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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-08-27 Planning & Transportation Commission Verbatim Minutes_______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Planning & Transportation Commission 1 Draft Verbatim Minutes: August 27, 2025 2 Council Chambers & Virtual 3 6:00 PM 4 5 Call to Order / Roll Call 6 6:00 pm 7 8 Chair Akin: Good evening, everyone. I call to order the August 27, 2025, regular meeting of the 9 Planning and Transportation Commission. Mr. Tavera, would you call the roll, please? 10 11 Roll Call 12 13 Administrative Associate Samuel Tavera: Yes. Chair Akin? 14 15 Chair Akin: Here. 16 17 Samuel Tavera: Vice Chair Chang? 18 19 Vice Chair Chang: Here. And I’m alone in the room. 20 21 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Here. 2 3 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 4 5 Commissioner James: Here. 6 7 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Here. 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Here. 14 15 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: Here. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: We have a quorum. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Thank you. 2 3 Public Comment 4 Members of the public may speak to any item NOT on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 5 6 Chair Akin: First item of business is do we have any public comment for items that are not on 7 the agenda? Mr. Tavera, do we have any comment cards? 8 9 Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, I have not received any comment cards or any raised hands 10 on Zoom for general public comment at this moment. 11 12 Chair Akin: Thank you very much. 13 14 Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 15 The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 16 17 Chair Akin: Assistant Director Armer, could we review whether there are any agenda changes, 18 additions, or deletions? 19 20 Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: No changes. 21 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Thank you. 1 2 City Official Reports 3 4 1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 5 6 Chair Akin: All right. We’ll begin with City Official Reports. Ms. Armer? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Thank you and good evening. Jennifer Armer, Assistant Director, Planning. And 9 I’ll pull up my PowerPoint slides here in a moment to give us a sense of upcoming meetings and 10 recent activity at Council. Next slide? First want to make sure that you all are reminded of the 11 Boards and Commissions Recognition Event occurring tomorrow evening. And I hope that all of 12 you are able to attend. Then on September 6 we are planning to have our retreat at the 13 Mitchell Park Community Center Adobe Room from 10 to noon. And on September 10 will be 14 your next regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting and at this time, the items 15 scheduled for that meeting include the first discussion of the San Antonio Road Area Plan 16 Update, an update on that effort, and the South Palo Alto Bike/Ped Connectivity review 17 concept design alternatives. Next slide. For upcoming activities at Council, on September 8 City 18 Council will have a couple of relevant items on Consent Calendar. The El Camino Real Retail 19 Preservation Nodes as recommended by Planning and Transportation Commission will be going. 20 No need for a PTC liaison to attend since there won’t be any discussion. It’ll just be on Consent 21 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. but wanted to provide you that update. And the 400 Mitchell Lane CUP, also recommended by 1 the PTC, will also be on Consent. Same thing there. And then also to let you know that we have 2 received another PHZ prescreening application for 414 California Avenue which will be 3 discussed at that meeting. 4 5 On September 15, also a Consent Calendar item that may be of interest to the Planning 6 Commission is information about our first year of the rental registry and so look to see that 7 staff report being published in the coming weeks. And on September 29 the work plans for the 8 Planning and Transportation Commission, Architectural Review Board, and Historic Resources 9 Board will all be on Consent Calendar for City Council consideration. That concludes my report 10 but I’m available to answer any questions. 11 12 Chair Akin: Any questions, anyone? Commissioner Ji. 13 14 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Armer, for the presentation. I was actually 15 wondering what is the rental registry? I’m not familiar with that. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: This is an effort that started – well, the registry opened last year for its first 18 year and it is a requirement for any multifamily housing of 3 units or more to register with the 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. City and it is an opportunity for us to gather data about the rental properties in the City. And so 1 this is the first year of operation. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. 4 5 Chair Akin: Any other questions? Is Senior Engineer Rius with us? 6 7 Senior Engineer Rafael Rius: Yes. Thank you. Rafael Rius, Senior Engineer with the Office of 8 Transportation, here to provide some updates and some upcoming items. We typically share 9 the collision data for the City and I didn’t have it in time. It’s not yet available for the upcoming 10 meeting but we plan to have it prior to your next meeting. The next PABAC meeting is on 11 September 9 and usually we get it as part of that agenda. It should be ready before your next 12 meeting and I’ll share it as soon as I get it. As Jennifer mentioned, the South Palo Alto Bike 13 Connectivity Project will be coming to this Commission on September 10 and then a couple 14 other items. Crescent Park Traffic Calming Project right now is targeted for September 24 and 15 then also the next iteration of Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan Update is targeted for 16 November 12. Couple other project updates. The Churchill Avenue Enhanced Bikeway Project, 17 our Department of Transportation has handed it off to Public Works for construction and that 18 project has started. I forgot to mention the Council Rail Committee, their next meeting’s on 19 September 16 with a couple of discussion items around quiet zones. And I believe they’re going 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to be looking at the 15 percent grade separation plans so it’ll be an interesting meeting. And 1 then also with the start of the school year, our Safe Routes to School team is also going to be 2 starting the elementary school Bike Rodeo education program. Those are the updates I have 3 and available if you have any questions. 4 5 Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Rius. That’s a very entertaining report. Lots going on. 6 7 Rafael Rius: Yes. Commissioner Templeton? 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I wanted to ask you about a difficult subject that is part of the 10 transportation updates. How are the City Officials, either Council or this body, being updated 11 about incidents, collisions on the railroad track? Because you did not mention those. 12 13 Rafael Rius: Good question. I think I know what you’re alluding to and I’ll bring that up with our 14 chief transportation official and have a formal response. I know that’s not – yeah. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. It’s a sensitive subject. I think the way it’s relevant to our work 17 is the same way that the rail updates are relevant to our work and our need to communicate 18 the urgency to the decision-makers so if there’s anything that we can do in terms of analysis or 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. support to help move those projects forward and the timeline up, let us know, please. Thank 1 you. 2 3 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji? 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Mr. Rius, I know that one of the City Council committees 6 was looking into some of the impacts of RVs. I was wondering if there’s any information about 7 that. Specifically around the impacts on Park Boulevard as a bike route or if that ever comes 8 back to us in any form. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: I don’t know, Rafael, if you’d like to respond or not but I was going to jump in 11 and just share that there was – I believe it was Policy and Services Committee meeting at the 12 beginning of this week discussing it. And that is a meeting that is, I believe, available online and 13 so a recording of that meeting is available if anyone’s interested in going back and hearing that 14 discussion. And it will be going back to Council based on the recommendation from that 15 meeting. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: But it doesn’t come to us about... 18 19 Jennifer Armer: No. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Not at this time. 4 5 Rafael Rius: Thank you, Jennifer. I was about to mention the Policy and Services Committee but 6 that I didn’t have anything in addition to that. 7 8 Chair Akin: Thank you both. Any other questions for Mr. Rius? All right. Then that concludes the 9 official reports. 10 11 Action Items 12 Public Comment is permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. All 13 others: Three (3) minutes per speaker. 14 15 2. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 70 Encina Avenue [25PLN-00034]: 16 Recommendation on Applicant’s Request for Approval of a Tentative Map to Merge 17 Two Lots and Allow for a Condominium Subdivision to Create Ten Units on the 18 Resulting 12,119 Square Foot Parcel. The Subdivision Map Would Facilitate 19 Construction of Ten New Residential Units in One Building, which was previously 20 approved on April 14, 2025(24PLN-00095). CEQA Status: Exempt from the Provisions 21 of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in Accordance with CEQA 22 Guidelines Section 15183 (Comprehensive Plan Consistency). Zoning District: PC-23 5654. For More Information Contact the Project Planner, Emily Kallas, at 24 emily.kallas@paloalto.gov. 25 26 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: I believe we are ready to move on to Action Item #2. This is the recommendation on 1 an applicant’s request for approval of a vesting tentative map at 70 Encina Avenue. As this is a 2 quasi-judicial item, does anyone have anything to disclose? No? All right. Then we’re ready for 3 the staff presentation. 4 5 Senior Planner Emily Kallas: Good evening. My name is Emily Kallas. I am a senior planner and I 6 am the project planner for the 70 Encina Tentative Map Project. The project request is for a 7 tentative map for a single-lot condominium subdivision to merge 2 existing lots and create 10 8 condo units on the resulting 12,119 ft2 parcel at Encina Avenue. The existing parcel is code-9 compliant. This tentative map is associated with a recently approved project that was zoned 10 through the Planned Home Zoning, PHZ, process. The map also meets the Title 21, which is 11 consistent with the California Subdivision Map Act requirements. As a reminder, there are 7 12 findings that the map must meet in the negative. For example, the first one, that the proposed 13 map is not consistent with the applicable general and specific plans. Of course, it must be found 14 to be consistent. Additionally, because this project was included as a condominium project 15 when it was going through the Planned Home Zoning process, it was analyzed for the California 16 Environmental Quality Act under Section 15183, which is the Comprehensive Plan Consistency, 17 at the time that the formal application was under review. The recommended motion is for the 18 Planning and Transportation Commission to recommend approval of the tentative map to the 19 City Council based on findings and subject to conditions of approval. This is a nice quick 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. presentation. The Applicant has opted not to give a presentation but is available to answer any 1 questions. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Kallas. Does anyone have clarifying questions first? No? Since the 4 Applicant is not presenting – ah, there we go. Commissioner James? 5 6 Commissioner James: Just clarifying questions. You had a plan there that was – I was not on the 7 Commission when this first came but I’ve seen it. In the report I think it says that there is – let 8 me see if I can find it – there is no approved plan. Is that – I’m sorry. Is that correct? There is no 9 adopted specific plan for this project site? 10 11 Emily Kallas: That’s correct. The finding mentions the general plan, which of course is our 12 Comprehensive Plan, and there are no specific plans that apply to this property. 13 14 Commissioner James: But there was a conceptual plan, wasn’t there? [Inaudible 13:36]. 15 16 Emily Kallas: Specific plan is referring to maybe what we could call an area plan, coordinated 17 area plan, that sort of thing. There is an adopted development proposal... 18 19 Commissioner James: [Inaudible 13:46]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Emily Kallas: ...and planning entitlement. That was approved by Council in April. 2 3 Commissioner James: Right. And just for my information, would we expect what is built to 4 largely reflect what that plan is? Yeah. 5 6 Emily Kallas: Correct. Yes. Anytime we have a planning entitlement, the building permit 7 application must be found to be in substantial conformance with those plans. 8 9 Commissioner James: Okay. Thank you. 10 11 Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner James. Anyone else? Since we have no applicant 12 presentation, I don’t know if there is any discussion you would like to have? But we’ll open it 13 up. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair, maybe we invite public comment in general just to confirm 16 there aren’t any comments or if there are? 17 18 Chair Akin: Very good. Yes. Given the lack of applicant, I skipped a step there. Mr. Tavera, do we 19 have any requests to speak on this item? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Samuel Tavera: Yes. Through the Chair, at this moment we have 2 requests to speak. Our first 2 speaker is Herb B. 3 4 Herb B.: Chair Akin and Commissioners, the address record of land use action indicates that this 5 application is on behalf of Stormland, LLC. However, the tentative map, a copy of which is 6 available to the public on a table, although it hasn’t been signed by the surveyor, indicates that 7 the owner developer is Town & Country Development Company, LLC. And I believe the Record 8 of Land Use Action should connect those 2 different names. That is, if one is just another name 9 for the beneficial owner who requested the tentative map, that’s one thing. But based upon the 10 discussion before the Council on the development project, if Ellis Partners or the owner CEP 11 Town & Development LLC, has made some purchase or some agreement, we should know that, 12 so need to relate those 2 identities in the Record of Land Use Action. 13 14 Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Borock. Next? 15 16 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Lopez. Lopez, you may now speak. 17 18 Lopez: [Inaudible 16:45]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Samuel Tavera: Yes, we can hear you. 1 2 Lopez: Can you hear me? 3 4 Samuel Tavera: Yes. 5 6 Lopez: Yeah, just wanted to thank you for all of your service that you’ve given to us. Especially 7 in the city. You’ve had one of our cases and I hope you give the best decision for this case 8 today. Thank you. It is a short comment. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Akin: Thank you. 11 12 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Keiran. Keiran, you may now speak. 13 14 Keiran: [Inaudible 17:45]. 15 16 Chair Akin: We are having difficulty hearing you. If you could take a look at your equipment and 17 try again? 18 19 Keiran: This comment [inaudible 18:08]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: I’m sorry. We’re still having difficulty understanding you. 2 3 Keiran: [Inaudible 18:26]. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: Unfortunately we cannot hear you. 6 7 Chair Akin: All right. Keiran appears to have dropped off the list. Let’s see if Keiran returns so I’ll 8 give another 30 seconds or so and then if that’s not resolved, we’ll move on. 9 10 Samuel Tavera: And while we wait, through the Chair, I have received no other requests to 11 speak. 12 13 Chair Akin: Thank you. All right. I’d say enough time has elapsed that we should move on. Now 14 that we’ve received public comment, is there discussion among the Commissioners and 15 particularly any response to comments? 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair, if I may recommend that any questions for the Applicant 18 occur first in case there are any? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: I see no questions. I did want to follow up on Mr. Borock’s comment. Is there 1 anything there that we need to resolve? 2 3 Emily Kallas: Regarding the 2 comments, the surveyor is not required to sign the map until the 4 final map. This is the tentative map. But it was prepared by a surveyor. And then we will check 5 the Record of Land Use for any potential discrepancies between the owner of record and the 6 application form as it was signed before it goes to Council for approval. 7 8 Chair Akin: All right. Would you like to have us take note of that in the motion? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: That’s not necessary. We will make sure that that information is accurate. 11 12 Chair Akin: Good. Thank you. Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I’m supportive of the staff recommendation but I have 4 15 suggested revisions for the Record of Land Use decision. The first appears on Packet Page 16. 16 This is Finding #1 and I think we have sort of a form that we use whenever a tentative map 17 comes to us. And the last time we had one I had the same comment. Both Findings 1 and 2 18 refer to the general and specific plans. Our current Finding 1 only refers to the general plan in 19 our response to the required finding. If you look at our response to Required Finding 2, you first 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. say there’s no specific plan and then we talk about the general plan. I think the first sentence in 1 Finding 2, there is no adopted specific plan for this project site, has to be copied into the 2 response to Finding 1 so that Finding 1 is self-sufficient. Next is on Packet Page 20. Now we’re 3 in the conditions of approval. Condition 4, I think this was cut-and-pasted from a different kind 4 of project, I think, because this one is referring to tenants, trash pickup, and townhomes. This 5 is, as I understand it, a 10-unit condominium project. It may or may not have tenants. But I 6 think staff needs to look at that. It’s a CC&R requirement provision. Staff needs to look at that 7 and just make it applicable however that is to this particular project. 8 9 Then the item immediately below it, private street naming, Item 5. There’s a driveway in the 10 middle of these 10 condos? I don’t think that’s going to be a private street. I don’t remember 11 that. If it is, then that’s fine. If that’s just a common shared driveway and there is no private 12 street, then Item 5 should be deleted. And finally, Section 7. This, again, is part of our form that 13 I believe needs to be – the form needs to be corrected and I won’t have to bring this up again. 14 The last sentence of Section 7 talks about getting an extension of this map approval. And what 15 it’s intended to say is you have to request the extension before the expiration date. But the way 16 it reads, it says you have to get the extension approved before the expiration date, which is not 17 the intended meaning or, I don’t think, consistent with law. And so to correct that, in the third 18 from last line after the word subdivider, comma, just add the word submitted so it’s submitted 19 prior the expiration. And that will clarify it and I think harmonize it with the intent. With those 4 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. suggested changes, I’m prepared to make a motion to adopt staff’s recommendation unless 1 there are other comments from the Commissioners. 2 3 Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Any further comments? Please make a 4 motion. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: I move the staff recommendation with staff to consider the 4 7 suggested changes to the Land Use Action Record suggested in my comments. 8 9 Chair Akin: I’ll second. [Inaudible 25:02] we call the roll? 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: I’m not ready to vote. I wanted to discuss it. But if we’re already 14 voting, I... 15 16 Chair Akin: Oh. I feel perfectly comfortable postponing but I saw no light. 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Sorry. Well, I – yeah, you were really quick this time. Thank you for 1 being quick. But my question was still being formed in my mind. The question I have is – in 2 order for me to ask my question, do we have to do anything different? Is it okay? 3 4 Chair Akin: I believe we can proceed with the discussion. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Okay. The only question that still remains for me, and I brought this 7 up when it came to us earlier, is that the site, is there any other residential – it’s very 8 surrounded by commercial. I know it’s a block away from the high school but I’m thinking about 9 all the different ways it would take to get to elementary schools and I’m thinking about the lack 10 of neighbors. And the justification for meeting suitability for this type of development is that we 11 put it on the Housing Inventory Site. And I don’t know if that is enough for me. I’m trying to 12 understand and I was wondering if maybe staff could help clarify why this tiny, tiny, tiny island 13 of residential would be in such a massive commercial area. Thank you. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. And I’ll start just by saying that I think you hit on 16 really the core of it. The fact that this was adopted as a housing site in our Housing Element and 17 is therefore now part of our Comprehensive Plan, the plan for land development in the City. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: And whose responsibility is it and when does it occur for us to figure 1 out how if a family were to live there they would get their children safely to school? I’m not 2 talking about the high school across the street obviously. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Right. And so I would say that the response to that is just generally part of all of 5 our efforts to make safe routes in our community. Bike and pedestrian facilities. There are 6 some... 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: We’ll be adding those? Because there’s currently no residential 9 there. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: And so it becomes more of a need, that is true. We also do have pedestrians 12 regardless of whether there’s residential there or not. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. And is there any – I guess what I’m trying to understand is our 15 scope is just saying yes or no, this should go forward, but there’s a whole bunch of questions 16 when we’re building in an area that has no other residential. And I’m thinking about my 17 personal anecdotes. I’m hearing from my family and friends about safety for children there. Are 18 we going to change the policing? Are we going to have better pedestrian and bike access, as 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. you mentioned? How are we just separating this from the approval? It’s just something that the 1 City will figure out later? 2 3 Jennifer Armer: I would say in a general sense, with any of these developments there are 4 certain types of connections and improvements that we can require as part of a development. 5 And then there are others that go beyond the scope of what we are legally allowed to require 6 as improvements that are beyond the property. There are some that we can require, there are 7 some that go beyond, and that is the value, I would say, of some of the long-range planning 8 projects and our Transportation Division’s projects to try and update some of the plans that we 9 have for future projects and identify where improvements are needed when they can’t be done 10 as a requirement of a development or have things like an area plan where it does envision what 11 those improvements would be so that it can part of the requirement of future development. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: You nailed it. That’s exactly what’s in my mind right now is how do 14 we envision this as a new neighborhood? Because it doesn’t... 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Right. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: ...make any sense to have this one thing out there by itself with no 19 planning, no coordinated effort. And so I would like to know is that something we can suggest 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to Council or how does that process go about? And are there other parcels nearby that are also 1 designated for development of housing? 2 3 Jennifer Armer: At this time, I’m not aware of other parcels nearby that are designated. 4 However, there could be in the future. There are situations like San Antonio Road Area Plan 5 where we saw some applications coming in, we designated some sites for future housing 6 development, and we said okay, there’s going to be a lot of change here, we need to do an area 7 plan. There are limitations on how much we can do at any one time... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: ...and so the Council then has to prioritize. But I have heard your suggestion. I 12 would say that there are probably still a few other places like El Camino Real and California 13 Avenue that might be determined to have a higher priority by Council for area plans. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, [inaudible 31:21] there’s residential there already. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: But this is another one that can be kind of as a potential when we have the 18 capacity to do the next one. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Well, we definitely need housing and if it’s part of the Housing 1 Opportunity Plan that the Council’s already approved, I guess that’s a place that the City stands 2 behind building residential. But I would encourage the Planning staff to think about this kind of 3 isolation. Given some of the other topics we talked about that are happening in our community, 4 last thing we want to do is have people come in and feel isolated. They need to be part of the 5 City and so I really encourage us to think about that. Thank you. 6 7 Chair Akin: Commissioner Dr. Peterson? 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. On this street, when we originally brought this 10 forward I talked about there’s a walkway to the bike path by the Caltrain tracks, which is 11 basically the main access from that site to anywhere else and that the pathway is incomplete. 12 You can’t walk to the bike path by the Caltrain without walking out into the street, through the 13 gutter puddles. There’s not really good drainage there. And I found out recently there is 14 another housing across the street. Only because my daughter has a good friend, lives right 15 across the street. And it’s actually, I think, 150 units or 50-, it’s a large number of units. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: What’s the intersection? 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: There’s an affordable housing unit right across the street. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: The Opportunity Center? 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 4 5 Chair Akin: Yeah. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, okay. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: That’s actually a highly occupied street there. There’s a lot of residents 10 there. And because it’s the Opportunity Center, there’s a lot of young adults that go to school 11 from that location. I just want to piggyback on what you’re saying, Commissioner Templeton, 12 and encourage staff to look at that throughway for that street, which is becoming a fairly nice 13 residential street of affordable housing, to the walkway along the Caltrain. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Akin: Thank you both. That was a worthwhile discussion. Any other comments or 16 questions? All right, then. I believe we can proceed with the motion that’s on the table if 17 everyone is ready. All right. It’s been moved and seconded so I believe it’s time to call the roll. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: Yep. Commissioner Templeton? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 2 3 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 6 7 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 12 13 Commissioner James: Yes. 14 15 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: Vice-Chair Chang? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 2 3 Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin? 4 5 Chair Akin: Yes. 6 7 Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 7-0. 8 9 Chair Akin: Very good. Thank you, everyone. 10 11 3. Recommend City Council Adopt a Draft Ordinance Updating the Palo Alto Municipal 12 Code (PAMC) Section 18.40.140 (Stream Corridor Protection). Environmental 13 Assessment: Exempt pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15308 (Actions for 14 Protection of the Environment). 15 16 Chair Akin: All right. I believe we are ready for Action Item #3, the recommendation on 17 adopting a draft ordinance updating the municipal code with regard to stream corridor 18 protection. May we begin with the staff presentation? 19 20 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. Yes, we have Kelly Cha, Senior Planner, who is online and will be 21 providing the staff presentation this evening. 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Senior Planner Kelly Cha: Good evening. Is everybody okay with audio? Should I start the 2 presentation? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Yes, we can... 5 6 Chair Akin: Yes. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: ...see it now. 9 10 Chair Akin: Please go ahead. 11 12 Kelly Cha: Okay. Good evening. My name is Kelly Cha. I am here virtually to present the Draft 13 Stream Corridor Protection Ordinance. Tonight staff is asking the Planning and Transportation 14 Commission to recommend that the City Council adopt the draft ordinance which updates Palo 15 Alto’s existing Stream Corridor Protection Ordinance. This effort is one of the City Council’s 16 priority objectives and it will also be implementing Comprehensive Plan policy and programs. 17 To refresh everyone’s memory, staff started this project in early 2024. We conducted an initial 18 community meeting and published an existing conditions report before holding a study session 19 with the PTC. In October 2024, staff received extensive feedback from the PTC on the draft 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. ordinance which included requests for additional outreach and community feedback so staff 1 conducted a community meeting in February of this year. And from that meeting we have 2 received a lot of comments and feedback from the community. Staff decided to take a little bit 3 of a step back and review the draft ordinance more comprehensively to address all of the 4 concerns. Just to provide some more background, staff and project team have found that 5 different types of streams exist in Palo Alto ranging from natural creeks to hardened 6 channelized creeks that are more prevalent in the southern part of Palo Alto. As mentioned, we 7 have conducted various community engagement activities including reaching out to the 8 Neighborhood Association and hosting a virtual community session. We also held stakeholder 9 meetings with several regional agencies and nonprofit organizations and sent out courtesy mail 10 notices to properties located close to streams to let them know about this effort. 11 12 And in addition to those community engagement, staff conducted a hybrid community 13 workshop in February of this year. A total of 63 attendees participated in this meeting and 14 provided feedback on the draft ordinance at that time. The feedback ranged from concerns 15 about security and safety to issues related to the exception process. However, we also heard 16 support for larger setback from community members in the South Palo Alto areas. This was due 17 to a development project close to a creek that they felt was too small of a setback, which was 18 the slope stability protection area requirement. As previously mentioned, staff took their time 19 to review the draft ordinance in more detail and more comprehensively to address the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. feedback we’ve heard from both the PTC and the community to provide some comparison to 1 the existing regulations. I’ll go over the sections separately to identify the differences. For 2 Applicability section, most of the existing applicability carries over to the draft ordinance but it 3 also adds one more criterion that aims to capture some residential developments that are not 4 subject to discretionary review but still will be located close to a stream. The Exemption section 5 adds more conditions including retaining walls, ADUs, and Junior ADUs, as well as single-family 6 homes adjacent to San Francisquito Creek and fronting on Edgewood Drive. Staff also added 7 service roads and paved public trails to one of the existing exemptions to address the 8 Commission’s feedback from October 2024 hearing. 9 10 For the slope stability protection area, because it is related to bank stability and safety, 11 especially during flood events, the same requirements carried over to the draft ordinance. 12 However, in the open space and rural area and Baylands area, the set distance of the slope 13 stability protection area was expanded to 30' instead of 20. This was done because staff 14 combined what we initially proposed for the riparian corridor with the slope stability protection 15 area. And it is also consistent with the Comprehensive Plan policy which talks about 30' of 16 critical habitat area. The main change to the draft ordinance is establishing the streamside 17 setback. Staff recommends a single setback for the urbanized area as well as the open space 18 and rural area and the Baylands area unlike the previous version which had different setback 19 distance for different types of streams. The recommendation for the urbanized area is 30' 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. which is the minimum distance recommended by the project team’s biologist for bank stability 1 and sediment control. To address some of the concerns regarding the exception process for 2 single-family homes, staff added a condition that would allow some... 3 4 Chair Akin: We’ve lost you, Ms. Cha. 5 6 Kelly Cha: I’m sorry. Let me start. To address some of the – oops. Sorry. I apologize for that. To 7 address some of the concerns regarding the exception process for single-family homes, staff 8 added a condition that would allow some lots to apply 30' instead of 150' within the open space 9 and rural area and the Baylands area. In addition to setback, there are standards related to 10 vegetation, fences and structures, and improvements within the streamside setback area. And 11 the exception process established as part of this draft ordinance includes conditions that state 12 no reasonable alternatives exist for the property and property has special circumstances and 13 environmental assessment that would also propose mitigations must be prepared. While 14 reviewing some of the public comments received after the staff report was published, staff 15 discovered that the proposed threshold of 20,000 ft2 in lot size to allow a smaller setback within 16 the open space and rural area and the Baylands area might not capture all of the impacted 17 parcels. These are mostly single-family homes in the RE zoning district that have significant 18 constraints with the proposed setback of 150' so staff is requesting that the PTC consider 19 modifying this threshold to 1 acre or 43,560 ft2, which is the minimum lot size for the RE zoning 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. district. That concludes the staff presentation. Kevin Gardiner, our consultant from Good City 1 Company, and I are available for any questions you may have. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Cha. Does anyone have clarifying questions? Commissioner 4 Hechtman, then Commissioner Templeton. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, Chair. Just a couple of clarifying questions that at least 7 one of them addresses one of the concerns I read in a number of the public comments and so I 8 thought it might be good to get this clarification out before the public comment. And that has 9 to do with fences. I saw a number of the public comments are concerned about the parts of the 10 proposed ordinance that talk about new fences. And I saw that language and initially I was 11 concerned about it until I looked at – let’s see. On Packet Page 40, Noncomplying Facilities. Any 12 facilities including fences rendered legal nonconforming or noncomplying by this section shall 13 be subject to 18.70 which covers requirements for maintenance, repair, and replacement. My 14 reading of this was if I had a property near a creek with no fence and I wanted to build a fence, 15 that’s a new fence and so the new fence requirements apply. But I have a property near a creek 16 with a fence and I want to replace that fence, then this section applies and I think the rules may 17 be different but I’d like staff to maybe explain that because I do expect we’ll hear some 18 comments about the new fence provisions from the public. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: That is correct. The existing fences, if there are fences there already in the properties, 1 they would be able to maintain and repair, according to the noncomplying facilities chapters, as 2 well as replacement. And I believe the condition in the existing regulations says that for 3 replacement, as long as you’re not expanding nonconformity, I believe you can replace them so 4 that’s the condition there. For new fences, they would have to comply with the draft ordinance 5 once adopted. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you, Ms. Cha. And then the other question, on Packet 8 Page 26, in the open space and rural areas the slope stability protection area is going to be 30' 9 or 2:1 landward from the toe of bank, whichever is greater. And I couldn’t figure out what that 10 – I understand what 30' means but I didn’t understand the other thing and so maybe somebody 11 could explain how that’s calculated? I don’t know if we have a diagram that might be helpful 12 but I can’t figure it out. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: I can jump in just to start. Basically, the idea is that in most cases, a 20-foot 15 setback is going to be appropriate. But in some cases if you have a creek that has really shallow 16 sloped edges that then that extends further and so it has to do – or if it’s very steep that we 17 want to have something that is measured in a way to protect the appropriate area with an 18 understanding that sometimes the slope of the banks is different. I don’t know whether – I was 19 partly starting to answer in case Kelly or Kevin have a diagram that we might share to illustrate 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. this? I believe I’ve seen it in some of our guidance documents but it has to do with that 1 recognition that the slope of the bank changes and so having a set setback sometimes isn’t 2 enough. 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I don’t want to hang this up here on that. Let me just suggest 5 as this goes to Council maybe in the staff report you could provide a diagram so that Council 6 can have a visual aid to help them understand it. Those are my questions. Thank you, Chair. 7 8 Chair Akin: Just to clarify, the diagrams on Packet Page 34 and 35 were insufficient for you? 9 10 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. I’m looking for something to help me calculate. For example, 11 this is with a defined bank and without but I don’t know if that’s the same as 30-foot versus the 12 result of a 2:1 calculation. 13 14 Chair Akin: All right, so we would need the 2:1 triangles illustrated there as well as a 30-foot 15 limit? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. Something so that Council knows what they’re approving. 18 19 Chair Akin: Okay. Commissioner Templeton? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I have 2 questions. One is kind of specific and one is 2 about an area of the City. The fence thing, I’m struggling with it because of the parts – the 3 homes that are in the City along the creek. I’m imagining a scenario in which we were living in 4 economic hardship where it’s hard for people to make ends meet and they need to wander and 5 figure out how they’re going to do that and might be thinking about crime and might be 6 thinking about ways to get easier access to peoples’ homes and might travel through the 7 creeks. In that scenario, if someone were to own a home and find that that was happening 8 more frequently, would we still be like no, you can’t have a fence? 9 10 Jennifer Armer: I will see whether Kelly does have an answer to that but I can start by saying 11 that we aren’t prohibiting fences. [Inaudible 49:49]. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: They require an exception or...? 14 15 Jennifer Armer: It may require an exception. If you’re in the hillsides, it may be required to be 16 wildlife friendly but then closer to the home you’d be allowed to have a solid fence if you 17 needed that for security. If you’re in the urban area, there may be a setback in terms of the 18 slope stability area or an exception required for that depending on where you want to place the 19 fence. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. The other scenario I’m thinking about is if someone did want 2 to place that fence, how much space would be required between their house and the fence on 3 some of these distances? It could be pretty tight and so I’m just trying to imagine from the 4 perspective of a homeowner there. How do they get relief for that? Is that again an exception 5 request? 6 7 Jennifer Armer: It may be an exception request. Kelly, if you wanted to talk, I know we had 8 some exceptions on this topic. 9 10 Kelly Cha: If they would like to go as close to the stream and within the slope stability area, we 11 have a separate exception process that requires some mitigation study and approval of Public 12 Works director. But that is the same requirements that we’re carrying over from the existing 13 regulations. If they would like to install new fences within the streamside setback area that are 14 outside of the slope stability, then they are able to build them as long as they comply with our 15 fence chapter. There are distances and how close they can but we’re allowing them to install 16 new fences within the streamside setback area. As long as they are not requesting to be in the 17 slope stability protection area, they wouldn’t have to go through even permit process unless 18 the height of the fence is taller than 7'. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: And I will add to that as well that if you look at Packet Page 36, there currently 1 is an exemption listed for single-family properties along San Francisquito Creek and fronting on 2 Edgewood Drive based on the previous discussion. This is something that could be discussed 3 further tonight. The slope stability still applies but the increased regulations that are being 4 proposed by this ordinance would not apply if that is what’s recommended by PTC and adopted 5 by Council. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: I see Albert came on. 8 9 Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: Yeah. I just want to emphasize that this is – again, as 10 Commissioner Hechtman pointed out – only relevant for properties that don’t already have 11 fences. And I’m not sure how many of those there are but if you already have a fence, you can 12 rebuild it. You can maintain it indefinitely. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: And if you don’t, get it quickly? I kid. Thank you very much, all of 15 you, for your answers for my first question. My second question was to see if we could get a 16 little bit more in-depth into the discussion around the Edgewood exceptions? Because I read 17 them and I want to understand them a little bit better and more carefully because I feel for this 18 neighborhood. This is a major change and we don’t want to be putting our creeks against our 19 homeowners. Obviously people who have bought homes on the creek want that as well. They 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. want to protect and enjoy their property and the creek. I just want to see if there was more in-1 depth you wanted to go into on that now or if we should just wait and see what feedback we 2 get from public comment and then phrase it in the form of questions. Thank you. Is there 3 anything you want to add, Ms. Cha or...? 4 5 Jennifer Armer: I will jump in... 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: ...and just say that that language was added on Page 36 of your packet for that 10 purpose, so that you have some language to consider if you do wish to have a specific 11 exemption for that. And then also, through the Chair, I wanted to point out that Vice-Chair 12 Chang does have her hand up on Zoom. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. The reason I asked if you could go into more depth on it, 15 because I did not feel that the seconds we spent on it was adequate. And part of our work here 16 is to illuminate the discussion for the public’s participation. I thought perhaps if you could go 17 into it before public discussion then people can respond to it. Thank you. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Before I move on to comments from Vice-Chair Chang and Commissioner James, I 1 wanted to follow up on one aspect of what you just said. And that is that if I’m reading this 2 correctly, there is a required 5-foot setback from the top of bank to a fence in the slope stability 3 area. And, Ms. Cha, I just wondered if you could review for us quickly why that exists? 4 5 Kelly Cha: The slope stability area, in the existing ordinance, they basically allow no structures 6 but they do have an exception process that has been established that requires Public Works 7 Director’s approval with some of the assessment provided with mitigations included in them. If 8 it’s granted, the fences are allowed as close as 5' from the top of bank, I believe. And that is due 9 to the bank stability and safety issues. Those are more of an engineering safety concerns that 10 had been established that way. And that’s why we have included a condition that in the 11 exemption section too that all those conditions can be exempt from the draft ordinance but 12 they still have to meet the slope stability protection area requirements because those are 13 related to safety concerns. 14 15 Chair Akin: Okay. Thank you. Vice-Chair Chang? 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, so I’ll jump right ahead to a question that dovetails with what Ms. Cha 18 was just speaking about. Is there data that you have regarding the extension of the slope 19 stability area, or the area that’s not allowed to be built upon, from the 20 to the proposed 30? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. In the packet it mentioned that staff had considered 25 but then due to the biologist’s 1 recommendation, extended it to 30. Do you have more data or does the biologist have more 2 data? 3 4 Kelly Cha: Unfortunately, the biologist was not available but how the discussion kind of evolved 5 is that we heard from the PTC as well as the community 40' wasn’t really fitting for the 6 urbanized area especially so we were trying to address some of those concerns and discuss 7 different distances, whether we want to go to 25' or go somewhere in-between. And what the 8 biologist has provided to us is that for the stability of the bank and some of the sediment 9 control for especially some of the natural creeks, it’s not a magic number but larger setback 10 would be more ideal. Instead of expanding it to 40', or staying with the 40', we decided to go 11 with 30' which was recommended by our biologist. We can get more data. At this moment we 12 wouldn’t be able to because he’s not available tonight but we can try to get more data or more 13 insight on that particular distance. But this is a streamside setback distance, not the slope 14 stability. Slope stability stays as 20' or 2:1 ratio within the urbanized area. We just expanded 15 that to 30' in open space and rural area and Baylands. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Can I just clarify this question before all 18 of our public comments? Nothing changes for everybody who’s living on Edgewood. Is that 19 correct? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: That’s correct. Because the existing slope stability would apply with the draft 2 ordinance as well and we’re exempting the Edgewood neighborhood properties except for the 3 slope stability area protection requirements. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. And slope stability stays the same at 20 for those. 6 7 Kelly Cha: Right. Mm-hm. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. That’s tremendously helpful. Nothing changes for them. Okay. I did 10 have questions for the rest of Palo Alto that’s not exempted from it. If you look at page 28 11 where the report talks about a reasonable alternative or the variance process, what is a 12 reasonable alternative? Is this is a commonly understood legal term? For example, let’s say I 13 wanted a swimming pool and it needs to be in that area. I can’t build a swimming pool unless 14 it’s in that area. Or maybe I want to build something but I can’t build anything of that size 15 unless it’s smaller. What is a reasonable alternative? How is that defined? 16 17 Kelly Cha: I think what we’re trying to do before when an applicant requests this kind of 18 exemption request is that the planner and the applicant usually work together to make sure 19 that we don’t have to go through the onerous process of this exception or variance processes. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. They will work together to find sort of mitigation point or mediation so that that applicant can 1 get what they would like but also it wouldn’t really violate the City’s regulations as well. In the 2 process they would find a reasonable solution. But in that process and that discussion, both 3 planner and applicant cannot come up with a reasonable solution, then they would actually 4 request an exception process. It’s sort of a process that from my experience is like a 5 conversation and discussion while you’re reviewing your entitlement projects. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. I understand that but one of the requirements for the variance is that 8 there is no reasonable alternative. And I’m just wondering what that means from a legal 9 perspective. Maybe Mr. Yang can speak to this? Is that a clearly defined – is that clearly 10 understood from a legal perspective? 11 12 Albert Yang: Yeah. It is in theory a clearly defined concept, like the objectively reasonable 13 person. In practice, you’re sort of looking to what’s commonly the practice elsewhere. With 14 respect to the pool example that you gave, you do have to meet all these findings. The second 15 finding is that the strict application of the ordinance would deprive the property of privileges 16 and joy by other properties and that should probably be similarly situated properties as I’m 17 seeing it now. They would have to show like oh, part of life in Palo Alto is having a pool and so 18 not having a pool is depriving me of something that other... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Understood. 1 2 Albert Yang: ...people would enjoy. Right? 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 5 6 Albert Yang: Yeah. You’re not going to – it’s going to be hard to support something that is 7 unusual or like a luxury but if it’s something that is regularly enjoyed by homeowners and you 8 were unable to find an alternative solution or a slight change in design, that wouldn’t 9 completely remove the functionality of whatever is being proposed. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. What about the size of a dwelling? For example, a home. Some people 12 would say 1,500 ft2 is too small and other people would say 2,000... 13 14 Albert Yang: Yeah. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: ...is too small. And so I can see how that could very well... 17 18 Albert Yang: Yeah. I think we would rely on the FAR limit. If you are within the FAR, that’s 19 allowed. That’s something that’s enjoyed by other property owners in similar circumstances. If 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. there’s not an ability to achieve that FAR with a second story for whatever reason, then yeah, 1 maybe there wouldn’t be that reasonable alternative. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Thank you. That gives me great comfort around that term. I have 4 another question around sort of the wording and the language in the ordinance. On Packet 5 Page 37 it talks about how the project needs to be designed to prevent soil erosion. And then 6 on Packet Page 39 it talks about things being evaluated by a qualified biologist. And I’m 7 wondering if those are commonly understood standards or terms? In other words, are we going 8 to find ourselves having a hard time enforcing the ordinance or making clear to somebody 9 reading the ordinance what we mean by that? 10 11 Kelly Cha: [Inaudible 1:04:43] those are common language or terms that are used by biologist 12 and we’re requesting that assessment is prepared by a qualified biologist who should be able to 13 understand and who should be [inaudible 1:05:03]... 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: Is that any biologist or is there a sort of vocation for this? 16 17 Kelly Cha: Mostly any biologist who are usually working with a development project. And then 18 they are qualified, meaning that they’re certified by their board as well so that it’s not just 19 somebody who are calling themselves biologists. [Inaudible] we want somebody... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Is there a board certification for biologists? 2 3 Kelly Cha: I believe there are but I can find out more. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: I think that might be worth looking into. I’m a biologist. Granted I don’t work 6 evaluating these types of projects. The additional language that you provided there was helpful 7 but I’m a biologist and I don’t have a certification other than my degree. Okay. And then on 8 Packet Page 40 – oh, Packet Page 38, at the top of the page there’s a term that says outbound 9 streambank slope. I didn’t know if that was a typo or a term that I didn’t understand. 10 11 Kelly Cha: It’s Packet Page 38? 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah, Packet Page 38, the first line. It says for irrigation systems within... 14 15 Kelly Cha: Oh. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: ...outboard streambank slope. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: Let me check that one. I think that was something that we had borrowed from our 1 biologist and then from another city. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, so might require more definition. 4 5 Kelly Cha: Yeah. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. I have a bunch of other typos that I’ll send you but I just wanted to 8 make sure I didn’t miss anything as I was reading this. On Packet Page 35 at the bottom where 9 it says proposes to locate towards the streamside setback? You had mentioned this earlier too. 10 11 Kelly Cha: Yes. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: That includes anything, right? Any hardscape, any improvements. So fences, 14 obviously structures, but hardscape and everything, landscaping, all of it applies, correct? 15 16 Kelly Cha: Landscaping I don’t believe would be applied. I can check, but the intention of this is 17 some of the first-story addition that are going to be – there’s corrections to be made on this 18 particular provision is that it’s towards a stream, not towards the streamside setback. Sorry 19 about that. The intention of this provision is to capture some of the additions, first-floor 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. addition, or some structures that may not trigger discretionary review because if you are not 1 doing second-story addition or 2-story new construction, it doesn’t really trigger discretionary 2 review for single-family homes. But we wanted to be cautious for some of the additions that 3 might push towards the stream so that provision is to sort of capture some of those additions 4 or structures. Hardscapes wouldn’t really require permit review. And landscape, unless there is 5 sort of C3 impervious paving requirements or triggers those, I don’t believe that would be 6 triggering any permit review either. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Well, I think we should just try and be really clear about it because we 9 do mention landscaping and hardscape and permeability. And so I wasn’t clear on it when I was 10 reading it and it sounds like you’re a little bit unsure as to when it is and is not triggered so we 11 might want to, I don’t know, clarify that before it goes to Council. And then my final set of 12 questions are on Packet Page 40. This is a clarification first of all, so K, which talks about lot 13 measurements and lot area along watercourses, that is with respect to – for the purpose of 14 Palo Alto regulations, correct? It doesn’t affect Santa Clara County property tax assessment, for 15 example, does it? 16 17 Kelly Cha: No, it’s just for our Palo Alto local regulations. The Santa Clara assessment measures 18 and calculates area separately. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Are governed differently. Okay. Thank you. And then finally, I know that this 1 is just language that was carried over from existing ordinance but I think that there’s – either 2 I’m misunderstanding and that’s why I’m asking it’s not just a typo. But there’s a sentence that 3 starts under K, the first paragraph of K, that starts with provided the expansion of an existing 4 easement over a lot adjacent etc., etc., it doesn’t seem like a complete sentence to me. And I 5 didn’t know if I was misunderstanding that and whether... 6 7 Kelly Cha: I think that particular condition when I was researching about it, because we were 8 trying to have some of the language that are similar to this particular – because this particular 9 language actually exempted the Edgewood neighborhood so we were trying to see if we can 10 just copy over. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. I understand that. But my point is that it’s not a sentence. I understand 13 that the intent was to copy things over but I don’t think it’s a sentence. And maybe I’m not 14 understanding. And I just wanted to clarify that it’s a typo and that’s my correct understanding 15 that there should probably be a comma before that rather than some new concept. And I 16 wanted to make sure I just wasn’t misunderstanding an entirely new concept. 17 18 Jennifer Armer: Vice-Chair, if I could jump in? I believe the sentence you’re talking about starts 19 as provided the expansion? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: And so that sentence is saying that provided the expansion of the existing 4 easement over a lot adjacent to San Francisquito Creek and fronting on Edgewood drive, etc., 5 etc., there’s [inaudible 1:11:41] paragraph – on or after a certain date shall not alter the 6 calculation of lot area. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: It just basically says provided the expa-, but it’s not a sentence. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Oh, I see. Okay. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. I didn’t know if that... 13 14 Jennifer Armer: Yeah, we can look at that. Thank you. 15 16 Albert Yang: Yeah. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: That’s my point of clarification. I just want to make sure I’m not 19 misunderstanding something. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Albert Yang: Yeah, there’s a grammatical error there. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Good. Thank you. That’s all I needed. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for finding that. And... 6 7 Kelly Cha: Yes. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: ...we appreciate the attention to detail that we get from the PZC. 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Well, no, I’m really sensitive to anything that might affect the Edgewood 12 neighbors and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t misreading a concept in the ordinance. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: And because of the detail, I actually do want to share another discrepancy. I 15 wanted to make sure everybody was looking at the right text. In the staff report we list out the 16 findings for the exceptions and one of those was copied incorrectly so please look at the 17 language that is in the ordinance on page 38. Those are the draft findings for your consideration 18 if you wish to recommend something different. Just want to make sure everybody’s looking at 19 the same text. Thank you. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: Think our consultant, Kevin Gardiner, has something to add. 2 3 Consultant Kevin Gardiner: Yeah. Good evening. My name is Kevin Gardiner. I’m with Good City 4 Company and have been assisting with this project. Just wanted to go back to the outboard 5 question. That is intentional. I think it could benefit from having a definition. Outboard versus 6 inboard refers to when a creek is meandering and turning. The outboard is sort of the big part 7 of the curve. The inboard is the internal part of the curve. And the reason that’s significant is 8 the water velocity along the outboard is faster so that’s why you would need to make those 9 provisions for the irrigation system so that it’s taking into account the water velocity. It’s all 10 kind of hydrological stuff. But agree with the point it’s not a common term that people are 11 familiar with so I would suggest a definition could be added for both outboard and inboard. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you for that. I’m done with my clarifying questions. 14 15 Chair Akin: Thank you. We have a long queue. I have Commissioner James, then Commissioner 16 Peterson, Commissioner Ji, and then Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner James, proceed. 17 18 Commissioner James: Thank you. Commissioner Chang covered some of what I was concerned 19 about and I – just mostly trying to sort of simplify this in my own head and for the sake of those 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. whose lives it kind of governs. And on the most basic sense, I wanted to make sure that – I 1 understood slope stability to be 20' and about vegetation, right? It’s about sort of erosion and 2 keeping native riparian vegetation in that 20-foot area from the edge of the creek. Is that right? 3 And then separately, the stream setback is about construction and that extends to 30' in the 4 urbanized areas. Is that right? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: The slope stability is the more strict of the 2 areas... 7 8 Commissioner James: Mm-hm. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: ...and so that does restrict any paving, any structures... 11 12 Commissioner James: Okay. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: ...with very minor exceptions. And so then the restrictions in the remainder of 15 the streamside setback are less than what is in the slope stability area. 16 17 Commissioner James: Mm-hm. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Long Range Planning Manager Coleman Frick: Sorry. Coleman Frick, Long Range Planning 1 Manager. One thing I’d like to offer also is that there are vegetation requirements for the 2 setback area as well. 3 4 Commissioner James: Mm-hm. 5 6 Coleman Frick: Those are on Packet Page 37. But there are riparian considerations and... 7 8 Commissioner James: Right. 9 10 Coleman Frick: ...maintaining certain types of vegetation and prohibiting other types as well in 11 the setback area. 12 13 Commissioner James: Right. And I will just share my impressions from tromping around the 14 stream that the vegetation restrictions going back 30' seems like a lot to me just in terms of like 15 what I actually see. Clearly this is soil that’s always going to be prone to erosion. You can go out 16 and sort of look at, say, the creek where it’s in a more natural state and it does erode. And it’s 17 very interesting to kind of look and see what kind of vegetation. I’m not trying to be a biologist 18 but I’m just saying it seems to me that – I’m trying to figure out what that 20 and 30', where 19 that comes from. Is that a tree? Is that tree roots of a endemic tree on the top of the bank sort 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. of holding soil? A lot of trees actually are sort of down on the edges it seems like. And I’m just 1 sharing a personal impression that sort of requiring 30' of riparian vegetation just seems like a 2 lot to me for stability. I’m not an expert on that but that’s just sort of my impression. They’re 3 nice round numbers. I was just trying to get a sense of what they are based on and I’d love 4 some clarification on that. 5 6 Kelly Cha: I think we’ve mentioned before it was something that came up during the discussion 7 with the biologist for our team. In our multiple discussions, what we have learned is that there 8 is no really magic number for the riparian habitat or sort of protecting property owner’s right. I 9 think what we have come up with was kind of sort of in-between what we can do, like what a 10 lot of property owners and PTC might have wanted like 25', and some of the environmentalists 11 and environmental groups. And some of the biologists’ feedback, what they have told us is that 12 larger setback and buffer would be more ideal for the riparian vegetation. But we didn’t want 13 to go as far as 40' so we kind of came at 30'. And that’s how we came about at 30'. But it is up 14 to the Planning and Transportation Commission to make modifications to the staff 15 recommendation if Commission feels that this is too large for the urbanized area. But our staff 16 recommendation was based on discussion with the biologist. 17 18 Commissioner James: Mm-hm. Okay. Thank you. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Peterson? 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Ms. Cha, I have a question on the maps for this riparian 3 corridor. I think a lot of the questions I’m hearing are relating to what exactly it looks like. And 4 looking through here, I see – I think there’s one – I guess you’d call it not quite a topography 5 map but maybe a plan view map of what these corridors look like. Is that correct? 6 7 Kelly Cha: That’s I think one of the attachments that we have included as part of the packet? Is 8 that you’re referencing? 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: That’s correct. 11 12 Kelly Cha: Okay. That is showing a map of Palo Alto with floodwalls and embankment according 13 to... 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: Can we put the map up? 16 17 Kelly Cha: Yes. Let me... 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Forty-five? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: ...share it. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Forty-nine? Thank you. Appreciate it. 4 5 Kelly Cha: Let’s see. Aerial view. Sorry. This is showing where the floodwalls are located in Palo 6 Alto city limits. This was provided to express staff recommendation on addressing PTC 7 feedback. In October 2024 one of the recommendation we received from the PTC is that maybe 8 adding an exemption for the properties that are located behind floodwalls. And those kind of 9 comments I believe came from the discussion about the concerns related to Edgewood 10 neighborhood. And when staff actually looked at the map of all of the floodwall according to 11 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it seemed as most of the streams within the urbanized area 12 would be exempt if we were to add that exemption so that’s why we have instead added a 13 specific exemption that specifies the Edgewood neighborhood instead of having a floodwall as 14 the threshold for exemption. This was just to show where the floodwalls and embankments are 15 located within the Palo Alto city limits. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Question. We’ll leave this graphic up for a little bit. I think this will 18 work for all my questions. Is this is the only graphic we have that shows the plan view of the 19 corridors? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: We do have some internal maps that we’ve kind of worked on that we can share. It 2 was mostly to find out what the appropriate exception might be or threshold might be for the 3 rural and open space area. But we can also share that map. It’ll be a little bit of a working map. 4 It’s not a... 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. 7 8 Kelly Cha: ...a final map. But we can also share that if you have any specific questions and we 9 can open up and share some areas as well. 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. I would like to see the map. I think that would help me 12 understand better what I’m looking at and better understand what questions I would have. And 13 then another question. In a corridor, if I combine the linear corridor with the cross section of 14 the corridor, we have the 100-year elevation. Am I correct that that’s defining the width of the 15 corridor as the 100-year elevation plus the 30'? 16 17 Kelly Cha: You mean the top of bank? How we’re measuring... 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: That’s correct. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: ...the setback? If it is undefined bank, stream, then yes, where the surface level of the 2 100-year would be the baseline for measuring top of the bank instead of – because there’s no 3 really defined bank to measure from. 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: That’s my next question is since that’s defining the width of the 6 corridor, it seems important to be able to see what the 100-year flood map is. Because, I mean, 7 for all I know, it covers the entire city. I don’t think it does but I don’t know how far from the 8 streambed a 100-year elevation extends out to. 9 10 Kelly Cha: We don’t have the map readily available right now but it’s not the width of. It’s 11 where the 100-year storm surface is located, so that’s the vertical distance where we’re going 12 to be measuring the setback... 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 15 16 Kelly Cha: ...the 2:1 and the 30'. It’s not really a width of the surface elevation. It’s more of 17 where the vertical kind of level of that water surface elevation is. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. But invariably the 100-year elevation could be outside the 1 banks of the stream so it could be acres or football fields on either side of the creek in some 2 locations. 3 4 Kelly Cha: We can look into that and clarify. I wouldn’t be able to answer that question at this 5 moment. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Those are my 2 questions is really just trying to get the plan view 8 of what does it look like from the top view and then trying to understand what that corridor 9 looks like over time with different surface elevations. Is that a map we’d be able to have today? 10 11 Kelly Cha: That’s not a map that we have it available readily... 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 14 15 Kelly Cha: ...but we can follow up if that’s something that is needed. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 18 19 Jennifer Armer: If I may... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: ...clarify, are you looking for a map that shows the location of the streams 4 within the City to show which ones are running particularly through the urbanized areas? 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: That’s correct. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Okay. We can look in to see whether... 9 10 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 1:25:41]. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: ...what maps we have that might be sharable on Zoom... 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Mm-hm. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: ...while we move on. 17 18 Chair Akin: Yeah. Just to extend that a little bit, I think what Commissioner Peterson is 19 discussing is where would the setbacks be? Because of course the 100-year flood level only 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. applies to those streams with poorly defined banks. For the channelized streams and others, 1 there’s a better-defined top of bank. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. And this is one of those circumstances where because we don’t do a site-4 by-site analysis when we’re dealing with citywide regulations, we aren’t always able to get to 5 that kind of detail. But that’s why we want to have clear definitions, exception processes, and 6 an opportunity if we do run into a problem to consider alternatives based on the specific 7 conditions of that site. 8 9 Commissioner Peterson: It’s not incredibly difficult to do. I could probably make one in 10 10 minutes if I had my laptop. A lot of what we’re looking here is really 1980s-level technology of a 11 flat picture with some Paint drawing on it so it’s hard to make these decisions based on 12 something that’s not that informative. Any maps would be helpful. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Insurance flood zone maps have that. Those should be readily 15 available to you. 16 17 Coleman Frick: What I was going to say is we could easily get a map prepared that has a 100-18 year flood but that wouldn’t show where there were streams or creeks that don’t have defined 19 banks. And so that’s sort of the difficulty is that aspect of it, not like having a map that shows 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the 100-year flood but sort of differentiating – to Ms. Armer’s point, because we’re not doing 1 site-by-site analysis, we couldn’t say hey, this is where it would be based on this not having a 2 defined bank. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Right. My guess is just where there’s a defined bank, the 100-year 5 flood map would just be a very narrow strip where the creek is. And where there’s an 6 undefined bank, you would see a very wide, spread-out, 100-year flooding and you could 7 probably guess that’s probably where there’s not a defined bank. Not perfectly but just in 8 general. 9 10 Coleman Frick: I think that that could be the case in some instances but I don’t know if it’s – I’ll 11 give an example. If we were to the Baylands, a lot of that is very sort of high flood risk based on 12 our S/CAP and so even if it had a defined bank, it would still show as sort of a large flood area. I 13 don’t know if that’s something that... 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: Good point. 16 17 Coleman Frick: ...we could make a safe assumption to make our best staff recommendation 18 that this is the case that these areas show that there is no defined bank. And that’s why I think 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. it wouldn’t be a quick map to try to put together even if we could do it. Although it would be 1 relatively quick to just provide a map that shows a 100-year flood. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: And Vice-Chair Chang has her hand up. Yeah. 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: I just wanted to clarify on this. Staff’s point in putting in 16B on Packet Page 6 34 is really for the sake of completeness. If I were to ask you can you give me an example of a 7 stream within Palo Alto that doesn’t have defined banks, you would have a hard time doing so, 8 right? So this is for the sake of completeness. Because within the urbanized area... 9 10 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: ...everything almo-, I can’t think of anything that doesn’t have defined banks 13 between Foothill and 101. 14 15 Male: Correct. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: Is that correct? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: That’s right. Most of the undefined – if we have any undefined bank streams, it’ll be 1 mostly within the Foothills – west of Foothills, what we call rural, open space [inaudible 2 1:29:49]. 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. I don’t think that this is as large of an issue as it potentially seems like. 5 Meaning that this is there for the sake of completeness and if there really is somebody who is 6 unduly affected by such an issue, that’s what the variance process is there for, correct? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 9 10 Kelly Cha: Yes. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. 13 14 Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson, anything further? 15 16 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. It just clarifies we don’t know. The level of technology we’re 17 using here, we really couldn’t have anything more fine, higher fidelity than saying it’s probably 18 nowhere, it’s probably fine. And I would agree it probably is. I just don’t want to find out later 19 on it’s not. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji? 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Do you mind pulling that map back up, Ms. Cha, or whoever 4 is sharing screen? I’m not sure who is. 5 6 Kelly Cha: [Inaudible 1:30:47] one second. I will do that. Am I sharing the correct slide? 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I was wondering if you could help me read this. What do the 9 different green and blue lines mean here? 10 11 Kelly Cha: The what I call teal color here, this indicates embankments which are another 12 structure more significantly impacting land size. But it still serves flood control, like floodwalls. 13 The green ones, green lines here, shows actual floodwalls, so this is all here and some 14 embankments along San Francisquito Creek. And this blue line is a city limit line. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Quick feedback. I think it’d just be nice to label those quickly because 17 given that they’re all checkmarked, it was hard to tell what was what here. And then I did have 18 a question – I’m borrowing a question from a previous PTC meeting. I was wondering if we 19 knew approximately how many properties are being impacted by this? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: By this, meaning the draft ordinance? 2 3 Commissioner Ji: [Inaudible 1:32:18] ordinance. Yeah, the changes that we’re impacting here. 4 5 Kelly Cha: I did have that number last time. I can dig it up again but it may take [inaudible 6 1:32:31]. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. No worries. We can hold off on that for now. And then my follow-up 9 question is I also did see a public comment about service roads on Matadero. Were we able to 10 confirm that with Valley Water about whether or not they would be included or not included 11 based on this ordinance? 12 13 Kelly Cha: We were not able to confirm it within the time but we can still follow up and find out. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. 16 17 Kelly Cha: And this is related to one of the public comments that we have received. I believe on 18 Bryant Avenue? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: Yes. My understanding of the ordinance as is is that if it does count as a 1 service road then it may be exempt from certain provisions. Is that correct? 2 3 Kelly Cha: That’s correct. If it is considered a service road by the Valley Water, then they would 4 be exempt from draft ordinance except for the slope stability [inaudible 1:33:25]. 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And then I was wondering if we also got any feedback from any of 7 the other agencies, for example, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority or Valley 8 Water, on this potential ordinance? 9 10 Kelly Cha: They are part of our distribution list so they have received. But we have not yet 11 received comments on the latest draft ordinance yet. We might after the PTC hearing and we’ll 12 continue to follow up so that we can get their feedback so that there’s no significant 13 inconsistencies. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: And we did meet with them early in the process. 16 17 Kelly Cha: Yes... 18 19 Commissioner Ji: Okay. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: ...we did. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And then also, Ms. Cha, I know that the biologist is not online but I 4 was wondering could you talk a little bit more about the decision here to simplify the process? 5 Because I did see that in a previous iteration of the ordinance there was a distinction between 6 channelized and natural streams so I’m wondering what the biological impact is here? 7 8 Jennifer Armer: I’d like to jump in first, Kelly, and then you can add. Just to give a little bit of the 9 context for that decision just at a high level, we – as we stated in the staff report, the 10 recommendation from the biologist was for the 30' and we were looking at some public 11 comments and discussion with PTC about reducing that, others that were suggesting it should 12 be larger. And the interesting thing as staff were looking at all of these comments is that there 13 wasn’t a strong alignment between a desire for a greater setback [inaudible 1:35:19] a lesser 14 setback with a determination as to whether it was a natural creek or not. And so as that 15 distinction in terms of how big the setback should be kind of fell away, that there wasn’t a 16 strong push to have a higher setback. For example, for those natural creeks or the other way 17 around. And staff identified the difficulty in defining what was partially channelized, fully 18 channelized, natural, right? Because a lot of the natural creeks do have some improvements 19 within them for stabilization, etc. And there was a strong direction from PTC the last time we 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. came to you that this ordinance as it had been at that time was just too complicated. And so 1 that led us to the recommendation with the recommendation for the 30-foot, for the 2 streamside setback, from the biologist in terms of providing a bit more than just what was 3 already required for slope stability, to just increase a little bit more, the alignment in the 4 hillsides of that stream cor-, or the slope stability to be to the 30' because of what was in the 5 Comprehensive Plan policy and the increased desire for protection in that area. It’s been an 6 interesting kind of path as we were hearing different context. I hope I touched on most of what 7 you were asking but restate. 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Maybe let me be a little bit more specific. I was wondering if the biologist had 10 any commentary about there being any differences between – I understand that from feedback 11 from the public that it made sense to simplify. I was wondering if we’re losing any biological 12 impacts because of channelized versus unchannelized? Specifically about that. 13 14 Kelly Cha: I think that’s why we have increased. Initially we had – just to add a little bit more 15 background, we have started working on the streamside setback addressing public comments 16 only that we have received from the public comment letters as well as public workshop that we 17 have conducted. And then we have found out that the streamside setback for the natural 18 streams were smaller and the channelized streams within the urbanized area was larger, which 19 was kind of counterintuitive for the purpose of the draft ordinance. In order to sort of come up 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. with a solution, in addition to what Assistant Director Armer had explained just now, we have 1 discussed with Jim, our biologist, and the 30' was what we have come up with. And I think Kevin 2 Gardiner can add a little bit more information on that discussion. 3 4 Kevin Gardiner: Sure. And I will say I’m channeling our biologist so I’m repeating what he’s told 5 us. There’s a couple different things happening at the same time. In terms of habitat, yes, it’s 6 true, the channelized streams have a different habitat value than the natural streams. 7 Particularly if they’re lined in concrete. If the channelized ones are lined in concrete, if they 8 have the service roads, there’s not a lot of habitat there in terms of the riparian habitat. 9 However, then there’s also the objective of flood control. With the channelized creeks, the 30' 10 has a lot to do with keeping future development out of harm’s way. And circling back to the 11 question about Valley Water and the San Francisquito Creek JPA, both of them did have – a lot 12 of their concerns are with future floods or being prepared or mitigating damage from future 13 floods so they were in favor of larger setbacks such as the 30' that’s been recommended. That 14 has less to do with habitat but more to do with should there be floods in the future, keeping 15 structures further back so they’re not in harm’s way. 16 17 Commissioner Ji: Thank you for that. And then I actually had a question for Mr. Yang. I was just 18 wondering. My understanding is that ADUs, the state law is about we could build an ADU no 19 more – or like a little bit outside of 4' from the property line? And my understanding is the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. property line for these properties goes into the creek so I was wondering how that coincides 1 with the – whichever is the you-can’t-build-anything-in-it zone. 2 3 Albert Yang: Yeah, the slope stability [inaudible 1:40:33]... 4 5 Commissioner Ji: The slope stability zone... 6 7 Albert Yang: I believe – sorry. I just need to refresh my memory of the ADU law but I believe 8 there’s an allowance for the City to find that there are kind of specific adverse impacts to public 9 health and safety and so if someone was trying to build within a stream bank, we would 10 probably be able to make those findings. Beyond that there are usually easements, protective 11 easements, along the stream banks. And so those would probably also not allow development 12 and that’s separate from the City’s regulation of ADUs. There’s just several layers of what we’re 13 dealing with. But it is entirely possible that we would need to allow ADUs in an area that maybe 14 is otherwise more regulated. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. And then I had a question about – this is not for you, Mr. 17 Yang. On Packet Page 47 there is mention of general standards around light. I didn’t see any 18 mention of that in this ordinance. I was just curious as to why. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: The lighting provisions are going to be part of the lighting ordinance update. We will 1 prepare the lighting provision as part of this update as well but it’s just that there are some 2 schedule changes that was kind of going back and forth. But we’ll bring the lighting provisions 3 as part of the consideration as well. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. And then I have one other question. I was wondering – I’m 6 looking at a map. I guess Google Maps will do but basically I’m looking at the Edgewood area 7 where the – I don’t know. If someone could just pull up Google Maps, I think that would be 8 helpful. 9 10 Kelly Cha: Let me share that. Hold on. Let me get there. 11 12 Commissioner Ji: And then go towards the direction of the Edgewood neighborhood. 13 14 Kelly Cha: Okay. Let me share this. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: All right. Thank you. I was wondering. As we’ve discussed briefly, the 17 Edgewood Drive neighbors, a lot of them have the backs of their properties facing the creek. 18 But as you can kind of see here, if you go around the outside here – yes, that’s kind of the area 19 that I’m thinking about... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: Mm-hm. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: ...is there some substantially different about that section of the creek? 4 Because my understanding is those neighbors also have their backyards against the creek. 5 6 Kelly Cha: The conditions might not be as different. The flood map might be a little bit. But the 7 condition is not as different as the Edgewood neighborhood. The exemption that we have put 8 in was in response to the public comments. But it can be modified to expand a little bit more so 9 that it can cover basically the section that’s not going to be exempt. Basically starting at – I 10 believe this is Marlowe Street. 11 12 Chair Akin: Marlowe. Yeah. 13 14 Kelly Cha: Yes. This is where the public street is separating the property so that those properties 15 are already exempt. But the section, I think, that Commissioner Ji is mentioning is from this 16 Marlowe Street to Southwood Drive. These are also single-family homes. It’s not as very 17 organized way the single-family homes are but they are similar way. They’re a little bit further 18 from the creek how they’re developed but if the Planning and Transportation Commission feels 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that this particular area should be also included as part of the exemption, the Commission can 1 actually recommend modification to that particular exemption. 2 3 Chair Akin: Interjection here. My recollection is that the structure, the bank, is different in that 4 segment whereas on Edgewood it’s concrete reinforced up at the top of the bank. That’s not 5 true of all of the – the segment from Marlowe to University. Is that correct? 6 7 Kelly Cha: I am not aware of it so I wouldn’t be able to answer that right now but I can confirm 8 with our engineering division to confirm that information. 9 10 Coleman Frick: Ms. Cha, I believe the map that was up on the screen before showed some of – 11 maybe at least where the floodwall portion ended. And I think maybe that relates to what... 12 13 Kelly Cha: The... 14 15 Coleman Frick: ...the Chair is referencing. Yeah, so if you look at sort of that section, the 16 different colors that – apologies, the legend isn’t showing – sort of where that cuts off in that 17 other map that you were showing, I think that’s where... 18 19 Jennifer Armer: The end of the teal and... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Kelly Cha: Here. 2 3 Coleman Frick: ...some of the characteristics of the stream are a bit different. 4 5 Commissioner Ji: Just to clarify here, I don’t have the street labels so where’s the Edgewood 6 exemption right now going to? 7 8 Kelly Cha: The Edgewood actually ends on Southwood Drive. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Well, no... 11 12 Kelly Cha: Edgewood goes... 13 14 Commissioner Ji: I understand... 15 16 Kelly Cha: Oh. 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: ...that but on the map with the colors? I’m just trying to understand if there’s 1 a characteristic difference. Does the Edgewood exemption stop at the middle of the teal 2 section? Does it stop in the green section? That’s the kind of question I’m trying to ask here. 3 4 Kelly Cha: Let me open up the online map but if you would like to continue the discussion, I’ll 5 interject when there’s an opportunity. But let me open up the online map so that we can zoom 6 into that area. 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. Commissioner Templeton’s been waiting patiently so I’ll let her go 9 ahead but hopefully you’ll have the number with the amount of properties impacted and also 10 [inaudible] time. 11 12 Kelly Cha: Yes. Mm-hm. 13 14 Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Commissioner Templeton, thank you for your patience. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I apologize. We have been going just in clarification part of our 17 conversation for over an hour now and this is why I asked early on to perhaps go in more depth 18 because the presentation was not going to meet our needs and so we have sort of pulled 19 together what we hoped from the presentation in an hour’s worth of interaction. My question 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. is just to follow up on something that Vice-Chair Chang said which was – did you say that on the 1 creeks, property owners are being granted use of a subset of their property by the city of Palo 2 Alto but still have to pay the whole taxes on the larger set? Is that what you said? It’s definitely 3 a legal question so I’m just trying to... 4 5 Jennifer Armer: And not something that’s being changed. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Well, that’s what I wanted – is that something we need to be looking 8 at? What do you mean they can’t use their whole property that they’re paying taxes on? I don’t 9 want to gloss over it if that’s something that was brought up. Is that true? 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Through the Chair, there’s easements in place, I believe, right? For the... 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: They still have to property taxes on it? 14 15 Jennifer Armer: That is often the case when you have an easement. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: And the easement is about the creek? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: There are many kinds of easement. In this case, I believe we are talking about 1 the creek. But the easement will often restrict the allowed uses on a property but it does not 2 necessarily reduce the lot size. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: And you’re asking us to reduce their uses even further? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: We are not changing the size of the easement or the regulations that apply to 7 the easement. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: That is not what I asked. Is this process going to reduce – I’m hearing 10 from community members that this will reduce the usable part of their property significantly 11 and I’m trying to understand. It has not been presented to us in that way so can you help clarify 12 that? 13 14 Jennifer Armer: All right. Thank you for restating your question. This effort is to consider 15 additional stream protection. What that means is that what’s being considered is a stream 16 setback that is more than just the slope stability area. These are new regulations that would 17 limit what types of things could be done within that streamside setback, so that is what you are 18 considering tonight based on the policy in the Comprehensive Plan and the direction we’ve 19 received to proceed with this effort. And those kinds of concerns have influenced the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. recommendation that’s been brought to you, to reduce that stream setback and simplify not 1 having a separate riparian setback. But that is an important component of the balance and 2 consideration of what is drafted and under consideration tonight. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: And what is the problem we’re solving? Just to state it clearly, what 5 is the problem we’re trying to solve? 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Kelly, do you have the Comprehensive Plan policy in front of you? Reading the 8 language there might be helpful. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: And maybe to just connect the dots on how we can measure that 11 these changes will affect that goal? Because what I’m trying to get at here – and this is why I’m 12 asking in the clarification section. We can come back to it later if you feel that we need to opine 13 on it but that will give you less opportunity to respond. But what I’m trying to get at is you’re 14 asking a lot of the property owners and we need to really clearly connect it to the good of the 15 City if we’re going to be doing that. And that’s something that’s not been made clear. There’s 16 been a lot of – all of our questions tonight have been about the lack of clarity in this proposal. 17 Every single one. And the bigger question for people that aren’t sitting on this dais but that are 18 the property owners and residents of the City, they’re going to want to know what’s the trade-19 off and why should they do this and why should they support that? And I think probably 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. somebody somewhere knows and I’m hoping that you will clarify that because again, 1 illuminating this discussion by putting the things out there really clearly, connecting the dots, is 2 really important part of our work. Thank you. Ms. Cha, are you planning to respond? 3 4 Kelly Cha: Yes. I do have the Comprehensive Plan language in front of me if you would like me 5 to share? 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. Or you can point to the page in the Packet. 8 9 Kelly Cha: It’s basically the goal of the actual creeks and riparian area section of the 10 Comprehensive Plan is conserving both natural and channelized creeks and riparian areas as 11 open space amenity and natural habitat area and elements of community design. That’s the 12 goal. Most of the policies talk about kind of balancing between environmental protection as 13 well as community design. It also includes flood control. The update is trying to sort of add 14 more of the riparian natural habitat sort of concern which was kind of lacking from the existing 15 regulations. Existing regulations basically handled and managed the flood control and bank 16 stability but it didn’t really address any concerns related to riparian habitat area or natural 17 habitat. That’s what we’re trying to address because that is what is lacking from the existing 18 regulations and that is... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Have we measured any of this? Do we have a baseline of the level of 1 degradation we have now and what we expect after these changes are made? Is there a 2 scientific... 3 4 Kelly Cha: We do have a quantified... 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 1:55:-07] questions tonight about what’s the scientific 7 basis for this recommendation or that recommendation. I’m trying to help us connect it back 8 because we are not talking about things that easily change. This is something we don’t do very 9 often. We’re talking about somebody’s property. We’re trying to understand the environmental 10 impact on our community as a whole and so I’m trying to connect the dots here and say we 11 have some lofty goals but how do we measure it? How do you turn that into something that 12 says yes, we definitely should be making this change because we’re going to go from this to 13 that? 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. We really do appreciate the effort to 16 make that connection because that is really important. Really being able to clearly lay out for 17 your understanding, for the public’s understanding, that planning efforts like this start at the 18 Comprehensive Plan level, which is a really high-level document. It’s got goals and policies. We 19 all want to protect the environment and protect the more vulnerable areas of the City. But we 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. recognize that we have a lofty goal and that it needs to go into a more detailed analysis. And so 1 we did have a biologist on the team supporting staff as we developed these recommendations 2 and looked at with this high-level goal what are some recommendations? If you want to do full 3 protection, of course it’d be much more than a 20 or 30-foot setback, right? But we need to 4 recognize that it is a balance between these things. And so I want to make sure that as we 5 proceed with the discussion that there is a common understanding that this is a goal from our 6 Comprehensive Plan adopted by Council. Staff’s bringing forward information for you. It’s not 7 always going to have all the details you want but we would like to try and support you as much 8 as we can. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for that. I think that’s great and I love that we have had a 11 scientist involved in this project that we can’t question, that did not provide a scientific basis for 12 the recommendations, right? This is actually frustrating for me and for some other folks who 13 had questions because we have all been through very demanding science courses in our 14 lifetimes and we would certainly not turn something in like this. I’m not frustrated with you. I’m 15 frustrated with this process and this discussion because I think we can do better. And so here’s 16 what I’m going to ask from a clarification standpoint is tell me how we are failing at meeting 17 Council’s direction currently? If we started there – and that was the question I was asking Ms. 18 Cha is where are we lacking specifically? How do we identify the point at which we’re not 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. meeting the criteria set out by Council currently? And once we have that baseline, we can ask 1 ourselves do these changes help us reach that goal better? Does that make sense? 2 3 Jennifer Armer: That does. Thank you for refocusing that. Ms. Cha, if you could reshare the 4 screen with the Comprehensive Plan policy? I believe it is very focused on the hillsides and... 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: I do too. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: ...the wetlands. 9 10 Chair Akin: You may want to see, yes, the programs rather than... 11 12 Jennifer Armer: Here we go. 13 14 Chair Akin: ...the policies. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: When we look at the programs here. And so this is update the stream corridor 17 protection ordinance to explore 150' as the desired stream setback. That is part of what’s in 18 front of you and because that is specifically about the open space, rural areas. And so that is 19 here. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Templeton: Which is not currently an area that people are concerned about, I 2 think. Most of our... 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: ...questions assume that that... 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Correct. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: ...works for us. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: Most of the discussion has been... 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 15 16 Jennifer Armer: ...about the urbanized areas. And so, Kelly, if you could speak a little bit to how 17 the regulations in the urban areas have been included? Because I know in the different efforts 18 that you’ve been helping the City work on, there have been varying levels of requirements with 19 the lighting and the bird-friendly and the streams in terms of direction of what to include or not 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to include at different levels for these ones. But for this in particular, if you could speak to 1 where we’ve received a recommendation to at least include in the draft ordinance the urban 2 areas? 3 4 Kelly Cha: This was, I believe, while we were working with the project team. I think Kevin can 5 supplement after I provide this response. We kind of looked at the Comprehensive Plan and 6 looked at the City as a whole instead of segregating just the foothills, the open space, and rural 7 area as even if there are – although the riparian habitat and natural habitat might be limited 8 because most of the urbanized area streams are hardened and channelized, there may be some 9 chances that there could be some species or habitat that we can conserve if we were to 10 establish this regulation. That was a start of this whole draft ordinance that we’re looking into, 11 especially because there are some portions of the creeks within the urbanized area that are not 12 fully channelized, so we wanted to kind of make sure that we keep up with the goal of the 13 Comprehensive Plan and that’s how we started with the establishment of some of the setbacks 14 within the urbanized area. Kevin, would you like to supplement? 15 16 Jennifer Armer: I will also point out that the second program on this slide does talk about urban 17 creeks and enhanced riparian setbacks so... 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Specifically doing it with the stakeholders and that means... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Jennifer Armer: Right. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: ...the neighbors and making sure they’re happy with it. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: And that is what this discussion is. And that is actually – ties very closely with 6 why that enhanced riparian setback, what we’re calling the stream setback, now has an 7 exception for the area where there was particular concern [inaudible 2:02:14]. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: And it’s what I’m asking about as well because they’re not satisfied. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for helping us draw that connection. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 14 15 Jennifer Armer: Mr. Gardiner, do you have something to add? 16 17 Kevin Gardiner: Yeah. I’m just looking through the Comp Plan. It does call for considering and 18 evaluating the stream protection setbacks in the urban areas as well. It’s quite specific to 150' 19 for the areas west of Foothill Expressway and in the Baylands. It doesn’t have a number for the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. urban areas but it does say that it should be looked at. And I’m trying to find that exact wording 1 in the Comp Plan but it is in there. That is what we’re doing. We are looking at appropriate 2 setbacks for the urbanized area. 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I understand that we’re all ready to get to the public 5 comment. I understand all of that. The reason I’m asking right now during the clarifying 6 questions is because I think it’s really important to share that we don’t have up here the same 7 perspective on this project that those who have been working on it for months have. We’re 8 seeing it from another angle and we’re trying to reflect back some of the things that could 9 create challenges by the time it gets to Council. I am sure that anyone who has worked on this 10 wants this to continue forward and be the best – you can leave that slide up, please – to be the 11 best project that we were able to create together. I’m coming at it from that perspective that 12 my intention here is to collaborate and I’m also pushing back because we still haven’t identified 13 any specific reason that majority of these proposals need to be adopted based on what’s in 14 front of us right now. Looking at that, you could say I considered it, we don’t need any changes, 15 right? We have to connect the recommendations to the goals. Why are you saying that? For 16 example, one of the staff members mentioned it could be some biological change that could 17 benefit from it. That is not enough to take away property usage. We have to connect it to an 18 understanding of what is our goal and how are we going to achieve it? Those are just the 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fundamentals of what’s required in this process. With that, we can have the rest of this 1 conversation after public comment. Thank you. 2 3 Kelly Cha: If I may? Can I just interject to provide response to Commissioner Ji’s previous 4 request? Let me share this. This is an online map of the floodwalls and embankments within the 5 Palo Alto area. The aerial doesn’t really show so I’m just going to change the type of map so 6 that it shows the street names. It seems like the embankment ends at University Avenue and it 7 goes into some of the Edgewood area but towards the end of – in the middle between the 8 Southwood Drive and the Newell Road. It’s not really identifying that particular section that we 9 were discussing where it’s not exempt along San Francisquito Creek. Just wanted to provide 10 that information. And the number of parcels that are impacted by this ordinance, within the 11 urbanized area it’s about 783 parcels and for the open space and rural area and Baylands, it’s 12 about 139 parcels. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: Can you... 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: ...repeat those numbers again? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: A hundred and thirty-nine for the 150' setback applies, so that’s open space and rural 1 area. That’s the Foothill side as well as the Baylands area. And it’s about 783 parcels within the 2 urbanized area. 3 4 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji has a quick follow-up on this and then we have Commissioner 5 James and Commissioner Peterson. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Ms. Cha, I saw in the staff recommendation that you wanted to extend the 8 provisions impacting lots under 20,000 ft2 to 1 acre. How does that impact the number of 9 parcels for the number that you just presented? 10 11 Kelly Cha: It doesn’t actually changes the impacted parcels because we were using 150' as a 12 buffer when we were looking at the area. The number impacted wouldn’t change. But when we 13 were looking at the lot sizes of the impacted parcels within the open space and rural area and 14 the Baylands, we have realized that the number that we have proposed as a threshold was a 15 little bit too small and it wouldn’t really capture the ones that are significantly impacted with 16 the buffers because of the location of the stream relative to the parcels. That’s why we have 17 requested a modification to increase to 1 acre. But that is something that PTC can consider and 18 discuss before making that modification as well. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: I don’t believe it changes the total number that are subject to this but it would 1 shift some of those that are subject to the 150 setback into the reduced setback of 30'. I don’t 2 know [inaudible 2:08:48] number of that. 3 4 Commissioner Ji: I’m sorry. Yeah. My question was do we know how many parcels are now 5 changing from the 30' to the 150? Or 150' to the 30' based on the recommendation from staff? 6 [Inaudible 2:09:01] number. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: I don’t know that we’ve got that number but I think Kelly probably can take a 9 look at that as we go through public comment. 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. That’s my only [inaudible 2:09:09]. 12 13 Kelly Cha: I can take some time and provide that a little bit later. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I’m done. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Or if not, we can prepare that research before it moves on to the next step. 18 19 Chair Akin: Commissioner James? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner James: I’m going to be really quick here and just kind of say we’re not going to 2 rewild this this creek, right? It has value. It’s sort of a natural resource. All the green. We all 3 understand that. But I think really I’m wondering if – the poor biologist who’s not here to 4 answer any questions but did anyone ask him what is the minimum amount that would prevent 5 further degradation? If you ask a biologist what’s the optimum to preserve an ecosystem – this 6 goes on in the Galapagos all the time, right? There are people that live in the Galapagos and 7 people that want the Galapagos to be sort of a time capsule. There’s some natural tension here 8 and I just wonder if we have framed this question properly and if we might get a different 9 answer if we said what is the minimum amount of vegetation buffer, for lack of a better term, 10 that would prevent further degradation of this ecosystem? And it’s not much – I also sort of am 11 a little puzzled by the comment that moving the stream setback from 20 or 25' to 30' in the 12 urbanized area has to do with not wanting flood damage to existing structures. [Inaudible 13 2:10:54] missing something here but if you got a flat lawn and you’re flooding over 30', it’s 14 going to flood the whole lawn, so I don’t really get that. And I do think there were some 15 comparisons to other municipalities. I don’t want to defer to another municipality versus 16 maybe a biologist but by comparison, if the other municipalities are at 20, 25' and we’re doing 17 30 because of a biologist’s assessment, I don’t know, I feel like it’s a little hard for me to assess 18 if we’re in the right spot on that. That’s all I’ll say. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: All right. Thank you. Last clarifying question from Commissioner Peterson and then 1 we’ll discuss next steps. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: While I was listening to the Commissioners speak, I realized we don’t 4 work in isolation here so I had forgotten to ask the question. Do we have guidance from the 5 Joint Powers Authority for the San Francisquito Creek? Greer Stone is the chair of that who’s 6 the former mayor of Palo Alto. Did he submit a letter with guidance on how we should proceed 7 on this? And then the other one, looking at it it says are we working in isolation [inaudible 8 2:12:19] Palo Alto is I happen to chair the subcommittee on flood protection at the county for 9 the bond oversight and I wasn’t – this never came in front of us, anything regarding buffer 10 zones on the corridors, because I probably would have – we would have sent a letter or 11 something on this. Those are my two questions. What letters [inaudible 2:12:44] gotten from 12 the Joint Powers Authority and from the Water District? 13 14 Kelly Cha: I can look into the list of comment letters that we have received but since October, 15 we have not received any comments from San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority but 16 we do have them listed as part of the distribution list so they have been informed about this 17 process and update on this project progress as well. Initially when we were meeting with 18 stakeholders, I believe that we had met up with the Joint Powers Authority and gathered their 19 feedback initially. But since then, we haven’t had a significant conversation with them. But 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Valley Water – not the county but Valley Water, we have been meeting with them and asked 1 them to provide feedback so they did provide feedback on the draft ordinance and some of 2 their concerns have been addressed in this draft ordinance as well. 3 4 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Ms. Cha. Appreciate it. Just real quick. Is there feedback in 5 the packet so we can read their letter? 6 7 Kelly Cha: The packet includes the public comments that we have received since October so we 8 don’t have the public comment letter that was sent officially from both agencies. For Valley 9 Water we just had meetings internally to kind of get their feedback. And then Joint Powers 10 Authority, we haven’t really received an official letter yet but we can also follow up with them 11 to get their feedback as well similar to what we have been doing with the Valley Water. But 12 because they were part of the distribution list and then we have been sharing this information, 13 the progress of the draft ordinance, the fact that we have not yet received any comments, I 14 would like to assume that they don’t have any significant concerns with the draft ordinance but 15 we can definitely follow up and try to clarify that. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Are you able to summarize what the Valley Water’s 18 feedback was to you on this in absence of a letter? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: They had limited time and it’s because it’s usually not the high priority but some of 1 the details like maybe the exemption on retaining walls may be looked at again to see that 2 there is no sort of what they call – I forget the term. But there could be like a stepping – like a 3 stair kind of. They had a specific technical sort of comments because Valley Water has the 4 authority and discretion over the bank and the stream itself and where there’s an easement 5 especially. They had technical sort of comments more on the technical side than the higher-6 level policy side. 7 8 Commissioner Peterson: I just realize we increased the budget for their computational and they 9 came up with a new computational plan for the flood zone. They’ve had to redesign their 10 corridor. That’s, I think, the new stepping. 11 12 Chair Akin: All right. I think that is an ample round of – oh. Vice-Chair Chang. Okay, it’s last 13 clarifying question. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: Really quick clarifying question. My recollection from the last time or the last 16 time this came before us was that Valley Water’s standard is the 30' and I wondered if that had 17 anything – first of all, if staff could verify that that is the case? And then second, I’m wondering 18 if that had anything to do with the 30' that staff landed upon? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: That was one of the things that we’ve looked at and I believe that was also something 1 that has influenced the recommendation. But it’s also the biologist’s recommendation as well 2 as the Comprehensive Plan has the critical habitat area of 30' so we just kind of looked at 3 different sources and resources and that was the final recommendation at this point. Valley 4 Water’s setback was part of the consideration. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you. That helps a lot. 7 8 Chair Akin: All right. I’m going to do a little procedural investigation here. Mr. Tavera, how 9 many public comments do we have waiting? 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Yes. Through the Chair, we’ve received 10 public comments both in person and 12 via Zoom, one of which is a group. 13 14 Chair Akin: Thank you. All right. In that case, I would like to go fresh into the public comments 15 so I would suggest if we need a break, now is the right time to do it rather than waiting until all 16 the public comments are done. Does anyone object? All right. It is currently 8:18. Let’s be back 17 at 8:25, so 7 minutes. Welcome back, everyone. It is now time for public comment and 18 traditionally we begin with groups. I believe we have one tonight so let’s start with our first 19 group. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Samuel Tavera: And a clarifying question through the Chair, full time of 10 minutes? 2 3 Chair Akin: Yes, please. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: And then for the speakers, the rest of the group? 6 7 Chair Akin: Three minutes each. 8 9 Samuel Tavera: Sounds good. Thank you. Our first speaker, it’ll be Daniel Hansen representing a 10 group of 9. 11 12 Daniel Hansen: Good evening, everyone. Appreciate the time for being here. My name is Daniel 13 Hansen. I am here on behalf of the Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance. I live – we have lived on 14 Edgewood for 24 years on the creek side. And I’d also like to thank the Commissioners who 15 came out and saw our neighborhood and our creek. I think it was good for us. It was helpful, I 16 think, to get context. We, the Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance, support this ordinance with 17 the exception of Edgewood. I think we have established in our documentation and through 18 other letters that Edgewood is a unique area and that this exemption is justified. We have 19 safety and security concerns due to encampments. We have crime in the area. A lot of trespass 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. into the creek. Also, the flood abatement work that is going to happen in our creek very soon. 1 We’ve got the Newell Bridge to be replaced. We’ve got Reach 2 coming from the JPA. And just 2 generally, in fairness, the impact to the property value as well as our properties are subject to 3 this cutback on the floor area ratio because our property lines go to the middle of the creek so 4 we have a reduction in our buildable area under the current ordinance which is now carried 5 forward through so we are disadvantaged by reason of that cutback. We have some slides. 6 There’s our concerns and I think I’ll just tell you and you’ll flip the pages for me? Great. 7 8 Just want to give you some of the context of Edgewood. Go ahead, let’s do some of the these. 9 Keep going. This is an encampment. These pictures are from July, so a month ago or so. You’re 10 looking at the East Palo Alto side here on the creek. This is what an encampment looks like. An 11 encampment in the exact same place was there exactly a year ago and it took about 6 months 12 to get it cleared out. Thanks to then-mayor Greer Stone who we’re very appreciate to on that. 13 And we know that the Mayor Ed Lauing now has been very supportive and very helpful in 14 jumping in and trying to get all the jurisdictions together so that we can clear these 15 encampments. We got some more details here if you’re interested. This is what gets collected 16 at these things. Chairs, bikes. Keep going. One more. All right. And one of our biggest concerns 17 is fire. When it gets cool, these encampments light campfires. And this is an image from last fall 18 and so we are all basically one ember away from that canopy that is over the creek catching on 19 fire and turning into another Los Angeles disaster, which we can’t have. The fire department 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. and East Palo Alto’s covered by Menlo Park. They got numerous calls from us last year to come 1 out and put out fires like this, so that’s top of mind. Let’s go. The reason that we have these 2 troubles in the creek is because the other side of the creek on East Palo Alto has no barriers to 3 entry. It’s easy to get in. 4 5 The creek is dry for about 9 to 10 months of the year. And so we get a lot of trespass like this. 6 Flip the next page. You can see some of the context here. This is from Woodland Avenue and 7 you can just see you just walk right into the creek. The creek is right behind that from this side. 8 Another one. Same thing a little further down. Next one, same thing. You just walk into the 9 creek. Next one. Some places there’s a short wall you have to go over. Next one. This is also a 10 little short wall. This is the wall that is opposite the picture of that encampment I showed you. 11 For context, that encampment would be just on the other side of that wall. Okay. Let’s go to the 12 next one, see what we got. For more context, this is an image of San Francisquito Creek just 13 west of University Avenue. You can see the concrete. They call it Sakrete. These are actually 14 concrete bags that were put in place in the ’80s done to channel the creek for water flow due to 15 a big flood that happened in the ’50s. These Sakrete bags, concrete bags, have been lining the 16 creek in a lot of different places including in our backyard, which we’ll show you in a few 17 minutes. Let’s go to the next one. This is the Newell Bridge. This will be replaced, hopefully 18 soon. It’s supposed to start this fall. It’s going from a 21-foot bridge to a 45-foot bridge. The 19 monster bridge we call it. You got 2 lanes of traffic, 2 bike lanes, 2 walk lanes, and lights. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 And one thing you don’t have is a riparian corridor to go across the bridge so the animals 2 coming along have to go under the bridge, like they have for 100 years so putting in a riparian 3 corridor between the bridges makes no sense because any animals or humans traveling along 4 there run into a bridge. And these bridges are about every quarter mile. The next one? This is 5 the University Bridge which is just up from Newell. That one, same thing. You can see there’s no 6 way over the bridge. You have to go under it. Next one? And this is the 101 Bridge. This is if you 7 look to the left, that’s the sound wall for the freeway. To get from this side over to the 8 Baylands, you have to go through and under the bridge. All right. Next one? Let’s go one more. 9 All right. We want to talk about fencing a little bit. You keyed into, I think, an issue for us, 10 Commissioner Hechtman, which is new fencing. The proposal says that new fencing requires 11 approval of the Director of Public Works and a stability study. The risk for somebody who 12 doesn’t have a fence – and the lot next door to me is vacant, they don’t have a fence – is the 13 Director says no. If a director says no, then what? You don’t get a fence? You’re left with an 14 open area for encampments, crime, whatever that comes along. We think fences are 15 fundamental. They’re there. 16 17 Fences are important to protect privacy, protect people, protect property. We think fences 18 should not be subject to a discretionary approval and that if the fence meets the requirements 19 under the current chapter, which is 1624, we think the fence should be allowed. That’s new 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fence issue. The second one is this 5-foot gap that is there. Like you, I don’t know where it came 1 from. I was curious. But what we have experienced over the years is that this 5-foot gap turns 2 into a place for encampments. That’s what this photograph is. This is a gap between the wall 3 and a fence. Next one? Same thing. Now we have more garbage. Next one. These are 4 encampments that fill this gap. It’s happened on Edgewood over time. Let’s go to the next one? 5 What you’re looking at here is the bank. It’s made out of these sacks of concrete. This is solid 6 concrete bank. And what has happened over the years is that people have put their fences on 7 the bank or adjacent to it to fill this gap so you don’t have this area where people can walk 8 through, camp, whatever. Next one? This is the back side. You can see what the bank looks like. 9 These are solid concrete banks with rebar and they’ve been there since the 1950s. This is 70 10 years of stability. This 5-foot gap for stability isn’t really necessary right here. We feel that that 11 5-foot gap should not apply to Edgewood and perhaps other areas where there’s a concrete 12 bank. 13 14 All right. The ordinance also would prevent ornamental plantings in the slope stability area. This 15 is inconsistent with the current ordinance. The current ordinance allows noninvasive 16 ornamental plantings. We don’t understand why that changed. If the goal here was to keep the 17 old ordinance in place, then ornamental plantings should be allowed. These are noninvasive. 18 It’s for purposes of enjoyment of your backyard and affecting the value if you can’t have 19 ornamental plantings and so forth. And then the streamside setback, in our view, should be no 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. more than 25'. Let’s go to the next one. Next one. This is the chart that was in the October staff 1 report and you can see that 9 of the 11 cities here that measure from top of bank are 25' or 2 less. I know it’s hard to see but that’s what it says. Including Los Altos and San Carlos who are 3 both at 25. We also feel that the exemption requirements for streamside setback are too strict. 4 No reasonable alternative. What does that mean? Anything could be a reasonable alternative 5 and so the concern there is somebody says oh, don’t build it, make it smaller, move it. No 6 reasonable alternative we don’t think works. We think it should be more in lines of the project 7 will not unreasonably impair the streamside environment. 8 9 Samuel Tavera: Thank you. That concludes your time. 10 11 Daniel Hansen: Thank you. And then there’s a technical conflict, we think, in the Paragraph G 12 referring to Paragraph F. I see nods. Yeah, there’s like this apples and oranges mixing of the 2 in 13 those 2 paragraphs that we think need to be corrected. Okay. That’s it. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Akin: Thank you very much. Mr. Tavera, who’s next? 16 17 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Franklin J. Franklin, are you there? Believe he may have left. 18 Our next speaker is Kristin S. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kristin S.: Good evening. I want to thank you by including an exemption for the single-family 1 properties along Edgewood Drive as I am a homeowner... 2 3 Chair Akin: Could you bring the mic down a little closer to you, please? Thank you. 4 5 Kristin S.: I am a homeowner on Edgewood Drive, specifically on the creek side. We appreciate 6 the exemption but I and my husband have 3 problems with this ordinance. I know if we 7 currently have a fence we’re allowed to fix it according to this new proposed ordinance. But we 8 were advised by our attorneys that if we changed anything about the fence, like we change the 9 materials when we’re doing repairs, that is deemed a new fence and so we have issue with the 10 new fencing, having to go through all these new requirements for Director approval or slope 11 stability. Because if we want to repair our current fence that’s there and we have to change any 12 of the material, that is deemed a new fence according to this new ordinance. Allowing us to 13 maintain it doesn’t really happen because if anything has to change, it is deemed a new fence 14 and we can’t keep our current fence in any way, shape, or form. And also, there is this 15 reference to a biologist that has been helping them come up with this plan with these new 16 numbers for like the setback. We’ve asked in public records for this biologist’s name, much less 17 the study. We’ve gotten nothing and now they’re claiming privilege. We don’t understand why 18 we are required to give up so much of our property for the environment because we’re not 19 actually sure what is being told, what this person’s requirements are, or any of these things. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 And we also – well, I also object to the 30-foot setback because where it is right now, it’s fine. 2 And we don’t mind the 25, along with all the other neighboring municipalities, but if you add it 3 to 30, I lose 30 percent of my yard. And when I bought my property, I didn’t know I was going to 4 lose 30 percent of my yard for the environmental reason that I’m not even sure of what it’s 5 about. I have a lot of objections to that. And especially the new language saying that I can’t 6 plant certain plants in my backyard even though the City of Palo Alto says I can. But now with 7 this new ordinance you’re saying I can’t do anything with the back of my property because I 8 need to have, I guess, the special plants now and not the ones that have already been 9 approved. That was it. But thank you. 10 11 Chair Akin: Thank you very much. 12 13 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Dashiell L. You may now speak. 14 15 Dashiell Leeds: Hello. My name is Dashiell Leeds. I’m the conservation coordinator for the Sierra 16 Club Loma Prieta chapter. We support the draft stream corridor protection ordinance and we 17 ask that you recommend that the City Council adopt this ordinance. In our joint letter with the 18 Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, we included some improvements which I’ll reiterate tonight 19 briefly which we hope you include in your recommendation. Number one would be to restrict 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the development of recreational trails to one side of natural riparian corridors. This 1 recommendation comes from the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Program and 3.3.3 which states 2 “For all creeks, update the stream corridor protection ordinance to minimize impacts on wildlife 3 by limiting the development of recreational trails to one side of natural riparian corridors.” 4 These corridors are crucial to local biodiversity and to wildlife mobility and we should ensure 5 that wildlife have access to these critical areas by not enclosing both sides of the corridor with 6 trails. Our second recommendation is to prevent the siting of impervious structures within the 7 setback area. This recommendation also comes from the 2030 Comprehensive Plan Program 8 and 3.3.1 which describes updating the stream setback in the riparian corridor protection 9 ordinance which would prohibit the siting of buildings and other structures including 10 impervious surfaces. The current draft allows for 25 percent of the setback area or 2,500 ft2, 11 whichever is less, to be paved with impermeable material. We believe the standard is excessive, 12 it can undermine the creek protection goals, and could lead to the continued channelization 13 and reduction in habitat value. 14 15 In general, the Conservation Plan provides extensive guidance and justification for the 16 provisions of this ordinance such as goal N-3, conservation of both natural and channelized 17 creeks and riparian areas as open space amenities, natural habitat areas, and elements of 18 community design; Policy N-3.2, prevent the further channelization and degradation of Palo 19 Alto’s creeks; Policy N-3.4, recognize that riparian corridors are valued environmental resources 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. whose integrity provides vital habitat for fish, birds, plants, and other wildlife and carefully 1 monitor and preserve these corridors. End quote. These streams are a lifeline for wildlife whose 2 habitat has been systematically destroyed and divided. Creeks such as San Francisquito Creek 3 and Matadero Creek are ancient living ecosystems that are thousands and thousands of years 4 old. When we make decisions that channelize our streams or add impervious systems or block 5 access to wildlife, it may feel small to us to build a structure here, to add a little bit of concrete 6 there, but these decisions add up. And without adequate protections in place, we will 7 eventually lose this precious and essential habitat in the blink of an eye compared with the 8 total lifespan of these streams. Thank you for your time and consideration. 9 10 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Tom F. 11 12 Tom F.: Good evening, Chair Akin, Vice-Chair Chang, and honorable Commissioners. I live in 13 Palo Alto along Edgewood Drive immediately adjacent to San Francisquito Creek. I want to 14 begin by expressing my strong support for staff’s inclusion of an exemption for single-family 15 residences on Edgewood to address the long-standing concerns raised by residents, including 16 myself, about safety and privacy along the creek. Nonetheless, I ask you to address 3 specific 17 and critical issues. First, I opposed the new prohibition on new fences in the slope stability area. 18 As was discussed earlier, that would include new fences on properties without them but it 19 would also include properties that are looking to change the fence, change the materials of the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fence, or change the fence height. Fences are fundamental to protection of people and 1 property and new fencing should not require discretionary approval by the Director of Public 2 Works nor a slope stability study. Homeowners along Edgewood already face significant crime 3 and quality-of-life challenges with unhoused persons. The safety and security of my family 4 should not be a discretionary election by a member of City staff. Additionally, the SFCJPA’s 5 proposed floodwalls documented through multiple engineering studies clearly establishes the 6 creek’s bank is stable. A slope stability study for a simple homeowner’s fence is unnecessary. I 7 therefore ask the PTC to remove the word fences from Section 1840140G3. Second, I oppose 8 the new restrictions on landscaping in the slope stability area. Earlier you asked whether or not 9 there were changes to Edgewood properties. The answer was no. Yet in fact, this part of the 10 proposed code does change. 11 12 The staff report states this ordinance is required to address stability and erosion. The addition 13 of this new restriction is unrelated to stability. Homeowners should not be forced to decorate 14 their yards inside of fencing with riparian vegetation. I therefore request 140G1 and G2 15 maintain the existing landscaping restrictions which already address erosion and protect the 16 ecosystem. Third, the streamside setback should be no more than 25' in urban areas, not 30'. 17 This is consistent with neighboring cities. It is unfair to ask homeowners to surrender such a 18 huge portion of their backyard for such a nebulous purpose. In addition, I ask the ordinances be 19 cleaned up to remove confusing text in Sections G and G1. This would clarify the applicable 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. requirements and exceptions. Please see the red lines from our attorneys [inaudible 46:11] as 1 well as the separate document from Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance. Thank you for your 2 time. I appreciate your responsiveness to the concerns raised by those negatively impacted by 3 this proposed ordinance. With these minor but critical revisions, I would be able to support the 4 proposed ordinance. Thank you. 5 6 Chair Akin: Thank you. 7 8 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Rod H. 9 10 Rod Howard: Members of the Commission, my name is Rod Howard. I’m a longtime resident of 11 the area, worked in Palo Alto for more than 15 years. I currently live in the adjacent 12 neighborhood of Menlo Oaks. My wife lived in Palo Alto for more than 20 years and continues 13 to own a residential property in Palo Alto. I have no direct or immediate economic interest in 14 the matters before the Commission. My interest is more general, an interest in the legal and 15 policy issues in these matters and the precedents that they may set. In this regard, let me note 16 that I have been a long-time supporter, member, and donor of a number of leading 17 environmental organizations including the Nature Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense 18 Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Yosemite Conservancy, the Peninsula Open 19 Space Trust. I have even been a donor to the Sierra Club and the Audobon Society which are 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. organizations that I believe have been involved in the matters before the Commission. 1 Nonetheless, I do not support the positions taken by the Sierra Club and the Audobon Society 2 on these matters. I do support the positions of the Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance on these 3 matters. Briefly, in my view, new fencing should not require Director approval, a slope stability 4 study, or a 5-foot setback from the bank along the San Francisquito Creek. A 5-foot fence 5 setback invites encampments, trespass, and activities that are either unsafe or illegal. Fences 6 are fundamental to privacy and protection of people and property and should not be the 7 subject of discretionary approval which implies not just approval but possible disapproval, 8 conditions, and delay. 9 10 Ornamental plantings should be allowed inside of fencing and backyards consistent with 11 current ordinances. The streamside setback should be 25, not 30' in urban areas, in my view, 12 consistent with fairness and neighboring cities’ setbacks. The exception criteria likewise should 13 be relaxed to allow exceptions as long as they do not unreasonably impair the streamside 14 environment. Greater requirements and restrictions are, in my view, unnecessary and unwise 15 and set bad precedence with possible implications for other neighborhoods, not only in Palo 16 Alto but beyond, and other waterway corridors. Finally, the exemption of the Edgewood 17 properties seems like a reasonable balancing of interests and recognizes their distinct urban 18 and residential character. Different treatment for different parts of the creek seems reasonable 19 and appropriate as a matter of policy and is likely even required as a matter of law. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Samuel Tavera: This concludes your [inaudible 50:02]. 2 3 Rod H.: Thank you for your consideration. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: Thank you. 6 7 Chair Akin: Thank you. 8 9 Samuel Tavera: All right. Our next speaker is Jeffrey S. 10 11 Jeffrey S.: Good evening, Chair Akin, members of the Commission. In February I wrote to the 12 Commission that I was very concerned that the ordinance proposed in October would galvanize 13 homeowner opposition to flood control improvements along San Francisquito Creek on 14 Edgewood Drive. And I remain concerned. Since February, what I described then as a highly 15 charged, decades-long flood control effort has now become quite contentious. In May the Joint 16 Powers Authority, that’s JPA, finally presented 4 flood-control project alternatives for Reach 2. 17 That’s from Highway 101 to Middlefield Road Bridge. And as expected, each alternative 18 involved significant stretches of floodwalls. Menlo Park’s representative surprised his JPA 19 colleagues at the meeting asserting that the community does not want floodwalls. In June 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Valley Water announced it would slow-walk its share of funding for this year’s Reach 2 planning 1 and design budget and reconsider it this fall. In July – that’s last month – Menlo Park’s 2 representative wrote to his constituents that “JPA staff have been too focused on appeasing 3 competing groups of Palo Alto residents. One group appears opposed to any action by the JPA, 4 especially actions that would impact their private property, while another group believes that 5 JPA should pursue the most aggressive flood mitigation options.” Now you add to this mix the 6 rumor that’s been circulating among a few Edgewood residents that the ordinance before you 7 is a pretext by Palo Alto to set aside a swath of the backyards of the creek of Edgewood in order 8 to facilitate flood reduction improvements. 9 10 The last thing we need is more resistance. For that reason, I would urge you to retain the 11 Edgewood exemption from the streamside setback. And I think it’s important to understand 12 that the concern here comes from a feeling of being under siege from a series of initiatives 13 from the City that are very well-meaning but that require quite a bit of vigilance and diligence 14 on the part of residents along this creek. The bird-safe ordinance which in its most recent draft 15 would require 90 percent glass coverage for homes within 300 feet of natural creeks. Again, 16 focusing on the creeks. And then third, the outdoor lighting ordinance. And we fought very hard 17 and we feel that we were heard with respect to a security exemption with respect to the crime 18 coming from our backyards. But you have to understand that there’s a whole series of factors 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that are coming to bear on this area and so we would appreciate if you would consider the 1 Edgewood exemption as being fundamental. Thank you. 2 3 Chair Akin: Thank you. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Jennifer L. Jennifer L., you may now speak. Jennifer, you... 6 7 Jennifer L.: Good evening, Commissioners. Can you hear me okay? 8 9 Chair Akin: Yes, we can. 10 11 Jennifer Lynch: Wonderful. Thank you. My name is Jennifer Lynch. I’m a partner at the law firm 12 Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and I’m speaking on behalf of my clients, Tom and Kristin Fountain, 13 who live along Edgewood Drive. And they spoke earlier tonight and I want to reiterate how 14 appreciative we are of staff’s proposed exemption for single-family properties along Edgewood 15 Drive but I think the Commissioner’s clarifying questions earlier tonight clearly show that this 16 isn’t ready for prime time. I think Commissioner Templeton is exactly right in asking for more 17 detail and connecting the dots. And that’s important not just for everyone to understand what 18 this ordinance actually does but it’s a legal requirement to prove that as a public agency we’re 19 not acting arbitrarily. Nonetheless, if the Commission does want to move this forward to the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Council, I submitted a letter to the Commission earlier this week requesting a small number of 1 revisions that at the very least we think need to be incorporated. Specifically we’re requesting 2 that the Commission revise some confusing language in Subsection G and Subsection H1 that 3 could confuse a reader into thinking that some aspects of the streamside setback and the 4 streamside setback exception process apply to Edgewood Drive properties. The staff report is 5 clear and staff said earlier tonight that this was not their intent so we hope you’ll consider and 6 incorporate our proposed red lines to Section G and H1 so that there’s no confusion down the 7 road. 8 9 Next, we want to object to staff’s tightening of restrictions applicable within the slope stability 10 area, especially those that are unrelated to slope stability and safety. Earlier this evening 11 Commissioner Chang asked Ms. Cha whether anything changes for the homes on Edgewood 12 and Ms. Cha responded that nothing changes but that’s not correct. First, the staff has inserted 13 the word fences into what is now Subsection G3. Subsection G3 which lays out what’s 14 prohibited in the slope stability area is taken from the existing code except staff has now 15 inserted the word fences here, which is not in the existing language and which we do not think 16 is appropriate or related to slope stability. That is something that changes for the Edgewood 17 Drive residents under the draft as it’s currently written. Second, we object to the tightening of 18 the vegetation and landscaping restrictions that apply within the slope stability area. Again, 19 earlier tonight Ms. Cha said that nothing changes for Edgewood residents but that is not 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. correct. The existing code already includes restrictions on landscaping within the slope stability 1 area. The draft ordinance before you tonight tightens these up. It adds further prohibitions. 2 This is in the new Subsection G1 and G2. These are additional restrictions that aren’t related to 3 slope stability or safety, which is the intended purpose of the slope stability area, so we ask that 4 you incorporate our proposed revisions to these sections as well. Thank you so much. 5 6 Chair Akin: Thank you. 7 8 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Diane M. Diane M., you may now speak. 9 10 Diane M.: Now can you hear me? 11 12 Samuel Tavera: Yes. 13 14 Chair Akin: Yes, we can. 15 16 Diane Macoy: Thank you. Good evening. My name is Diane Macoy and I’m a resident of over 40 17 years in Palo Alto including the year 1998 of the flood in our area. I live on Greer down near 18 Edgewood. I would like to give my support to the Planning and Development Committee’s 19 efforts to preserve the natural vegetation and habitats in the creek area in this project including 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the 30-foot setback and no less. It also would protect the integrity of the creek bank and 1 manage and maintain public access by way of a trail. It’s important to continue with all aspects 2 of this plan to protect this riparian ecosystem with its exceptionally high diversity of species. 3 Not just plants but animals as well. Thank you for your time and your service. 4 5 Chair Akin: Thank you. 6 7 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Shani K. 8 9 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. I’m Shani Kleinhaus. I’ll try and cover the notes that I took this 10 evening. I’m a resident of Palo Alto. I’m the environmental advocate for the Santa Clara Valley 11 Bird Alliance. We used to be Audobon. Now we’re Bird Alliance. I’m on the PRC. I do not speak 12 for the PRC. And I was on the Community Advisory Committee when the Comprehensive Plan 13 was put together so I know what the intent was. And I think I heard a lot of voices and some of 14 them are – and I just want to first thank staff for trying to simplify the previous draft. I 15 understand that there’s still some concerns, especially at Edgewood, and I think they should be 16 looked at. But I would like to say a few things about why this came about because I don’t think 17 that was clear and what is the intent of riparian corridors. And I want to say that the science is 18 immense. If anybody’s interested, I’m happy to send you a lot of documents about why 19 setbacks are really, really important. And to some of the questions here as to oh, did we ask 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. this or that agency how wide should the setback be, they’ll tell you to put a mile if you could, 1 every one of them, so they would want as much as possible because the reason why we have 2 flooding is there’s not enough room for the water to go. 3 4 What is the purpose of stream corridors? One is ecological protection and flooding is one of 5 those things but not the only one. We have a lot of different pollutants that can come into a 6 creek so having a riparian corridor, you can plant it, you can reduce the pollutant load, so water 7 quality comes into play. And that water quality goes into bay, into the ocean, so there’s a lot of 8 – the streams, as we know, they’re not just one little pond. They really have a lot of impact. And 9 habitat for wildlife obviously is one of those things. The setbacks are really intended to provide 10 for the health of the environment, the health of the people, and mitigate the potential flooding 11 impact. I can’t talk to everything. I only have like 40 seconds left. I would just say that one of 12 the things that in addition to the letter that we sent you, and I hope you look at and [inaudible 13 3:00:46] covered it, the suggestion of exempting parcels of certain size, whether 20,000 ft2 or 14 an acre in the Baylands or in the foothills, that would be a really big problem if it’s an 15 exemption because you don’t know how important ecologically that parcel is. I can see using 16 some process to approve something like that in some cases but not as an exemption given that 17 we really don’t know that it’s not a really important piece of the puzzle of the ecological 18 system. Thank you. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Thank you. 1 2 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Sanjiv W. 3 4 Sanjiv W.: Good evening, Commissioners. I live on Edgewood Drive. I want to start by saying I 5 support the exemption to the homes along Edgewood Drive. I want to start by saying that I 6 really don’t understand the purpose of this ordinance versus what is in existence today. If it is 7 to support the habitat and the creek, then perhaps the first step should be to actually clean up 8 the creek. If anybody’s walked along the edge of the creek you can see the amount of junk in 9 there. Clearly not a great environment for the habitat and the creek. On fences, I think the 10 proposal is very burdensome. During the heavy rains of December 31 couple of years ago, a 11 tree from East Palo Alto fell across the creek and took my whole fence out. If I had to get 12 approval to rebuild that fence, which would have taken several weeks [inaudible 3:02:30] 13 wanted to change the material there, it would have left my property completely exposed for 14 several weeks, which obviously wasn’t great for safety. And obviously safety for family is 15 important and compromising that is not a great situation. I also want to end by asking a 16 question. The creek borders Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and East Palo Alto. Is this ordinance being 17 considered in the other towns? Because if it is not, then this is completely moot because 18 they’re not going to have any ordinance that supports what you guys are trying to do over here. 19 Thank you. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Thank you. 2 3 Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Chia C. 4 5 Chia C.: Good evening, Commissioner. My name is Cee Cee. I have been living here in Palo Alto 6 since 2013 but we just recently bought our property at Bryant Street which is next to Matadero 7 Creek. As you know, most of the property in midtown Matadero Creek, they are more like a 8 narrow lot and small lot. And the intention we bought the property is for our 3 kids that is 9 growing up and we like to be our first home. And we realize that with this new setback of 30' 10 from the original 20' slope stability, it take 1/3 of the width of our property away so it actually 11 make the property not very functional, when you think about it, a 50' lot width with 30' setback 12 from the creek. Right? That’s kind of one of the concern that I like to bring it up. And obviously 13 the other reason which I did some survey and trying to understand the background and the 14 reason for that but what we can say is that the hardened and channelized creek such the one at 15 Matadero and few others as well are fundamentally different from natural creeks, right? I heard 16 a lot of discussion about why we need to have the setback to protect natural habitat but for 17 engineering flood control channels like the Matadero, this is very little impact, if none. That’s 18 first reason. And the primary function of these channels is really for stormwater and flood 19 control and not really for ecological enhancement. And we have seen that in a lot of the report. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And the current ordinance [inaudible 3:04:47] 20' slope stability protection so we believe this is 1 effective to maintain the bank integrity and public safety for these engineered channels. And 2 erosion’s really minimized for this concrete lining and meaning the 20-foot buffer that we have 3 today is sufficient. And increasing the 30' setback in this environment, especially in urban 4 environment, is really significant burdens for a lot of homeowner like us. I heard about over 700 5 property got impacted. I’m not sure how many of those are smaller lot like our house. Many of 6 them do not realize. When they realize, this is going to be a lot of economical issues as well. In 7 conclusion, here I would like to really hope that we can keep the current setback at 20'. This is 8 evidence based and effective and really resolve what we have today in term of the issue that 9 we want to address. Thank you very much. 10 11 Chair Akin: Thank you. 12 13 Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, this concludes public comment. 14 15 Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Tavera. Just a second. I’m making a note here and then we’ll move 16 to discussion. Okay. It’s time to enter the Commission discussion phase. I would like to ask as 17 we discuss that you keep a couple possibilities in mind. One is whether you are more inclined to 18 have a fundamental review of the draft. For example, is it essential to differentiate between 19 natural and channelized streams, something that would be a fairly major fundamental change, 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. or whether you’d like to proceed with the existing draft but with the incremental changes that 1 have been discussed in many of the comments that we’ve heard tonight. So just if you would 2 please opine on some of those options in addition to whatever else you would like to say. Let’s 3 begin with Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner Hechtman. 4 5 Commissioner Templeton: As they used to say in the old commercial, porque no los dos? 6 Anyway, I will start by reflecting on the public comment and then I will answer your specific 7 questions about direction. I want to say thank you. I know some people have had to leave and 8 get their kids to bed but really the amount of engagement we’re having from the community 9 members on every aspect of this issue is really, really inspiring to me and so I appreciate 10 everybody coming out and staying through our lengthy discussions. But it’s because we care. So 11 thank you for being here and being a part of this conversation. And also thank you to staff. I 12 know we asked a lot of tough questions tonight but I hope the public comment reinforced that 13 some of those questions are indeed reflective of what’s happening in the community and how 14 people are feeling. I am sincere in saying that I think a little bit of both. I’m not sure I can fit 15 myself into one category or the other. I do think the Edgewood exception is excellent. I’m really 16 glad that staff developed it and I think we’ve had some really actionable feedback on how to 17 improve that so that we could potentially come to some recommendation in that area. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. I do appreciate also the comments about the channelized creeks and how different they are 1 and how confusing it is to try to apply some of the principles that are guiding the discussion 2 around naturalized creeks to these properties well. Especially when we think about the volume 3 of properties, the quantity that will be effected, it’s something we need to take seriously and 4 understand the implications of recommendations like this and talk about it. And I’m sure we 5 will because we have a wonderful, very engaged Commission so we’ll get to that but we do 6 need to talk about that. To answer the Chair’s question, I think there’s some tweaking we can 7 do on the Edgewood and I think there are some larger questions that we need to discuss as 8 well. Specifically the ones that interest me, I’ll start with Edgewood. Well, actually let me start 9 with the environmental feedback because I think this was really important and I really 10 appreciate our 2 representatives of environmental organizations who spoke here tonight to 11 help answer some questions that weren’t included in the report although they did come in a 12 letter. I think Mr. Leeds reading through the words that we need to preserve these corridors is 13 sort of in conflict with we need to change these corridors and make them different. That’s 14 something I encourage staff to think about because that is different than what we have 15 received here as a staff recommendation. 16 17 The fencing study. I think I have heard similar feedback in my own explorations of replacing 18 fences so I am inclined to believe some of the public comment from the lawyer and from the 19 property owners that expressed concern over what it means to be a, quote, unquote, new 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. fence so I would like to hear from the other Commissioners about it, especially the ones with 1 legal backgrounds what they think. But that concerns me deeply. We would want people to be 2 able to replace broken, damaged, or even out-of-date fences easily on their own property but 3 especially considering that they’re against a creek and how many kinds of incidents can happen 4 where trees fall through a fence or perhaps some criminal activity damages the fence. I would 5 love to hear from staff about the planting of a specific set of approved riparian-friendly plants 6 within the fence. It’s an interesting observation from the residents but it also makes me ask 7 why did we include that? And I would also like to hear from staff about the inclusion of the 8 word fence in the part that was supposedly unchanged. Is this a good time for staff or do you 9 want to circle back after? 10 11 Chair Akin: My preference would be to address it now while it’s fresh rather than come back. 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: Sure. Chair, thank you for that suggestion. The 2 questions that I 14 posed are why are you trying to regulate what plants someone is planting inside their fence on 15 their own property and also why are we adding the word fence to the part that was supposedly 16 unchanged? 17 18 Kelly Cha: The second part, just to kind of provide, we do have language there that says building 19 and structures, I believe. And it says including but not limited to. And these list some examples. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. And if it is not listed as part of this potential list of examples, it seemed like we’re hiding. But 1 structures basically defines – in the code, that includes fences as well so we wanted to be as 2 blatant and open as possible so that there’s no gray area when somebody is trying to install 3 something. That’s why there was fences added and especially because there was a lot of 4 concern from the community members. We just wanted to be open about it, that structures 5 includes a lot of things, including fences, so we just wanted to clarify that. And then the first 6 question about the planting, I think what the slope stability protection area added, it was sort 7 of a process that we had combined the riparian corridor before that we had initially proposed in 8 the draft ordinance and the slope stability area. Riparian buffer really focused on the riparian 9 habitat and vegetation. In the process, we have combined the requirements of the vegetation 10 into the slope stability area but it’s something that supports [inaudible] stability with those 11 plants and vegetations but if the Planning and Transportation Commission feels that this is too 12 onerous and too restrictive, we can definitely remove – or the recommendation can include 13 some modification to these provisions. 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. Thank you for that. I think that adding the clarifying example 16 of a fence is really helpful and I think that we have to determine a phrasing that will allow 17 people to replace a fence and not count it as new. And then for the plants, I think we’d need to 18 evaluate, or maybe Council would need to evaluate, whether or not that needs to be regulated 19 versus recommended. There’s a lot of, for example, efforts to encourage people in the City to 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. plant drought-tolerant or local yards but it’s not required and so understanding about getting 1 people on board and figuring out how to implement our goal, which is to stabilize those banks, 2 might have to start with education and promotions and other ways to get people to voluntarily 3 plant the plants that you’re looking for. Perhaps there are some ways to restore the natural 4 beauty and add these plants in ways that we hadn’t thought about. I keep thinking about 5 Sunset Magazine and all the beautiful landscapes they’ve had. There are ways to get people on 6 board that don’t begin with a regulation or a demand. That’s some recommendations. For now 7 I’m going to leave it. I’ll probably have more comments later but I want to give everyone else a 8 chance. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Akin: Thank you. We have Commissioner Hechtman next, then Vice-Chair Chang. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I want to start by echoing Commissioner Templeton’s 13 appreciation of the public and their participation in the process of this ordinance not only 14 tonight, the public written comments that came in advance tonight, and the participation in the 15 community meeting. I think I read 63 maybe residents attended. This ordinance affects many of 16 you directly, 783 plus 139 of you specifically, and so it’s really important to have that feedback. 17 I also want to acknowledge staff’s efforts. They are trying to thread a very tough needle here. 18 They are hearing from the community, they have this general plan policy, they are hearing from 19 the environmental community, and I think there has been significant progress made from our 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. last meeting in October. I don’t necessarily agree with all of the staff conclusions but doesn’t 1 mean they’re wrong. It just means I have a different view. And so I think staff has done really 2 good work in making some changes and bringing this to us. I’ve got a lot to talk about. I’m going 3 to break it into 2 pieces, 2 rounds. In this first one I want to talk about the 30-foot distance, 4 floodwalls, and fences. At the October meeting the number was 40' but we had this diagram of 5 what a lot of the other jurisdictions are doing and a lot of their regulations are either 20 or 25'. 6 And that’s reprinted from October on Packet Page 127. And virtually all other than Novato are 7 20 or 25'. Some of them are actually measured from the center of the creek and that could be 8 even less than 20 or 25'. 9 10 I asked the question in October what is it about Palo Alto’s creeks that makes them more 11 sensitive than the creeks in all these other jurisdictions that we require 40' or some greater 12 distance than they do? And there wasn’t an answer at that time and so I encouraged that when 13 this came back to us to have an answer. And I think an effort was made in the staff report to do 14 that but I guess I’m going to say I wasn’t persuaded. The General Plan Program N3.3.1 does use 15 the number 30' but it’s in an entirely different context. What that is saying is out in the rural 16 areas, which are really on the other side of Foothill, where you have 150-foot setback, the 30' 17 closest to the creek should really be riparian plantings to have a lush riparian corridor in that 18 wide-open area. That concept is inapplicable in the urban area and so I don’t see that reference 19 to 30' being a justification for 30' here. And then Ms. Cha did a nice job of explaining sort of the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. dialogue with the biologist and how there is no magic number but we’ve got the 40' here, we 1 got the Water District saying they like 30, they got the ordinance says 20. More is better and 30 2 seemed like a good number. But that’s only half the equation because the other half of the 3 equation is asking the property owners how much of your yard do you want to use? Because 4 I’m pretty sure that almost all property owners would say more is better. 5 6 And so that’s really want we have to balance here is 2 obvious things. The more undeveloped 7 area you have adjacent to a creek the better it’s going to be for wildlife but the less good it’s 8 going to be for the people who are already there. And this city is built. We are all built to all to 9 the creeks in the urban area. And so while Palo Alto is the Tree City USA and that’s well-10 deserved, we are not built to be in the running for stream city USA. And so I don’t see the 11 benefit to going to 30'. Frankly, I haven’t seen the science to go past 20 but I recognize that a 12 number of cities have done that and I hear a lot of the public comments saying 25 is okay. And I 13 thought that was really civically minded that people who actually stand to lose 5' of usable 14 area, or more accurately not lose it but have its use limited, are willing to sort of contribute that 15 for the good of our natural environment here in Palo Alto. If this goes forward, unless 16 somebody shows me the science that every other city has missed, I’m not going to be able to 17 support 30' but I could support 25. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. On the floodwalls, this is another issue that we brought up in October. Where you have a 1 floodwall, that is an impermeable structure and it goes down many feet into the ground and 2 the whole point of it is to stop the communication of activities on one side of the floodwall with 3 the other. It’s keeping all of the water that’s in the creek on that side of the wall. And so what 4 you do on the other side of a floodwall really can’t have much effect because that floodwall is 5 there. And so staff addressed that and the explanation was well, if we excluded all the 6 properties with floodwall, then we’d be excluding most of the properties in Palo Alto. And I 7 guess my – and I don’t mean to be flippant – my attitude is well, then that’s what we need to 8 do. Because if we can’t truly benefit significantly the riparian atmosphere behind a floodwall, 9 then we shouldn’t be imposing regulations on the property owners behind those floodwalls as 10 though we can. And so I think that the people behind floodwalls should be exempt. And again, 11 this might be making too much of the language. I think in the staff report it said so many 12 properties were protected by floodwalls. I don’t know if that means the same as behind 13 floodwalls or like there are some that aren’t behind a floodwall but they’re somehow protected 14 by a floodwall? I’m really talking about the areas behind a floodwall. I think that we should not 15 be applying rules for activities behind floodwalls. 16 17 Finally, on the fences, I do agree with Ms. Cha’s comments that in the many jurisdictions that I 18 work in, the term structures generally includes fences unless it says it doesn’t. And so I do look 19 at that as not really a change in what the ordinance does but just a clarification of what it has 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. always done. And so I don’t really have an issue with that because it’s not a change. Regarding 1 the difference between replacing a fence and building a new fence, I guess I look at it this way. 2 If I’ve got a 6-foot redwood fence and it’s dilapidated, a tree falls on it, whatever, under this 3 ordinance I’m going to have a choice. I can replace it with a 6-foot redwood fence. No 4 discretionary review. I just go do it. But if I want that fence to be taller or change it to a 5 masonry fence, then I’m going to have to go through a discretionary review. But the owner has 6 the choice. And I think that’s a fair balance here. Basically we’re accepting everything as legal 7 nonconforming with a full right to replace. It’s sometimes called in-kind. Like for like. Yeah. And 8 so I think that that strikes a balance here because what you have out there today may have 9 different impacts from something different that you might want to put there. For example, the 10 load bearing of a 7-foot masonry wall might be quite different from the load bearing of your 11 existing 6-foot redwood fence. And so I think that that’s a fair balancing of these things. 12 13 I’m going to stop there although I think I kind of answered indirectly that I don’t know that the 14 changes are so fundamental that we should be starting over. I kind of didn’t look at it that way 15 and so I wasn’t really able to sort of pull back and just take that view. I’m really interested in 16 hearing what all the Commissioners have to say. Thanks. 17 18 Chair Akin: Thank you. Vice-Chair Chang? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Thanks, everyone. And in particular, thank you to all the members of the 1 public for sticking it out through our lengthy clarifying questions and really value the comments 2 that everybody has shared with us because I think it brought up some interesting points that 3 may not quite have been staff’s intent in particular. I’m thinking about one, the impact of an 4 Edgewood neighbor needing to build a new fence. While I was there, I saw an empty lot that 5 didn’t have a fence and there are very real security concerns. And then two, the comment 6 brought up by, I believe, the attorney, Jennifer L., who mentioned that there is a change to 7 what Edgewood neighbors have to do because of the riparian vegetation that would now be 8 required inside their existing fence. I think that those might be points that were not intended 9 based on the staff answers to my questions during the clarifying round. Could staff just speak to 10 that right now? 11 12 Kelly Cha: About the plants, if somebody would like to plant something, if the draft ordinance is 13 adopted as is right now, we’re not asking them to plant it there but if somebody would like to 14 plant something, we are asking them to – let me just go there to see – consider some of the 15 options that they – we’re asking them if they want to plant something that no ornamental 16 should be within the slope stability area. As I was, I think, answering Commissioner Templeton’s 17 question, the slope stability and riparian corridor was combined together since the last draft 18 and in the process we have added some of the additional sort of vegetation requirements. We 19 carried that over to the slope stability because it was kind of helping the bank stability as well 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. with the vegetation. Within the slope stability area, initially in the existing regulations, we do 1 allow, I believe, [inaudible 3:28:48] some planting of vegetation if they get an exception 2 approved. I can try to remember that. Initially I think within the slope stability area, because the 3 bank stability was sort of the reason why the stream ordinance was established, we were just 4 trying to fortify so that it meets with the Comprehensive Plan policies. But as I have explained, 5 if this is something that is too restrictive, the Commission can modify the provisions before 6 recommending or forwarding to the City Council. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Well, then I’ll take a big step back and what I will say is this. I think that 9 I understand and agree with the need to protect our riparian corridors. They are, even in 10 urbanized areas, important corridors for wildlife. Doesn’t matter if it’s lush or not. In my 11 channelized creek, I see ducks. I know that there’s all manner of other animals that also use 12 that channelized creek as a corridor. And I do remember last time this came before the PTC I 13 asked about why we’re trying to encourage riparian vegetation and preserve what riparian 14 vegetation there is alongside channelized creeks and the answer was that that vegetation 15 provides shade for the water and the area inside the creek. So while we may not have the lush 16 vegetation around the creek as in a naturalized creek, what vegetation is there remains 17 important because it preserves what limited environment we have. What I will say is this. I 18 think that there seems to be based on the lack of questions agreement on the Commission 19 about the ordinance as it applies to the rural area, so the areas west of Foothill and the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Baylands. Broad agreement at least. And I would hate to see that part delayed mainly because 1 that is the lowest-hanging fruit. It is also the greatest bang for the buck. And we’ve also seen 2 projects come before the PTC where had this ordinance been in place, we wouldn’t have had 3 structures built far too close to the creek. 4 5 I’m hoping that if we can’t come to agreement on other details, we can at least state in the 6 affirmative our agreement on the ordinance for those rural areas. Second, with respect to the 7 staff recommendation that we extend the exemption in the Baylands and west of Foothill to the 8 1 acre lots, I am very concerned about that. Mainly because we don’t know exactly how many 9 more lots would be completely exempt. And also because again, that is where we get the most 10 bang for the buck in terms of the environmental protections. And so because we have a 11 variance process and because Mr. Yang answered my questions in a way that made me feel 12 comfortable with the variance process that we have in place, I would feel much more 13 comfortable if we didn’t exempt any lots 20,000 ft2 or 1 acre. I really think that in those highly, 14 highly sensitive areas there’s a lot more to protect and we have a variance process in place and 15 should the protections present a hardship for the resident, that those exceptions will be made. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Vice-Chair... 18 19 Kelly Cha: Just a... 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Jennifer Armer: ...if I may... 2 3 Kelly Cha: Yeah. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: ...jump in to clarify. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: The 20,000 ft2 or 1 acre, that was not intended to be an exemption or an 10 exception. It was that instead of requiring the 150-foot setback, which is pretty extreme if 11 you’re looking at a lot that’s less than an acre, that it would be reduced to be the same 30-foot 12 streamside setback as is common with other lots in the urbanized area. 13 14 Vice-Chair Chang: I think I’m more comfortable with it at 20,000, not comfortable with it at an 15 acre, but I just don’t know how many we are talking about here. And again, there is a variance 16 process in place. And so... 17 18 Jennifer Armer: If it’s okay, through the Chair, we do actually have a map that illustrates why 19 staff is recommending this. At whatever point you’re ready in this discussion we can show that. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. Let’s look at it now. I think that it’s best to do it while we’re fresh. But I 2 apologize to the other Commissioners if this is not an area of interest. Maybe I’ll defer to the 3 Chair who’s in the room and can maybe read the room better? 4 5 Chair Akin: No, I think we should go ahead and take a look at the map. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. Great. 8 9 Kelly Cha: Okay. [Inaudible 3:35:04] just quickly set this up to share. Just to let you know, this is 10 a working map so hopefully this is legible enough. I’ll [inaudible 3:35:22] the aerial map. This is 11 showing impacted parcels with the 150-foot buffer. And we were looking at some of the parcels 12 that were significantly impacted. And we were worried that if we were to use 20 – actually, if 13 we were use 20,000, it’ll basically capture none of the impacted parcels because these are all 14 RE zoning district, real estate zoning district. And as I said, the 1 acre is a minimum lot size that 15 we were a little bit comfortable increasing it to that so that it captures some. May not be all but 16 it will capture some of them. This particular neighborhood will be – it’s more of an urban 17 setting than hillside and open space because of how it’s been developed with single-family 18 homes although it is a larger-size lot area. But looking at... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: Kelly? 1 2 Kelly Cha: Yes? 3 4 Jennifer Armer: I’m going to jump in just to explain what we’re looking at here. This is a 5 neighborhood at the corner of Arastradero Road and Foothill Expressway. The parcels that are 6 highlighted in yellow touch on that 150-foot setback. The light blue shading is the 150-foot 7 setback that’s required in the current draft ordinance of these parcels because they are on the 8 side of Foothill Expressway. And you can see that for many of these parcels, a significant 9 portion for many of them, more than 50 percent of the lot is covered by that 150-foot setback 10 from the stream as estimated here. And then the numbers that you see there are the lot sizes 11 on square footage. You need to remember that an acre is approximately 43,000 ft2 and so you 12 can see that many of these are hovering around just under an acre. I don’t think any of these 13 are less than 20,000... 14 15 Kelly Cha: Mm-hm. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: ...square feet which was our original recommendation. Sorry to interrupt, Ms. 18 Cha. Go ahead and continue if you had more. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Kelly Cha: No, that was [inaudible 3:38:05]. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: Well, thank you both for this very enlightening map. I wish we had been able 3 to see this beforehand. I think it’s hard to come up with the right number in terms of 30', 150' 4 on the fly. I can see the problem that is here but I would also say that a 1 acre lot is quite large 5 and to the extent possible, we should be encouraging the development of standing structures 6 and living structures to be as far as possible away. And I’m not certain that in this area with 7 large lots and natural streams that 30', what we have in the urbanized area, is sufficient. This is 8 exactly the type of area that we should be protecting. No, I don’t know what is onerous for the 9 property owners. I do hear loud and clear and also agree with members of the public that have 10 spoken that we really need to balance the environmental protections with what is appropriate 11 in the area. And so I don’t have a solution but I’m not sure that the 30 feet is the right thing 12 here and so I think I would still prefer kind of a variance process. But I can understand why staff 13 said that 20,000 is not sufficient. And maybe what we need to do is split the difference or 14 something and say 75' or something like that. But I’m not quite – I just don’t – on the fly, I don’t 15 know what the right solution is. 16 17 With that, I think I’ll just stop and I want to hear what the other Commissioners say. I want 18 some clarification on comments from the public about a new fence versus replacing an existing 19 fence because when I visited properties on Edgewood, some of the existing fences weren’t 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. great. They were like hurricane fences and I can see how if a tree fell on one that you might 1 want to just replace it but maybe not with a hurricane fence. But there’s a very real security 2 concern with an encampment behind the fence and so I want to balance what’s practical with 3 what’s protecting the integrity of the stream bank as Commissioner Hechtman was talking 4 about. Thank you. 5 6 Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice-Chair. Commissioner Ji? 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I’d like to echo my fellow Commissioners and say thank you 9 to the public for taking the time. As many of the Commissioners here know, I started out by 10 being one of the member of public who would keep this Commission here until midnight so I 11 am very acutely aware and I really appreciate the patience from the public comment. Ms. Cha, 12 if you have recalled my questions previously, I’d like to follow up and wonder other than the 13 neighborhood of the map that you just showed, how many of the 139 are within the 20,000 14 feet amount? 15 16 Kelly Cha: Actually there isn’t any properties that are under 20,000 ft2. That’s why while we 17 were looking at the parcels again with the public comments that we have discovered this and 18 included this modification request. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: Okay. I didn’t realize. Just to clarify, you’re saying there are zero lots that... 1 2 Kelly Cha: There are lots that are under 1,000 ft2. Those are not like buildable lots and those 3 might be some of the maintenance properties or easement properties but actual buildable, 4 developable lots, there aren’t any, within the Foothill area especially, when we were looking at 5 it because that was the focus in our review. Because a lot of the Foothill area is a larger size. 6 And then when we were just looking at that, we were looking at the impacted parcels at well. 7 When we were looking at the impacted parcels, yes, there was no properties that would fit 8 under that particular threshold and that is why staff recommended more modification. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I think my main comment about this is that it seems like it 11 would’ve been nice to have had the same due diligence for the other 783 parcels that are 12 impacted by the streamside ordinance in the urban area. Because, for example, I think that 13 diagram you provided was great with the impact of the 150' but as we heard today in public 14 comment, I think someone mentioned that their lot is 50' and so 30' would be 60 percent. A 15 cut-down of 150' setback to 30-foot setback would be an equivalent of reduction of the setback 16 that an urban environment person would have to go from 30' to 6'. And as you probably know if 17 you are impacted by this ordinance, that a 6-foot setback and a 30-foot setback probably feel 18 really different. I would love to have seen more analysis on the other parcels that may have 19 been impacted in the urban environment. I agree with Vice-Chair Chang that I don’t know if 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. there’s a magic number although I am supportive of having – it seems like we have general 1 alignment on the rural area and I think 75' seems somewhat reasonable based on the diagram 2 that you had but don’t want to provide any specific commentary without being able to see 3 more analysis. Zooming out, trying to answer the Chair’s question about fundamental change or 4 not, I think it’s a little bit hard to say because going through my chain of questions through 5 tonight, I feel like the main conclusion I’ve come to is that I don’t have enough information to 6 provide the answers. 7 8 I have asked a couple questions about the number of parcels impacted and the amount of 9 biological impact of having a 5-foot setback or a 30-foot setback or a channelized versus 10 unchannelized. I’m feeling like I don’t have enough information to comment on that at this 11 time. But I just want to echo my fellow Commissioner’s questions about the fencing in the 12 urban environment. But generally I’m supportive of having the streamside setbacks in the rural 13 environment. But again, want to work through what exactly that magic number might be. 14 15 Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Peterson? 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. I want to start off with big ideas. I heard Vice-Chair 18 Chang put out what sounded like an idea about splitting this into 2 motions and I just want to 19 say I’m supportive of that idea that we look at the wildlands outside of Highway 101 and 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Foothill separately as a different vote from within the urban area between Highway 101 and 1 Foothill because I agree that outside, the wildlands and Baylands and the hillsides, I think this is 2 a clear topic. Of course the map we just saw there raised some questions but I think those can 3 be resolved. But within the urban area, listening to the public comment, things about 2/3 of the 4 lot being changed and what it’s used for, camping sites, and the 5-foot setback, the question 5 about the San Francisquito Creek JPA, their silence, Silicon Valley Water, changing their plans 6 regarding their flood calculations and the bridge, it’s a fluid situation right now and I don’t think 7 there’s a rush necessarily to get anything done right now. And I’m probably the biggest 8 supporter of the riparian setback you could have. I would love to have a riparian buffer zone. 9 We should try to buy all the properties on either side of these. If possible. And then with the 10 information. We really don’t have a corridor model. The closest we got to it was literally 11 Microsoft Paint, I think, with a blue thing that I’m hoping is actually 150'. I don’t know if we 12 scaled it or not but I’m assuming it’s probably close. 13 14 I think all that could be done without a lot of effort with a consultant, just some 3D CAD-type 15 software and we could see an actual corridor and overlay it with a geographical information 16 system and just kind of look at what does this really look like? We’re not talking about anything 17 that complicated. Couple lines of code in Python maybe. And so I think that trying to balance 18 the idea of the future that we all want to see, this environmental future, maybe undoing some 19 bad decisions of the past, but then doing that at the expense of the present. People live here 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. right now. I certainly don’t have time in my life to be accommodating all these bigger ideas 1 when I’m simply trying to just get by now. I don’t think there’s anybody in the community that 2 necessarily has that bandwidth to be giving up for the greater good now when we clearly aren’t 3 in a rush to be making those decisions. And we certainly have incomplete information. I would 4 like to hear from the JPA and Silicon Valley Water a more coherent discussion. What happens 5 on the other side of the creek? Is there a parallel effort to what we have here? And so that’s 6 why I want to reiterate that I would like to see this split with a motion to separate this into 2 7 discussions, one we bring back at some time uncertain, the other one maybe we handle now 8 for the Baylands. And so that’s my comment. Thank you. 9 10 Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner James, we haven’t heard from you in this round. Do you 11 have anything you want to contribute? 12 13 Commissioner James: Sure. I think there have been some great points here and I’m not going to 14 try and repeat them all. But I guess I would agree that in the open areas that there appears to 15 be consensus and makes sense to me that that could move forward in whatever way 16 procedurally is best. I do think that the bar should be pretty high. If you’re trying to sort of take 17 or control individual property owners’ land, I think you need some pretty strong evidence to do 18 that. I think there are some things that just don’t make sense to me that you would compel 19 people to do riparian vegetation on the inside of their fence. That just on the face of it doesn’t 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. make any sense to me. If the bank is solid enough to put the fence, then it seems like – it just 1 doesn’t add up for me. I think we kind of want to do no harm to the riparian sort of greenway 2 that is there but I think we want to do no harm to the property owners. As you said, this is 3 developed. What we might want for this greenway and this important ecosystem, what we 4 might want if there was nothing there, what we would expect for it, what we would want in 5 terms of buffer zones and so forth would be very different than we’re trying to sort of retrofit it 6 after it’s in this built neighborhood. 7 8 I think the area in most question in the urban areas where there’s a lot of channeling, to me 9 that doesn’t seem like a natural stream. I feel like I am inclined to be conservative with 20' 10 seeming like a better buffer to me than 30 or even than 25. And I think that if you’re going to 11 take more than that, I think you have to have more evidence than I feel like I’ve seen. 12 13 Chair Akin: Thank you. All right. Seeing no other lights, I’ll make a few comments before the 14 next round ensues. The reason I posed the questions that I did before the beginning of this 15 round was that program in 3.3.2 is really pretty explicit about saying you should be treating the 16 natural creeks and the channelized creeks differently. In particular, setting different parameters 17 for them. Now, if you buy that argument, then we’re going about this in the wrong way. But I 18 wanted to get a sense of how strongly people felt about that particular constraint. I came into 19 this saying I don’t buy that as a requirement. I think incremental changes to what’s been 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. proposed in the draft are sufficient. And there really aren’t very many and many of them are 1 not very controversial. Kind of trying to consolidate on the fly, I think there are 8 and probably 4 2 of them we all have broad agreement on and the others could probably be worked out. But 3 there is one remaining hurdle to get over that I think we probably also have agreement on 4 before you could get to treating all those individually and that’s do you accept Edgewood as 5 being special? I do because as far as I can tell, the combination of hardened banks and a 6 significant security issue together is what makes Edgewood unique. One of the proposals that 7 came from public comment was you should extend this sort of special treatment to San 8 Francisquito Creek in general. And that really goes too far. 9 10 I spent some time looking at the territory and at the topo maps for the stretch between 11 Marlowe and University and not only is the creek really physically different there but the 12 construction there is really different including buildings that are absolutely on top of the bank. 13 So whether you go for a 20-foot streamside setback or a 40-foot streamside setback makes no 14 difference in a lot of that territory. A lot of stuff is already grandfathered in. I think Edgewood 15 really is special and once you accept that, then you can make some progress on a lot of the 16 specifics. You could talk about whether you really have to have the 5-foot setback from top of 17 bank to fence. You can talk about whether your streamside setback should be 20, 25, or 30. You 18 can resolve the question of whether ornamental plantings inside fencing need to be riparian. 19 Those are all fairly small questions that I suspect we could get some agreement on even tonight 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. if you wanted to push through them. That was why I was trying to see if there was interest in 1 focusing at that level. All right. That’s enough for me for this round. I’d like to hear the 2 remainder from my fellow Commissioners. Commissioner Hechtman? 3 4 Commissioner Hechtman: Thanks. Commissioner Templeton led off the first round and I know 5 she held some comments and I was waiting to see if she wanted to lead off round 2 since she’s 6 been waiting the longest. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: You’re so kind. I agree with the Chair that we have had a really good 9 discussion here tonight and I don’t think we differ that much and I do think that Edgewood 10 does deserve a call-out and I do think we need to be able to repair the egregious things. And I 11 think we need to examine whether other properties also deserve a bit of a call-out. And I’m not 12 sure we’re going to be prepared to have the 40, 30, 25, 20 argument tonight. If what I hear you 13 saying is shall we work out what we can and then come back to do more, I’m concerned 14 because we have a very, very full docket for the next eternity. But I might also fall asleep. I 15 stand with Commissioner Hechtman about 20 seems reasonable, 25 seems reasonable, 30 16 starts to edge towards where’s the data? I think before we regulate the plants, we need to 17 demonstrate the plants if that makes any sense. A little bit of the carrot before we get the stick. 18 And then fencing, I fundamentally disagree with you, Commissioner Hechtman. I do understand 19 what you’re saying about the weight of the wall and the interaction of the wall with the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. landscape but people need to be able to change the – if I change the orientation of the 1 redwood slats is that a new fence? Do I have to move it by 5'? Where’s the boundary? And 2 that’s what lacks clarity for me. Because all the new modern look on your fencing being 3 horizontal is really cool. You’re not laughing. Goodness. Takes a lot to impress you. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: I’ve got old fence that’s horizontal so what’s old is new. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, there you go. That’s where I got the inspiration. Those are all 8 easy to deal with, as the Chair said. I think we could get through those tonight. What really is 9 bothering me is this underlying conversation about – I’m going to use some uncharitable 10 framing here but like what’s performative and what’s going to make a difference? And when we 11 talk about improving the environmental health of our city, how do you know if you improved it 12 if you don’t have any measurement, any scientific approach, any data? And it’s really elusive 13 because a lot of these things – biology is not the easiest science to measure in some ways and 14 we have arguments about it all the time. We’re constantly changing our concepts of things we 15 thought we knew. I think we should continue to pursue improving the health of our creeks. I 16 think we can start by some of the basic things that our community has suggested which is 17 cleaning them, patrolling them, keeping them safe from criminal activity that could be far more 18 damaging than what plant I put inside my fence. It’s about perspective. When I’m thinking 19 about this, I want to find a way to embrace the values that we all share, which are protecting 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. this environment and protecting this city and protecting the people of this city and their 1 property. All of these things are things we share as values. 2 3 But when we look at this and we’re finding ourselves all in a tussle about it, I have to wonder 4 what we can do to improve? And that’s really what’s underlying my feedback tonight is how do 5 we work with staff? How do we work to provide good input and feedback to Council so that 6 they can come back and give us clearer direction? Because this is abstract. Make it better. We 7 don’t know what’s wrong. What if we fix something that wasn’t what was wrong? And this 8 happens all the time in business, in art, every aspect of life. We have to think about the impact 9 and if our goal is to make something better, we have to know what it is that we’re making 10 better. I’m going to stop there. Thanks. 11 12 Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you, Chair. To your issue about the exemption for Edgewood, I 15 am supportive of that at its current reach rather than an expanded reach. I think there seems to 16 be some logic into the demarcation that staff picked for that. And then this next point is a little 17 bit related to the channelized versus natural because there is in our packet a letter from 18 Regional Water Quality Control Board where I thought they made some fairly cogent points 19 about there are environmental values even in channelized creeks. And I thought they did a 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. good job of that. And so I don’t know whether those values are different enough from the 1 natural creek that we want a whole separate set of guidelines. It’s another complication. We 2 could do it for sure. But I did also think it was interesting in that not even the Regional Water 3 Quality Control Board tried to defend protecting riparian values behind floodwalls. They made 4 no effort to encourage us to do that. That really relates back to the floodwall. I want to start 5 with the findings because I’ve got some issues with those. Those appear on Packet Page 38 and 6 as I think Ms. Cha pointed out earlier, there was a slide that referred to detrimental or injurious 7 but that’s not the standard. It appears on 38 and 39. I think all of these are potentially 8 problematic. 9 10 The first one is no reasonable alternative. One of the public speakers spoke about this. Imagine 11 I want to put a concrete patio in my backyard along the creek, 10 x 10, and 6' of that 10' are in 12 the streamside setback area. Whether that’s 25 or 30, 6 of the 10' are. Well, I can’t make that 13 finding because, it can be reduced to 9 so now it’s 9 x 10. But that can’t be approved because I 14 can reduce it to 8. And so forth until I’m out of it. And so I think that the reasonable alternative 15 here is avoid it by doing a 4 x 10 patio. And so I just think this needs more thought into 16 something that is actually workable. Because I know that’s the intent of staff is to have some 17 kind of mechanism that is objective because there’s a myriad of issues that could come up of 18 things that people want to do in the setback area. But that one is not ready to go. The next one, 19 special circumstances. This is essentially a variance findings and I think Mr. Yang referenced 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that earlier. And it’s kind of funny. You have to have a special circumstance to the streamside 1 ordinance so that you can get an exception from it. 2 3 I have handled in my career a number of variances and I would say that for more of those 4 variances than any other, the special circumstance was there was a creek running through the 5 property. And because there’s a creek running through the property, I couldn’t get a house of 6 reasonable size back far enough on the lot or far enough from one of the side yard setbacks. 7 And so here, is the creek the special circumstance? Because if it is, then this finding really does 8 nothing. And if it’s not, then I don’t know what would be. And the third finding is you have to 9 have a qualified biologist prepare an assessment. And so for this, I wanted to ask Ms. Cha if we 10 know the approximate cost. And again, this would apply to even, I think, locating a new fence in 11 the stream setback area. Ms. Cha, do we know the estimated cost to have a biologist prepare 12 the kind of study that’s contemplated here? 13 14 Kelly Cha: Yes. We have consulted our project team biologist who actually does this kind of 15 work also and he had a lot of caveats because it varies depending on how close the property is 16 located or project is located to a stream and lot of variables can impact but what he has 17 provided was a range of $2,000 to $5,000. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, That’s helpful. That’s good knowledge for us to know that’s 1 what it takes to build a new fence if a new fence is to be one of the things that requires an 2 exception. Or just a concrete patio. All right, so I feel like the findings need more work. Next, I 3 want to talk about the ornamental plants. I think that that regulation should be limited to the 4 stream side of the existing fence. If it’s in your yard, it doesn’t apply. But if your fence is not all 5 the way to the creek bank and there’s room behind there on the creek side, then if you want to 6 plant – and I don’t know why anybody would want to plant behind a solid fence on the creek 7 side, but if they did, those can’t be ornamental. That’s what I think is a good solution there. 8 Now I want to talk about the rural areas and I want to start in the Baylands because there’s an 9 area I brought up in October that is going to be subject to this ordinance and I don’t think it 10 works. And so Ms. Cha, can you bring up Google Earth for where Adobe Creek crosses 101? It’s 11 right by Elwell Court and there’s a bike trail up there that runs back to the sailing lake. That’s it. 12 A little bit north. Yes. Where it says Recor Medical. I want to get to the end of the buildings 13 along 101 so bring the map – slide it downward a little bit. Oh. Keep going down. Down. A little 14 bit more. Right there. Okay. That’s good. 15 16 You can see that pond along 101 right above the words East Bayshore. Okay. And then below 17 that, that’s Adobe Creek. And now if we can kind of zoom in to the buildings that are – yeah. 18 You’re pointing at it. Zoom in. I raised this issue last time. This is Elwell Court and this cluster of 19 buildings here, you can see the creek and you can see there’s a paved trail next to it. But at 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. least the front buildings and possibly part of the back of the buildings farther from the creek, 1 they’re all within 150'. And so they immediately become legal nonconforming. Now I was 2 thinking maybe we get protection from the ordinance where if you’re separated from the 3 stream by a public or private street or alley or paved public trail, which this is, or service road, 4 however it has to be wider than 10'. And I rode that today and I’m pretty sure it’s 8' wide. And 5 so it doesn’t qualify for the exception, this cluster of buildings, and I think this is the only cluster 6 of buildings on the bay side where this is an issue. And so I think there has to be – maybe it’s 7 the 30' here or some treatment that doesn’t make these buildings legal nonconforming the day 8 we adopt the ordinance. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: Don’t these flood a lot? The reason I’m asking is because maybe it’s 11 noncompliant for a reason. But if I recall – I used to have a day care over there I took my 12 daughter to and it floods a lot. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: There is a day care that... 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: Is a little further up? 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. It’s up closer to where Embarcadero crosses. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Hm. Okay. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: I’ve been... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: I could be wrong. That was a question. Doesn’t that flood a lot? 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Well, what we can see is the beginning of the newer bike bridge, 7 bike/pedestrian bridge there that – yeah, that’s it. But there’s a channel underneath. And I 8 know during the wet season – that’s how you used to get across the freeway on your bike 9 underneath that but in the wet season, you couldn’t because the water was high enough. But I 10 never saw it cross that. Anyway, I think that’s a problem that needs to be solved as this 11 ordinance goes forward because it’s not a realistic treatment of that group of properties which, 12 like I said, I think is the only one on the bay side. When we look at the area on the other side of 13 Foothill – actually before I talk about that let me just say I think this has to come back to us. I 14 don’t think we can split up the rural from the urban because it’s all one ordinance. And what 15 I’m kind of seeing is sometimes we’re talking about the rural, something triggers about the 16 urban and vice versa, so I think we have to keep it together. And I think it needs to come back 17 to us. And when it comes back to us, to illuminate this discussion of 1 acre or not, I think you 18 should take that map, which I thought was very interesting, and overlay it on an aerial. Because 19 while I was sitting here, after looking at that map I looked at the aerial and while if this were 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. vacant land waiting for development, maybe 150', you could work around it on some parcels. 1 Some parcels you clearly can’t. But it’s not undeveloped. 2 3 And I think when we do that overlay what you’ll see is there are houses in that 150', tennis 4 courts, pools, all kinds of stuff. And this is the headwaters basically of Adobe Creek. It’s very 5 small. It gets bigger as it goes through Palo Alto and collects more water. And so I think that the 6 1 acre makes a lot of sense. And I think that that graphic will demonstrate that. I don’t want to 7 just do some kind of compromise to pick a number between 30 and 150. And I don’t want to 8 impose on people in this situation the burden of going through a variance procedure for which 9 a biological study is only one cost. You have to get consultants to prepare the findings for the 10 variance. You have to pay an application fee. But I’d like to see that when it comes back. Let’s 11 see. And then just finally a couple of minor comments on the ordinance itself other than the 12 things we all have been talking about. In this language I just read on Packet Page 36 about – it 13 says or paved public trail or service road wider than 10'. I think that should say or paved public 14 trail or a service road wider than 10'. Because the service roads, a lot of them are not paved. 15 The Water District roads along the creeks, I think those are gravel. But nothing grows. And so 16 that should be exempt too. 17 18 On Packet Page 37, towards the bottom of the page, existing riparian vegetation including 19 woody riparian vegetation shall be retained to the maximum extent possible. Well, I’ve never 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. liked that standard because the maximum extent possible is just leave it. That’s the no-project 1 result and so I think we need to work on that. Let’s see. Yeah. That was the last one. Extensive 2 comments but I do think we’re heading in the right direction. I think this has been a robust 3 discussion and I feel like we are getting closer to something that should work. Thanks. 4 5 Chair Akin: Vice-Chair Chang? 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay, so I just wanted to push Commissioner Hechtman on why – I think it’s 8 fine for things to be rendered legal nonconforming because if the goal of this ordinance is to 9 not make things worse, then what we really want to be controlling is new construction. And so 10 the problem seems bigger than it is when we talk about 783 parcels being affected in the 11 urbanized area because most of those are existing homes. Many of them will be limited by FAR 12 as it is. And so as currently crafted at least, the ordinance was clear about this not applying 13 unless somebody is trying to push the development closer to the stream. Which is exactly what 14 we are trying to – we’re trying to preserve things as is. We’re not trying to take things away. I’m 15 just trying to reframe this a little bit. We’re not trying to take things away. We’re trying to 16 preserve things as is and not worsen a situation. Which is probably conservative as it is because 17 the situation in terms of erosion, etc., for those nonchannelized areas is worsening. We know 18 that climate change is increasing flooding and we’ve seen in the most recent floods a bunch of 19 trees just collapse into things like Adobe Creek, into Matadero. I’ve seen sections in Palo Alto 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. for Adobe and in Matadero. I was actually in Menlo Park but we are just as vulnerable to that. 1 And so it makes good sense from a safety perspective to not have people build closer so having 2 things legal nonconforming, I don’t think that’s a problem because it’s not a taking. 3 4 People can continue to remodel, rebuild. And it’s actually fairly generous with respect to this 5 ordinance because they can fill in corners as long as the leading edge is not closer to the 6 stream. I just wanted to reframe to say that that part of it is not necessarily a taking. Now, with 7 respect to the landscaping, perhaps that’s an issue. Maybe with the patio, perhaps that’s an 8 issue. But it also may make good sense not to build closer. I think we might need to look at that 9 a little bit more carefully. Second, I wanted to bring up one comment that I think might have 10 gotten lost in the shuffle that I think also makes a lot of really good sense which is – I think it 11 was brought by the Sierra Club where they said to not have trails on both sides of a stream. I 12 think that that makes really good sense and might be something that we could quickly add in. 13 And so other than that, I would – I support the Chair’s idea that we can modify from where we 14 are except that it’s getting pretty late so I’m not quite sure how far we will get. Finally, I do 15 think that we can split off the rural areas from the urbanized areas. Yes, it is one ordinance but I 16 just want to – that’s the part where I really want to see this ordinance be put into effect. And if 17 we are going to continue, I would love it if we could get some agreement at least on the rural 18 section. I can’t see if there’s more lights but I’m ready to make a motion for the rural portion. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: Do it. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: Do it? Okay. Great. I would like to move staff’s recommendation for this 3 ordinance as it applies to the, quote, unquote, rural areas, meaning the areas west of Foothill 4 Expressway and east of 101, and I’m going to move staff’s recommendation as it is in the packet 5 with the 20,000' rather than with the 1 acre. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: I’ll second that. It’s Forest. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: How do we proceed, Chair? 10 11 Chair Akin: I’m about to ask Commissioner Peterson if he’d like to speak to his second and you if 12 you’d like to speak any further to your motion. Commissioner Chang, do you have any further 13 [inaudible 4:21:27] motion? 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: I think I spoke to it earlier but basically I think this is the low-hanging fruit. It 16 is also the fruit with the most impact. We have seen projects that come up in open space and 17 we don’t – these are the most sensitive areas and these are the areas that need protection as 18 highlighted by the Comp Plan. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Okay. Commissioner Peterson, would you like to speak to your second? 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. I’m swayed by Vice-Chair Chang’s arguments. One of the 3 principles in engineering is the more complicated an equation is usually means we don’t 4 understand what’s going on. Everything between Foothill and 101 has gotten to the point 5 where I don’t know what’s going on. I want to see a global model of it. I want to walk through 6 it. That means I really don’t understand. I think we need more time. But I would like to see the 7 part of this that is simple. We’ve got one area by Adobe Creek that does need a variance. I 8 agree. I think we can take care of that. Adobe Creek’s going to be a tide zone in the next 100 9 years anyways. They’re going to have to raise the whole freeway through there. It’s clearly a 10 bigger issue so I got no problem with giving a variance to those lots there. But something like 11 this with the Foothill and the Baylands could almost pass on consent at Council. I don’t think it’s 12 even going to be controversial so that’s why I support this. 13 14 Chair Akin: I guess the only question I have for the Vice-Chair is we’ve heard some pretty good 15 arguments from staff about the sensitivity of the lot size to which the 30-foot setback would 16 apply and I don’t think we have the answers to that. Are we recommending to Council to adopt 17 this and trusting that staff will convey the uncertainties to Council or are we looking for this to 18 stay with us so that we could adjust those sizes at a date uncertain? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: My answer to that is I really think that for those lots, we’d have to go look at 1 them one by one. I think it’s a very different – I don’t think that it’s one number for all of them 2 and that’s not the right thing to do. And it’s not that many lots. Again, I could be wrong but I 3 would have trusted that staff would give us that data. Because short of going into every single 4 lot – it’s not realistic to come up with a number, I don’t think. That’s why I kind of stuck with 5 the plan as in the packet. 6 7 Chair Akin: Commissioner Hechtman? 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: I won’t be supporting the motion. It does not address the concerns of 10 this cluster of properties on the Bayshore side at all. It leaves it to a future question mark. It 11 makes those properties legal nonconforming. And in the Foothill area, Foothill and Arastradero, 12 I really don’t think the Commission has the information to make an informed decision on this 13 motion without seeing the overlay. I have heard a number of the Commissioners tonight talk 14 about the fence issue, existing fences will become legal nonconforming, and just the concern 15 about well, any change of materials and you’ve got to comply. Well, now we’re applying that 16 legal nonconforming, those regulations, not to a fence, which is important, but to the house 17 that you have or the guest house or whatever. And we don’t even know what we’re applying it 18 to because we haven’t yet seen the overlay. And so I just think it’s premature. I also don’t know 19 what the Council’s going to do with this if we do forward only piece of an ordinance. I think 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. they’ll just sit on it and tell us to finish it. And so I don’t want to give them half of what they 1 have sent to us. I want to send them a complete package that everything ties together so I will 2 be voting no on this motion. 3 4 Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton? 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I really empathize with what you said and I’m glad you 7 phrased it like that. I will ask staff again are we going to be able to get some of the refinements 8 or data that we have asked for? I think that’s really the question for me. Yes, I want that 9 information too, Commissioner Hechtman, but I don’t know that we can get it. We keep asking. 10 Let me just be more pointed. Is this something that you think you can provide us, Ms. Cha? Or 11 anyone who feels that they could answer that question? 12 13 Coleman Frick: Just to clarify the question, you’re talking about data and there’s been obviously 14 quite a bit of conversation this evening. Is that specific to the data that Commissioner 15 Hechtman is mentioning about those lots in that specific area that we showed? 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: His concern for this motion is going to apply to any other thing we 18 talk about tonight. This is the very first thing I said on the very first clarification question was 19 how do we get the data we need in order to recommend this? Because we’re seeing the 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. seriousness of these changes reflected in the public comment and we have to as part of our 1 public responsibility justify our recommendations. We don’t have the data to justify them. This 2 is an example. We have been talking about all the things we’re not sure we can do tonight and 3 we were thinking well, we can move forward on this one maybe and Commissioner Hechtman’s 4 point is can we? Because we don’t have data for this either. I’m hoping that staff can provide us 5 some glimpse into the future of if we waited, can we get the information that we need in order 6 to make this decision? 7 8 Chair Akin: Any further discussion? If not, we will call the vote. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 4:28:16]. 11 12 Chair Akin: Oh. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 4:28:19]. 15 16 Chair Akin: Oh, I’m sorry. Now I’m fading. 17 18 Jennifer Armer: Common occurrence here for all of us, I think. The problem is I don’t have a 19 clean answer for you because I think there is some additional data and information that we can 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. provide you. The idea of taking that 150-foot line that we drew on that map, which of course is 1 from the center line, not the top of bank so it’s not precise, and overlaying that on an aerial so 2 you can see where the existing development is, some of those kinds of things, yeah, we can pull 3 that together. And then there’s other parts of the data that you’ve been talking about and 4 wanting and mapping that aren’t within our capacity and budgeting at this point, as we’ve 5 talked about before, because it is getting really into a level of detail that we aren’t resourced 6 for on a citywide ordinance. It’s [inaudible 4:29:23]]. 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you for that very fair answer. I think that is accurate and that 9 is why I wanted to talk about it because I don’t think we’re going to get that. We have to think 10 about what is the message we want to send to Council with our motion? Now, my 11 understanding – and the maker can correct me here if I’m misinterpreting. But we’re saying this 12 is kind of the direction you should go and you probably need more information. We sure do. Is 13 that what you want or do you want us to say no, we think we have enough information, go 14 forth? 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: I think it’s a mix of the two. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Fair enough. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: I think, like I said, we could have all the information in the world and then 1 we’d have to pick a number and then it would render – I think in this situation I would prefer 2 for it to be fluid because every parcel is going to be different. And so I think it’s both that we 3 have enough information and that we don’t and that the information that we don’t have is not 4 necessarily realistic to get. And I do think that there was pretty clear direction in our Comp Plan 5 and given to us by Council that these rural areas are the really important areas. Not to say that 6 the other ones aren’t also important but these are really important and also high impact. And 7 so I just want to get something done on this. I’m not sure that we’re going to get to the solution 8 on the rest of it. 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: I think the challenge is still while we have an aspirational goal, that 11 that is very clear that we want to protect these riparian passageways, but we don’t know what 12 is going to be affected by these changes other than property rights. We don’t have anything 13 that we can measure to say this is the status before, this is the thing we change, this is the 14 status after. Oh, yeah, we know that that thing worked. Because we’re taking somebody’s – 15 anyway. I think that’s a valid point and I’m wondering if there’s something that maybe you and 16 Commissioner Hechtman could talk about that would improve this motion so that we could get 17 something that we agree on? Would you be open to talking about that? 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Of course. I’m always open to talking. But I’m not in the room, again, so I 1 can’t figure out what’s going on. Some help, please, from the Chair. 2 3 Chair Akin: All right. Let me first interject and say Commissioner Peterson has been waiting 4 patiently. I’d like to get his comments and then we’ll see what we can work out. 5 6 Commissioner Peterson: Perfect timing. I would like to propose a compromise, I think a friendly 7 amendment, that protects the properties on Adobe because I think those are existing 8 properties. I don’t think we’re going to be doing anything to help those so that’s why – I don’t 9 know if we can simply exclude Adobe Creek and the Baylands and just solve it like that because 10 that takes care of those properties completely and Council would be okay with that? And then 11 north of Foothill, I really don’t think those are going to be a problem because if you notice – I 12 don’t know if we call them hockey stick lots or flagpole lots but the driveway, it has that narrow 13 easement or not even an easement but it goes right across the creek? Which means it’s almost 14 clearly a culvert at that point. So I don’t think there’s going to be like a flood zone or any – like 15 you said, that’s a small stream at that point. And I agree with Vice-Chair Chang that those lots, 16 each one’s going to be an individual lot. And if you turn on the image on that, yeah, you’re 17 going to see probably a tennis court over the creek at some point so I would just let those ride 18 and take care of the Adobe properties. And that would be my friendly amendment is we just 19 simply exclude the Adobe Creek setback. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Vice-Chair Chang: Is there an amen-, I just [inaudible 4:34:06]. 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. Vice-Chair, would you accept a friendly amendment? 4 5 Chair Akin: Well, we’re still under discussion but... 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Okay. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 4:34:11]. 10 11 Chair Akin: ...we may get there yet though. Commissioner Ji? 12 13 Commissioner Ji: Just to be clear, you mean the Adobe setback only on the outside of 101? 14 Okay. Do we have a sense of how many – does it cover all the buildings that you want it to? 15 16 Jennifer Armer: Chair, if I may ask a clarifying question? I believe when we’re talking about the 17 Adobe Creek exception that Commissioner Peterson has suggested, I want to clarify that we’re 18 talking about the 2 buildings that Commissioner Hechtman was concerned about that had the 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 8-foot-wide paved path? A simpler way to accomplish this might be to modify the 10-foot width 1 of the path down to 8? 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. That’s what... 4 5 Jennifer Armer: Rather than another exclusion. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: I was thinking that that’s probably simpler. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. I think that might be the way to go. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: I don’t even know that you really need a width there. Public, private 12 street, paved public trail or service road. I don’t know that you need any width. And that, I 13 think, totally protects those properties. Actually, let me just ask. I’m looking on Packet Page 36 14 and that is the – actually I’m just noticing now this is the – oh. Except for the slope stability 15 protection. Yeah, so that would work. That would solve that problem. And I’m ready to support 16 a motion for those Baylands now if we want to break it into 2 motions because I’m still not 17 ready to – and the other possibility is I think we could call that Foothill/Arastradero/Adobe 18 Creek area, a discrete area. And if we wanted to limit the 30-foot on an acre or less there so 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. that we don’t worry about all the rest of Palo Alto, I’d also be comfortable with that as a kind of 1 compromise. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: I’m not sure I understood what you were saying, Commissioner Hechtman. 4 Could you say that again? 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. For example, we identified the stretch along Edgewood as 7 deserving an exemption. And that’s an area. What I’m talking about is we take this area that 8 was shown on the map which is bounded by Foothill at Arastradero and it’s got Adobe Creek 9 running through it, it’s a discrete area, and we call that area whatever we want. 10 11 Chair Akin: Esther Clark. 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Hm? 14 15 Chair Akin: Esther Clark, right? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, the Esther Clark area. And this exception for what parcels – is it 18 smaller than 1 acre? The setback is 30' only applies to the Esther Clark area. And so that it won’t 19 apply outside of that area. Because that’s the area staff has brought us where it’s clearly going 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to apply. And just again, looking at Google, it’s not just tennis courts. It’s houses. Tons of houses 1 in the 150 '. But I’d be... 2 3 Chair Akin: Yeah. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: ...comfortable with that because I trust that staff, if there was 6 another area where there were a lot of houses on 1 acre, they would have brought that to our 7 attention. 8 9 Chair Akin: I’d observe that if you limit it to that area, you no longer need to specify the lot size. 10 11 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. That’s would work. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: I think I’m most concerned actually about the Elwell Court properties because 14 we shouldn’t be building there. We shouldn’t be building more there. Is that where you’re 15 talking about hundreds of houses, Commissioner Hechtman? 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: No. On Elwell Court at that – I’m going to guess that’s commercial 18 zoning. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: Those are office buildings. 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 5 6 Commissioner Hechtman: And I don’t believe that those are housing opportunity sites but we 7 are at 150' behind an 8-foot paved path, we are imposing riparian requirements. And limitation. 8 9 Vice-Chair Chang: What’s the concern with it being rendered legal nonconforming? They can 10 continue that use. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: We don’t know – the only reason to make it legal nonconforming is if 13 we think that it best serves the environmental purposes to some day do something different 14 and to impose this burden on them that limits their ability to redevelop those sites. But again, 15 this is on the other side of a path, a paved path, and so generally we’ve decided that anywhere 16 in our city, if it’s on the other side of a service road or a paved path or a public or private street, 17 that’s where the riparian impact will end. This is on the other side. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: I understand your point about in other parts of the City but unfortunately this 1 isn’t like other parts of the City because this is a development that’s effectively jutting out into 2 the Baylands. If I could wave a magic wand and make it go away, I would love to do that. Now, 3 obviously we can’t do that because that would be taking some land and rights from somebody 4 but right now we allow them to continue their current use and that’s probably one of the most 5 sensitive areas. 6 7 Commissioner Hechtman: Well, I’d be open to hearing a biologist. I know you are apparently a 8 trained biologist but I don’t know if you studied that land. But if they want to bring a biologist 9 here and explain to us why that was really a big mistake and by ending that life and removing – 10 because it’s all paved. It’s got islands of landscaping but it’s a parking lot and buildings. 11 12 Commissioner Peterson: [Inaudible 4:40:45]. 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 15 16 Vice-Chair Chang: Right. 17 18 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: We’ve got other public facilities down Bayshore. And those are 1 exempt. Those have to comply to the extent practical. So we’re already relaxing the rules for 2 government. Why are we going to pick on private property owners? 3 4 Vice-Chair Chang: Could you pull up the map again, Ms. Cha? 5 6 Jennifer Armer: Yeah. I asked Ms. Cha to share that map because I thought we were talking 7 about those hillside parcels with the 1 acre but then we switched back to the Baylands. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: We did. We jumped back to the Baylands. 10 11 Jennifer Armer: Just want to make sure we’re all clear and understanding what we’re talking 12 about. I think she’s now switched us back to the Baylands for that map. Would you like to look 13 at those smaller parcels just at Arastradero and Foothill or Baylands? 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: No, I wanted to look at the Baylands one. 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 18 19 Jennifer Armer: Okay. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Hechtman: Right. Before we leave the image you have, just to orient us, this is a 2 little bit farther north and what we’re seeing here is this is a city complex right next to – I think 3 that’s Matadero Creek at that location. And then as we head a little bit south we get to Adobe 4 Creek. Right. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: But if I understand correctly, the ordinance would apply equally to the City 7 properties at Matadero as they would with these. 8 9 Commissioner Hechtman: No. There’s an exemption in the ordinance that says the City, for all 10 government entity developments, they need to try to comply to the extent its practical. It’s in 11 the ordinance. 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: Well, I still – but the City would be presumably doing it for public benefit. I 14 think that’s what the – I think I would leave it as nonconforming. That’s how I would feel about 15 these ones. 16 17 Commissioner Templeton: And perhaps given that this is your area of expertise, Commissioner 18 Hechtman, it might be helpful for you to explain why it would matter that they would be legal 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. conforming. And I believe that would be because of like property sales and devalue the 1 property or something like that? Or could you maybe clarify? 2 3 Commissioner Hechtman: Well, there are – again, we had the conversation tonight about 4 fences. If you want to replace exactly what’s there, then you can do that. If you want to change, 5 if you want to expand, there are limitations on that. And so it affects the utility of the property. 6 And the only reason we would do it is that it somehow would benefit a sensitive environmental 7 area. But we already have this bisector of a paved trail between it and the sensitive creek area. 8 Again, the only real difference is the ordinance was saying 10' and I think that trail is 8. 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: I think my concern with this is that a 10-foot – I think my concern with it is 11 that in prior conversations we were always talking about a trail in a urbanized area. This is a 12 different animal here. And what we’ve seen with the housing element is an incredible amount 13 of density going up kind of in the southern area right next to the Baylands, which I never 14 thought was a very good place to put it. The trail is not a big impediment here. I think it’s the 15 argument for treating this differently but this trail is different from something in an urbanized 16 area because there’s no buildings on the other side of it. Just this one side. I just don’t think it’s 17 quite an apples-to-apples comparison. And I think if we go back to the purpose of the ordinance 18 and the purpose of trying to do these limitations on these areas is we’re trying not make it 19 worse. And by making a use legal nonconforming, they can continue using it as is but I wouldn’t 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. want to see a 30-foot building here hulking over the creek. That would really change things 1 there. And this is a natural creek. I’d like to just continue with it as is and see what happens. 2 Maybe... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: Is it a natural creek? 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: On that side, yeah. On that side of 101, yeah. I walk by, bike by all [inaudible 7 4:45:50]. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Not there. I mean, to the – some of it is but this blue part – I 10 remember because that’s where the bike would come out, right? The bike path. Right, Bart? I 11 don’t think it’s yet naturalized but shortly past it it is. But I don’t know if that’s relevant but I 12 just wanted to correct the statement because I think this area is a little bit more channelized 13 than you may remember for some few feet. I don’t know how long. 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: Maybe for a few feet but I think we just need to – there has to be probably 16 some construction there just because it’s gone under the freeway but after that, I think I would 17 keep it as is. I’d like to continue forward. Maybe I don’t have the votes here but the creek is 18 natural there. There’s reeds that go up there. I walk... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Templeton: I know. I was there every day for 5 years. 1 2 Vice-Chair Chang: Right, so then you know. I just... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: I believe it goes 20' one direction, then it doubles back because 5 that’s how you get up from the underpass, the prior underpass. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Yeah. 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: I do have my light. I was hoping I could speak. 10 11 Chair Akin: Yeah. In fact, we have several lights. Commissioner Peterson is... 12 13 Commissioner Templeton: I will happily take my turn. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Akin: ...Commissioner Peterson is next. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. I just wanted to point out I’m pretty sure that’s an 18 irrigation ditch because that’s a straight ditch. That’s not a natural meandering tidal – that 19 would’ve been natural for this region. That’s somebody’s agricultural ditch that they were using 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to drain South Palo Alto at one point. And it has a levee there which is undoubtedly what they 1 dug out and piled up next to it so it’s already – and it’s on the edge of a commercial area. It’s 2 not like it’s going to be restored or anything. It’s already kind of established that that is 3 commercialized land with a levee. Everything past the levee, and I would say even the City 4 facility, I’m not sure what it’s doing out there but that’s a different discussion. It seems fair 5 enough to just set this one aside and then we can move on, we can protect the Baylands, we 6 can protect the Foothills. 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: Am I correct? This is Adobe Creek. I’ve done 4 or 5 creek clean-ups there. And 9 it’s a big deal there. It’s not leveed. I remember getting... 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: That’s what the bike path’s on, isn’t it? 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: But we’re talking about – there might be 20' or the first section but we were 14 talking about that whole section of the entire development. It actually unfortunately goes quite 15 deep into the Baylands. 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: Where does it turn into Mountain View on the back of that lot? 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: I don’t think it does. [Inaudible 4:48:46]. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Peterson: Because the right side of that lot is Mountain View, isn’t it? The border 2 with Mountain View? 3 4 Chair Akin: [Inaudible 4:48:50] 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: Yeah. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair? 9 10 Chair Akin: Ms. Armer? Oh. Mr. Frick? 11 12 Coleman Frick: It’s San Antonio Road. 13 14 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 15 16 Coleman Frick: That’s the boundary. The Homekey Project, that’s the edge of the Palo Alto side. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Are you done? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Yeah. And then, I’m sorry, we have Commissioner Ji next and then Commissioner 1 Templeton. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Just trying to move on. 4 5 Chair Akin: [Inaudible 4:49:19]. Okay. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: Oh, thank you. I apologize for jumping my turn. I’m trying to figure 8 out where we do have agreement because I think that was the original intent of this motion. Do 9 we want to adjust the scope so that we can pass a motion? Because I think we’ve gotten really 10 distracted here. Generally I think the reason that we’re not able to complete the requested 11 direction or recommendation tonight is because of property ownership and making sure we 12 understand the value proposition or cost. If that is happening in this section as well and 13 preventing us from making a motion, is there anything we can do to adjust it so we can move 14 forward? Or do you seriously just want to cut bait and just see how it lands? Is that... 15 16 Chair Akin: To whom are you addressing the question? 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: I am addressing that to Vice-Chair Chang. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: I’m just tired. I think I want to just conti-, I think I stand by the purpose of 1 having this ordinance and we’re trying to not do additional harm. And so I thought it was pretty 2 clear-cut within these areas and I understand that... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: What kind of harm are you trying to prevent? I think both of you 5 have brought up harm. 6 7 Vice-Chair Chang: Additional environmental damage. I would like to see... 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Is it causing damage right now? 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: No. That’s why I think we leave it as is. It’s allowed to continue as is with the 12 current use which would then become legal nonconforming. 13 14 Commissioner Templeton: But I think that the position that has been offered as another lens on 15 this is that moving forward in this would create new harm to the property owners. 16 17 Vice-Chair Chang: I understand that and I think that in this case, the balance is appropriate. I’m 18 not so sure that the balance as currently written in the ordinance is appropriate for the 19 urbanized areas and so that’s why I was making this motion. I would like to see where it lands. I 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. understand also your admirable desire, Commissioner Templeton, for getting consensus on 1 things but if we don’t get consensus, I always think that that’s actually really good information 2 for City Council as well. I’d like to see where we end up on this and then... 3 4 Commissioner Templeton: That’s certainly something you can do, I guess. I want to just say that 5 sometimes when we’re tired we’re not able to reach consensus. 6 7 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I feel like I’m persuaded by Vice-Chair Chang’s comments 10 about the future uses. In that case, right now with it being legal nonconforming, we expect it in 11 the future to potentially move in the direction that we want which is to have less development 12 there so I am interested in the current motion. 13 14 Chair Akin: All right. Well, I think we have a motion on the table and we need to resolve that. 15 Depending on how it lands, we may yet have another and we may yet have other advice to pass 16 along to staff in any case. All right? Can we restate the motion and then have a vote? Vice-Chair 17 Chang, as the maker would you mind doing the restating, make sure it’s accurate? 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: Sure. Actually, can I ask staff for a favor to see what they’ve captured? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Jennifer Armer: Yes. 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. Thank you. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: I’d be happy to restate it. What I have captured in my notes is the motion by 6 Vice-Chair Chang was to recommend staff’s recommendation for the rural and open space and 7 Baylands areas as provided in the staff report. And so that is allowing a reduced setback for lots 8 under 20,000 ft2, not the 1 acre discussed at this meeting. There were a few amendments that 9 were recommended but I do not believe either were accepted and so if that is different, then, 10 Vice-Chair, you can clarify that for us. 11 12 Vice-Chair Chang: Thank you, Ms. Armer. I think that you’ve accurately captured the motion 13 that’s on the table. Thank you. 14 15 Chair Akin: Very good then. Mr. Tavera, will you call a vote? 16 17 Samuel Tavera: Yes. Commissioner Templeton? 18 19 Commissioner Templeton: Didn’t I go first last time? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Samuel Tavera: Oh. Okay. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: It’s okay. My vote will be no. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: No. Commissioner Peterson? 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: No. 8 9 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 10 11 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 12 13 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 14 15 Commissioner James: I’m going to vote no. 16 17 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: No. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Samuel Tavera: Vice-Chair Chang? 2 3 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 4 5 Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin? 6 7 Chair Akin: No. 8 9 Samuel Tavera: Motion does not pass 4-3. 10 11 Chair Akin: Would anyone care to speak to their no votes? 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Quick correction to the record. I believe that was a vote of 5-2. 14 15 Samuel Tavera: Oh. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: Five no and two in favor. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: Sorry about that. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Okay. Commissioner Peterson? 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. I’d like to simply have the – entertain a motion, same motion, but 4 with the exception for the lots along Adobe Creek and move on. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: [Inaudible 4:55:38] second. 7 8 Chair Akin: Oh, wait. I think we’re a little premature there. We have a few more comments 9 coming so let’s hold on for just... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Oh, sorry. Okay. 12 13 Chair Akin: ...hold on that for just a little longer. Commissioner Templeton? 14 15 Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I would have spoken to my no vote but it sounds like if I 16 get a chance to vote on Commissioner Peterson’s, that may explain my no vote anyway so I will 17 hold off. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Any other comments on no votes? I do want to add that I would like to correct the 1 problem with the RE lots and the motion didn’t cover that area as well. If this is something 2 we’re really ready to hand off to Council, then I would like to see that addressed as well. If that 3 factors into the next motion. Pardon me. Commissioner Peterson? 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. I’d like to make that motion and include the RE with also the 6 exception for the Adobe lots. 7 8 Jennifer Armer: If I may clarify the motion? 9 10 Chair Akin: I was just about to ask if you would like, so yes. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. I believe what I understood, Commissioner Peterson, that you are 13 interested in recommending the staff’s recommendation for the rural, open space, and 14 Baylands but that you referenced a exception for the Adobe Creek. Is that a reduction in the 15 width of the pathway to 8'? 16 17 Commissioner Peterson: That’s correct. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Jennifer Armer: Okay. I wanted to make sure how we are including that in the ordinance. The 2 1 modifications to the language attached to the staff report would be to remove – actually, yeah, 2 remove the width of the path or reduce it to 8'? Which would you like? Remove? 3 4 Chair Akin: Remove. Yeah. 5 6 Jennifer Armer: Okay, so to remove the width of the public path restriction, so any paved public 7 path. And the second, I believe you were indicating that the neighborhood that we discussed at 8 the corner of Arastradero and Foothill referred to as Esther Clark would be allowed to use the 9 reduced streamside setback of 30'... 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: That’s correct. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: ...instead of 150'. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 16 17 Jennifer Armer: One point of clarification because it was discussed in multiple ways. Would it be 18 for that entire neighborhood or just for those that are less than 1 acre? 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Peterson: I think it was for the entire neighborhood because there’s just no way 1 it’s going to get – because all of them are well over an acre anyways for the most part. 2 3 Jennifer Armer: Okay. 4 5 Chair Akin: Right. It’s immaterial for the other lots. 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Right. 8 9 Jennifer Armer: Okay. So... 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: We could spend forever figuring each one out. 12 13 Jennifer Armer: Thank you. Then I will restate now that I’ve gotten those clarifications that the 14 motion from Commissioner Peterson is staff’s recommendation for the rural and open space 15 and Baylands areas as included and attached to the staff report with 2 modifications. One is to 16 remove the 10-foot-width specification for the paved public path and the second is to allow a 17 30-foot streamside setback for the neighborhood referred to as Esther Clark. We’ll make sure 18 we’re clear on that in the ordinance language. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: Can I ask a question about that before we put it to a vote? 1 2 Chair Akin: We don’t have a second yet either. 3 4 Commissioner Ji: I’m sorry. But can I ask a ques-, should I wait for the second or should I ask? 5 6 Chair Akin: Oh. Vice-Chair Chang, did you second that? 7 8 Vice-Chair Chang: No. I think I’m confused about the motion so I haven’t seconded it yet. 9 10 Chair Akin: Oh. Okay. [Inaudible 4:59:58]. 11 12 Commissioner Hechtman: I will second for discussion purposes. 13 14 Chair Akin: Very good. Moved and seconded. Commissioner Ji, you’re up first. 15 16 Commissioner Ji: Yeah. I’m wondering if for the Esther Clark neighborhood it may make more 17 sense instead of setting the 30-foot and the 150-foot, to just lump that into the category that 18 we want to discuss potentially at a future time since just like some of the other properties, we 19 don’t know exactly the information that we might want to see. For example, by saying that we 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. should move from 150 to 30, it seems like we’re choosing that subset to shrink it significantly 1 while for other neighborhoods we’re not doing that. And so I think that it may make more 2 sense instead of deciding that 30 is the number for that area to just continue that portion to a 3 date uncertain with everything else that we may potentially move to. 4 5 Chair Akin: Or to move that area into the area considered by... 6 7 Commissioner Ji: Or to move that area into the area that is considered, quote, unquote, urban 8 just because I think staff also said that that area feels more urban and I think by nature, maybe 9 that characterization makes more sense. 10 11 Chair Akin: Further questions? Commissioner Hechtman? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: That’s an intriguing concept that if I’m understanding correctly, the 14 vote would be to remove the width issues which takes care of my bayside issue and then would 15 the motion also be to basically geographically treat the Esther Clark neighborhood as part of 16 the urban area? Which we haven’t really decided how to deal with yet. If we did that as part 2, 17 then as a part 3 the Foothill area outside of Esther Clark, I’m comfortable moving forward with 18 tonight. So sort of 3 parts to that if that was your concept. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Ji: I think I didn’t – well, I guess the question for me then would be by defining 1 that part of Esther Clark as urban, does that make it such that it becomes a shorter setback? Or 2 is it just in the category of undetermined right now? If it’s undetermined, that I’m supportive 3 of. If we want to set a number to it yet, I’m not comfortable with that. 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah, I think would be undetermined because just as we have found 6 the Edgewood neighborhood needing less regulation, in wrestling with the urban area which 7 will now include Esther Clark, we may find that that area needs a little more regulation but 8 maybe not as much as the rural area next to it. The way we would do this, it would still be open. 9 10 Commissioner Ji: Okay. With that, then I am supportive of the 3 subcomponents that 11 Commissioner Hechtman had mentioned if Commissioner Peterson is okay. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. Of course. I think that’s great. 14 15 Commissioner Ji: Could we restate? 16 17 Chair Akin: All right. 18 19 Commissioner Peterson: Yeah. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Can we restate? 2 3 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 4 5 Jennifer Armer: All right. To restate the motion – have we accepted the modification to exclude 6 that? Okay. Just confirming that. Okay. With the modification proposed by Commissioner Ji, the 7 motion is now accepting staff’s recommendation for the rural, open space, and Baylands areas 8 with 2 modifications. One, removing the 10-foot widths for the paved public paths and 9 roadways minimum width and the second is to exclude the Esther Clark area from the hillside 10 area, that neighborhood, such that it will be part of the urban areas that we will discuss at a 11 future meeting. 12 13 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. That sounds good. 14 15 Chair Akin: Is the seconder... 16 17 Commissioner Hechtman: I do. I think you’ve accurately stated it but I have just a question for 18 us to think about. By adopting this part – recommending this part of the ordinance, are we 19 recommending, for example, the 3 findings for an exception that would apply in the hillsides, in 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. the rural areas, in the bayside? I think we are and I guess I’m troubled because for the reasons I 1 expressed and some speakers, I don’t know that we’re ready to do that. 2 3 Commissioner Ji: I think what he means is on Packet Page 38 there’s a set of exceptions that... 4 5 Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah. 6 7 Commissioner Ji: In Section H, the General Findings, Subsection 1, that if we were to adopt the 8 motion as is for the rural areas or the nonurban areas, then we would potentially have to 9 accept the written language as provided on Packet Page 38. And I’m not sure Commissioner 10 Hechtman is comfortable with it as stated. 11 12 Commissioner Templeton: Can we just strike the parts that we hate like the no reasonable... 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: I agree. 15 16 Commissioner Templeton: ...alternative or whatever? 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: We could but I think we would like maybe a more learned approach 19 to that. I do feel like we are getting consensus here on some aspects and I’m wondering if that 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. can be enough for tonight - to somehow establish that without recommending the ordinance 1 go forward because we’re going to come back and talk about the urban area and Esther Clark. 2 3 Chair Akin: Yeah, I’m coming to the same conclusion. I had hoped that we would be able to do 4 that for the urbanized area as well but I don’t think we can tonight. But yes, your observation 5 strikes me as correct that we can’t quite make it. Commissioner Peterson? 6 7 Commissioner Peterson: Just want to understand. We’re taking about Section G, correct? 8 9 Commissioner Ji: [Inaudible 5:06:47]. 10 11 Commissioner Peterson: H. Okay. Yeah, that’s complicated enough. I’m [inaudible 5:07:09]. 12 13 Chair Akin: That’s right. I was just about to ask that very same thing. 14 15 Commissioner Peterson: Okay. So I go ahead and I formerly withdraw the motion. 16 17 Chair Akin: Does the seconder need to participate in that as well? 18 19 Commissioner Hechtman: I agree. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Yeah, that was a good attempt. All right, so I think we’re left with continuation then. 2 Do I hear a motion to continue to a date uncertain? 3 4 Commissioner Ji: I just have a quick question. Is there anything we could do with what we have 5 already? No, right? There’s just no way to make it – Ms. Armer? 6 7 Jennifer Armer: Thank you for that question. I think the conclusion that the Commission has 8 come to is that it’s just really difficult to pull out any part of this without really moving it all 9 forward since it was written not as modifications to the existing code but as really rewriting it 10 to try and clarify and do it in a holistic way. What I would ask from a staff perspective is that we 11 get as much specific direction as possible. For example, in the urbanized area while there 12 wasn’t consensus about what should be done, it seemed like there was some general support 13 for a 25-foot streamside setback. And so some of those – and any specifics as to what you 14 would like staff to come back to. I know it’s getting late but that’s pretty important if we’re 15 going to provide you the information you need and the revised language that you need for next 16 time. 17 18 Chair Akin: And that’s one of the things I had hoped to do. I’ve got a list here from various 19 public comments and also comments from Commissioners tonight. I don’t know that I can 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. adequately combine them on the fly but we could try proposing a few and taking straw polls to 1 see what people are thinking? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: May I ask to what end? Are you going to create a new packet? We’re 4 just continuing, right? We’re not going through everything we did tonight again. 5 6 Coleman Frick: To bring the Commission an item based on it being continued with new 7 information, it would be really helpful to get direction based on the discussion this evening. We 8 mentioned... 9 10 Commissioner Templeton: That part I understand. Really it’s a procedural question. 11 12 Jennifer Armer: And I think it’s a question for the Planning and Transportation Commission. Is 13 there more information or revised ordinance language that you would like to see or do you just 14 want to continue the discussion with the information you have? 15 16 Chair Akin: There are things I think we probably could resolve. There are a few that will require 17 more discussion. For example, does Edgewood deserve a special exemption? I think there’s 18 general agreement on that. Should new fencing in the slope stability area require the exception 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. process? I don’t know that we’ll come to agreement on that but it would be interesting to get a 1 sense of where people [inaudible 5:10:46]. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: New or replacement fencing. 4 5 Chair Akin: I think – well, my understanding was that replacement fencing was already 6 adequately covered. But anything that would be considered new would be the... 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: Chair, I like your idea of a few straw polls and that could be one of 9 them just to sort of take our temperature and if nobody’s interested, then that tells staff 10 something. If a majority of the Commissioners are interested, then staff can come back with 11 some elaboration on that. 12 13 Chair Akin: Okay. I’m happy to run through this list. It won’t take too long assuming we can do 14 each poll quickly. Is everyone content with that? Given that we have one Commissioner 15 remote, do we need to call roll on this or is a show of hands going to be viable given that it’s 16 not... 17 18 Vice-Chair Chang: It’s a straw poll so I think a show of hands is viable. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Okay. All right. The existing language includes an exemption for Edgewood so I think 1 that’s covered. New fencing in the slope stability area should not require Director of Public 2 Works approval or a slope stability study. Two cases. First case, on Edgewood. Is there 3 agreement with that statement? 4 5 Vice-Chair Chang: We’re raising our hand if we’re in agreement? Is that correct? 6 7 Chair Akin: Yeah. Let’s raise hands if you are in agreement that new fencing in the slope stability 8 area should not require Director of Public Works approval or a slope stability study. And case 9 number one, on Edgewood. I would say yes. [Inaudible 5:12:43]... 10 11 Vice-Chair Chang: Just clarifying I understand. No slope stability study required on Edgewood. 12 13 Chair Akin: For a new fence... 14 15 Vice-Chair Chang: For a new fence. 16 17 Chair Akin: ...in the slope stability area. 18 19 Vice-Chair Chang: Raise your hand if you agree. Okay. I understand. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Okay. I think I saw... 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Commissioner Chang has her hand up. I’m just really tired and I 4 don’t want to do this so I’m not voting. 5 6 Chair Akin: Okay. That’s... 7 8 Commissioner Templeton: And it doesn’t mean I don’t agree with this but my ability to 9 cognitively function is done. 10 11 Chair Akin: I think... 12 13 Male: [Inaudible 5:13:23]. 14 15 Chair Akin: ...abstaining is a perfectly good option. Okay. Did we actually get a number for you 16 on that or do we need to repeat? 17 18 Commissioner Hechtman: We got 4 which is enough to show... 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: Okay. 1 2 Commissioner Hechtman: ...the staff momentum that [inaudible 5:13:42]. 3 4 Chair Akin: All right. 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Five. Me too. 7 8 Commissioner Hechtman: No, you are 4. 9 10 Vice-Chair Chang: Oh, okay. Sorry. 11 12 Chair Akin: All right. And the second case is new fencing in the slope stability area should not 13 require Director of Public Works approval or a slope stability study outside of the Edgewood 14 area. All in favor raise hands. Okay. I see zero there. The 5-foot fence setback from top of bank 15 should not apply in the Edgewood area. Yes or no? Okay. How many did we get? I should start 16 doing the counting myself. All right. Could [inaudible 5:14:38]. 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 5:14:39]. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Chair Akin: I know. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 5:14:42]. 3 4 Chair Akin: To make the next... 5 6 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 5:14:45] but I’m not – sorry, Chair. For the record, I just 7 want to say that these are things that we haven’t discussed and we need to discuss more and 8 we need to do that and vote then. And I don’t want to vote now. 9 10 Jennifer Armer: May I make a suggestion... 11 12 Chair Akin: Please. 13 14 Jennifer Armer: ...for consideration? Chair Akin, if you have a list of topics, maybe providing 15 that list as topics that should be listed out in the staff report for the next meeting as discussion 16 topics with any specifics that you heard and then it leaves the discussion of it till that date? 17 18 Chair Akin: We could do that. If that’s more efficient for everyone, then I will collate that so that 19 it’s a little more organized and send it to you. All right, so that leaves the formality then which is 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. to continue to a date uncertain. I move that we continue this item to a date uncertain. Do I 1 have a second? 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: Second. 4 5 Chair Akin: Moved and seconded. 6 7 Commissioner Templeton: [Inaudible 5:15:58]. 8 9 Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera, could we have a vote? 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Yes. Commissioner Hechtman? 12 13 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 14 15 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 16 17 Commissioner James: Yes. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 2 3 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 4 5 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 6 7 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 8 9 Commissioner Templeton: Yep. 10 11 Samuel Tavera: Vice-Chair Chang? 12 13 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 14 15 Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin? 16 17 Chair Akin: Yes. 18 19 Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 7-0. 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Commissioner Ji: I did have one question about that. I have some additional information that I 2 might be interested in having staff look at. I would just plan on emailing it as well if that’s okay. 3 4 Jennifer Armer: Yes, please. We would welcome any thoughts, questions. Please mail them in. 5 You can email them in to me or to Sam or if you have the project planner’s email, Kelly, you can 6 send those in. Those are all very useful and there may be additional information that we can 7 share with the PTC as a whole once we do get this rescheduled in the future. 8 9 Chair Akin: Very good. Well, at least we got a lot of great public comment and good analysis on 10 the part of the Commission so with luck we’ll nail it the next time. Thank you, staff, for all the 11 work that you’ve put into this and we probably have not said it enough that it is continually 12 improving so we’ll get there. 13 14 Approval of Minutes 15 Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 16 17 4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary & Verbatim 18 Minutes of July 9, 2025 19 20 Chair Akin: All right, so it is time to move on to Item #4, Approval of Draft Summary and 21 Verbatim Minutes for July 9, 2025. 22 23 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Commissioner Hechtman: Move approval as revised. 1 2 Commissioner Templeton: Second. 3 4 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 5 6 Commissioner Ji: Yes. 7 8 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 9 10 Commissioner James: Yes. 11 12 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 13 14 Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 15 16 Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 17 18 Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 1 2 Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 3 4 Samuel Tavera: Vice-Chair Chang? 5 6 Vice-Chair Chang: Yes. 7 8 Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin? 9 10 Chair Akin: Yes. 11 12 Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 7-0. 13 14 Commissioner Questions, Comments, Announcements or Future Meetings and 15 Agendas 16 Members of the public may not speak to the item(s). 17 18 Chair Akin: All right. Any quick Commissioner questions, comments, or announcements? If not, I 19 have... 20 21 Commissioner Templeton: I have something. 22 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. 1 Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 2 3 Commissioner Templeton: I want to say how I really appreciated how collaborative we were 4 tonight because everybody still has different views and perspectives and we all tried to work 5 together on something that’s really important. Thanks. 6 7 Chair Akin: And much appreciated. I have a couple of quick comments. Yesterday there was a 8 roundtable with Board and Commission chairs and Vice-Chairs and the Vice-Mayor and Mayor. 9 This was a very interesting kind of freewheeling conversation. Everyone got a chance to meet 10 the people that they haven’t met. The Vice-Mayor was particularly interested in improving 11 onboarding and Council relationships with the Boards and Commissions. And the Mayor was 12 particularly interested in opportunities for the Commissions to team up and share expertise. 13 And for us, there’s good opportunity with the ARB to do that sort of thing. We’re working on 14 some proposals for those things and I hope to have some more specific information on that in 15 the next month. But some of this we will talk about at our upcoming retreat so you’ll get 16 feedback on that – a chance to provide feedback at that. And don’t forget the Boards and 17 Commissions Recognition Event tomorrow. Any other comments? Ah. Vice-Chair Chang. You’re 18 muted. 19 20 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Vice-Chair Chang: Sorry. It’s late. It’s 1:20 a.m. I have a little bit of a public service 1 announcement in line with what Commissioner Templeton started talking about at the 2 beginning of this meeting. There’s a volunteer opportunity. They’re looking for, I think, 1,000 3 volunteers a week for Track Watch so if you are interested – I have signed up – you can email 4 TrackWatchPaloAlto@gmail.com. 5 6 Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji, did you have something? 7 8 Commissioner Ji: Last week was the first meeting of the San Antonio Community Advisory 9 Group. Can’t always remember the name. Saw Ms. Armer there. And it was the first meeting, I 10 think, for the next 3 years. We just mostly got to meet. But I think one thing that was really 11 helpful was meeting the stakeholders there as well as there was somebody from Parks, 12 somebody from ARB, so I think that was really nice to be able to build some relationships as 13 well as with the community members there as well. Nothing particularly of substance so far. 14 First meeting. 15 16 Chair Akin: Thank you. Anyone else? Then we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone, from the 17 public who sat through this long process. 18 19 _______________________ 1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually. 2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers. 3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers. Adjournment 1 11:21 pm 2 3 /ad 4