ** Four Seasons 113 ft - 2013 101 Lytton 50 ft 70 ft 2013 Palo Alto HS Theater Fly Tower 80 ft - 2. How does the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for this project compare to other Palo Alto projects? Floor Area Ratio is a commonly used metric that compares building floor area to total lot area. In Palo Alto, non-residential development is allowed up to 2.0:1 FAR in certain commercial areas. However, many buildings shown in the table above were constructed decades ago with FARs that significantly exceed 2.0. Although the exact FAR will be determined as the project is refined through the public input process, it is expected that the overall Master Plan FAR will be approximately 2.0. 3. What will happen to the historic Julia Morgan Hostess House building? The building will be preserved and relocated to a new site in Palo Alto. John Arrillaga has indicated that he would move the building at his expense to a location of the City’s choosing. The City’s Parks and Recreation Commission formed an ad hoc committee to review relocating the Julia Morgan Hostess House building to several possible nearby locations. The Commission is scheduled to receive the presentation and discuss the concepts and concerns at its November 27, 2012 meeting. City staff is evaluating options that could move the building to El Camino Park, retaining the soccer and ball-fields and giving the building road frontage on El Camino Real. This relocation could allow for various not-for-profit, youth and community activities to occur in this building. Numerous ideas for programming at the site are being suggested by community members. 7 4. What type of open/plaza space is being proposed? The signature open space would be a theater plaza designed as a vibrant public place, providing a setting for a new performing arts center and office buildings. It would be intended as a new downtown civic destination for visitors and the Palo Alto community in the downtown, visible from El Camino Real, El Camino Park and Stanford Shopping Center, and would incorporate outdoor seating, landscaping, and other pedestrian amenities adjacent to ground floor retail and service space. A new meadow is proposed to feature the redwood trees that celebrate Palo Alto Olympians facing El Camino Real. The Transit Ring Road would shape a pair of symmetrical landscaped parks forming the terminus of Palm Drive and entrance to Downtown, and roadways would be lined with shade trees and wide sidewalks. A new depot plaza is envisioned north of the existing historic train depot, where the proposed pedestrian and bicycle tunnel connects the project to Lytton Avenue. 5. Why is Office use being proposed, rather than Residential? Office and Residential uses both benefit from proximity to transit, though studies show that office users are more likely to use transit when nearby than residents. Many employers are seeking locations close to transit so that employees do not need to drive to work, thereby minimizing traffic impacts. Office use is being proposed in the Arts and Innovation District in order to accommodate demand in Palo Alto for state-of-the-art office space. Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan Economics Element Goal B-3 encourages “new business(es) that provide needed local services and municipal revenues, contribute to economic vitality, and enhance the City’s physical environment.” The intention is to provide office space that can accommodate innovative new businesses, and/or allow existing Palo Alto employers to grow and remain in town, adjacent to transit. Neither Stanford or Mr. Arrillaga have indicated a willingness to build housing on the site. 6. Why are the buildings being proposed at this height? Given the objectives to maximize open space, increase transit center capacity and have a state- of-the-art performing arts theater, the developer has proposed constructing buildings that exceed the City’s height standards. The increased height allows for smaller building footprints and more room for open space, the transit center and theater. The ultimate building heights, however, remain under consideration and will be refined through the community input process. This is a unique site in that it is relatively large, and therefore buildings can be set back farther from the street than many other infill developments. Being adjacent to El Camino Real, a roadway much wider than other Palo Alto roadways, also creates a design context that can support greater building heights. Staff does not expect to support other new buildings in Palo Alto exceeding 5 stories in height, since they do not share the distinctive size and locational attributes that this site has, in addition to the public benefits that could accrue. 7. What are the implications of building more office space on complying with Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) mandates? ABAG’s housing and employment projections are based on regional and sub-regional estimates, and already assume substantial employment growth in the City through 2040, sufficient to accommodate what is proposed on this and other sites. It is unlikely that ABAG’s projected housing needs would change based on office growth in Palo Alto. For example, currently ABAG projects 29,000 new jobs in Palo Alto by 2040, whereas this project is estimated to generate about 1,000-1,500 jobs. Housing projections are based on the employment estimates, so they would not increase based on this project. 8 8. If this proposal were to be denied, would the property remain undeveloped moving forward? The location makes this a very attractive potential development site. Therefore it is highly improbable that the land would remain unchanged for an extensive period. However, the type of development that could be proposed on this site in the future is not known and would depend on market conditions at the time. The site is owned by Stanford University and its representatives have not indicated intent for development in the near future. Any development that proceeds would necessarily be a Stanford endorsed and supported development. The current proposal is not a typical development proposal, however, as it includes philanthropic components, including the theater, the bike/pedestrian connections, realignment of the transit hub, and open space areas, as well as an intent to donate lease revenue to the University. As a cooperative venture, there is potential in this possible proposal, as the City could meet more community valued objectives in this proposal than are likely to be offered in future proposals. 9. How does this relate to the Citywide and Downtown development cap? This project site falls outside the official Downtown Commercial Study Area, and therefore does not “count against” the Downtown development cap as described in the Municipal Code. However, the downtown development cap study, which will begin in early 2013, will take this project into consideration of parking and traffic impacts in the area. Any environmental document associated with this development will take existing and proposed downtown development into consideration, too. Finally, this project must be factored into the Citywide development cap as established in the City’s Comprehensive Plan. D. Traffic Impacts 1. Have any traffic studies been prepared for the Plan? What were the results? A Preliminary Traffic Assessment has been prepared to estimate potential traffic and transportation-related impacts associated with the master plan concept. A complete traffic analysis would be prepared as part of an Environmental Impact Review (EIR) process. Preliminarily, up to 3,000 new vehicle trips per day may be realized by the project between the proposed office and theatre uses, prior to any reductions from Transportation Demand Management solutions. This traffic would include 310 new trips during the AM commute period and another 328 trips during the PM peak period. Potential new roadway improvements include an extension of Quarry Road east of El Camino Real into the site as well as improvements to the existing Mitchell Lane and the circular road around University Avenue. Significant Transportation Demand Management (TDM) measures will be incorporated as a critical will be a critical feature in this project (see examples of dramatic Stanford reductions in vehicle trips in recent years) and mitigating traffic impacts will be a key requirement of the plan. 2. What percentage of site users is expected to drive to this area, as compared to taking alternative modes of transportation? The master plan includes expanded Transportation Demand Management (TDM) elements for the project to promote the use of alternative transportation modes, such as transit and bicycling. While a large percentage of people will still drive, the anticipated total alternative mode shift for the project is estimated to range from 25-40%, reflecting transit use, walking and biking, and carpool use (based on data available from nearby Stanford University and the Stanford University Medical Center developments). The higher end of the range of alternative transportation usage is expected given the proximity to the transit center. In general, the closer 9 employees are to a transit station, the more likely they are to take transit. Several large office users in the Palo Alto-Mountain View area are now reporting alternative mode use of 30-40% for their employees, with integrated TDM programs. 3. How much parking will be provided? Will the project be “fully parked”? The master plan concept includes three levels of underground parking accommodating more than 850-900 automobiles. Additional surface and drop-off parking adjacent to the theater for performances is also proposed. The project is expected to meet the parking requirements set for in the Municipal Code, and in fact, may exceed the required parking requirements. In addition, aggressive Transportation Demand Management requirements would be placed on the project in order to reduce the demand for parking spaces by increasing alternative transportation use. Given the proximity to the transit center, it is expected that a higher percentage of commuters will use transit, especially if given incentives (for example, free transit passes). Unused spaces could potentially be used by surrounding downtown uses through negotiations with the developer. 4. Most Palo Alto residents do not use transit. How would an expanded transit center benefit the Palo Alto majority who drive to work and shop? Thousands of people use the Palo Alto Transit Center every day. In fact, Caltrain use in Palo Alto has expanded by 15% over the past year and will continue to expand over the coming decades. If the Palo Alto station cannot accommodate demand, local roadways will be further impacted, as the percentage of people driving will increase. This would result in longer wait times on roadways and stoplights. The traffic study that will be required for this project will estimate the number of car trips and vehicle miles travelled that will be reduced because of transit. Staff expects, however (and the traffic study will evaluate), that improvements to the transit center will enhance transit use not only for trips to and from the project site, but also to many trips unrelated to the development proposal. E. Transit, Bicycle and Pedestrian Opportunities and Impacts 1. How many daily riders utilize Caltrain, bus transfers, and Marguerite at the Downtown Palo Alto multimodal station? The University Avenue Caltrain station has the highest volume of any stop on the Caltrain line, with the exception of the terminus in San Francisco. Over 4,600 Caltrain riders board or unload from the station on an average weekday, a 15% increase over the past year (Source: February 2012 Caltrain Annual Passenger Counts). Over 2,500 Marguerite riders use the station on an average weekday, providing connections with Caltrain and other public transit facilities such as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and Samtrans. 2. What is the growth capacity of the transit services at the Downtown Palo Alto multimodal station in the short-term and long-term? The existing VTA transit mall and University Loop is not sufficient to meet current transit demand. This Master Plan expands existing capacity from 21 bus stops and layovers to 32 stops and layovers. This provides 12 for Marguerite shuttles and 20 for the transit agencies, per Stanford, VTA and Samtrans requests for near-term capacity. Long-term, additional bus capacity can be accommodated along Urban Lane with bus stops and layovers extending adjacent to the Caltrain tracks. 10 3. What is the expected cost for building out the transit center without the Arts and Innovation projects? The March 2007 Multi-Modal Transit Station Project Implementation Plan estimated the cost to produce the solution identified in that report as $281 million dollars. The concept of the transit center is significantly different from the 2007 version, however. The estimated cost of this new effort apart from the rest of the development is not known at this time but is expected to be significantly less. 4. What options are available for providing enhanced bicycle and pedestrian opportunities through the site? The master plan is intended to improve bicycle and pedestrian connectivity between the Stanford Shopping Center and Downtown Palo Alto by providing new continuous sidewalk connections, trail elements, and an expanded tunnel between the project site and Downtown. The trails could provide for off-street bicycle and pedestrian facilities along with share-the-road treatments. The master plan proposes a new pedestrian and bicycle underpass under the Caltrain tracks at Lytton Avenue The plan anticipates a wider tunnel than the existing cross platform tunnel to improve accessibility under the tracks. Continuity of the bicycle lane through the transit center area of the concept plan was identified as an issue at the September 24, 2012 City Council meeting. Connection of the bike trail to the trail that runs from the Homer tunnel to Palo Alto High School and to the bike trail that heads west up Sand Hill Road at El Camino Real is included in the revised master plan. This opportunity has been studied further and will be presented again to the City Council at its December 3, 2012 meeting. F. Economic Benefits 1. How would the Plan/project affect the City’s property tax base from increased assessments for the extensive office use? Several impacts to revenues are anticipated if the concepts outlined become an actual project. The improvements to the site would generate approximately $100,000-$150,000 annually to the City in additional property tax. If the project proceeds, an economic impact analysis would accompany the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to sharpen these estimates and to include an estimate for Utility Users Tax and multipliers such as transient-occupancy tax and additional sales tax generated by theater patrons, employees, and transit users. Such a study would also calculate the increased costs related to City services needed to serve the project. 2. What benefits might be realized based on economic multipliers received from theater patrons? What economic impact could this project have on the surrounding area? According to a recent national study by Americans for the Arts, “the typical arts attendee spends $27.79 per person, per event (not including the cost of admission) on items such as meals, parking, shopping, and babysitters.” A more local-specific multiplier would be calculated as part of an economic impact analysis. By making the space attractive for users, a unique connection can be made between Downtown, Stanford and the Shopping Center. The creation of such a space can benefit the City in several ways. Employees populating the offices and theater at the Arts & Innovation District would vitalize the space through their regular daytime presence. Events and performances will bring the nighttime visitors. They all have the potential to become consumers for the products and services offered by the ground floor uses, as well as to the Downtown and Stanford Shopping Center. Given the proximity to transit, there are most likely 11 less impacts (e.g., traffic, parking) necessary to create benefits for the City (e.g., additional vitality and tax revenues). 3. What is the potential tax revenue benefit for retail uses on the site? Based on rough estimates compiled using data from nearby retail, staff estimates that sales tax from 23,000 square feet of gross retail space could generate between $80,000-$100,000 per year for the City. 4. What are the philanthropic and not-for-profit aspects of the proposal? The theater would be constructed to accommodate a non-profit theater company, a major benefit to the City and the regional community, and the Plaza would become public property. While the theater would be in use by TheatreWorks for many days during the year, their model also includes important educational programming and opportunities for other uses of the theater. In addition, the space freed up at Lucie Stern Community Center, if TheatreWorks moves to this site, could provide valuable space for performances and other uses at Lucie Stern for other educational, arts, and recreational users. The Theater could cost as much as $100 million. The lease revenues from the office buildings would be dedicated to Stanford University, in Mr. Arrillaga’s intial proposal. 5. How would the project be leveraged for enhanced investment in the transit center? The project design offers several opportunities to make significant improvements to the transit center capacity and flow, and to pedestrian/ bicycle network and connections envisioned as part of the project and part of the Stanford University Medical Center commitment. G. El Camino Park 1. What is the history of El Camino Park? What efforts have been made to integrate the park with the theater plaza and project? El Camino Park is Palo Alto’s oldest park and was established in 1914, when City leaders wanted an open and attractive entryway into town at the southern gateway of El Camino Real. The park is on Stanford property. Palo Alto signed a lease with the University in 1915 and to this day continues to lease the land from Stanford. (Source: City of Palo Alto website at: http://archive.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/csd/news/details.asp?NewsID=105&TargetID=14) The City passed a Parkland ordinance that resulted in the current boundaries of the park. Approximately a half acre area of this parkland is configured in a narrow area (landscape strip) that stretches south along El Camino Real and has not been used for park uses for the past 98 years. As part of the presentation to the City Council on September 24, 2012, the reconfiguration of the narrow area was proposed to allow office functions to reside in that area and better utilize the resulting consolidated parkland area. The theater is proposed to encroach into the Park area, but is considered compatible with the parkland. At the September 24, 2012 City Council meeting, the Council directed staff to identify possible synergies between the 27 University Master Plan concepts and the plans for the renovation and improvement of El Camino Park. The possible integration concepts will be presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission on November 27, 2012, and the City Council on December 3, 2012. 12 2. Why is a modification to the Parkland Dedication Ordinance required? A portion of El Camino Park would be “undedicated” to accommodate the driveway access from Quarry Road across the landscape strip and barren land, and the landscape strip will now be incorporated into the office project. Neither of those areas currently provides recreational or cultural opportunities, and the theater and plaza areas would more than compensate for the lost area. H. Review and Approval Process, Community Input and Public Vote 1. What approval steps will be involved with the plan and project? How and when will environmental review take place? The plan and project will require, at a minimum, the following reviews and approvals:  Public vote on the project/plan concept (advisory) and the parkland “undedication”  Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to be prepared if the project proceeds following the vote, which will require public review, recommendation by the Planning and Transportation Commission, and City Council  Rezoning of the site to the Arts & Innovation District, requiring public review, recommendations from various boards and commissions, and the Planning and Transportation Commission, prior to final action by the City Council  Design review by the Architectural Review Board, prior to zoning review and approval by the Planning and Transportation Commission and City Council 2. Why would this plan have a public vote? An advisory vote would gauge the community's support for this significant project, prior to more detailed analysis and architecture. This is a large and complex project that will require departures from existing land use policy, and Council and staff acknowledge the need to solicit community input through the vote, formalizing community participation well beyond the various meetings and review sessions that must occur. The advisory vote will help the Council and other stakeholders determine whether or not the community perceives that the public benefits from the potential project would outweigh the resulting land use impacts. 3. How is input from the community being gathered for this plan? A number of public meetings have been held to review and provide input on the master plan concept:  City Council Meeting – April 9, 2012  City Council Meeting – September 24, 2012  Joint ARB/PTC Meeting – October 24, 2012  PTC Meeting – October 24, 2012  ARB Meeting – November 1, 2012  Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting – November 27, 2012  Historic Resources Board Meeting – December 5, 2012 These are all preliminary meetings. The City Council will meet on December 3, 2012, to consider the evolving master plan concepts, developed in response to public meetings thus far. An extensive community outreach process will continue prior to the public vote in June 2013 (if Council determines that date is appropriate) and substantial further community input and board 13 and commission review would follow (as outlined in #1 above) if the Council moves forward after the advisory vote. 4. What would the public be voting on? The public would be asked to consider whether the City Council should: (1) initiate a change in the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code to facilitate the potential project and (2) exchange the unused "panhandle" portion of El Camino Park for more usable portion of adjacent land to facilitate better site planning for the potential project. An advisory vote is not binding on the City Council, but the Council will consider the results before taking major actions. 5. If the public votes yes on this project, would it be automatically approved? No. In addition to the public vote, there will be community meetings, workshops and public hearings in front of boards, commissions and the Council. In addition, a full scale environmental impact report and associated entitlements will need to be examined and scheduled for public hearings. The vote would simply advise the Council whether the community wishes to proceed with the formal review process. SUMMARY OF COMMENTS FROM 9/24/12 COUNCIL MEETING – ARTS AND ENTERNTAINMENT DISTRICT 1 Comment Response 1. The process lacks transparency and needs review by city commissions and boards (Planning and Transportation Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, ARB, etc.) to inform Council decision-making. Explain the process. Pages 4-9 of the City Manager Report (CMR) describes the review by the city commissions and boards to date, and the additional review that is anticipated. 2. Need neighborhood/community outreach plan and input on intermodal terminal and master plan Members of the community are encouraged to attend commission and board meetings where the master plan is being reviewed. In addition, a community workshop is envisioned in January. The “Open Town Hall” feature on the City’s website could provide an additional forum for community input. 3. Need to address building heights – try taking top floor office that is smaller in area off, reduce floor-to-floor heights, increase building mass 10- 20% to reduce number of floors. Describe building footprint v. building height. The massing and building heights in the master plan continues to evolve in response to community input. Pages 10-12 of the CMR describes the most recent revisions to the master plan concept including massing and building heights. 4. Need to affirm council commitment to 50-foot height limit citywide (and address downtown application issues for minor adjustments to 50 foot limit), and have this before council before revisiting the project This issue of the 50-foot citywide building height is related to the Arts & Innovation District Master Plan concept, but it is also a larger community issue that extends beyond the master plan. Discussion of the citywide building heights is ongoing as part of the Comprehensive Plan Update. Recent board and commission meetings that have discussed the issue are summarized on pages 8-9 of the CMR. 5. Park swap need discussion, doesn’t seem equal if trading park land for streets, plaza not same as park The parkland swap is discussed on pages 13 and 18 of the CMR. 6. Relocate Julia Morgan in El Camino Park (if teen center, not isolated, public comment -- special needs pediatric care center?) The potential relocation of the Julia Morgan building is discussed on page 12 of the CMR. 7. Present project for what it is, it is not in scale/compatible with downtown The first step to determining what type of development is appropriate for any location is referring to Comprehensive Plan policies. There are a number of applicable policies, however several policies have particular relevance and are listed in Attachment K: Commissioner Questions and Staff Responses 10 24 12. In addition, this site has a history of master planning that goes back decades. Any proposed development for the site needs to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and the spirit of the master planning efforts. 8. Public needs more information to weigh concrete benefits and impacts The City has prepared Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that outlines key aspects of the proposed master plan concept. 9. What are city resource impacts, revenue impacts? Page 20 of the CMR provide an overview of potential city resource impacts and revenue impacts. 10. What are the direct/indirect economic development benefits? The FAQ provides a discussion of potential direct and indirect economic development benefits of the proposed master plan. 11. What are the timeline and costs and cost allocations? The FAQ, as well as page 10 of the CMR, provide discussions of the timeline for the master plan. SUMMARY OF COMMENTS FROM 9/24/12 COUNCIL MEETING – ARTS AND ENTERNTAINMENT DISTRICT 2 12. Need traffic analysis before the advisory measure. The FAQ, as well as pages 15-16 of the CMR describes the preliminary traffic assessment for the master plan has been prepared. A Complete Traffic Impact Analysis (TIA) would be prepared as part of an Environmental Impact Review (EIR) process. 13. Need parking study – sufficient parking, if use Caltrain parking will Caltrain demand spill over into downtown, avoid neighborhood impacts Parking is discussed in the FAQ. The master plan concept includes three levels of underground parking accommodate between 850 to 900 automobiles. The master plan concept anticipates sharing parking between compatible uses where peak parking demands are at different times. Parking would be evaluated as part of the EIR process. 14. TheatreWorks LOI need to revisit language in more general way re: have availability for public use without impacting performance The TheatreWorks Letter of Intent (LOI) continues to be refined along with the master plan concept. A Draft LOI is included with the CMR as Attachment T. 15. Downtown development cap – what is impact on cap, how to reconcile the scale of this project? This site falls outside the official Downtown Commercial Study Area, and therefore does not “count against” the Downtown development cap as described in the Municipal Code. However, the downtown development cap study, which will begin in early 2013, will take this project into consideration of parking and traffic impacts in the area. Any environmental document associated with this development will take existing and proposed downtown development into consideration, too. Finally, this project must be factored into the Citywide development cap as established in the City’s Comprehensive Plan. 16. Need define type of retail tenants in master plan, how it will be managed/designed? Need to think of it like shopping center to support placemaking Study of the retail component is ongoing. Staff recently met with three different retail development experts to discuss the potential for the ground floor uses at the site. The findings are described in the FAQ. 17. Redesign pedestrian/bike Lytton tunnel to be like Homer tunnel Pedestrian and bicycle paths are discussed on pages 12-13 of the CMR, as well as the FAQ. 18. Close gap in bike routes through transit center The master plan concept has been revised to provide a continuous bike route through the transit center. It is discussed on pages 12-13 of the CMR, as well as the FAQ. 19. Revisit surface parking impacts at El Camino Park The El Camino Park plan would be revised in coordination with the Arts and Innovation District Master Plan. The current concept for El Camino Park including its surface parking is discussed on pages 12 and 18 of the CMR, as well as the FAQ. 20. Revisit design for walking connection from downtown to project Pedestrian and bicycle paths are discussed on pages 12-13 of the CMR, as well as the FAQ. 21. Include TDM in project mitigations The master plan includes expanded Transportation Demand Management (TDM) elements to promote the use of alternative transportation modes, such as transit and bicycling. TDM is discussed in the FAQ. 22. Consider amenities attractive to 20-30 year old techies, such as roof top terraces The current master plan uses and amenities are described on pages 11-15 of the CMR. The master plan is evolving, and amenities would continue to evolve if a development project is submitted under the master plan. 23. Improve existing Caltrain ramps and tunnels, existing is so undesirable Pedestrian and bicycle paths are discussed on pages 12-13 of the CMR, as well as the FAQ. SUMMARY OF COMMENTS FROM 9/24/12 COUNCIL MEETING – ARTS AND ENTERNTAINMENT DISTRICT 3 24. Resolve transit operations and capacity with agencies and Stanford Transit operations are discussed in the FAQ. The current master plan concept expands existing capacity from 21 bus stops and layovers to 32 stops and layovers. This provides 12 for Marguerite shuttles and 20 for the transit agencies, per Stanford, VTA and Samtrans request for near-term capacity. 25. Address loss of significant trees The CMR discusses landscape concepts on pages 14-15. The master plan will include a landscape plan, which would address existing trees on the site as well as new trees and landscaping. Any project submitted under the master plan would also be required to have a landscape plan. 26. Consider how to create broader Arts District that links to Stanford’s facilities, such as the Bing Center Path and roadway connections to Stanford are discussed on pages 12-13 of the CMR. 27. Explore how to leverage dollars to create connections across the tracks The FAQ includes discussion of funding sources and strategies for transportation site improvements. 28. Want fly over animation like Stanford Medical Center The Stanford Medical Center proposal was a project submittal, whereas the Arts and Innovation Master Plan is a planning effort and is more conceptual. The master plan puts less emphasis on the specific building architecture than would be found with a project submittal. However, a project subsequently submitted under the master plan would be expected to utilize a range of visual tools as it undergoes design review, possibly including fly-over animation. 29. Clarify no indirect ABAG impact by project that will increase housing allocation The FAQ discusses the ABAG mandates. ABAG’s housing and employment projections are based on regional and sub-regional estimates, and already assume substantial employment growth in the City through 2040, sufficient to accommodate what is proposed on this and other sites. It is unlikely that ABAG’s projected housing needs would change based on office growth in Palo Alto. 30. How will theater lease work with Stanford so no concern of loosing lease Stanford and TheatreWorks will be responsible for an agreement for the theater lease. TheatreWorks has indicated it would need to have an agreement in place to secure funding for its capital campaign. 31. Expect to see revisions to master plan with input from boards and commissions at next council session on this topic The master plan concept has been revised to reflect input from the Council, boards, commissions, and community member correspondence. The revisions are described on pages 10-15 of the CMR. 32. Focus on "Hostess House" and include it in the Master Plan Siting of the Julia Morgan Hostess House is ongoing, with coordination between the master plan and the El Camino Real Park planning. A concept to relocate the building to El Camino Park is described in page 12 of the CMR, and will be further considered by the Historic Resources Board at its December 5th meeting. 33. What have we done to ensure that the retail will be utilized and full of activity? Staff recently met with three different retail development experts to discuss the potential for the ground floor uses at the site. The findings are described on page 13 of the CMR. SUMMARY OF COMMENTS FROM 9/24/12 COUNCIL MEETING – ARTS AND ENTERNTAINMENT DISTRICT 4 34. This is a great opportunity to create something of historic proportions The master plan process is intended to recognize the importance of the site and opportunities. 35. Concern of conflicts of interest Conflict of interest protocols apply to the master plan, as it would any other project submittal or planning process. 36. Why weren't the neighborhoods involved in meetings? Council, commission, and board meetings have been the primary engagement venues for the planning process to date. A communtiy workshop is envisioned for January. 37. Please think bigger -- a bond issue to match Mr. Arrillaga's contribution to underground the tracks. The master plan encompasses the Stanford lands, El Camino Park, and the transit center. Undergrounding the rail tracks would be part of an overall rail corridor strategy that would extend beyond the master plan boundaries. The Council and community could consider a bond issue for rail corridor improvements independently, but the master plan is not contingent upon rail corridor improvements. 38. Why is there no housing in the Master Plan? Office and Residential uses both benefit from proximity to transit, though studies show that office users are more likely to use transit when nearby than residents. Office use is being proposed in the Arts and Innovation District in order to accommodate demand in Palo Alto for state-of- the-art office space. 39. What is the process between now and the election? The FAQ, as well as page 10 of the CMR, provide discussions of the timeline for the Advisory Measure. 40. When is the citywide height limit going to be discussed with Council? There have been two study sessions since September 24, 2012 Council meeting regarding the City’s height limit. There is interest in exploring where additional height might be acceptable, given existing context and planning documents for housing growth. Additional public outreach is envisioned. The process to change the text in the Comprehensive Plan regarding height, and the height limit in any particular zone district, would involve reviews and actions by the ARB, PTC and Council. 41. Who is paying for the different parts of this project? The master plan is being funded through the use of Intermodal Transit Funds set aside in the Stanford University Medical Center Development Agreement. The processing of any project application submitted under the master plan would be funded by application fees. 42. Describe the parking. Will it be available to the public? The FAQ discusses parking for the master plan. 43. Better describe the parkland swap. Include the map. Be clear about the uses on the parkland and the plaza. Diagrams of the parkland swap are included in Attachments A and B. Proposed uses of the parkland and plazas are described on pages 14-15 of the CMR, and in the FAQ. City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 1 of 14 Thursday, October 4, 2012 1 REGULAR MEETING – 8:30 A.M. 2 City Council Chambers, Civic Center, 1st Floor 3 250 Hamilton Avenue 4 Palo Alto, California 94301 5 6 ROLL CALL: 7 Board members: Staff Liaison: 8 Clare Malone Prichard (Chair) Russ Reich, Senior Planner 9 Alexander Lew 10 Randy Popp Staff: 11 Lee Lippert Diana Tamale, Administrative Associate 12 Naseem Alizadeh Amy French, Chief Planning Official 13 Jason Nortz, Planner 14 15 STUDY SESSION: 16 1. Preliminary Consideration of the City’s Building Height Limit: This is a 17 preliminary discussion intended to meet Council’s directive for ARB 18 consideration of the City’s limitation on building height, particularly the 50 foot 19 limit of several zone districts and as noted in Comprehensive Plan Program L-3: 20 “Maintain and periodically review height and density limits to discourage single 21 uses that are inappropriate in size and scale to surrounding uses.” 22 23 Chair Malone Prichard: This is a Preliminary Consideration of the City’s Building Height Limit. 24 This is a preliminary discussion intended to meet Council’s directive for ARB consideration of 25 the City’s limitation on building height, particularly the 50 foot limit of several zone districts and 26 as noted in Comprehensive Plan Program L-3: “Maintain and periodically review height and 27 density limits to discourage single uses that are inappropriate in size and scale to surrounding 28 uses.” Amy do you have anything to kick this off? 29 30 Ms. Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Yes. I’d like to let you know, and I think I did 31 describe this in a cover memo that would have come to you about the 27 University project; just 32 to be clear: we’re not today discussing the 27 University project. The direction from the Council, 33 when they were looking at the project, was for both the ARB and Planning and Transportation 34 Commission to consider the City wide height limit, which is 50 feet. There are many zones that 35 allow 50 feet, and then many that don’t allow 40 feet. The ones that don’t allow that height are 36 generally next to residential neighborhoods. And even though we have some next to residential 37 neighborhoods, such as the CS district along El Camino, when it is within 150 feet of residential 38 it’s brought down to 35 feet. So I would direct you to the two maps on the wall. The one on the 39 left is all of the zones except for the PF or Public Facility zones that allow for a 50 foot height 40 limit. The map on the right is with PF or Public Facility zones added, so you can see that quite a 41 bit of the City is zoned Public Facility - the largest area being the Baylands, which is also Public 42 Facilities with a D overlay. 43 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 2 of 14 So that was just a bit of background. You did receive the 27 University CMR to the Council 1 which did note that downtown does have buildings taller than 50 feet, most approved in the 60s 2 and early 70s. And so I did notate in that report the approximate height or number of stories. And 3 so I’ll tell you that last night that came up with the Planning and Transportation Commission and 4 I was requested to come up with a map and elevations showing those buildings side by side as if 5 they were in a streetscape together so it could be seen in relative heights; so we’ll see how I do 6 with that with maybe Google street view or something. 7 8 Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to get that together for today but I did request if Judith could 9 help me out a bit with a presentation tonight. I haven’t had a chance to speak with her but she 10 did come today. I also want to call attention to the article I sent, which you probably saw when it 11 came out in 2004, but it’s a nice reminder of the intersection of building code and planning code. 12 The ARB has had discussions in the past about is 50 feet really this number, the thing we should 13 care about, or should we be looking at number of stories, and should we consider the quality of 14 the ceiling heights and all that? I thought that would be helpful to bring that part into focus. 15 16 So again, not a lot of presentation on my behalf but I know you’re up to the task of discussing 17 height and we do have a field trip at 10:00 with the Planning and Transportation Commission so 18 you have nearly an hour to go over this as you might. I don’t know if there’s anyone in the 19 public to bring this up. Aaron would you like to comment on your experience? For instance, I 20 was hearing lately that Burlingame adjusted their height limit up to 55 feet and that kind of goes 21 along with what was in this article about how once you have to put a concrete floor in it goes up 22 to 55 feet but I don’t know if, with your experience… 23 24 Mr. Aaron Aknin: I think a lot of cities are going through the same issues. They are trying to 25 align their zoning codes with building codes just to have smarter design and better design. At the 26 ARB retreat we spoke about street width and what does that play into building height and how 27 do we look at a relationship between street width and building height so there are a number of 28 great issues we can dive into today and communicate back to the City Council. 29 30 Chair Malone Prichard: Are there any members of the public to speak about this item? 31 32 Ms. French: [Former ARB Chair] Judith Wasserman did send me a Power Point presentation I’d 33 like to find and load up. This is one of the things that I was interested in, because we have quite 34 a history about the 50 foot height limit in this town, and I know Judith’s been around a while 35 living here… 36 37 Ms. Judith Wasserman: This is a Study Session isn’t it? So I’m not making presentations. I’m 38 just having a little chat. When I looked the Staff Report for 27 University included a list of 39 addresses of all of the over 50 foot buildings in town and I Googled the ones that were all around 40 here. I left out Palo Alto Square because it didn’t seem relevant but one thing I noticed as I went 41 through them and they had dates about when they were built is as the buildings got more recent, 42 they generally got uglier which made me think about the history of the IR Ordinance which was 43 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 3 of 14 generated on what we call “Monster Houses” and we’ve been instructed to not call them 1 “Monster Houses” because each one had a happy owner. 2 3 But the conclusion that we came to was small and ugly was better than big and ugly and if we 4 weren’t going to be able to legislate aesthetics on houses we should at least keep them to a 5 decent size so I think that the Height Ordinance was not a reaction to a height problem but a 6 reaction to a perceived ugliness problem. Also there was a huge project in the works for where 7 PAMF was going to move out. PAMF was originally going to build an enormous medical 8 building where it was. I think they were going to build it on the parking lot and then take the old 9 building down or something. The outcry over that, because it was in a residential neighborhood, 10 was so great that not only did they give up on the idea but they moved out of there entirely, sold 11 their properties, built the less than wonderful project on El Camino and generated the SOFA 12 process, and Lee can tell you the history of that one. It was very long and very acrimonious. So 13 the height limit was kind of coming out of that original plan that the medical foundation had so I 14 think that in the grand old John Northway tradition, we need to identify the problem before we 15 go ahead and solve it. 16 17 If the problem is defined as the Manhattanization of Palo Alto, I think some people ought to visit 18 Manhattan but if everybody says okay, we just don’t want the city to really grow tall. I think this 19 article from San Francisco was really excellent in that it pointed out the unintended 20 consequences of an arbitrary number. It seems to me that there are two ways that you can 21 address that problem. One is the way he described which is a story limit because the technology 22 building has increased the interstitial spaces between ceilings and floors. If you go back as 23 recently as the 50s and 60s, the old Stanford Hospital was built without air conditioning. The 24 floor to floor heights are 11 feet and you can’t fit anything in the interstitial spaces. There’s no 25 space there so we don’t do that anymore. 26 27 We just had a project, I can talk about it right? Because I’m not on the Board. Chop Keenan’s 28 project, where he needed height for his retail space and the article speaks to that, that we like 29 retail spaces that are tall. We like tall ceilings and if we’re going to have a floor area ratio that 30 governs how many square feet you can have on your floor plate, how many people are going to 31 do a ten by ten building that’s 100 feet high? Not too many. So the FAR governs pretty much 32 how high things are going to get. Maybe the project will be a little bit narrower and taller in 33 order to have some nice pedestrian plaza space or something but we’re not going to get into giant 34 buildings on the basis of just not having a magic number. 35 36 The PowerPoint I had sent Amy just showed all these buildings around here kind of in 37 chronological order I think starting with the President Hotel or something and ending up with 38 this which is not my favorite building; the thing down on Cowper and University. It’s not 39 anything new. Everyone has seen these buildings, 101 Alma. I couldn’t get pictures of 101 40 Alma because it’s hidden behind the trees. Nobody knows how tall that building is. It’s set back 41 and it’s got trees around it. Nobody even thinks about it when they think about tall buildings in 42 Palo Alto. They think about this one and they think about the one down there. Even Casa Olga 43 nobody cares about. Nobody says tear it down. So I think you have to look at how visible it is, 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 4 of 14 how ugly it is and what effect it has on its surroundings. Is it casting horrible shadows? Stuff 1 that’s on your list of things to think about. 2 3 Chair Malone Prichard: Thank you. I have a question for Amy. Amy, can you give us an idea 4 of what the maximum floor area ratio is, just off the top of your head. I know we’ve got one to 5 one in a lot of the downtown area which certainly limits how tall anyone would build. Are there 6 areas where we have more than one to one floor area ratio? 7 8 Ms. French: Yes. In the downtown we allow three to one (3.0:1) FAR but it’s hard to get there 9 because it needs to be accomplished by providing the parking on site which is hard to do for 10 most sites, transferable development rights which carries up to 5,000 square feet with no 11 associated parking requirement and a grandfathered building that never provided the parking or 12 was assessed for parking, etc., so this is a tough nut to get to three to one downtown so that’s the 13 maximum; otherwise its two to one downtown achieved with bonuses, etc. 14 15 Board Member Popp: The three to one, does that include one to one for housing or two to one 16 for commercial and one to one for housing or is it fully three to one for commercial? 17 18 Ms. French: There are some buildings downtown that are already three to one. New construction 19 I would say, the easier way to get there would be to provide housing, because you do get a one to 20 one for housing and a one to one for commercial. So the downtown zoning C-D district allows 21 for that three to one. So then we have the Comprehensive Plan that actually sets FAR; one of 22 those Comprehensive Plan Land Use Designations is mixed use that says you could get up to 23 three to one in certain areas that can accommodate such a larger area. 24 25 One of the things that brings up FAR is parking as always; so that’s another limiting factor to 26 how high buildings can get even though you do have a height limit. Even though you do have an 27 FAR and parking, it’s difficult to actually get to taller heights and the floor area associated with 28 it. 29 30 Chair Malone Prichard: Any Board Members have comments, questions, observations? 31 32 Board Member Lew: I would start, I started making my own list of buildings even beyond Palo 33 Alto since some of you were saying the 27 University Avenue list and if we look at the ones in 34 Palo Alto they really do, the buildings from the late 60s and early 70s really do suffer on the 35 street level, the pedestrian realm. They really are sort of islands to themselves and they really 36 aren’t very active for anything around the downtown area but I’ve decided to start looking 37 around because I think there may be examples of more successful buildings than those. I don’t 38 think we should limit ourselves to just those because I don’t think they work very well but I 39 don’t have anything comprehensive at the moment. But it does seem like seven story 40 commercial, ten story residential is fairly common these days in some of the neighboring cities 41 but I think that the projects are still struggling with that perimeter. I think Palo Alto may be 42 better off because since the prices are relatively high we can do underground parking but other 43 cities usually end up with the big parking garage next to the 100 foot height building and that 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 5 of 14 doesn’t really help anything but I really think we should broaden the search for examples that 1 might work better in a downtown situation so that’s what I have to say. 2 3 One other thought too which I’ve mentioned before. We mentioned the 55 foot height in some 4 cities and so in looking at the housing element a lot of cities have argued for four stories of 5 residential over fifteen foot high ground floor retail and that’s a very specific mix. They’re not 6 saying 55 feet you can build however much commercial office space you want. They’re saying 7 we want more residential and we want the ground floor retail and if you do that… San Francisco 8 did this in some neighborhoods. You’ll get 55 on certain streets and certain blocks that are wider 9 streets will allow you to do the 55 feet if you do all of these things. If you just want to do office 10 we’re not going to give you the bonus height. Then you can get housing in the housing element 11 and then the quality retail. 12 13 If you have a multifamily housing developer their main business is multifamily housing. They 14 don’t want to put the retail in. It’s a headache for them. We saw it here at 801 Alma. They had 15 a hardware store in there and they took that out because they wanted to build their housing units. 16 They have a certain economy of scale. They don’t really want to build generally less than 50 17 units. They have their own overhead to manage their projects. They’re happy to give up the 18 retail. Then what we have are bedrooms on the first floor facing Alma Street. Who would want 19 to live there? If you’re walking down the street you don’t want to look at any of that. So there 20 are places in the downtown area or even El Camino that would be worth considering. 21 22 Board Member Popp: First of all Judith thank you for coming this morning. I really appreciate 23 you being here and I think your experience being on the Board and your wisdom is very valuable 24 to all of us so thank you for all the comments you brought. 25 26 I agree with you Judith about the older buildings in town being such a poor indicator of what is 27 possible. The brutality of these buildings is really so challenging in terms of where we want to 28 go potentially. I balance that with the idea of bringing in a skilled architect who has experience 29 with high rise construction and is capable of crafting really elegant taller building and how 30 successful that can be and as Alex has said in looking outside the walls of Palo Alto for this is 31 the most important thing we can do. The local examples we have are quite challenging I think. 32 There really are so many examples of seven or ten or taller buildings that are very nice and are 33 properly cited and have care in their construction and their detailing and materials and add 34 tremendously to the fabric of the community in which they sit. 35 36 I’ll contrast that with some experience of mine. This building that I was Project Director for, the 37 JCC, and Campus for Jewish Life really is quite tall. The tallest piece of this at the mechanical 38 penthouse currently is at about 78 feet. I’m going to risk labeling myself as the tower guy but 39 there was a tower that was approved for that project that was to be 98 feet tall and part of the 40 criteria for that was that it’s only twelve by twelve. Just the mass of that relative to the height is 41 not very challenging from a perspective of where it sits on the site, how far back it is from the 42 street, what visibility it has and in the same way that we’re looking at the Wall Street Journal site 43 on Page Mill and I was pushing for a taller signature element on that project that would identify 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 6 of 14 entryway in a more clear manner it because a no starter because they just didn’t want to go 1 through the process of having to get that a little bit taller. 2 3 But going back to the JCC is one of the things that is very clear when you stand on the fourth 4 floor deck overlooking the corner of Charleston and San Antonio is that the canopy in Palo Alto 5 is predominant. It’s really spectacular. When you stand up there and look out across the city it’s 6 just beautiful. You see this green carpet of trees and various colors. Once in a while you see a 7 building that pops up in a few different places. What I draw from that is controlling height in the 8 right places is important to do and our zoning regulations are very successful in a lot of ways in 9 managing that and I’ve appreciated that in my years here and that includes more than 20 at this 10 point and so I really am an advocate for controlling height in the right ways but at the same time 11 I think that if we look at the description of height limit in our zoning regulations its challenging 12 and I’ll disclose that I had a discussion with Curtis Williams as a result of meeting with Chuck 13 Keenan and Jim Baer this week over the 135 Hamilton project. They were talking to me about 14 how they had arrived at this height that they were at and how they were saying that they were 15 within the height limit and could Staff go back and study this a little bit and Curtis I think was 16 evolving a definition of how height to that 50 feet should be measured and it had to do with an 17 understanding that there are different types of roofing materials and there are other things that 18 need to go on and recognize the realities of building construction and trying to incorporate that 19 into the language in a way that allows some flexibility and variation so we don’t end up with the 20 same thing all of the time which is very important. 21 22 I like similarity but I don’t like sameness and I think that in some ways what we’re headed 23 toward in that discussion is really coordinating our zoning regulations with what the building 24 code recognizes and I’ll go back to this comment that Alex made about the four over one 25 projects that are at 55 feet and I’ll just state my concern that if 55 feet becomes the height limit 26 you have no roof articulation. In my career I’ve been fortunate enough to do tens of thousands 27 of housing units at this point and I can tell you in some cities you’re able to craft a really 28 beautiful building and articulate the roof forms and alter massing and have really an interesting 29 building that is very successful. In other cities, you are so limited by this kind of sacrosanct 30 height limit that creates an unpleasant architecture. One is so counter to the other that it becomes 31 very challenging to do anything valuable that gets up to the kind of height and mass… 32 33 When we look at the maps you brought in Amy, there’s a clarity to me of the focal points were 34 there can be extra density. Certainly the downtown area I would say a corner of downtown and 35 El Camino is a place where we really should be thinking about the validity of extra height. We 36 talked a little bit about that in the meetings we’ve had in the past and there are other areas as well 37 out at the periphery and a tall building is not going to create shadow on other sites and we don’t 38 have to have some big parking lot next to the building because that doesn’t help the aesthetic but 39 I think that there are real challenges with the way the language is written currently and as a clear 40 statement I’ll say I’m in favor of us trying to find a different way to manage this and create an 41 opportunity for additional height where mass, scale and aesthetic can be balanced appropriately 42 in recognition of neighborhood concerns and in recognition of the cost of development in the 43 city. 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 7 of 14 1 Something I brought up in a previous meeting, we’re really trying to encourage people to 2 redevelop sites that are right now challenging to look at and not as economically valuable as they 3 should be. Encourage that as we give people an opportunity to do something that is financially 4 viable and in order to do that we need to look at our zoning regulation and we need to understand 5 what impact our height limits have on individual parcels and study that in a broader sense. What 6 happens along El Camino? What happens in these nodes where we have opportunity for height? 7 8 Chair Malone Prichard: Naseem do you have anything to say? 9 10 Board Member Alizadeh: Sure. Thanks to both of you Alexander and Randy for the comments. 11 That was helpful in terms of my own thinking and Judith that was helpful and also Amy this was 12 helpful. I think part of what I liked about it is the images they’re showing are urban infill 13 projects and so then when I was thinking about what you were saying, that actually the projects 14 here tend to be towers on prints and so they are so inactive in terms of the streetscape and so its 15 kind of like this model is attractive and then the reality is unattractive and how do we switch to 16 that? I don’t know if that’s a zoning thing, an FAR thing, a Master Plan thing. Do we look at it 17 and say this is where we’re really tall and then slowly move down in the intersection of these two 18 streets? 19 20 That would be my comments. If going higher helps with sprawl I’m in favor, if it helps reduce 21 the housing demand I’m totally in favor so I definitely think its great to go high as long as we are 22 looking at where the building is sitting in relation to its neighbors, maybe this parking issue as 23 well, the entire juggernaut of this element. Thanks. 24 25 Chair Malone Prichard: Lee. 26 27 Board Member Lippert: I want to thank Judith for going the extra mile here. There is no need 28 for you to come back but it’s a real delight to see you again and to have you speak before us 29 without having to swear on the Constitution of the United States. I agree pretty much with what 30 my colleagues have said here. I look at it a little differently. I look at height as being a way of 31 doing some additional problem solving in the City. 32 33 There has been a lot of legislation in the last three to five years that allows for density bonuses 34 and what it is it’s responding to constraints that are being placed on this state in terms of how 35 we’re going to grow regionally as well as within simply the Bay Area. I know that the 36 difficulties are ones of that we have a growing population and in addition to that if you don’t deal 37 with providing places for this growth in population, what you’re looking at is being burdened on 38 the flip side with additional traffic. So when I think of increasing height or density, and I think it 39 can be dealt with from the quality and character point of view very easily through our design 40 review process, the rub is it’s the use in zoning and really what we need to do is look at how we 41 encourage more mixed use development. How do we get buildings that are more responsive to 42 the needs of the community? 43 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 8 of 14 Just off the top of my head I’m thinking about the Housing Bonus Density Law. We need to 1 provide more low, very low, and moderate income housing. The way of doing that is by placing 2 that on the top of perhaps some other commercial developments. Difficulty for a lot of the low 3 income housing associations is the cost of the land. It’s not necessarily building a project. So I 4 look at that as a way of solving, its just one problem there. We have an aging population, we 5 have a graying population. The R1 and R2 zones are located far away from where we have the 6 services in this city. Is there an opportunity here to build more senior housing in the downtown? 7 Again, rewarding that kind of density and that kind of height by having mixed use building for 8 seniors and making it easy for them to be able to move out of their houses, move downtown, 9 smaller units, and have all the services and amenities right there for them. 10 11 The flip side of that is that we have a pretty robust transit system here. We are very lucky. We 12 have the second highest ridership to San Francisco for Cal Train at the downtown train station. 13 Who knows if high speed rail will ever get built but with the electrification of the rail system, 14 this becomes a much more important destination for workers coming from San Jose and San 15 Francisco and if we want to remain on the cutting edge of being the center of technology for 16 Silicon Valley we are a very important destination for businesses. When I say for businesses, I 17 don’t mean just employees coming here, I’m talking about people flying into San Francisco, 18 flying into San Jose, hopping on a train, coming to downtown Palo Alto. 19 20 So, in some ways I think that it’s worth exploring and looking at increasing height limit and 21 density around transit centers in particular. Let me talk a little bit about mixed use. I think that 22 that’s the lynchpin here and if somebody wanted to come in and build a 50 foot high office 23 building I might have great difficulty with that. But looking at how we look at mixed use 24 buildings in Palo Alto where we have a split I think that’s definitely something worth looking at 25 and exploring. There are some hard fast requirements that would probably go along with that 26 ground floor retail. We’re creating ground floor public spaces and are particularly important 27 because you want to provide amenities and services for the people on the upper floors. 28 Restaurants, cafes, even shops, convenience stores, dry cleaners. I think they are particularly 29 important to servicing those buildings. Another way of looking at it is by increasing or allowing 30 for that additional height, why not create ground floor public spaces. In New York, they have 31 winter gardens. There is no reason why we could not have ground floor public spaces that would 32 function as public facilities in some ways and meeting spaces where the community could get 33 together and have some regular events. We could even bring another library or perhaps a smaller 34 downtown museum to Palo Alto. There are opportunities here. Our development center is at the 35 ground floor. That brings plenty of life and traffic to the corner across the street. I would 36 welcome another public agency with some sort of facility like that. 37 38 So I think there are opportunities here to look at here. The one caveat or caution that I have is 39 I’m a Philly boy. I’m very proud of Philadelphia and when I moved away from Philadelphia, I 40 wasn’t so proud of Philadelphia. They had a height limit. The height limit was, there was a 41 statue of William Penn and it was William Penn’s hand. Shortly after I left they removed the 42 height limit and you cannot find William Penn today. It’s been obscured. Philadelphia had one 43 of the most beautiful skylines up to that point. Here you saw the city rise, the PSFS building 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 9 of 14 which was a mid century modern building, Penn Plaza, just wonderful magnificent mid century 1 modern buildings. The height limit was broken by Helmut Jahn by one of his abysmal towers 2 and ever since then I feel as though anything taller than William Penn’s hand is just a violation 3 on that city. Those are my comments. 4 5 Chair Malone Prichard: Thank you Lee. Judith it’s lovely to see you again. Thank you for 6 giving us your thoughts. I’m of the mind to not have a height limit anymore. The reason being 7 that we have so much in the way of floor area limits and parking limits that nobody is going to 8 build 100 foot tall building, they’re not going to be able to meet all the other requirements. That 9 being said, I know there is a lot of fear in this town of tall buildings. I don’t know if that’s going 10 to fly. 11 12 I would propose that we have some concessions, not in the same way as the concession law for 13 providing certain things that the city wants, we want ground floor amenities. If you provide 14 ground floor amenities then you should be allowed to have more height. We want more housing. 15 If you have more housing you should be allowed more height. It is really a balancing act and 16 having arbitrary height limit is an issue but I understand that some developers will come through 17 and say okay, if the city has a 75 foot height limit then that’s what I’m going to build. They feel 18 an entitlement and that’s an issue. It’s a balancing act. We need to look at what it is we want to 19 achieve and use those as carrots by providing more height when you give us those things that 20 we’re looking for so those are by two cents. Any other follow up? Alex. 21 22 Board Member Lew: I think we saw this a little bit on the Alma and Lytton project. If you have 23 a taller building its steel frame with the curtain wall skin. It’s going to have a certain kind of 24 aesthetic. If you go to Mission Bay in San Francisco you see that aesthetic in the entire 25 neighborhood. There are only a couple of buildings that depart from the standard aesthetic. The 26 standard aesthetic is pretty flat, pretty unarticulated and pretty ugly. It’s not great. That’s just 27 the way that the buildings are built, it’s the seismic code. So I think we have to recognize that. 28 There are beautiful taller buildings in New York and Boston and what not made out of masonry 29 or cast iron or what not but we’re not going to get that so we do have to also recognize that there 30 is a contemporary curtain wall aesthetic that can be done nicely but I think is kind of rare. 31 32 I think that if there are buildings that go up higher they actually need to be designed at a very 33 high level. I would not accept any of the current among buildings like the one we’re in, a 34 hundred feet of modern monstrosity or whatever you call it. I don’t think it is palatable to 35 anyone in Palo Alto and I don’t think we need to revisit that again. So thank you. 36 37 Board Member Popp: So Clare I’m interested in what you were saying about not having a limit 38 at all and just allowing for FAR and coverage to manage what’s possible. I’m intrigued by that 39 and I’d like to study that and see where that might lead. My initial reaction is that I’m very 40 concerned about that. I think there are people that would abuse that and to a degree regulations 41 are important because it does control the extremes if you will. Alex, when we talk about this 42 building in particular, I don’t know if this is actually true but the story that I’ve heard is that this 43 particular Edward Durell Stone design is sort of a standard City Hall and it exists all over the 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 10 of 14 country and they would just make as many floors as they needed to make so its at all kinds of 1 different heights all over the place but it’s the exact same building all over the place. 2 3 That kind of stuff frightens me. You can just say how high do you need to be? And off you go. 4 This building did look better when it had the arcade and the fountain. 5 6 Board Member Lew: It has not fared well with the removal of the colony. 7 8 Board Member Popp: That severity is what I was talking about when I talked about the severity 9 of the buildings that exist around here and I really appreciated Naseem’s comments about sprawl 10 and being concerned about that. I think that if we have limitations, then everything is going to 11 fill up to the limit and we’ll just feel tight and full and that in itself is very unpleasant so I do 12 really feel that if we can create some urban intensity in the right places in the city, that if we start 13 to create pedestrian spaces at the ground level and we in some ways regulate the need for 14 opportunities for mixed use and the needs that that brings, the dry cleaners and the place where 15 you can buy a bottle of aspirin late at night. 16 17 That creates a vibrancy in the community, an interesting intensity and something that many 18 would find very valuable. We certainly have enough R1 in Palo Alto to give everybody their 19 own piece of land if they wanted with nobody too tall next to them and all those things but in 20 places where people want more intensity, where we have this opportunity to be this center of 21 tech development and software development, all of these things that make Palo Alto so 22 interesting, that we’re attracting certain individuals as a result of that who are very comfortable 23 with the San Francisco aesthetic or Manhattan aesthetic and to create a place where we have a 24 Palo Alto version of that, whatever that might end up being. It seems totally appropriate to me. 25 26 The thing that I guess I get very concerned about is the parking. I’ll say clearly that the 27 mathematics of some projects that we’ve seen recently in regard to how much parking they are 28 required to provide on site versus the Density Bonuses they are granted and the way they are able 29 to create square footage without parking because they are going to rely on other infrastructure 30 within the city of that people are going to create bike to work programs that may or may not be 31 valid, those things make me quite concerned and when we talk about infrastructure and we talk 32 about how we are serving these buildings, the need for parking is present. While we may be one 33 of these main focal points for transit and hopefully it will get even better as time goes on and all 34 of this encourages that, the fact is that lots of people drive cars and we need someplace to put 35 those things. They take up a lot of space and they are very hard to manage. Aesthetically it is 36 often unpleasant and I really want to urge all of us to think about how we balance the desire for 37 more dense development, if that’s what we desire individually, with the demands of the realities, 38 parking and other components of it. 39 40 I do really believe that encouraging uses is something we can easily achieve and having senior 41 housing, which is very low impact to the community but brings dollars into our town and a 42 vibrancy, I’m a big proponent of the generational aspects of a city and the youngest to the oldest 43 all intertwined rather than having some senior development off in a field outside the city 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 11 of 14 someplace. I really like having those things integrated and the same thing is true with the lower 1 cost housing. There are lots and lots very high quality low income housing developers in the 2 area who are just dying to get a hold of a project that they can sink their teeth into that financially 3 works for them. Lee is absolutely right. The cost of land is the roadblock for them. If they can 4 combine with another project and find a way to have a very synergistic relationship, those things 5 are really spectacular when they work right. That creates an energy and a vibrancy all on its 6 own. 7 8 So those are areas I think if we really put our heads together about this we can find a way to 9 develop that kind of growth in the right ways with the right height and the right aesthetic that not 10 everyone is going to be in favor of. It’s a big city but the majority would start to look at that and 11 say this is a good direction for Palo Alto to head in. 12 13 Chair Malone Prichard: Another thing we’ve talked about at other meetings is to not look at 14 height specifically in number of feet but just to look at number of stories which is similar to the 15 article that Amy sent us looking at some stories want to be taller than others and our height is 16 squashing that ability so it probably would be good to have another sort of visioning session such 17 as we did at our retreat, to look at what areas really should be two story, three story, four story, 18 maybe more. 19 20 Board Member Lew: I don’t really understand the argument for that because they are different 21 building types and so like in a hundred feet you could do like six or seven floors of commercial 22 or ten floors of residential so I don’t really quite understand the argument for that because it 23 seems too open ended. 24 25 Chair Malone Prichard: It works both ways. If you set a fifty foot height people will say you 26 can squeeze four stories into that, if we set it to fifty five or sixty they’ll squeeze five stories in 27 and we’ll be squeezed again so there has to be some balancing of story height with overall 28 building height and I’m thinking if you were to say we don’t want any more than four stories or 29 five stories and forget about the height it gives more flexibility of design. 30 31 Board Member Popp: Clare the other thing I would bring up is that if we do have floor area 32 limits that’s going to manage not having seven stories inside a building that should really be five 33 or that concern that Alex was bringing up I think is limited by FAR in some ways as well. 34 35 Board Member Lew: If you look at the R1 zone, you put in the second floor equivalent and third 36 floor equivalent floor areas because people were building high, tall buildings that were dwarfing 37 their neighbors so we’ve added something to help reduce that kind of incentive to the monster 38 steroid mansion and I think the same thing happens in commercial zones. We see it now today 39 with all of these two story high glass lobbies and stuff and two story stairwells in all the office 40 buildings. If we use the number of stories versus actual height I don’t really see what’s going to 41 prevent people from building even bigger buildings. 42 43 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 12 of 14 Board Member Lippert: I wanted to respond to the car issue. I believe there are ways of dealing 1 with the car and transportation issues. One of them is a real transportation demand management 2 program in which the developer or the tenants pay into for instance transit passes so that it 3 encourages whoever is working in that building or living in that building to actually get out of 4 the car and not be driving to that location. It’s a very successful program and could work only 5 because we happen to have a transit hub here in Palo Alto. I think there are ways of definitely 6 sort of solving that problem. 7 8 Also in thinking about his, maybe one way to look at this is that any buildings over the fifty foot 9 height limit regardless of whether its one foot or twenty five feet or another hundred feet that it’s 10 subject to the PC process. So in other words, we are definitely looking at use, zoning, and the 11 quality and character issues and it gets the support of the City Council as well so there is a much 12 more rigorous process to it. It’s an integrated building. It’s not just building with the 13 development regulations of the underlying zoning and so what happens is if you build a building 14 that is say, fifty five feet instead of fifty feet, it would trigger that review process. It would also 15 require that you meet the development standards for a true mixed use building so that extra five 16 feet you get but you have to provide a diverse building. It’s not just building something that is 17 homogenous throughout. 18 19 So I think there are some opportunities there. The last thing I wanted to mention is that, for 20 those of us that have traveled to Europe and Italy, one of the most impressive cities is Lucca. 21 Lucca was founded on the olive oil industry. That’s what technology has become, industry. The 22 towers throughout that city, every family built their tower. They built their little compound and 23 they built a tower and you had actually families and family businesses that competed against 24 each other for these towers, these icons. Once we begin to do something like that, we have the 25 opportunity to bring back the next generation or the next Google or Facebook or whatever the 26 new cutting edge technology is because they would want an edifice here, an icon, in downtown 27 Palo Alto that they can hang their name on. 28 29 Right now, Amazon has taken just about all of the Carriage House, not the Carriage House, the 30 Gate House building over on Lytton. They want a presence here in Palo Alto and it’s important 31 for them to be here. That’s the search engine for Amazon. 32 33 Chair Malone Prichard: We have a member of the public who wants to make a comment. 34 35 Ms. Wasserman: Thank you. I find this discussion very encouraging because what I’m hearing 36 is a lot of creative thinking about how to approach this problem and I agree with everybody. I 37 think that what you need to do is zone for what you want and not as Ken Schreiber said to me 38 when I asked about the housing zoning, I said why did you make it so big and he said I never 39 thought I’d max it out. People are going to max it out. 40 41 One thing we did in the IR Ordinance was we said that a two story entryway. Anything over 42 twelve feet would be counted double and the next morning nobody built anymore of those. So I 43 mean, you can really use your zoning and I worry a little bit about Lee’s suggestion for using the 44 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 13 of 14 PC process because last time we tried that the Council shot it down. Everything you’ve been 1 talking about, everything we asked for, housing on the top, small units, using the PC process… 2 the Council shot it down. I think they may need some education as to first of all what a 3 penthouse really is but also just in the unintended consequences of flat height, any kind of one 4 size fits all kind of zoning. I think form code is helpful. I think the trick is to really decide what 5 you want, solve your problem and then write the rules around that. So good luck you guys. 6 You’ve got hot stuff coming. 7 8 Board Member Popp: Just a follow up to Lee. I’ll go quickly. I appreciate the idea of, and I’m 9 going to go back to parking again because it’s a sticky thing for me. I work downtown in Palo 10 Alto. My office is right on High Street. What I’m experiencing right now is really awful 11 planning. What happens right now is that by 7:30 in the morning, every single space on every 12 street around my office is completely full because people who take the train are unwilling to pay 13 the daily fee to use the lot. They park in the neighborhood essentially using up all of the parking 14 for my clients and other employees in the area and we struggle all day long to park in that area. 15 We’re moving our cars constantly within the two hour zones and it’s a nightmare because people 16 are getting on the train in Palo Alto and going other places. 17 18 The thing that I’m trying to just quickly evolve and add to our conversation here is we need to 19 consider the domino effect of whatever we put in place as well and try to look forward. It’s the 20 old issue of cut through traffic. If you design it this way people are going to cut through that 21 way. You need to evaluate at a high level what you’re doing and make sure to the best of your 22 ability there’s not going to be other effects that are unpleasant. Managing the parking is 23 paramount in this decision. 24 25 Board Member Lew: If you provide free parking people are going to use it. 26 27 Board Member Lippert: The city should be implementing a market rate parking program where 28 there are opportunities for people to pay and park convenient to where they are located. I use to 29 work in Manhattan and driving to Manhattan is not an option. Taking the train is but I’d have to 30 pay for my parking in Connecticut to go into Manhattan so as long as they are able to provide the 31 parking for the transportation I think it makes it a viable option. That is being short sighted on 32 the part of Cal Train. It’s not a fault of the city. But I’d much rather have those cars here in Palo 33 Alto and people not driving to San Francisco or San Jose than driving there. 34 35 Board Member Popp: Finding a way to manage that is critical, whether it is a six hour parking 36 limit, whatever it is I’m sure our transportation guys will figure it out eventually. 37 38 Chair Malone Prichard: I’m sure they will. We need to wrap this up because it is time to move 39 on to our next event. 40 41 Ms. French: I was going to add that November 1st we’re targeting as the meeting for the 27 42 University project discussion with the ARB and I would be happy to put again on there the 43 City of Palo Alto October 4, 2012 Page 14 of 14 continuation of the height and if there is anything specific you would like to see staff prepare for 1 that please let me know. We can brainstorm again and have further discussion. 2 3 Chair Malone Prichard: Thank you. 4 5 6 7 Page 1 of 1 Architectural Review Board Staff Report Agenda Date:October 4, 2012 To:Architectural Review Board From:Amy French, Chief Planning Official Department: Planning and Community Environment Subject:Informational Report on 27 University Avenue Project The City Council received a presentation and the attached staff report on September 24, 2012, during a public hearing regarding the potential project at 27 University Avenue. No application for rezoning or development has been submitted for formal or preliminary review by the Architectural Review Board (ARB). The City Council requestedthat staff provide public outreach, and touch base with the ARB and Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC)on the potential project and the city’s height limitation, prior to the November 12, 2012 City Council meeting. A joint ARB and PTC two-hour study session is tentatively scheduled for October 24, 2012, from 4 pm to 6 pm, to allow for a single presentation of the potential project and serve as a second opportunity for the public to view the project and provide comments. On October 24, 2012, there may be time for the ARB and PTC members to ask questions about the project and to jointly discuss the City’s general 50 foot height limit. The ARB and public will have an opportunity to discuss the 27 University Avenue project at the regular ARB meeting of November 1, 2012. That discussion could include a conversation about the heights of buildings shown in concept plans,with respect to both the 27 University Avenue site’s context near downtown and the City’s general height limit of 50 feet. The plans and CMR were distributed well in advance of the October 24, 2012 meeting to allow the ARB and PTC members to familiarize themselves with the project. The ARB study session on October 4, 2012 is intended to be a general discussion of the City- wide height limit, not associated with the 27 University Avenue project. This discussion has occurred previously in ARB retreats and related to projects before the ARB. Though there has been no rezone or prescreening application submitted to date, the ARB’s discussion on October 4, 2012 should focus on the City-wide height limit,rather than on the conceptual building heights at 27 University Avenue. Prepared By:Amy French AICP, Chief Planning Official DRAFT PRELIMINARY TRAFFIC ASSESSMENT FOR: THE PROPOSED REDEVELOPMENT OF THE 27 UNIVERSITY SITE WITH A THEATER, AND MIXED USE OFFICE / RETAIL DEVELOPMENT ON STRUCTURED PARKING. PREPARED FOR: THE CITY OF PALO ALTO PREPARED BY: SANDIS JULY 9, 2012 DRAFT PRELIMINARY TRAFFIC ASSESSMENT FOR THE PROPOSED REDEVELOPMENT OF THE 27 UNIVERSITY SITE WITH A THEATER, AND MIXED USE OFFICE / RETAIL DEVELOPMENT ON STRUCTURED PARKING. PREPARED FOR: THE CITY OF PALO ALTO PREPARED BY: SANDIS 936 EAST DUNNE AVENUE SUNNYVALE, CA 94085 JULY 9, 2012 i TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION PAGE 1.0 INTRODUCTION/SUMMARY 1 2.0 EXISTING CONDITIONS 1 2.1 Traffic Study Area 4 2.2 Study Area Intersections 4 2.3 Freeway Segments 4 2.4 Existing Traffic Volumes and Levels of Service (Los) 5 2.4.1 Signalized Intersections 5 2.5 Existing Transit Service 10 2.5.1 Bus Service 11 2.5.2 Commuter Rail Service 12 2.6 Transportation Demand Management 12 2.7 Applicable Plans and Policies 13 3.0 PROJECT TRAVEL DEMAND ANALYSIS 14 3.1 Trip Generation 14 3.2 Trip Distribution 16 4.0 POTENTIAL TRANSPORTATION RELATED IMPACTS 16 4.1 Roadway Operating Characteristics 16 4.1.1 Intersection Traffic Signal Operations 17 4.2 Urban/ Mitchell Lane Loop 23 APPENDICES APPENDIX A - LEVEL OF SERVICE CALCULATIONS A-1 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Project Location and Study Area 2 2 Proposed Site Plan 3 3 Existing Peak Hour Traffic Volumes 7 4 Lane Configurations and Intersection Traffic Controls 8 5A Project Site Inbound Trip Distribution 17 5B Project Site Outbound Trip Distribution 18 6 Base Year 2025 Peak Hour Traffic Volumes 19 7 Project Related Peak Hour Traffic Volumes 20 LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 Study Intersections 5 2 Level of Service Thresholds for Freeway Segments 5 3 Existing Freeway Levels of Service 6 4 Signalized Intersection Level of Service Thresholds 9 5 Existing Peak Hour Intersection Level of Service 10 6 Project Trip Generation 15 7 Cumulative Year 2025 Base Signalized Intersection Level of Service 21 8 Cumulative Year 2025 Plus Project Signalized Intersection Level of Service 22 1 1.0 Introduction/Summary The following study has been prepared to provide a preliminary assessment of potential traffic and transportation related impacts associated with redevelopment of the MacArthur Park Restaurant and Red Cross Dispensary site in the City of Palo Alto. The project site is located on the easterly edge of the Stanford Campus between El Camino Real and the Caltrain Commuter Rail Line adjacent to the main Palo Alto Train Station (Palo Alto Intermodal Transit Station (PAITS) as indicated in Figure 1. The station is a primary stop along the Peninsula route with numerous passengers commuting to the University and Downtown area. Numerous buses operated by a variety of venders including Marguerite (Stanford) VTA, SamTrans, AC Transit, and Union City Transit provide service to the station throughout the day. Access to the site (MacArthur Park Restaurant, Red Cross and Caltrain Station) currently requires use of Urban Lane or loop which is part of a grade separated intersection of University Avenue and El Camino Real located immediately west of and against the Caltrain Commuter tracks. The intersection of El Camino and University has a basic diamond configuration. The rail platform is accessed using Urban/ Mitchell Lane Loop within the large diamond arrangement as indicated in Figure 2. The Proposed Project would consist of a theater and four office buildings varying in height spread across the site as indicted in Figure 2. The existing MacArthur Restaurant and Red Cross site would be expanded to incorporate the current bus drop-off /parking area adjacent to the westerly side of the Caltrain tracks and station as part of the theater site. This in turn will require relocating the bus drop-off area to a reconfigured Urban/ Mitchell Lane loop road as indicated in Figure 2. The office buildings, as currently proposed, would vary in height between four and nine stories with a total of 290,000 gross square feet (250,000 net square feet) of floor space. Approximately 260,000 gross square feet would be devoted to office and the remaining 30,000 gross square feet in the ground floor would be utilized as retail related space. The theater, located in a separate building at the northwest corner of the site, would have approximately 71,630 square feet of floor area with 800 seats. Parking would be provided under the office buildings and theater with 875 spaces. The subsurface parking garage would have two primary points of access, one linked directly to the extension of Quarry Road and the other to the northbound on-ramp from University to El Camino, as indicated in Figure 2. The Project transportation assessment has been divided into two areas with one focusing on traffic related impacts to the surrounding roadway network. The second focuses on the reconfiguration of Urban Loop and the intersection of the northbound ramps at University Avenue relative to accommodating increased bus traffic and loading associated with the relocation of the current bus parking area. In summary, the Project is forecast to result in a limited impact to the surrounding roadway network. It is forecast to generate approximately 3,066 new vehicle trips per day of which approximately 310 would occur during the morning peak hour and another 328 during the evening peak hour. There would be a significant increase in traffic on Urban Loop with corresponding increases in delay dependent upon the final configuration of site access and bus drop-off areas. 4 The intersection of Quarry Road and El Camino would be reconfigured to extend Quarry Road into the site but is forecast to continue to operate acceptably during peak commute periods. The easterly side of the intersection of University Avenue and El Camino Real would also be reconfigured. This intersection is forecast to operate at an LOS E by 2025 regardless of the Project making it important that the reconfiguration be carefully implemented to improve operations. 2.0 Existing Conditions As indicated in Figure 1, the proposed project site is located between the Caltrain Commuter Rail tracks, El Camino Real, the extension of Quarry Road, and University Avenue. Access to the site will be provided from an extension of Quarry Road east from El Camino Real into the site, a driveway from Urban Loop Road, and a driveway from the northbound on-ramp from University Avenue to El Camino Real. Continuous two- way circulation may be included through the site from the extension of Quarry Road to Urban Lane. Access to the subsurface parking garage as currently proposed, will be provided with driveways to the northbound ramp to El Camino Real and the on-site extension of Quarry Road. 2.1 Traffic Study Area: The following assessment focuses on the more immediate Project area where potential impacts are most likely to occur and be at their most intense level. Key areas are access to the project, reconfiguration of the intersection of Quarry Road with El Camino Real and the northbound on-ramp from University to allow the extension of Quarry Road into the site, and overall access and circulation through the Urban Lane Loop. Other key locations are primary intersections on El Camino Real between Sand Hill Road and Page Mill Road, on Embarcadero Road, on University Avenue east to Middlefield and U.S. 101, and on Sand Hill Road west to I-280. The overall area analyzed as part of this study is shown in Figure 1. Table 1 provides a list of the intersections evaluated. 2.2 Study Area Intersections: The initial traffic assessment focused on a total of nine intersections, all of which are signalized. The intersections were selected as those considered to be most representative of potential impacts associated with the Proposed Project. They are expected to accommodate the majority of Project related traffic as commuters travel to and from work with incidental trips/ linked trips to other uses. Intersections shown in Table 1 are all located within the jurisdiction of the City of Palo Alto. The reader is referred to Figure 1 - Project Location and Study Area, for the relative locations of intersections analyzed. 2.3 Freeway Segments: Santa Clara County uses vehicle density to evaluate freeway LOS. This is expressed in passenger cars per mile per lane (pcpmpl). The analysis procedure used is based on the 2010 HCM, with several modifications being made to conform to the LOS density thresholds defined by Santa Clara County. Table 2 provides a summary of LOS thresholds for freeway segments. Table 3 provides existing freeway segment LOS in the Project vicinity. 5 Review of the Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT) for the six freeway segments summarized in Table 3 will show three segments were identified to be operating at an LOS F. The northbound and southbound segments of US 101 north of Embarcadero Road up to the limit of the study operate at an LOS F during both the AM and PM peak periods. The segment of U.S. 101 south of Embarcadero Road operates at a LOS F in both the northbound and southbound directions during the PM peak period. Table 1 Study Intersections # Intersections City/Jurisdiction 1. Sand Hill Road at El Camino Real Palo Alto 2. El Camino Real at Quarry Road Palo Alto 3. El Camino Real at University Avenue/Palm Drive Palo Alto 4. El Camino Real at Embarcadero Road/Galvez Palo Alto 5. University Avenue at Middlefield Road Palo Alto 6. Middlefield Road at Embarcadero Road Palo Alto 7. Sand Hill at Pasteur Drive Palo Alto 8. Sand Hill Road at Arboretum Drive Palo Alto 9. Quarry Road at Arboretum Drive Palo Alto Table 2 Level of Service Thresholds for Freeway Segments Level of Service Density Speed (passenger cars/mile/lane) (miles/hour) A density < 11.0 67.0 < speed B 11.0 < density < 18.0 66.5 < speed < 67.0 C 18.0 < density < 26.0 66.0 < speed < 66.5 D 26.0 < density < 46.0 46.0 < speed < 66.0 E 46.0 < density < 58.0 35.0 < speed < 46.0 F 58.0 < density speed < 35.0 Source: Traffic Level of Service Analysis Guidelines, VTA, June 2003. 2.4 Existing Traffic Volumes and Levels of Service (LOS) The evaluation of traffic related impacts to the surrounding roadway network focused on the weekday peak commute periods when Project related office and retail traffic would peak concurrent with peak levels of traffic on surrounding streets. Critical or the most congested periods of roadway and intersection operation on a weekday typically occur during the peak commute periods of 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM. 6 Counts of existing traffic volumes utilized in this analysis and assessment were obtained from the SUMC EIR recently certified by the City of Palo Alto (Palo Alto, 2011) which have been supplemented with current counts at the intersection of University and El Camino Real. The SUMC EIR counts were used to maximize consistency with the SUMC analysis and minimize the influence of temporary fluctuations in volumes which could affect new counts completed during construction of the hospital improvements (City of Palo Alto, 2012). Table 3 Freeway Segment Level of Service LOS LOS Freeway Segment Direction AADT (AM) (PM) US 101 North of University NB 192,000 F F SB F F US 101 South of University NB 200,000 F F SB F F US 101 South of Embarcadero/ NB 202,000 E F Oregon Expressway SB D F I-280 north of Sand Hill Road NB 102,000 D D SB D D I-280 south of Alpine Road NB 103,000 C C SB D C I-80 south of Page Mill Road NB 109,000 D C SB C D Source: City of Palo Alto, 2011, Caltrans 2006 Counts, 2007 San Mateo CMP and 2006 Santa Clara CMP. Note: Freeway segments determined to be operating at a LOS F are indicated in italics. Existing traffic volumes for each of the analyzed intersections are summarized in Figure 3. Existing Peak Hour traffic volumes were utilized together with existing lane configurations and signal phasing (for signalized intersections) as the basis for Level of Service (LOS) calculations to evaluate current roadway operations. The existing intersection lane configurations and traffic control devices (stop signs or traffic signals) are shown in Figure 4. Current procedures adopted for intersection operational analysis in the City of Palo Alto and Santa Clara County are from the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) 2000. HCM 2000 analysis methods were applied using the TRAFFIX software package (version 8.0) per the requirements of the Santa Clara County Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), the designated Congestion Management Agency (CMA) for Santa Clara County. This methodology measures the operational performance of signalized intersections in terms of four measures: average control delay, critical volume to capacity ratio, average critical delay, and level of service (LOS). TRAFFIX simulates the HCM 2000 analysis 9 methodology. TRAFFIX evaluates intersection operations based on both average vehicle delay and critical movement delay. The Santa Clara County CMA and the City of Palo Alto require the use of TRAFFIX and the evaluation of operations using critical movement delay. In addition to calculating expected vehicle delay on which level of service is based, TRAFFIX also calculates optimal signal cycle length and intersection queuing.  Control delay includes initial deceleration delay, queue move-up time, stopped delay, and acceleration delay. Average control delay weights the delay per movement according to the traffic volumes for that movement. Level of service for signalized intersections is defined in terms of control delay (see Table 4).  The critical volume to capacity (V/C) ratio is an approximate indicator of the overall level of congestion at an intersection. The critical V/C ratio depends on the conflicting critical lane flow rates and the signal phasing. V/C is equal to 1.0 when the flow rate equals capacity. When volumes exceed capacity, stop-and- go conditions result and operations are designated as LOS F.  Average critical delay weights the delay for the critical (conflicting) movements based on the traffic volume for that movement. Table 4 Signalized Intersection Level of Service Thresholds LOS Average Control Delay (seconds/vehicle) A delay < 10.0 B+ 10.0 < delay < 12.0 B 12.0 < delay < 18.0 B- 18.0 < delay < 20.0 C+ 20.0 < delay < 23.0 C 23.0 < delay < 32.0 C- 32.0 < delay < 35.0 D+ 35.0 < delay < 39.0 D 39.0 < delay < 51.0 D- 51.0 < delay < 55.0 E+ 55.0 < delay < 60.0 E 60.0 < delay < 75.0 E- 75.0 < delay < 80.0 F delay > 80.0 Source: Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Congestion Management Program, Transportation Impact Analysis Guidelines, March 2009. Review of Table 5 will show the nine intersections evaluated all currently operate at an LOS D+ or better during both the morning and evening peak commute periods. The four intersections of Sand Hill Road with Arboretum and Pasteur, Quarry with Arboretum, and University with Middlefield operate at an LOS C during both peak periods. The intersections of El Camino Real with Sand Hill and University both operate at an LOS C during the morning peak and LOS D during the evening peak. The intersections of Embarcadero Road with El Camino and Middlefield operate at an LOS D during both peak periods and the intersection of El Camino with Quarry Road currently operates at an LOS B in the morning and LOS C during the evening peak hour. 10 Table 5 Existing Peak Hour Intersection Level of Service AM PM Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit # Intersection LOS Delay V/C Delay LOS Delay V/C Delay 1. Sand Hill Road/ C 24.1 0.567 34.2 D+ 35.5 0.618 42.3 El Camino Real 2 El Camino Real/ B 13.7 0.369 18.5 C 23 0.478 13 Quarry 3. El Camino Real/ C 30.1 0.714 33.4 D+ 37.6 0.79 41.6 University 4. El Camino Real/ D 44.7 0.729 47.5 D 45.4 0.753 48.1 Embarcadero 5. University Avenue/ C 26.1 0.462 27 C 27.7 0.527 30 Middlefield 6 Embarcadero/ D+ 37.3 0.572 39.2 D+ 35.7 0.62 38.1 Middlefield 7. Sand Hill Road/ C+ 20.4 0.585 22 C+ 22.5 0.534 22.8 Pasteur 8. Sand Hill Road/ C+ 20.4 0.443 22 C 24.8 0.601 27.8 Arboretum 9. Quarry Road/ C 31.5 0.513 31.2 C 28.6 0.604 31.4 Arboretum Source: Sandis, 2012, Stanford University Medical Center EIR, City of Palo Alto, 2011. 2.5 Existing Transit Service: The Palo Alto/ Stanford area is currently served by a series of transit providers, including San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans), Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit), Stanford University Marguerite shuttle routes, City of Palo Alto shuttle service, City of Menlo Park shuttle service, and Caltrain. Both fixed route bus service and commuter rail service are available within walking distance of the Project site. The Palo Alto Intermodal Transit Station (PAITS), located adjacent to the Project site at the intersection of El Camino Real and University Avenue, is an intermodal hub served by Santa Clara VTA, SamTrans, Stanford University Marguerite shuttles, AC Transit, and Union City Transit. Other concentrations of bus lines exist at the Stanford Shopping Center located across Sand Hill Road from the site about one-quarter of a mile northwest of PAITS. 11 2.5.1 Bus Service: Bus service in the City of Palo Alto and Stanford areas is provided by SamTrans, Santa Clara VTA, AC Transit, Stanford University, Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. SamTrans. SamTrans currently serves PAITS with local lines 280, 281, express route KX, BART/Caltrain connector routes 297 and 390. Connection to the Stanford Shopping Center is provided by local routes 280, 281 and express RX/PX. Three SamTrans bus layover locations are adjacent to the Stanford Shopping Center. Santa Clara VTA. VTA operates commuter/express and local routes through the Study Area, connecting the City of Palo Alto to other Bay Area cities. VTA serves PAITS with local routes 22 and 35, and the limited-stop Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Route 522. AC Transit. AC Transit operates the Dumbarton Express, which provides service from the Union City BART station to Palo Alto utilizing the Dumbarton Toll Bridge. It also serves the California Avenue Caltrain Station, North Santa Clara County Offices, the Santa Clara County Municipal Court, and the Stanford Research Park. AC Transit also operates the Stanford U Line bus service from the East Bay and Stanford provides funding for this service. Stanford University Marguerite Shuttle. Stanford University operates the Marguerite Shuttle, which provides free service to many locations on the main campus and Palo Alto, such as the Medical Center, Stanford Shopping Center, Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), PAITS, and downtown Palo Alto. All of the shuttle lines, except for the Downtown Express are wheelchair accessible. The shuttle operates weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., except during University holidays. Marguerite's A and B lines meet most trains at the PAITS weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. to serve commuters. Line A connects Escondido Village and Rains student housing to the main campus and Medical Center. Line B serves Rains and the East Residences, as well as several central campus locations such as Tresidder Memorial Union, Terman Engineering Center, and the Law School. It runs to and from the PAITS by way of Town and Country Village. Line C serves the California Avenue Caltrain Station, the main campus, Medical Center and the Stanford West Apartments. Other routes include the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) shuttle, the Midnight Express, an evening and weekend service that operates from September through June, linking the campus to the Palo Alto Caltrain Station and the Shopping Express which operates daily during the academic year from September through June, linking the SUMC and residential areas of Stanford University to the business districts in Palo Alto (downtown, California Avenue, and Town & Country Village) and Mountain View (San Antonio Shopping Center). 12 City of Palo Alto Shuttle. The City operates two shuttle routes: the Crosstown Shuttle and the Embarcadero Shuttle. On weekdays, both routes serve the University Avenue Caltrain Station and Palo Alto Transit Center. The Palo Alto Shuttle is free and open to the general public. Bus stops are marked with a "Palo Alto Shuttle" sign, a sticker on a regular VTA bus stop sign, or a shuttle decal on a stop sign pole.  The Crosstown Shuttle runs every half-hour from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It connects residential neighborhoods, senior residences and services, libraries, recreation centers, commercial districts.  The Embarcadero Shuttle runs during the morning, noon and evening commute hours at 15-minute intervals. It is coordinated with the Caltrain schedule, serving employers in the East Bayshore area, residents in the Embarcadero Road corridor and students at Palo Alto High School. City of Menlo Park Midday Shuttle Service. The Midday Shuttle Service is a free community service route open to the general public. It is especially popular with senior citizens. Its key stops include the Menlo Park Library, Belle Haven Library, Menlo Park Senior Center, downtown Menlo Park, Menlo Park Caltrain station, Menlo Medical Clinic, Stanford Shopping Center and SUMC. Hourly service is provided Monday through Friday between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. This service is funded by the City of Menlo Park and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) Transportation Fund for Clean Air. 2.5.2 Commuter Rail Service: The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (JPB) rail service, Caltrain, runs along the Peninsula, from San Francisco in the north to San Jose and Gilroy in the south. Caltrain is managed by SamTrans, and operates under the jurisdiction of the JPB. The travel time between San Jose and San Francisco is approximately one hour and 20 minutes. The closest Caltrain Station serving the Project site and Stanford University area is the Palo Alto Transit Center (adjacent to the Project site at El Camino Real and University Avenue). On weekdays, trains run every 5 to 30 minutes during the morning and afternoon commute hours and hourly during off-peak times. Hours of operation are from 5:01 a.m. to 11:04 p.m. for northbound service and from 5:51 a.m. to 12:57 a.m. for southbound service. Service is also provided on Saturdays. The hours of operation are from 7:31 a.m. to 11:01 p.m. for northbound trains, and from 9:02 a.m. to 1:03 a.m. for southbound trains Caltrain’s Baby Bullet Express skips several of the stops, such as California Avenue, and is able to travel between San Francisco and San Jose in under an hour. Twenty two train trips are provided during AM and PM Peak Hours. 2.6 Transportation Demand Management: Transportation demand management (TDM) refers to policies and programs that are designed to reduce the number of vehicle trips that are made, especially during the peak time periods of the day when congestion on roadways is at its worst. The concept refers to a wide array of measures, from telecommuting programs that allow employees to work from home; to carpool and vanpool programs that encourage two or more people to share their commute to work; to incentives to encourage people to leave their cars at home and instead use public transit, or bicycle or walk to work. 13 2.7 Applicable Plans and Policies There are no relevant federal or State transportation policies applicable to the implementation of the Project. Relevant traffic and transportation related policies in the City’s Comprehensive Plan and Municipal Code are listed below and the Project is reviewed for consistency with them in the following sections. City of Palo Alto Municipal Code. The City of Palo Alto’s basic parking regulations are described in Title 18 of the Municipal Code.8  Parking Required. Off-street parking, loading, and bicycle facilities shall be provided for any new building constructed and for any new use established, for any addition or enlargement of an existing building or use, and for any change in the occupancy of any building or the manner in which any use is conducted that would result in additional spaces being required, subject to the provisions of this chapter.  Parking Requirements. In each district, off-street parking, loading, and bicycle facilities for each use shall be provided in accordance with Table 3.4-9 and Table 3.4-10. The requirement for any use not specifically listed shall be determined by the director on the basis of requirements for similar uses, and on the basis of evidence of actual demand created by similar uses in Palo Alto and elsewhere, and such other traffic engineering or planning data as may be available and appropriate to the establishment of a minimum requirement. Minimum Off-Street Parking Requirements; Vehicle Parking Requirement, Bicycle Parking Requirement, Use – Spaces; Spaces Long Term (LT) and Short Term (ST) General Business Office - 1 vehicle parking space per 300 gross square feet of floor area, 1 bicycle space per 3,000 gross square feet of floor area, and 60% long term and 40% short term bicycle parking spaces. Source: City of Palo Alto Municipal Code. Minimum Off-Street Loading Requirements Use Gross Floor Area Loading Spaces Required General Business Office - greater than 200,000 gross sq. ft = 3 loading spaces Source: City of Palo Alto Municipal Code. 8 City of Palo Alto. Zoning Code Chapter 18.52: Parking and Loading Requirements. http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/depts/pln/planning_forms.asp#Zoning%20Code. Impacts and Mitigation Measures Standards of Significance Significance criteria for project impacts were determined based on City of Palo Alto significance criteria. 14 City of Palo Alto Standards of Significance. Traffic impacts would be considered significant if the Project would:  Cause a local (City of Palo Alto) intersection to deteriorate below LOS D;  Causes a local intersection already operating at LOS E or F to deteriorate in the average control delay for the critical movements by four seconds or more, and the critical V/C ratio value to increase by 0.01 or more;  Cause a regional intersection to deteriorate from LOS E or better to LOS F;  Cause a regional intersection already operating at LOS F to deteriorate in the average control delay for the critical movements to increase by four seconds or more, and the critical V/C to increase by 0.01 or more;  Result in increased traffic volumes at an unsignalized intersection, and meet traffic signal warrants;  Cause queuing impacts based on a comparison of the demand queue length and the available queue storage capacity for intersections and access points in the immediate vicinity of the project;  Cause a freeway segment (for each direction of traffic) to operate at LOS F, or contribute traffic in excess of 1 percent of segment capacity to a freeway segment already operating at LOS F;  Result in increased traffic related hazards to pedestrians and bicyclists as a result of increased congestion;  Impede the operation of a transit system as a result of a significant increase in ridership;  Result in inadequate on-site parking supply;  Create an operational safety hazard;  Result in inadequate emergency access; or  Cause any change in traffic that would increase the TIRE index by 0.1 or more on a local or collector residential street. 3.0 Project Travel Demand Analysis: 3.1 Trip Generation Table 6 provides a summary of trip generation estimates for the proposed Project assuming a mixed use development with primarily office, a limited amount of retail space, and a theater. The trip generation forecasts focus on peak weekday morning and evening commute conditions to provide a worst case type analysis when adjacent roadways are operating with peak traffic volumes. The trip generation estimates are based upon Institute of Transportation Engineers standard trip generation rates for proposed uses but include an 15 allowance for the close proximity of multimodal transit service. As described earlier, the office buildings as currently proposed would vary in height between four and nine stories with a total of 290,000 gross square feet (250,000 net square feet) of floor space. Approximately 260,000 square feet would be devoted to office and the remaining 30,000 gross square feet in the ground floor would be for retail. The theater, located in a separate building at the northwest corner of the site, would have approximately 71,630 square feet of floor area with 800 seats. Parking would be provided under the office buildings and theatre with 875 spaces on three floors covering the majority of the site. Table 6 Project Trip Generation Forecasts Use Size Daily Traffic AM Peak Hour PM Peak Hour Factor Trips Factor Trips Factor Trips Office 260,000 GSF(1) (2) 2784 (3) 355/48 (4) 63/307 Use of Alternative Modes of Travel @22.9% (5) (638) (81/11 (14/70) Net Office Trips 2,146 274/37 46/225 Theatre 800 seats 0.02/seat(6) 8/8 Retail 30,000 GSF (1) 42.04 TE/KSF 1261 Min Min 2.81/2.21 TE/KSF 84/66 Capture of Internal Trips from Site Office Space @ 27% (7) (341) - - (23/18) Net Retail Trips 920 - 61/48 Net Project Trips External to Site on a Typical Weekday 3066 274/37 72/256 1) Assumes 250,000 net square feet with a load factor of 1.158 yielding 290,000 gross square feet of floor area for the Project Exclusive of the theater. Assume ground floor or 30,000 gross square feet of retail with balance of 260,000 gross square feet of office. 2) Ln(t) = 0.77Ln(x) + 3.65, ITE, Trip Generation 8th Edition, 2008 3) Ln(t) = 0.80Ln(x) + 1.55, 88% in/12% outbound, ITE, Trip Generation 8th Edition, 2008 4) T = 1.12(x) + 78.81, 17% in/83% outbound, ITE, Trip Generation 8th Edition, 2008 5) Travel by Alternative mode including Transit, walk, Ride Bike, carpool, SUMC EIR, 2011 (Does not include use of “Go Passes” ) 6) Trips per Seat, 50% inbound, 50% outbound 7) Table C.4 Internal Trip Capture, Page 125, Trip Generation, 8th Edition, ITE, 2008 Source: Sandis, 2012, Review of the Table 6 will indicate the proposed project is forecast to generate approximately 3,066 new vehicle trips per day of which approximately 310 would occur during the morning peak hour and another 328 during the evening peak hour. 16 3.2 Trip Distribution Trip forecasts for the Project were distributed to the roadway network using the same basic distribution assumed for SUMC related employee traffic in terms of both local and regional trip origins and destinations, (City of Palo Alto, 2011, 2012). A summary of the inbound and outbound distribution relative to the roadway network is summarized in Figures 5A and 5B respectively. 4.0 Potential Transportation Related Impacts The transportation related evaluation focused on two key areas. The first was potential impacts associated with increased traffic levels and the second was potential impacts associated with the proposed relocation of the existing Marguerite/ VTA bus drop-off and parking area to the loop road. The traffic evaluation assumes Year 2025 conditions with versus without the Project. Year 2025 Baseline conditions (without the Project) assume other projects in the surrounding area expected to be completed by 2025 including the Stanford Medical Center improvements together with required transportation related measures. Potential Project related impacts are identified and evaluated using a comparison of Baseline conditions to Baseline plus Project conditions. 4.1 Roadway Operating Characteristics. As discussed earlier, the evaluation of potential project related impacts to the roadway network for this project focused on the nine intersections listed in Table 1. Project conditions were evaluated and then compared using a peak hour intersection LOS analysis as described below. 4.1.1 Intersection Traffic Signal Operations: The addition of cumulative Year 2025 base case traffic volumes to existing volumes are forecast to not create a significant adverse impact at the majority of the study intersections. The cumulative Year 2025 increase in traffic volumes include buildout of the recently approved SUMC facility as well as all transportation related mitigation measures associated with the project (Caltrain Go Pass, improved Marguerite service, etc). Background Year 2025 Baseline Peak Hour Traffic volumes are summarized in Figure 6. Project peak hour traffic volumes at the nine intersections are summarized in Figure 7. Base Year 2025 without Project: The results of the peak hour LOS analysis of the increased traffic volumes associated with Year 2025 background conditions are summarized in Table 7. Review of the table will indicate six intersections are forecast to operate at an LOS A-D which is acceptable based upon City of Palo Alto Standards. However, the intersection of El Camino Real with University Avenue is forecast to operate at an LOS F during the morning peak and LOS E during the evening peak and the intersection of El Camino Real with Embarcadero Road are forecast to operate at an LOS E during the evening peak period. 21 Table 7 Base Year 2025 Peak Hour Intersection Level of Service AM PM Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit # Intersection LOS Delay V/C Delay LOS Delay V/C Delay 1. Sand Hill Road/ C 28.3 0.617 36.2 D+ 38.3 0.754 46.2 El Camino Real 2 El Camino Real/ B 16.1 0.546 21 C 25.7 0.627 15.6 Quarry 3. El Camino Real/ F 95.8 1.165 120.9 E 71 1.017 79.8 University 4. El Camino Real/ D- 51.2 0.875 56.9 E+ 57 0.948 65.3 Embarcadero 5. University Avenue/ C 28.9 0.618 31.2 C- 33.8 0.83 39.5 Middlefield 6 Embarcadero/ D 41.2 0.679 43.5 D+ 38.7 0.684 41.3 Middlefield 7. Sand Hill Road/ C+ 20.7 0.631 23.3 C 29.3 0.698 34.4 Pasteur 8. Sand Hill Road/ C+ 22.2 0.591 26.1 C- 34 0.716 45.1 Arboretum 9. Quarry Road/ C- 33 0.589 33.8 C 29.2 0.657 33.3 Arboretum Source: Sandis, 2012, Stanford University Medical Center EIR, City of Palo Alto, 2011. Year 2025 with Project: Review of Table 8 and comparison to the results in Table 7 will indicate completion of the project is forecast to have a significant impact assuming cumulative Year 2025 conditions at two of the nine locations reviewed. These include the intersections of El Camino with University Avenue and Embarcadero Road. The Proposed Project will not cause peak hour operating conditions at the remaining seven intersections to deteriorate below LOS D or the minimum level acceptable to the City of Palo Alto. The intersection of El Camino Real with University Avenue is a grade separated interchange with El Camino dipping under University and the extension of Palm Drive into Stanford. The interchange has a basic diamond configuration with interconnected signalized ramp junctures. The basic diamond configuration is further complicated by the presence of the Urban Lane/ Mitchell Lane Loop which provides access to the 22 Caltrain Station and the 27 University site. Currently the Loop intersects both sides of the northbound ramp juncture with most movements limited to right turns. However, the westbound exit from the loop to westbound University is controlled by the signals. This is unique to this location and does impact the overall capacity of the interchange because additional green signal time has to be allocated to this movement. Traffic forecasts of Year 2025 conditions completed for the SUMC Project indicated this intersection is forecast to operate at an LOS F in the morning and LOS E in the evening peak commute periods regardless of the Proposed Project. Potential impacts associated with the Project will vary dependent upon how access is finally provided to the Project garages (will access be allowed from the Urban Lane Mitchell Drive Loop) and if/ how the Loop is reconfigured as discussed below. Table 8 Year 2025 Plus Project Peak Hour Intersection Level of Service AM PM Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit Avg Crit # Intersection LOS Delay V/C Delay LOS Delay V/C Delay 1. Sand Hill Road/ C 28.5 0.618 36.2 D 39.0 0.761 46.3 El Camino Real 2 El Camino Real/ B 16.1 0.546 21 D 39.6 0.837 40.9 Quarry 3. El Camino Real/ F 115.4 1.221 144.5 E 71.3 1.031 80.4 University 4. El Camino Real/ D- 52.6 0.893 58.7 E 60.9 0.981 73.1 Embarcadero 5. University Avenue/ C 29.3 0.645 31.7 D+ 35.6 0.855 41.5 Middlefield 6 Embarcadero/ D 42.2 0.698 44.4 D 39.7 0.701 42.2 Middlefield 7. Sand Hill Road/ C 21.5 0.654 24.6 D 32.2 0.720 39.2 Pasteur 8. Sand Hill Road/ C 22.7 0.638 27.5 D 37.5 0.740 51.8 Arboretum 9. Quarry Road/ C- 33.3 0.594 34.0 C 29.2 0.658 33.4 Arboretum Source: Sandis, 2012, Stanford University Medical Center EIR, City of Palo Alto, 2011. The intersection of El Camino Real with Quarry Road is currently a tee intersection with Quarry Road ending at El Camino. The Project includes extending Quarry into the site as a primary means of access as indicated in Figure 2. The intersection currently serves as the juncture point for the northbound on-ramp from University with the ramp extending into the intersection slightly and movements from the ramp being limited to 23 continuing northbound on El Camino Real. Vehicles on the ramp are not allowed to turn left and are controlled with the same signal indications as northbound El Camino. Assuming this basic configuration with the ramp is maintained would mean traffic cannot turn right from the northbound through lanes across the on-ramp which in turn means traffic attempting to enter the site northbound on El Camino Real will be required to exit at University, cross University to the on-ramp and use the driveway from the ramp into the garage. A preferred way may be to provide a separate signal phase for the ramp which would allow vehicles to turn left into westbound Quarry from the ramp and allow right turns from northbound El Camino in to the site. The concern is initial review of traffic forecasts for the Project indicates signal operations at the intersection may not be able to accommodate all the movements and will deteriorate to an LOS F. It is forecast to operate at an LOS D with the Project if the current configuration is maintained. This should be further evaluated as the Project continues to be refined in terms of size and access. 4.2 Urban Lane/ Mitchell Lane Loop As described earlier, the Project site is adjacent to the Palo Alto Intermodal Transit Station (PAITS) and includes relocation of the current bus loading and parking area to accommodate a new theater and subsurface parking. The current plan is to relocate the bus area to a combination of the Urban/ Mitchell Lane Loop and the extension of Urban Lane towards the Palo Alto Medical Foundation complex. Figure 2 shows a potential realignment of the Urban Lane/ Mitchell Lane Loop with the northbound El Camino Real ramps at University Avenue. As discussed previously, access to and from the loop is partially controlled currently with westbound traffic from the loop being signalized. Maneuvers from both off ramps are controlled by the signals. Physically separating the loop road from the ramp junctures at University is being considered to add capacity for bus loading to the loop road. Review of Figure 2 will show the curb being squared and extended to lengthen space available for bus use. The loop roadway will remain two-way and would also be widened to allow use of the curb in both directions. The reconfiguration is continuing to be refined but current estimates indicate being able to provide approximately 30 bus loading/ layover spaces between the loop and the extension of Urban Lane. The reconfiguration will require a series of modifications to the existing bridge structure and existing traffic signal layout and timing dependent upon the final design. As indicated in Figure 2, the squaring/ straightening of the Loop could shift the intersection of the ends of the Loop away from the ramp junctures approximately 100 to 200 feet. They would intersect the ramps directly, back from University. This will require a sophisticated vehicle detection system and signal timing plan specifically tailored to the roadway conditions be developed once the transit agencies determine their access and circulation patterns. The current plan is also considering the use of two short segments of two-way traffic between University and the relocated Loop Road intersections to facilitate improved bus circulation through the site. This is still under evaluation dependent upon transit operator needs but will require continued refinement of allowable movement and associated lane requirements The geometrics of the design to date demonstrate what will be needed to accommodate bus turning and parking maneuvering. Further operational evaluation will be needed as 24 transit agencies provide continued input regarding their needs. The proposed plan alternatives should now be reviewed by transit providers relative to meeting each agency’s drop-off and circulation needs. Some queue/ storage areas are limited (northbound ECR off-ramp left turn at University, etc) which could impact transit operations. These aspects will need to be further evaluated and refined once transit users have determined how the overall concept could work for them. A key part of the final solution will be developing a means of ensuring queue lengths don’t exceed storage areas at entry points to the loop road. Vehicles eastbound on Palm Drive turning into the loop road (Marguerite) in a counterclockwise direction will need to be able to do so without being blocked by northbound off-ramp traffic waiting to turn left towards Stanford. Similarly, buses circulating in a clockwise direction attempting to turn left onto westbound University/ Palm may need to be metered to limit queues. _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 1 of 20 PLANNING& TRANSPORTATION 1 COMMISSION 2 MINUTES (EXCERPT)3 4 ==================MEETINGS ARE CABLECAST LIVE ON GOVERNMENT ACCESS CHANNEL 26====================== Wednesday, October 10, 2012 Meeting5 6:00 PM, Council Chambers6 1st Floor, Civic Center7 250 Hamilton Avenue8 Palo Alto, California 943019 10 ROLE CALL:6:05 PM11 12 Commissioners:Staff:13 Eduardo Martinez –Chair14 Samir Tuma Aaron Aknin, Assistant Director15 Arthur Keller -Absent Amy French, Chief Planning Official16 Greg Tanaka Steven Turner, Advance Planning Manager17 Mark Michael-Vice-Chair Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect, Public Works18 Alex Panelli Robin Ellner, Administrative Assoc. III19 Michael Alcheck20 21 22 23 Study Session: Height Discussion24 25 Chair Martinez: The first item is a study session and our initial Commission discussions on 26 building heights in Palo Alto. Assistant Director Aknin, please.27 28 Aaron Aknin, Assistant Director: Thank you and good evening Chair and Planning Commission. 29 As noted in the memo to the Planning, Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) at the 30 September 24th City Council Hearing,the City Council considered a proposal for a project at 27 31 University. And part of the discussion was whether or not to move this forward to an advisory 32 ballot for the entire City to consider. The Council did not take action on this item that night,and 33 asked staff to engage in discussion with the Architectural Review Board (ARB) as well as the 34 PTC on two subjects. 35 36 The first subject was heights in general within the City of Palo Alto. As the Commission knows 37 about 40 years ago a 50 foot height limit was placed within the City of Palo Alto on all buildings 38 and the Chief Planning Official will go more into the history of that. And there’ve been very few 39 exceptions to this height limit since, but due to a number of things,there have been proposals 40 over the last few months and last few years that proposed to exceed this height limit. So they 41 wanted an overall discussion to see how applicable this height limit still is in 2012. 42 43 They also wanted the staff to engage the ARB as well as the PTC in a discussion of 27 44 University. And we will have this discussion two weeks from now both with the ARB in a joint 45 study session and then a more detailed discussion with the PTC immediately following that. So 46 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 2 of 20 for tonight’s discussion,please keep your comments to overall height limits in general. The 1 Chief Planning Official,Amy French,will go more into that discussion and provide more 2 background and then in two weeks we can discuss the 27 University project. So at this point I’ll 3 turn it over to Amy. 4 5 Amy French, Chief Planning Official: Good evening. Amy French, Chief Planning Official, put 6 together a little something for you. The Comprehensive Plan does have a statement about how,7 in the 1970’s,we adopted a height limit of 50 feet citywide. There are some zones that allow 8 that,and many zones that do not. So there’ve only been a few exceptions,as our Assistant 9 Director noted. We have some fun views of buildings in the slide presentation. We do have the 10 statement in Program L3 that talks about how we want to “periodically review height and density 11 limits to discourage single uses inappropriate in size and scale to surrounding uses.” So I think 12 that’s interesting;you know, we do have some projects come through that are mixed use,and it 13 specifically says single uses. 14 15 Looking at the Comp Plan Aaron got a hold of from our former Director Natalie Knox, the 1963 16 Comprehensive Plan that projected a hundred thousand people as noted,and there were buildings 17 that were 1960’s that were reflecting that -the taller buildings, many residential buildings among 18 them. And in 1974,the Comp Plan stated that most Palo Altans do not support this population 19 projection. In the mid-70’s (1977 I think)the 50 foot height limit was established and it was 20 seen as helping to limit further growth. And then I can show you many of the buildings that 21 were around there. Quite a few 10-story buildings in town;you have a list there, and I’ll show 22 the images. 23 24 Not on the list, I didn’t get on there, are Crowne Plaza Cabana over on El Camino Real -that’s 25 an eight-story building,built in 1969. Also the Tan Plaza built in 1964, eight stories as well over 26 on Arastradero. So the Fire Department keeps a list of these. They’re mostly residential. There 27 are three among those listed that are office: City Hall, the office building at 525 University, and 28 3000 El Camino known as Palo Alto Square. And we have the seven-story buildings and a lot of 29 those are the older 1930’s residential buildings. 30 31 So I’m going to go ahead and just show the slideshow. Got that one, 101 Alma -the ARB noted 32 that that one was back behind trees and setback from Alma and so it really doesn’t have a lot of 33 impact from the street. Channing House. Forest Towers,called “The Mark.” This is the one 34 (525 University) that set things in motion as far as the height limit. It was not a Planned 35 Community (PC). The rest of those were PC’s. This is 1966. Then we have the older buildings, 36 the seven stories, charming,older buildings from an earlier era. Then, Casa Olga which was 37 built originally as a hotel but then it was residential for many years and now going back to hotel 38 with the new hotel provider, under construction. Then there’s City Hall,of course. 39 40 Then we have the downtown buildings,many examples of four-story buildings downtown,and a41 range in Floor Area Ratio (FAR). There’s a whole range of FAR’s. There’re some that are on 42 very large sites. There’re some that are on small sites, infill sites, and corner sites. So I just put 43 a few of them up there;as you can see some of these are taller than 50 feet and only three stories. 44 Some of them are five stories and still under 70 feet;but it’s hard to do a five-story building in 45 50 feet. Impossible really, if you’re going to have anything on the ground floor that is retail,or 46 anything. 47 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 3 of 20 So then we have some recently approved projects that are under construction. We’ve got the 1 Lytton Gateway -and all of these are around 50 feet -the 801 Alma, which is the housing project 2 that was going to be a PC and then they removed the retail and it just became an ARB process; 3 278 University, which is retail and office;and then the 317-323 University,which is retail and 4 office as well.5 6 And then these are some of the outlying buildings already discussed, but we have had some taller 7 buildings built in recent years,and one of those is in East Palo Alto. So it’s not really Palo Alto, 8 but it’s on this side of the freeway so one absorbs the height when one is coming off the freeway. 9 And then we have Taube Koret CJL project down on San Antonio,where you see the theater10 building right there on the corner. And then we had a few -these are the most recent,large 11 projects that we’ve had: the two Hilton projects on El Camino. Those are four stories under 50 12 feet. And then a couple of mixed use projects. Mr. Hohback had come through the process with 13 a three-story building,and a four-story building. So those were both under the 50 feet limit,for 14 the most part.15 16 And, Clare Malone Prichard,the ARB Chair is here tonight to meet up with you and observe as 17 well. So the ARB, this is the feedback: ARB was talking last week about some of the things that 18 interested them about the height in Palo Alto. I can go back to this slide for her when she is 19 speaking, but it was quite a lively conversation, a very interesting conversation.20 21 And then we have zoning districts that allow the 50 feet. So we have quite a few of them that do 22 allow 50 feet. And then we get to the subject matter of the David Baker article that I provided 23 via e-mail last week,and it is at places and at the back table. It talks about ground floor and 24 urban design, the kind of heights that we used to see built back in the day and feel good for retail 25 spaces with tall ceilings. And then what do you do on the upper floors? You’re squishing things 26 or you’re giving heights that you can live in,and it’s either a three-story, four-story, or five-story27 building. Again, hard to get five stories unless…well, you can’t do it in less than 50 feet. 28 29 So,we went through and looked at a couple of different cities, neighboring cities to see what 30 their height limits are. Menlo Park:60 feet for four-story or five-story residential,or residential 31 mixed use,and 48 feet for three-story mixed use,or four-story residential. Then we got East 32 Palo Alto, they’ve got six stories. Mountain View,they’ve got a few areas now six stories or 86 33 feet,whichever is less. So it’s interesting as you know you talk about stories, you talk about 34 height, and you can talk about both or one or the other,as far as a limiting factor. Palo Alto 35 doesn’t have a downtown precise plan as other cities do, more recently prepared. We have here36 San Mateo: 55 to 75 feet. I have links on this too I can send it out,and those can go in their 37 spare time, look at those cities. Downtown Redwood City,of course,is quite a bit higher, 12-38 story, 10-story, going down to, you know, the standard is eight-story. I guess it’s the most 39 common area in their downtown,eight-story allowed. 40 41 So basically this is the content. Our Chair was interested in these topics where building heights 42 could be looked at from, you know, planning values including urban design and other values that 43 buildings are allowed to exceed the height limit. Sometimes they are done to make buildings 44 better. Sometimes height allows to have a land use such as residential on the top, adding floor to 45 ceiling heights, and basically just so everyone’s aware that downtown has the Regional 46 Community Commercial land use designation. It’s not Neighborhood Commercial and so it is a 47 place where additional heights can be handled;you just have to look at the edge conditions. 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 4 of 20 1 So other areas to think about are growth,and putting density near transit. This has been a topic. 2 I just threw in here the mixed use definition: it allows up to three, three to one FAR where the 3 area is resistant to revitalization. So,some cities,like larger cities, San Jose or south of Market 4 in San Francisco,do have higher density districts. The concept of opportunity development 5 where the City is presented with an opportunity,and then actively looking for key opportunity 6 sites,where you might have minor increases or major increases in height. 7 8 And of course all of this is a kick-off meeting with the Planning Commission,as we’ve had with 9 the ARB;it leads to other things,like public outreach and additional meetings and further 10 discussion. So, I just threw in the typical stakeholders in the public process that would want to 11 be involved. So, with that,we’ll entertain questions. I know Clare’s here to present the ARB, so 12 I can roll back to that slide. 13 14 Chair Martinez: Ok, Commissioners, why don’t we begin with if you have questions about what 15 either Assistant Director Aknin or the Chief Planning Official presented. Do you have questions 16 regarding that? Why don’t we ask those and then we’ll open the public hearing. 17 Commissioners? Anyone, questions? Ok, Commissioner Panelli. 18 19 Commissioner Panelli: Thank you Chairman. I wanted to go back to the, to the comments on the 20 history. You talked about the 1963 Comp Plan projecting a Palo Alto population of 100,000 21 people. Was there a time horizon associated with that or was that more of a when we get to 22 100,000 we’re sort of done? What, can you shed some light?23 24 Mr. Aknin: No, I have to look into it more. It wasn’t a pretty. It appeared to be a pretty 25 aggressive growth projection so I don’t think it was this is a 100 year plan. I think there were26 actually time expectations that were more minimal than that. I actually have a copy of the 1974 27 plan that refers back to the 1963 plan and basically says, “In the 1963 plan there was a Palo Alto 28 population projection up to 100,000. At this point and time most Palo Altans do not agree with 29 that population projection so we are relooking at our policies.” 30 31 Chair Martinez: Yes, Commissioner Tuma.32 33 Commissioner Tuma: So I want to stay with the question on history. From this presentation the 34 one statement that I see here that talks about what the history was, was the idea that we would 35 use this in order to limit future growth. I have heard in the community over the course of the last 36 couple of weeks various different theories or justifications or thoughts on why we have this 50 37 foot height limit. Can you shed some more light on the historical, other than to limit future 38 growth? And specifically one of the, one of the statements that I heard which is intriguing is that 39 it had something to do with the notion, the planning notion that 50 feet was about as high as you 40 wanted to go in order to retain a scale that “felt good,” whatever that means. That was walkable, 41 that didn’t feel urban, I don’t know exactly what it means, but I think we’re at a point in this 42 whole discussion in the community where I’m seeing a ramp up of different theories of why we 43 got here. And I see a lot of it tied to a person’s predisposition to think a certain way about the 44 height limit. 45 46 So to the extent that we can get some more clarity, and it may happen tonight or it may just 47 happen as you move forward on why is, why was this put in place historically? And those 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 5 of 20 historical contexts:do they still make sense as you said before in the context of 2012? So, I was 1 hoping we’d have more discussion tonight about the context and history. 2 3 Chair Martinez: Can I add a follow up to that? I’m assuming that we’re, this is the first of many 4 conversations that we will have on building height. It might be a good idea to ask a member of 5 the Historic Resources Board (HRB) to come speak to us on that subject because I think it’s a 6 fascinating topic and it would really shed light on the thinking of the time and how it compares 7 to where we are now. I appreciate that thought Commissioner.8 9 Commissioner Tuma: So I was wondering if they have any sort of response to it.10 11 Mr. Aknin: So I think it’s gonna take more time to really go back and talk to a number of people. 12 I’ve had initial discussion,as Amy noted,with the Planning Director during that time and he said 13 the same thing. He said there were a lot of different opinions at the time, that people probably 14 remember what came together at the time that resulted in this 50 foot height limit from whatever 15 perspective they were coming at the time. The most logical conclusion you could draw just from 16 reading the plan and seeing what the ’63 plan proposed of, a larger population projections and 17 then the end result was a 50 foot height limit. The immediate result was,just from reading it,is 18 that it was there to limit growth, but it could have been different things. It could have been 19 looking, the ARB pointed out that many of the buildings that were designed during this 1960’s 20 period aren’t of the best design. It could have been a design issue for many people that we had 21 these larger buildings looming over existing buildings that,in their opinion had better 22 architecture. So there was the urban design aspect of it. There was a population aspect of it. So 23 I think you’re right, I think there were many opinions that came together at the time. But more 24 research is going to be necessary in order to really find out all the different angles. 25 26 Commissioner Tuma: Okay, and just two follow up thoughts. One is that I do think the historic 27 context is relevant, but certainly not determinative. And I think the other conversation that needs 28 to be had is the second half of that which is, is this right for today’s world in 2012? The other 29 thing that I think we need to be careful about or talk about and I wish legal counsel was here to, 30 to answer this question, but something for you guys to take away, in the, in the era of 31 Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) regulations that explicitly put in place an order 32 to limit future growth, I’m not so sure that those couldn’t be challenged. And so if we’re going 33 to have whatever the outcome here is, I think it needs to be based on justifications that would 34 survive legal scrutiny. And we’ve seen cases in the not too distant past where certain restrictions 35 were overturned because they were specifically designed to limit growth. So I think we want to 36 be careful about in this discussion, that may have been the historical context but as we go 37 forward whatever direction we go I think we need to have justifications that are legally 38 defensible. 39 40 Chair Martinez: Chair, Vice-Chair.41 42 Vice-Chair Michaels: Yeah, just to continue on the exploration of what we learned from the 43 history. It appears that in 1974 there was this strong support to put in place a height limit that 44 might have the effect of limiting growth. And we’ll learn more about that as we have more 45 opportunity. There’s also as recently as 2012,the number one policy in the Housing Element is 46 to, if I can quote this directly, “preserve the character of existing…” And when I saw that I 47 abstained from either approving or opposing the draft Housing Element. And the reason was that 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 6 of 20 struck me as a synonym for somehow hoping that there would be no change, which strikes me as 1 infeasible. Also from an analytic standpoint I’m not sure I know what “character” is. I mean 2 it’s, I walk down any street and I look in one direction, I look in another direction and every 3 direction I look at it’s sort of eclectic. So what exactly is it in some objective way are we saying 4 that is this character? 5 6 Now, Palo Alto is an exceptional community. It’s a very nice place. But I saw in the paper 7 today that the number one community in the United States to start up a business is Freemont. 8 And we’re seeing in the presentation from Ms. French some of the things that are going on in 9 other cities, other communities, some of which may be relevant to us and others maybe not so 10 much. But I think that if we are stuck in the past and we’re suffering a belief that we can sort of 11 suspend any change,then I think that the essential character of the City, the community that 12 many of us have enjoyed profoundly will probably deteriorate. And so in that spirit,I’m very 13 open to the discussion that will follow and the possibility that some of the complexities of all this 14 can be fully explored. And with sufficient community outreach maybe we can evolve a more 15 modern, more competitive, more appropriate point of view.16 17 Chair Martinez: Yes, Commissioner Alcheck.18 19 Commissioner Alcheck: Good evening. First I want to just say that I think this report is a great 20 start. I want to encourage, I know you guys are really busy, I want to encourage you to attempt, I 21 don’t know if that’s the right word, but attempt to try to get these things to us earlier. I think I 22 would’ve liked to review this during the week and kind of taken more time. I don’t mind 23 homework. So, to the extent that it’s feasible,I know you guys are always kind of working 24 towards timelines but getting this sort of stuff out earlier,so I can kind of send comments and 25 say, “Oh, I wonder if you could expand on this topic?” I think would be very helpful.26 27 My specific question about the presentation -I don’t know if this qualifies as a question or a 28 recommendation -but I’d love to sort of see you expand the analysis on our neighbors. I think 29 that this discussion could really benefit from a very analytical table and I think we should,if 30 you’re going to incorporate Menlo Park or Mountain View or East Palo Alto,I think you pick a 31 population size and then every city that has a population of that size and more that’s within 100 32 miles I’d like to know. I think we should include Foster City. I think we should include 33 Campbell. Let’s spread it out so that we -and it doesn’t have to be so in depth -but just to know 34 what is their max? And the reason I say that is because the examples we have, the five examples 35 we were given here are all cities that have higher height limits than we do. You know, I know 36 Los Altos which is a neighbor has a lower, imagine has a lower height limit since there’s nothing 37 there that’s taller than me. So, I only say that because I think it’s important that we see both 38 sides of that range. And it would help me because I could say, “Well, Palo Alto, is it more 39 similar to this city or this city?” And what are we, where are we trying, I think even including 40 San Jose. So that’s my kind of response to the presentation.41 42 Chair Martinez: I want to get in a few comments before I go to Commissioner Tanaka. First, I 43 want to acknowledge that our Chief Planning Official spent her Sunday transcribing the meeting 44 notes from the ARB meeting. So in this case,she’s not always so perfect, but in this case she 45 really did extra work to try to get these done for us. And again this is our first meeting and I 46 hope monthly or as quickly as we can get a new set of data together that we’ll be continuing this 47 conversation.48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 7 of 20 1 I have a slightly different request from Commissioner Alcheck and,rather than going to similar 2 size communities, I think the phenomena of growth and building height in our City is different. I 3 think it’s being pushed by what we see, not by the Residentialists and the, I forget what they 4 were called, the other side of the ‘60’s. I think it’s being pushed by economic forces; by the 5 unique circumstances of Palo Alto in the 21st Century. And I would like to see what the height 6 limit, the growth strategies are of other cities that are experiencing similar phenomena. 7 8 And the only one that I can think of off the top of my head is San Francisco and that’s totally 9 inappropriate if you look at only the size of the city and sort of what they’re dealing with. But 10 they are dealing with it in a fairly unique way. For example in South of Market they are looking 11 at building height on a parcel by parcel basis and they vary from 105 to 120. In the Mission 12 District it’s the same way and the maximum height can be 68 feet,with other kinds of conditions 13 that they’re placing on development. So,I’d like to see cities, I don’t know if it’s Santa Monica 14 or Pasadena or Austin or Ann Arbor or Freemont, I don’t know, that really are experiencing 15 growth in a similar way or the pressure for growth that we are. 16 17 Because I don’t think it’s first an urban and a design phenomena that we have to consider that,18 like the David Baker argument,that really it’s giving the bottom floor a little bit more air space 19 to make urban design better that is pushing growth. Urban design is a factor,but I don’t think 20 it’s our highest priority factor in Palo Alto and hopefully we’ll have the chance to talk about 21 some of these other things as we go forward. But I’d like to see this really analysis focus on 22 really the other aspects of height and growth and how the City can grow and preserve its 23 character. Because we all know what it is when we see it, right? And carry this discussion really 24 to a level that it deserves because it’s more than aesthetics, it’s more than an architectural design. 25 It’s a sense of our history,as Commissioner Tuma alluded to, but also as he said,it’s more than 26 that.27 28 Commissioner Tanaka. Comments? 29 30 Commissioner Tanaka: Yes, first of all thank you for putting this together; I thought it was very 31 helpful. My question is more around kind of like scenario analysis and I know this is probably 32 maybe too much to do right now, but maybe in future sessions it would be interesting to know, 33 do some “what if” analysis. So if let’s say in the pedestrian oriented areas we actually do as 34 Council directed, actually have higher building heights. What does that do in terms of our 35 population projection, traffic, parking, even our tax base? It would be interesting to see different 36 scenarios of, of heights. Right, so and this is kind of hard, cause it’s kind of open ended but 37 probably there would be some sort of set of analysis done based on different scenarios and that 38 way we could actually know what the impact is gonna be on the City. Because I think this is a 39 good survey of kind of what’s out there. And my fellow Commissioners have already spoken 40 about trying to get that more complete, but and I think that’s kind of more external, but I think 41 internally within the City it would be good to know what does this mean for the City in terms of 42 nuts and bolts? And so I don’t know if there’s a way for you guys to do this easily, but perhaps 43 if this analysis can be done I think it might be very enlightening to everyone.44 45 The other thing I was wondering about is I know that Palo Alto does surveys every year. Kind of 46 like on what people’s thoughts are. I don’t know if there was a question this year or in previous 47 years on what people think about density and the heights and stuff like that, but if not perhaps 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 8 of 20 this kind of question can be entered into the annual survey. I know I recently got a postcard to, 1 to do a survey for the City, but it would be interesting to hear what our residents think. So those 2 are my, my comments. Thanks.3 4 Chair Martinez: Do you have a suggested scenario Commissioner Tanaka?5 6 Commissioner Tanaka: Yeah, I would say that looking at raising the height limit in the 7 pedestrian oriented districts makes a lot of sense because that’s kind of like what the standing 8 thought is right now. Obviously some buildings have just been built and are not going to be 9 bulldozed anytime soon, but maybe some of those other buildings are older or maybe 10 underutilized and those may turn over. So it would be interesting to see, well if we actually had 11 buildings higher than 50 feet in these areas,what does it actually mean in terms of density, in 12 terms of population, parking, tax base? [Unintelligible]the City would be really interesting to 13 see all that and that we kind of know what the results of this decision is, more than aesthetically. 14 I think aesthetically we can all look at it and figure that out too, but I think knowing the longer 15 term impacts of what happens I think would be good too and that way it’s easier for people to 16 judge, “Well is this a good thing or bad thing?” It may be a good thing. Maybe it’s going to 17 increase our tax base [unintelligible]it’s going to make the City much more vibrant and more of 18 an economic leader perhaps. It could also be a big parking issue, right? So there’s a lot of ways 19 it could play out, but I think having some accurate models and scenarios that we could look at 20 that are somewhat plausible I think would be a good thing. 21 22 Chair Martinez: Ok, I’d like to open the public hearing. We don’t see any speaker cards. We 23 have one? We do. Ok. Vice-Chair. 24 25 Vice-Chair Michael: Bob Moss. 26 27 Robert Moss: Thank you Chair Martinez and Commissioners. I gather none of you were living 28 here in ’74 or ’75 as I was and I just say briefly that the thing that triggered the height limit was 29 Casa Olga and if you want I can go into more detail later. The 1963 estimates for population as I 30 recall were based on the assumption that we’re gonna be building extensively in the foothills. 31 And a report came out in 1971 at the request of the City Council, Livingston Blaney Report, 32 which killed that. And that’s the reason that the population in Palo Alto is significantly lower. If 33 you want to know why Livingston Blaney killed it I can get into that too. 34 35 Some comments about the Staff report. First of all where they suggest the El Camino is a good 36 place for additional high buildings, no way. That’s why I created the CN zone because we have 37 residential directly against the commercial along El Camino. And the last thing you want is to 38 put taller buildings. The CN zone has a 35 foot height limit because we’re trying to make the 39 buildings along El Camino compatible with the housing. So with rare exceptions you do not 40 want taller buildings along El Camino. If you want to see what a ghastly project tall buildings 41 along El Camino create, go down to San Antonio. We were there again today. Every time we 42 drive by there,my wife looks at me and says, “My God, what are they doing there?” 43 44 Second, looking at the heights in other cities, I could care less what the height limit is in 45 Mountain View or Menlo Park or Redwood City. We’re in Palo Alto and we want to do what’s 46 best for Palo Alto. And the 50 foot height limit maintains the scale, scope, and most important 47 development density and intensity. Build it taller and especially if you look where all the tall 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 9 of 20 buildings are with rare exceptions, Palo Alto Square is the only really one in town, they’re 1 downtown. Most of them are residential buildings. Some of them are unique, 101 Alma for 2 example. The reason it’s there and the reason it’s so big is because it was put in intentionally to 3 block cars going from 101 to Stanford. And that’s why it’s a tall building. Almost all the other 4 buildings, there’s only four buildings in Palo Alto that are 100 feet or more and 101 Alma’s the 5 tallest. 140 feet.6 7 The intent is to keep Palo Alto low scale and the reason that you’re seeing a lot of requests for 8 tall buildings, now bear this in mind, the City Council made a policy statement several years ago 9 that they were willing to accept taller buildings near the centers where we have transit, 10 particularly the train stations at California and University. And the intent was to have residential 11 buildings there and what they said was if we had tall residential buildings we’ll have more 12 housing there,and that’s where people can take the train and that makes things much nicer. 13 14 The buildings that are actually coming in are commercial buildings and the reason they want to 15 put commercial buildings in is because they make money. Are you aware of the fact that during 16 the Dot Com boom office rents in Palo Alto were the highest in the entire world? They were 17 higher than downtown Manhattan or downtown Tokyo. And even today after the Dot Com bust 18 they’re still among the highest in the world. We’re only a few dollars a month lower for office 19 rents than Manhattan. So obviously if they can build tall office buildings they can make a lot of 20 money. The problem we’ve got is the jobs/housing imbalance and the more tall office buildings 21 you allow, the more jobs and therefore the more pressure to build more housing. 22 23 So, getting back to the reasons why we put in the 50 foot height limit, parking downtown was 24 getting to be a mess; we didn’t have the parking garages we have today. Spill over into the 25 neighborhoods was awful. Traffic was awful and we could see more of it coming. Casa Olga26 was also identified as something that’s gonna be shadowing the homes behind, the buildings 27 behind it and we didn’t want any more of that. We wanted to keep the City low scale. We didn’t 28 want to encourage big jump in the job/housing imbalance and we didn’t want to make the City 29 something which was designed for outside developers and not for the people that live here. 30 Those were the primary reasons. There were some other reasons when we put it in, but we did 31 not want to make Palo Alto basically the home for high density development. 32 33 And one other thing you ought to be aware of, maybe you’re aware of this, but multi-family 34 housing costs the City more than single family housing to service than you get in taxes. And this 35 has been true for decades. When I helped incorporate Rancho Palos Verdes I did a study and it 36 turns out that low and behold that multi-family areas were costing about $1,200. This was in 37 1971 dollars, whereas single family was costing about $800. Today it’s about $1,500 and about 38 $2,000. The more tall multi-family buildings you build the higher the impact on the City 39 finances. You want to be very careful about that.40 41 And one last comment, when they talk about worrying about the heights of the floors, if you 42 want to put in more floor height, that’s fine. Have fewer total floors. Stay within the 50 foot 43 height limit.44 45 Chair Martinez: Thank you Mr. Moss. I’d like to hear from Chair Malone Prichard. Thank you 46 for coming.47 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 10 of 20 Clare Malone Prichard, Chair ARB: And thank you for inviting me. Clare Malone Prichard, 1 Chair of the Architectural Review Board. So Amy actually gave a very good synopsis of what 2 was said at the meeting. I’ll give you a little more detail. Generally all of the Board Members 3 were open to the idea of allowing more height, but there were some serious concerns raised that 4 need to be considered. The first is the need to protect the R1 homes. As Mr. Moss mentioned 5 R1 homes are behind a lot of the commercial districts. You don’t want to allow very tall 6 buildings where they are going to be shadowing and impacting those homes. Parking is 7 definitely an issue. There are a lot of overflow parking problems and we don’t want to make that 8 any worse than it currently is. 9 10 Most of the Members felt that additional height may be appropriate in certain locations and that 11 it would be wise to do a study to determine what those locations might be. To look at what the 12 impacts are, what is nearby? What are the services? Is it close to a train or a bus line? There 13 was also discussion of using the height limit in order to encourage things that we want rather 14 than just saying let’s allow higher buildings. Maybe we keep the height limit where it is but we 15 say if you do these things that we identify that we want in the City then perhaps you get more 16 height. Topics that came up were more residential units,or a higher ground floor retail,or 17 ground floor pedestrian spaces, plazas, that sort of thing. 18 19 And there was also a discussion about whether the 50 feet is the magic number that should be 20 followed or whether we should be looking at the number of stories. And nobody really knew 21 exactly what that number of stories should be, but it’s something that is worth studying. Do we 22 want three-story, four-story, five-story character? And if so couldn’t we just say that that’s the 23 number of stories we allow and then use the architectural design process to determine whether or 24 not their designing building is too big for that particular location. So those are the major topics 25 that we handled and I’m sure there will be much more interesting and lively discussion.26 27 Chair Martinez: Ok. Commissioners, questions to the Chair? Yes, Vice-Chair Michael.28 29 Vice-Chair Michael: So, so Chair Malone Prichard, I wonder if we, if we saw a change in the 30 height limit where it was sort of overall or just in certain locations, what, what sort of impact do 31 you think that the ARB would be able to have regarding the quality of higher buildings? You 32 know, the how attractive they would be, what sort of roofline? I think one of the issues that 33 we’ve seen is that, from many places in Palo Alto, you can see the skyline of the Santa Cruz 34 Mountains. But if you begin to have a small sort of urban skyline in Palo Alto that was either, 35 aesthetically pleasing or not, that might be something that would be affected by the site and 36 design review, the ARB, and what you do. Did you have any discussion along those lines? 37 38 Ms. Malone Prichard: Yes, there was one Member who was very much interested in not making 39 the height limit too high for that very reason. That if you start to have clusters of very tall 40 buildings,you change the character of the City. There was another Board Member who said 41 because our height limit is so low we’re not getting interesting buildings because their, the 42 developers are squeezing whatever they can into the floors and there’s no room left at the top for 43 any kind of interesting articulation. So it sort of cuts both ways. 44 45 As far as what impact the ARB might have on that with any project we try to make projects 46 better, but you can’t take a not so good project and make it perfect. So, I’ve always felt that 47 what we’re doing is improving the projects that come in. 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 11 of 20 1 Chair Martinez: I have a question for you. When we talked on the bus the other day you talked 2 about having more flexibility. Can you elaborate on that?3 4 Ms. Malone Prichard: Yeah, the flexibility was really linked to the discussion of looking at 5 numbers of stories versus height. If you say randomly that three or four stories is the number of 6 stories you will allow you’re allowing the designer of the building the latitude to decide whether 7 their bottom story wants to be 12, 14, 16 feet and look at their proportions as best they can. 8 Whereas with the 50 foot height limit that we currently have you’re really squashed if your 9 developer wants you to do three stories or four stories. You don’t have that much design 10 latitude.11 12 Chair Martinez: Yes, Vice-Chair Michael.13 14 Vice-Chair Michael: So, I had a couple of other questions and maybe this is something you could 15 comment on. One is the relationship between you talked about, well in doing a PC application 16 we look at public benefit and sometimes it’s, that’s hard to define and it’s questioned whether 17 it’s really benefiting the public or some small part of the public or even sort of private benefit. 18 But if you, I believe in the Menlo Park plan that was recently approved after a long period of 19 discussion, controversy, and study what they’re contemplating is they’ve raised their height limit 20 along El Camino and Santa Cruz Avenue with achieving some control over parking with parking 21 structures which are now surface parking lots is the creation some of, some surface public plaza 22 and park space in a pleasing way with the taller buildings. So I’m, I’m curious about the 23 possibility of if we foresee a situation in which certain buildings, certain locations would go 24 higher, whether this would be a way to incorporate more attractive surface spaces for the public. 25 26 And the other thing is,a related question about as I go around to other cities which I find either 27 examples of what to do or what not to do. It appears that the daylight plane and the width of the 28 street is a factor that affects how wide the sidewalks can be for pedestrian uses and ground floor 29 retail attractiveness and I’m not sure that we have enough really wide boulevards in Palo Alto to 30 go crazy on changing the height limit. But that might suggest that say along El Camino which is 31 a broader street that would be notwithstanding the comments by Mr. Moss, something we might 32 want to sort of move towards or, but the daylight plane and then the public benefit on the surface, 33 opening of the surface by going up. 34 35 Ms. Malone Prichard: So, I’m starting with the surfaces. That was actually something that we 36 discussed that given that we have a limit on floor area what will happen if you allow a higher 37 height is that the floor plates will become smaller. Your buildings will get taller and that gives 38 you more ground floor space that can be utilized for plazas and that sort of thing. So that is a 39 benefit to allowing that greater height. And as far as the daylight plane issue, ARB actually 40 discussed that at our retreat a month or two ago. And we actually pulled out a zoning map and 41 found that along El Camino we all thought that everything that backs up to El Camino was R1 42 and we found actually there were quite a few areas where that was not the case. So there may be 43 sections of El Camino where it does make sense to have a higher height limit and you’re not 44 really impacting R1 zones.45 46 Chair Martinez: Ok, one last question. In applying the David Baker model, which it seems that 47 most of your Board Members supported, we’re talking about raising building heights a little bit. 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 12 of 20 So, that in itself could be handled the way you handle Design Enhancement Exception’s (DEE), 1 right? That it’s something you have the discretion to recommend to, to make the architecture 2 and urban design better. Why would we need to change building heights for that?3 4 Ms. Malone Prichard: I believe,and Amy can correct me if I’m wrong on that, ARB doesn’t 5 have the ability to allow higher than 50 foot height through DEE. Is that correct?6 7 Ms. French: Yes, that’s a very sensitive topic -to have the ARB approving over 50 feet. When 8 we have architectural features, the DEE cannot be used to approve additional floor area. And so 9 by pushing up the floor, if the floor starts at 45 feet and the ceiling is at 53 feet, then you’re 10 violating the allowance of how and why you can use the DEE. You can’t use the Design 11 Enhancement Exception to increase the amount of floor area in a building. So, we wouldn’t be 12 able to make the findings if you’re doing it for the volume of space over 50 feet. Just for 13 architectural features:a roof, a roof or a detail,an architectural feature is what the ARB is 14 reviewing. 15 16 Chair Martinez: Ok, I get it. Thank you very much.17 18 Ms. Malone Prichard: Thank you.19 20 Chair Martinez: Can -changing courses a bit -can we read Commissioner Keller’s comments?21 22 Mr. Aknin: Gladly. Commissioner Keller is out of town right now so he asked that his 23 comments be read into the record. “Increasing height can have impacts on traffic and on 24 adjacent properties, in particular smaller scale residential properties. A detailed traffic impact 25 study should accompany any analysis of potentially increasing building heights. I assume a 26 traffic study is being performed as part of the downtown non-residential density study being 27 commenced as a result of reaching the development cap. 28 29 Point two, to the extent we consider raising height limits along El Camino Real we should, we 30 need to consider the impact on residential properties behind these properties in particular R1 31 and R2 properties. Currently the height limit in certain zoning districts is lower near residential 32 zones. It is often said that increased density is necessary for increased transit service; however, 33 it is unlikely that any amount of increased density will result in increased bus service by Santa 34 Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) within Palo Alto. Although there may be 35 increases in intercity bus service such as the 22 and 522 bus lines. Part of any study should 36 consider if the height limits were to be raised and corresponding floor limit imposed whether 37 that be justification for prohibiting design enhancement exceptions for height other than truly 38 small architectural features. We should consider the extent to which there’s evidence that the 39 existing height limits are a problem and should be increased.”40 41 Here’s a question, “Is there a scope of any study to consider increasing height limits and 42 imposing limits on floors but retaining FAR limits if increasing, if increasing FAR limit 43 requires far more extensive study? Any study should consider the impact of raising the height 44 limit on commercial square footage limits around the City, such as downtown.”45 46 Chair Martinez: Great, thank you. So Commissioner Keller is actually looking at building 47 heights from the other side. Rather than, rather than we’re considering building heights he’s 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 13 of 20 saying well, if we’re going to consider building heights let’s first consider impacts on 1 neighborhood and traffic, transportation. Yes, Commissioner Tuma.2 3 Commissioner Tuma: I have a question, procedural question here and again, we don’t have our 4 City Attorney with us. We have a long history of not allowing Commissioners to participate in 5 meetings if they’re not physically present. I for one have been a proponent of being able to do 6 that, but we keep getting shot down by counsel because of Brown Act issues and that sort of 7 thing. And so I’m a little bit uncomfortable with Commissioner Keller’s comments even being 8 presented tonight. I get even more uncomfortable if we get into a discussion about them. So I 9 don’t know if we can get some clarity from counsel or if you guys have even talked about this 10 in advance of these being presented, but we’ve always been sort of not only dissuaded but 11 frankly told we couldn’t do it in the past. So I kind of wanted to get some clarity on that if we 12 could. 13 14 Mr. Aknin: It’s my understanding as long as the comments are presented to the public and 15 presented to the Commission that you can discuss them in the same manner that if a member of 16 the public submitted a letter for your consideration you’d be able to discuss those comments as 17 well. We, I will touch base with the City Attorney’s office and report back with this. That’s 18 always been my understanding in other cities as well.19 20 Chair Martinez: But Commissioner Tuma’s comments and concerns are important and I don’t 21 think we necessarily have to continue with responding or commenting on his, his submitted 22 comments. So why don’t we table that for now and you can report back to us on what our City 23 Attorney has to say. 24 25 Ok, I am closing the public hearing since we have no more speakers. This is a hot topic for the 26 City. I do encourage members of the public to submit e-mail responses, to speak at our next 27 session in two weeks. Let us know. Continue this conversation. 28 29 I’d like to hear from Commissioners on their initial thoughts about the 50 foot height limit and 30 sort of how they view it at this point and time. It’s sort of a hard question to just sort of toss on 31 you, but I think it’s important to kind of begin to formulate our thinking and express some ideas 32 about our feelings. I,for one,feel sort of protective of it. So, and I find it surprisingly, 33 surprising of myself as an architect to sort of not want to build, build, build. But I also see a 34 sense of history and a sense of sort of what our downtown is and the scale of this community as 35 being important. I’m not saying I’m not interested in exploring those. I’m saying that I am 36 going to be coming from a point that I really have to be convinced that this is something that the 37 City should pursue although the City whether by choice or by fact we are pursuing it is 38 happening. It’s being requested of us all the time and it’s something I think that we have to take 39 on. And I commend the Council and Staff for taking this on. It’s not the easiest thing to 40 pursue. Commissioners? Yes, we’ll go down the line. Commissioner Panelli.41 42 Commissioner Panelli: Thank you Chairman. I’d like to think that I’m good at getting to the 43 heart of the matter and weeding out maybe all the stuff that’s peripheral or secondary and 44 getting to the primary concern or conflict. And for this specific topic I think I understand, first 45 of all I understand why there was pushback back in the ’70’s against the kind of growth that’s 46 represented by some of the buildings that you had in your presentation. But unfortunately I 47 think that too many of us, and I have been guilty of this in the past as well, too many of us 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 14 of 20 conflate height and density. I can point out plenty of buildings in this City that are below the 50 1 foot height limit that are, in my opinion, eyesores. And there are examples, perhaps maybe not 2 in this City, but other neighboring cities of, other neighboring cities that are of similar size and 3 scope to Palo Alto that have buildings that are much higher than 50 feet that are better. So I 4 really think that we need to, to somehow separate these two issues and evaluate height limits 5 within the context of the existing Floor Area Ratio governance that we have today. Is an eight 6 story building with a lot more open space better than a four story building that’s built sidewalk 7 to sidewalk, road to road? I don’t know, but there are tradeoffs and I think we need to talk 8 about those tradeoffs.9 10 The other thing,as I was doing some research -and I don’t have any absolute proof or evidence 11 of this, right? I don’t believe everything I read on the internet -but from what I’ve read it says 12 that taller buildings are actually more energy efficient because of the insulation factor between 13 floors. So if you were to take eight one story buildings or one eight story building the eight 14 story building would effectively have, would be a greener building. I don’t know that for a fact, 15 but I think that should be a part of this discussion.16 17 And then going back to, let’s see, yeah, what our friends on the ARB talked about, which is, I 18 think it’s perfectly reasonable to say are there times when we’re willing to give something to get 19 something. And if the benefits, and I think that gets back to this, this issue of public benefits, if 20 the benefit that we’re getting is much greater than, is great or tangible and the downside is 21 mitigated in some way to me it seems like a reasonable thing to put on the table for discussion. 22 23 And then lastly without talking specifically about projects I’m actually looking forward to a 24 potential future ballot proposition. And the reason I say that, or ballot measure I should call it. 25 The reason I say that is, you know, Commissioner Tanaka asked about a survey. What better 26 survey is there than an actual election about an actual project? And I think that more than 27 anything will give us great insight into what the community thinks we should be for the next 30 28 years. Thank you. 29 30 Chair Martinez: Thank you. Vice-Chair Michael.31 32 Vice-Chair Michael: So thank you Chair Martinez. So, I, I agree with Commissioner Panelli 33 this is gonna be a very useful and hopefully productive discussion with the entire community 34 maybe culminating in a vote. I think that any, any action that the community endorses should 35 be based hopefully on an analysis of the situation and what was the situation in 1974 is certainly 36 different from what the situation is today. And different again from what it will be in some 37 future tomorrow situation. So I think that to some degree reviewing the policy and the 38 likelihood of change may be very healthy discussion if not being able to predict the outcome.39 40 I think what happened in 1974 was the adoption of a, of a simple solution just to cap at 50 feet 41 although there have been, you know, occasions when an exception could arise. But I’m a 42 believer that one size doesn’t fit all usually and what we may contemplate rather than changing 43 it from one simple solution to another simple solution like 55 feet instead of 50 or, you know, 44 some number of stories is, is really try to introduce some respect for the complexity of the 45 situation and consider whether a variety of solutions may be amenable to different locations. 46 Different types of adjacencies of commercial versus residential versus transit, etcetera. 47 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 15 of 20 The other thing is because the height limit has been in place for as long as it has and has been 1 positive in many ways it really is a pervasive thread throughout virtually the entire 2 Comprehensive Plan. I think Commissioner Tanaka sort of earlier made this point, but I think 3 that if, if you try to evaluate potential impact adverse or beneficial of changing the height limit 4 and how does it affect the schools, how does it affect traffic, how does it affect the natural 5 environment, how does it affect culture? What is it allow for in terms of demographic shifts in 6 the population increases in total population? Infrastructure, for those of us who served on the 7 Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Commission (IBRC)? Jobs, the possibility of attracting employers 8 or being a place for startups may be nurtured with all the talent that we have? How does it 9 affect the City’s budget and the tax base? So I don’t think this is in any way a simple 10 proposition and I think if you, if you make certain changes there’s gonna be some [puts and 11 takes]and hopefully, you know, that can be a complex discussion that will ultimately be 12 fruitful.13 14 The other thing is,if you look back at Palo Alto from the hills, which I do fairly often, what you 15 see is just, you see trees and a few tall buildings sticking above. So the notion that Palo Alto is 16 somewhat visually defined by the tree canopy and, you know, as I could estimate a lot of these 17 trees are 60 and 70 foot trees, and which is why the 50 foot building height is below the canopy. 18 But that if you’re interested in like solar energy you might want to have some possibility of 19 buildings that are above the tree canopy so that they have access to sunlight for that reason. 20 And, but generally I think that this is fascinating because of its complexity. I think if we, if we 21 evolve towards another sort of simple solution that might not be the right way to go.22 23 Chair Martinez: Others? Commissioner Tuma.24 25 Commissioner Tuma: So the way Vice-Chair Michael finished that up is a perfect segue way 26 into what I want to talk about which is in many ways also the complexity and recognize the 27 complexity. And I’ll just go through a number of ways in addition to what Mr. Michael had to 28 say in terms of the complexity that I see.29 30 So I see two height discussions here potentially. One may be easier, one may be harder. And 31 that is what I call the 50 plus a few,or 50 plus a handful type discussion. Where I think there is, 32 I feel much more, to get to what the Chair had asked us to sort of tip our hands as to how we’re 33 thinking about these things. I am -where you’re talking about 51, 2, 3, 4, 5, some number like 34 that -I’m pretty solidly in favor of something that allows that,and for a number of reasons. 35 One is that,between the fact that you can get a more interesting, attractive ground floor that’s 36 vital, that you know, creates more interest by having an extra three or four feet, I think that 37 that’s especially in how we live today. I think that’s important. 38 39 The other thing that I think is interesting,what Chair Malone Prichard had said, which was 40 some of the interest in an articulation and other things that we can do with the buildings,if you 41 have a few more feet. Because there’s what makes the environment interesting and enjoyable to 42 us isn’t just a matter of height and mass, but it’s also about our interest with the buildings. And 43 the ability to do different things I think is important. When you get to sort of the next level of 44 expanding the height limit or a discussion about it I think it becomes harder because it’s -sorry, 45 the one other thing I wanted to say was,on the 50 plus a few, is I don’t feel like you’re really -46 again, we don’t know what the character is,but you know it when you see it. But it doesn’t feel 47 to me as if those few feet will begin to truly change the character of even a block or a 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 16 of 20 neighborhood or something like that. Now some would argue it’s a slippery slope and that once 1 you go to a few then where does that stop? But I think given construction techniques, given a 2 good argument for a ground floor that’s higher, there’s a lot of reasons why a handful. 3 4 The other sort of complexity here that I see is almost a matrix of some of the things that Mr. 5 Michael referred to which had to do with location; proximity to transit, proximity to 6 neighborhoods, and adjacency of uses as one sort of set of criteria or blocks in the matrix if you 7 will. And then the other one is the actual proposed uses of the building. You know if this is all 8 about limiting growth in residential then there’s no reason to have a height limit for commercial. 9 I’m being a bit, you know, flip about that but depending on what the actual use is and in its 10 given location and the surrounding uses. So I think there’re a lot of things you have to look at. 11 Council sort of opened the door with this by saying, well,proximity to fixed rail. Ok - that’s a 12 good, interesting component to look at, but there’s a lot of other components that I think should 13 go into the discussion. And to some extent our, our code already reflects some of that in that we 14 have 35 foot height limits in some places, 50 foot in other places. So there’s some recognition 15 of that, but I do think that it’s even more complex than that. And I think looking at these 16 different factors is, is important because it’ll just, I think it will give us ultimately a more 17 interesting building scape over time.18 19 A question that I had,which I had forgotten to ask before which is,there’s gonna be a lot of 20 discussion about heights in the context of particular project that’s coming up, which I’m not 21 even I think allowed to say out loud because of my conflict. But, I think, I’m curious as to 22 whether, what Planning’s thoughts are on continuing a stand-alone discussion on height 23 irrespective of the discussions that go on in the context of a particular project. And for a couple 24 of reasons, the primary reason is because I think if you had the context about height and the 25 context or the discussion about height and the context of a particular project you sometimes 26 don’t make necessarily the right global decision. And so did they put this in place because of 27 Casa Olga? Maybe they did. Was that the right thing because one building sort of stuck up and 28 said, “Oh my God this is terrible!” So I don’t think we should as a City,I don’t think it 29 behooves us to analyze this topic in the context of a single controversial project. And so…30 31 Chair Martinez: You should stop there. No, I don’t mean in your comments,in that particular 32 direction.33 34 Commissioner Tuma: Yeah, so I do think a broader discussion where you’re looking, because of 35 the complexity, because of all the different factors you need to look at, location, use, et cetera. 36 Talking about it, having a stand-alone discussion about it is going to,if we want to come up 37 with something that’s going to cover the whole City and not a one project,that to me is a better 38 route to go. 39 40 Chair Martinez: Thank you. Commissioner Alcheck.41 42 Commissioner Alcheck: I would like to start by saying that I share Chair Martinez’ sentiments 43 about feeling protective about the height limit. And I think there’re a few reasons for that. The 44 first is that I just moved here. I’m probably the newest member of this community on this, as 45 well as being the newest member of this Commission, and there is something very specific 46 about Palo Alto that attracted me here. And I can assure you that the discussion about where to 47 settle between me and my wife was extremely detailed and Palo Alto possessed so many 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 17 of 20 qualities that appealed to us that it shined overwhelmingly compared to all of the other options 1 in this, on this peninsula. So I take the investment I made very seriously in this community and, 2 and so the notion of a radical change is, I don’t fear it, but I just like to suggest that I kind of 3 tread cautiously there because there’s a success here. There’s a success story in Palo Alto that’s 4 not shared in the same way as the communities that surround it that have made the real estate 5 values here so high. It’s a demand issue and there’s tremendous demand to want to be a part of 6 this community because of its success story. And so the notion of changing certain 7 development limitations is an important one.8 9 That being said:is the success of this community is this success story, you know, did it occur 10 despite the limit on height? I mean is, would it have been even greater? I feel very strongly 11 that what was the case in 1974 with respect to growth strategies and development philosophies 12 is not the case today. I think we’ve learned a lot in the last 30, 40 years about what is 13 environmentally friendly, what is transit oriented, what is smart growth. Smart growth is not 14 what it was 15 years ago and I think that we should not avoid taking risks. I think the idea of 15 not encouraging development that is based on the philosophies that are current would be a 16 mistake. 17 18 So, I am new and so I’m cautious because I want to know what the community thinks. I know 19 that the Palo Alto Weekly is always listening to our meetings. I think that they have a 20 tremendous opportunity here. Don’t just walk and ask eight people on the street a poll about 21 what they think about height. I think we should be encouraging editorials about what the future 22 of Palo Alto should look like in 10 or 15 years. 23 24 I know we’ve had discussions about El Camino and the grand boulevard. We had a resident 25 today talk about how the commercial real estate in this area is more expensive than Manhattan 26 or has been. I believe that, but there are parts of El Camino where rent must be very low 27 because I don’t understand how certain businesses are operating on El Camino despite their 28 extremely low traffic or what appears to be low traffic. It can’t be that every office and 29 commercial space in Palo Alto’s expensive because there seems to be some serious 30 underdeveloped space that fronts El Camino. And I wonder if those parcels will ever be 31 invested in if we don’t encourage dramatic ideas or, you know, and I’m thinking of those one 32 story small stores all along El Camino that it’s not very pedestrian friendly. I don’t know if in 33 10 years people are going to be walking down El Camino and shopping from store to store and 34 do we want that? And if we do, how do we encourage it? And that’s where I think we need 35 more input and we need intelligent analysis of this. 36 37 I don’t know if Google-plex style commercial spaces are the right sort of thing for Palo Alto. 38 That being said,if we don’t solve a supply issue here we will push out all of the small 39 companies that are attempting to change the world and we will replace them with professional 40 service companies that can afford only the most expensive rents. And we’ll have offices all 41 over Palo Alto that will have lawyers and potentially plastic surgeons and you can think of the 42 highest per hour revenue generators. And I have nothing against that. I’m an attorney myself, 43 but my point is,that I think we’ve had a tremendous diversity of industry in downtown Palo 44 Alto despite the insane rents and I don’t know if it’s realistic to think that if we don’t provide 45 greater commercial availability that that’ll remain. I think that we’ll lose that and we’re not 46 gonna lose it to Manhattan, we’re gonna lose it to Menlo Park and Redwood City and Mountain 47 View. I mean we already are competing with them and they’re growing in interesting ways. 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 18 of 20 1 So, I heard this, I know this is long winded and I apologize, but my last comment is that I heard 2 Neil Tyson Degrasse speak last year and he sort of made this comment about how if you went 3 back to the ’60’s magazine covers were all about the cities of the future. The cars, there are 4 flying cars and jets and everything was so the vision about the future and today you don’t see 5 that. You don’t see magazine covers about the future and, well you do, but they present a future 6 that is bleak and it’s Armageddon and the skies are red and we’ve run out of water and 7 everything is horrible and we’re all dying. You know, so again I sort of hope Palo Alto Weekly 8 is watching. I hope they take this opportunity to try to encourage our residents to opine and 9 discuss the future of Palo Alto. And I say this because Chair Martinez mentioned that there’s an 10 economic component to this and I think that’s totally true. The economics of this community’s 11 development is everything. How do we create a community that will continue to be, will 12 continue to have the vitality that attracted me to it while also being careful not to make a change 13 that would destroy the aspects of Palo Alto that, you know, attracted me to it. So, that’s what I 14 have to say.15 16 Chair Martinez: Thank you. Commissioner Tanaka, last comment.17 18 Commissioner Tanaka: Yes, so Commissioner Alcheck said a lot of what I was thinking in 19 terms of you look at Palo Alto and you look at how Facebook got one of their big starts here and 20 a variety of other companies and how a lot of them unfortunately weren’t able to stay and had to 21 move on. And I think, you know, Palo Alto’s kind of known as being one of the incubators or 22 starts of all these great companies and a lot of them are no longer here. Goggle is in Mountain 23 View. Facebook’s in Menlo Park. So I think Commissioner Alcheck’s hit the nail on the head. 24 I think being able to keep innovative companies in the City I think is a good idea. So I’m not 25 going to belabor that but I think Commissioner Alcheck already said that very well.26 27 I’m just kind of gonna go through a little list here of stuff that I was thinking. So one of the first 28 ones, I think the idea of having a number of stories versus height is actually a good concept. 29 And so I think what the ARB has been thinking about is not a bad suggestion to think about. 30 That way gives people more incentive to make the space more interesting, more useful. So I 31 think that’s something that we should definitely deliberate more. I think that concept of having 32 taller spaces -I mean taller buildings -so you have more public spaces,seems to make a lot of 33 sense. But we should understand the impact of that,and what does that mean? I think at the 34 same time I think you don’t want to overshadow R1 neighborhoods. That doesn’t make a lot of 35 sense. So I think it has to be done carefully. So I think this suggestion on the ARB feedback of 36 let’s deal with parking, use PC over 50 feet seems to make a lot of sense. So I think the ARB 37 did a good job in havingthis deliberation. 38 39 I also agree that, that a variety of solutions is probably needed. So I don’t think it’s gonna be a 40 simple one number change and we’re done. I think that it’s gonna be kind of a complicated 41 discussion. We’re gonna have to figure out what really makes sense. And I,really, I’m a big 42 believer of simulation or scenario analysis. I think that we should be doing it on all the aspects 43 that I think the other Commissioners have mentioned,from schools to economics to parking, 44 traffic, et cetera; to look to the long list of stuff that you could try to analyze.45 46 And I also agree about having, you know, if we do increase the height this is almost like an up 47 zoning for some properties. So having,reflecting that in terms of some sort of use that we want 48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 19 of 20 to encourage,like for instance,maybe we want to encourage more retail in a certain area so it’s 1 not a bunch of dead streets with parking lots or offices that don’t really add to an area. So 2 maybe that’s something to think about. Or a hotel where it boosts economic tax base for the 3 City. So I think that is definitely something we should think about because this is kind of a nice 4 incentive for people. It’s certainly gonna be up-zoning for some people, so we should think 5 about that as well.6 7 And then my last thought here is,everyone talks about the job/housing imbalance,but I think 8 this Commission has at many times,and there’s a lot of articles on it, but one of the greenest 9 places on Earth is actually Manhattan. It’s not because they have a bunch of residential there, 10 it’s because they have great transit into the City,and there’re a lot of jobs there. So Manhattan 11 is very, very -you have probably the worst job/housing imbalance ever -but they have probably 12 the greenest place on Earth because everyone goes there for their jobs. So, I’m actually, I think 13 that’s something we should also think about in terms of:is it housing that’s next to transit,or is 14 it jobs next to transit? And it seems to me jobs near transit makes a lot more sense,because if 15 you’re trying to go to work if you don’t have a car at your destination,it’s gonna be a big 16 problem. Now there’s Bike Shares and other stuff that’s happening, but in general I think that 17 may be a better strategy and also has less impact on our schools, which I believe many people, 18 probably Commissioner Alcheck and others, move to Palo Alto for the great schools. So, 19 anyways,I think that’s something we should be thinking about in terms of what is the use of 20 these buildings that are perhaps higher than 50 feet. Thanks.21 22 Chair Martinez: Thank you. I think Commissioner Tuma, as he does, raises the bar for us in 23 that we have to move this discussion from abstract, abstractly thinking about how high is high 24 to really specifics of how we utilize building heights. The idea that we can utilize it to make 25 buildings better is an important point and where we do that is also important. But also when we 26 come to looking at buildings that want to be higher to look, to look at them one off is probably a 27 disservice to our City. And, and I would like to see the next round really be looking at where it 28 would make sense to consider a change to building heights whether it’s a downtown district 29 where there’s still many one building, one story buildings and perhaps like we did on the 30 housing sites inventory do an inventory of that to look at where it’s possible to consider higher 31 buildings, multistory buildings to really put some specifics into our consideration of building 32 heights so that it’s not alarmist about building in the open space or building against R1’s but it’s 33 building in a way in which our considerations for good planning and good architecture come 34 together. So, it’s, I’m not sure that’s in the program for Planning Staff to do, but it makes a lot 35 of sense for the next stage of our consideration of that to be more about a specific path forward 36 with ideas of how much and where and what we’re trying to achieve by doing this.37 38 Ok, I’m going to conclude this unless Staff has any last things to say?39 40 Mr. Aknin: I’d just like to thank the whole Commission for a great discussion. I think this is 41 exactly what we were looking for in terms of the kick off meeting. It’s something that we can 42 communicate back to the City Council. And I agree with everyone’s comment (interrupted)43 44 Chair Martinez: And thanks Clare.45 46 Mr. Aknin: And I agree with everyone, this is an ongoing conversation. This is something that 47 we’ll have many more meetings about.48 _____________________________________________________________________ City of Palo Alto October 10, 2012 Page 20 of 20 1 Chair Martinez: Thank you. Let’s take a 10 minute break and we’ll regroup.2