HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-02-25 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
Verbatim Minutes: February 25, 2026 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 p.m. 4
5
City Official Reports 6
1. Director's Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 7
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: …San Antonio [inaudible 9:42] plan looking at potential 9
components for alternatives that would then go to City Council to provide direction, first 10
discussion in April, and then direction in June so that we can then dig into the details on that. 11
And then we also are expecting to bring to you a Retail Ordinance based on your discussion last 12
year and the connection with the Retail Committee. I noted here that on the San Antonio Road 13
Area Plan we do have a few opportunities for engagement from the public. We have a 14
community survey that's now online through the end of March – March 29. And we have a 15
community workshop scheduled on March 5, starting at 6 p.m., at the JCC Palo Alto on Fabian 16
Way. Next slide. 17
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For City Council, we've got a few items of interest in the March meetings. We have a discussion 19
scheduled for March 9 on the implementation of Senate Bill 79, consideration of the de minimis 20
exception, a Zoning Code Amendment that PTC recommended approval of in January, and then 21
a pre-screening for Zoning Code Amendment related to transfer of development rights, 22
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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.
particularly applicable to the property at 51 Encina Avenue. If a formal application is submitted 1
on that, that would then come to Planning Commission for consideration. On March 16, City 2
Council will be considering the project at 2100 Geng Road, the builder's remedy project that the 3
PTC recommended approval of on December 10 of last year. And they are scheduled to 4
consider the project at 4075 El Camino Way, the PC Amendment that was considered by the 5
PTC last September. And with that – is the end of my report but we do also have a 6
representative from Office of Transportation to provide some updates from them. 7
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Chair Akin: Senior Transportation Planner Arce, good to have you here. 9
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Senior Transportation Planner Ozzy Arce: Thank you, Chair and members of the Planning and 11
Transportation Commission. My name is Ozzy Arce, Senior Transportation Planner with the 12
Office of Transportation, providing the office's updates for February 25, 2026. Next slide, 13
please. 14
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Staff is aware of 3 pedestrian fatalities throughout the city and 1 non-fatal collision involving a 16
vehicle on the tracks just this year. Transportation and other city staff are deeply committed to 17
supporting our youth and creating a safer environment for everyone. Working closely with 18
PAUSD, Caltrain, and other partners, the City is currently exploring several ways to increase 19
safety, building on meaningful steps we have taken. The City Council created a Rail Safety and 20
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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.
Youth Mental Health Ad Hoc Committee and as of late February, the City has successfully 1
deployed 24-hour human presence by professional track safety monitors at all 4 rail crossings in 2
Palo Alto. This effort is a cost-sharing partnership between the City and the school district and 3
the City approving the contract at their February 23 meeting just a couple days ago. Staff is 4
initiating the necessary analysis to evaluate what we – what would be required to implement a 5
temporary closure at the train crossing at Churchill and Alma, with possible 6
City Council consideration and action anticipated within 60 days or by mid-April. This effort 7
would include community engagement; assessment of potential impacts such as emergency 8
response, including police, fire, and ambulance; rerouting and safety of pedestrian and 9
bicyclists; vehicle traffic circulation; and definition of potential closure elements, including 10
signage, signal changes, fencing, and closing materials for a diagnostic review by the CPUC staff. 11
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I also want to take this opportunity to announce that the City and the Palo Alto Unified School 13
District will host a community listening session on Thursday, March 12, at 6 p.m. to share 14
feedback on the temporary rail closure of Churchill Avenue. The community feedback received 15
through the listening session and website feedback form will be shared with the City Council as 16
they consider next steps in April. And there is more information on the City's calendar events 17
page and a web page set up for this Churchill Avenue temporary closure analysis. 18
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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 addition, the City is also moving forward with the Quiet Zones to eliminate routine train horn 1
noise. I reported on the Palo Alto Avenue Quiet Zone implementation a few weeks back. Work 2
is finished, like I mentioned, at the Palo Alto Avenue crossing and we expect that zone to go 3
into effect next month. For our other crossings, we are identifying funding to start the design of 4
required gate upgrades later this year. 5
6
Moving over to some technological enhancements, in partnership with Caltrain, we have 7
installed the rail sentry system at several locations. This system uses AI and cameras to detect if 8
people or vehicles are on the tracks. We are installing anti-trespassing panels and high-security 9
fencing to prevent unauthorized access to the rail corridor. And that's by Caltrain. And then 10
finally, as many of us are aware of the City's continued advancements of the long-term goal of 11
grade separation, in December 2025, Council reaffirmed the partial undercrossing for motor 12
vehicles at Churchill with a pedestrian/bike undercrossing at Seale. So just wanted to highlight a 13
few of the elements that we've more recently advanced and have been advancing more 14
recently. And again, just wanted to highlight that community session on March 12. Next slide, 15
please. 16
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Just a couple more items here. Late last month on January 22, the City staff attended a ribbon 18
cutting for new Hoover Elementary School campus. Staff helped play a role in engaging the 19
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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.
community in relation to the design of the campus access, circulation, and new bike parking. 1
The event was very well attended by community members. Next slide, please. 2
3
A quick update on an event I announced a few weeks ago, the Lunar New Year Event. It was 4
hosted at Mitchell Park Community Center, very well attended. This was on February 22. 5
Multilingual informational fliers were provided from the City as well as dancing, dragons, and 6
drums. Thank you to the community for joining us. 7
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And then I think to wrap up my last slide here, more for those tracking regional policy, Santa 9
Clara County is currently undergoing its first comprehensive update to the circulation and 10
mobility element in nearly 30 years to align county policy with current travel trends. This 11
element is a part of the County's general plan. The project is currently in the initial public 12
engagement phase and the County launched a resonant survey to identify specific 13
transportation-related pain points across the region. The survey link is on the slide as well as 14
project web page information from the County. So this is a good opportunity for Palo Alto 15
residents who commute through county roads to provide their input on future mobility of the 16
region. And next slide. That concludes my updates for February 25, 2026. Thank you. 17
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Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Arce. Commissioners, any questions for Ms. Armer or Mr. Arce? 19
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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: [Inaudible 28:30]. 1
2
Chair Akin: Yes. Just queuing up everyone. I have Commissioner Templeton and then 3
Commissioner Ji. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Arce, for being here 6
tonight. We desperately missed you and we just want to send some love and appreciation for 7
you being here. We hope we can have a chance to interact more regularly with your office. Also 8
thank you for being there at the Lunar New Year celebration. I think that was a wonderful event 9
and I'm glad you were there. So I want to ask about the rail crossing. Thank you so much for the 10
update about Churchill. You mentioned that there's a study being done about alternate routes 11
and I had a couple of questions about that that I just wanted to throw out there. And perhaps if 12
this is not the venue to discuss it, you can tell me where people that are interested can go 13
because several people have reached out. So bikes, I think there are alternate routes for safe 14
routes to school if someone wants to avoid Churchill. Is that correct? 15
16
Ozzy Arce: I think that's part of what we're going to look into is what are the existing safe 17
routes? And... 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I think... 20
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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
Ozzy Arce: ...are... 2
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Commissioner Templeton: ...they're existing, though, right? 4
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Ozzy Arce: Through Churchill. 6
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Commissioner Templeton: One can... 8
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Ozzy Arce: Correct. 10
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Commissioner Templeton: ...bypass Churchill... 12
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Ozzy Arce: Correct. 14
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Commissioner Templeton: ...if they wanted to... 16
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Ozzy Arce: Correct. 18
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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: ...already. So if they wanted to look for safe routes to school and see 1
what the other options are, they would find that on the City website? 2
3
Ozzy Arce: The – correct. The public can go to the suggested Walk and Roll maps that the City 4
has. And in particular, for example, for Paly, they can look at the routes, one of which is 5
Churchill but there are other... 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Yes… 8
9
Ozzy Arce: ...suggested routes. 10
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Commissioner Templeton: …I have to feel like you could – if you're south of Churchill, you could 12
use California Avenue. If you're north, you could use Homer underpass and things like that. 13
Okay. That's great. So they – the information exists. You also said you're going to study 14
emergency – alternate routes for the emergency travel and I was just wondering – and I really – 15
I don't know the answer to this but when there's a collision that has – and a crossing shutdown, 16
we don't stop fire and police. They have alternate routes. Is that correct? Or do we just say too 17
bad to... 18
19
Ozzy Arce: I will invite the director, Ria Lo, to speak on emergency routing. 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: Thanks. Sorry for the... 2
3
Ozzy Arce: I... 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: ...curveball. 6
7
Jennifer Armer: And that – yes. That may actually be a question for another department or for 8
the discussions at the council level. Go ahead. 9
10
Chief Transportation Official Ria Lo: So we don't have information on what the implications are 11
in terms of response times here and that would be part of the initial analysis. Oh. 12
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Commissioner Templeton: Oh. I'm... 14
15
Ria Lo: By the way... 16
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Commissioner Templeton: ...so sorry. 18
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Ria Lo: ...I'm Ria Hutabarat Lo, the chief transportation... 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: Sorry. I was asking a very different question. I was just asking when 2
there's a collision that closes down the Churchill intersection like we had in the... 3
4
Ria Lo: Yes. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: ...presentation, fire and police still are functioning. I assume that 7
that's the case. I'm going to assume that's the case. If you don't have an answer, please feel 8
free to... 9
10
Ria Lo: They have alternate routes that… 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Of course. 13
14
Ria Lo: ...affect the... 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Exactly. 17
18
Ria Lo: ...response time. 19
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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: Yes. It does affect response time. So do collisions, right? We know 1
that. Okay. So thank you for answering that and I will be sharing the information about your 2
information session with the parents group that's been working on this. So thank you so much. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Ji. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. My first question goes to Assistant Director Armer. I was 7
wondering for the City Council items, which of them are on the consent calendar and which of 8
the items are not? 9
10
Jennifer Armer: That is a good question. So the... 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Do you mind pulling up the slide again? 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Yes. Sure. We can pull up the slide. It's the third one in my presentation. For 15
March 9, there aren't any items that came to PTC that are discussion items, action items. So you 16
are welcome to review the staff reports but there is no need to attend if you're the liaison for 17
March. For the discussion on March 16, 2100 Geng Road, that will be a discussion item. And 18
4075 El Camino Way, that is a discussion item, though we may need an alternate to represent 19
on that [inaudible 23:05] project. 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: Thank you. And maybe a piece of feedback. It could be helpful to just list 2
which ones are – yes. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: And I often do. I don't... 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: ...seem to have noted that here but I will in the... 9
10
Commissioner Ji: No. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: ...future. Thank you. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: I just want to say normally you do, so thank you for that. And then my second 15
question goes to Mr. Arce. Maybe less of a question but more of a comment. I find that since 16
we have moved the sensors for triggering the traffic light at Meadow and Alma to behind the 17
train tracks, I guess on the El Camino side, about 1 in 10 times, it doesn't seem to trigger. And 18
so the traffic will back up for multiple cycles all the way to El Camino Way. I don't know if 19
Commissioner Templeton has noticed that as well. I'm seeing a thumbs up. So just curious, are 20
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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 seeing this also at Charleston or – I – okay. So there might be something finicky about the 1
sensor at Meadow. Just curious about that. 2
3
Ria Lo: Can you describe a little bit more [inaudible 24:07]? 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So right now, if I'm trying to go from the El Camino side of the tracks.... 6
7
Ria Lo: Yes. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: ...across the tracks across Alma on Meadow, about 1 in 10 times, 1 in 15 10
times, I'm doing that crossing and I'm waiting on the El Camino side of the tracks, the sensor 11
doesn't go off for that direction and so they'll skip that entire cycle. And so the cars back up all 12
the way through to Wilkie, to El Camino Way and it causes pretty bad congestion for that area. 13
14
Ria Lo: Oh, interesting. I'll convey that to our Signals Team so... 15
16
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 17
18
Ria Lo: ...they can look at it. 19
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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: Thank you. Just wanted to call that out since I've noticed it a couple times now 1
and second from Commissioner Tempelton. 2
3
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton? 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Sorry. I realized I had 1 more question about the – you said that 6
there was a December meeting where Council reaffirmed the underpass at Churchill and that 7
was in the same slide with the other stuff that's been happening since the tragedy at Paly. And 8
– which happened after that meeting. So has anything changed about the plans for how Council 9
wants to deal with that... 10
11
Ria Lo: Well, the... 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: ...grade... 14
15
Ria Lo: ...long... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: ...crossing? 18
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_______________________
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.
Ria Lo: ...term plans for the grade separation are as – the latest direction that we have is from 1
that December 15 meeting. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. So they haven't had a chance to decide if they wanted to 4
change anything, so you have to carry... 5
6
Ria Lo: [Inaudible 25:33]. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...along on that course... 9
10
Ria Lo: Correct. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: ...for – unless they do change. 13
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Ria Lo: And in fact, it's built into some of our grants at the moment, so any change would 15
require various changes in agreements and... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Except closure. 18
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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.
Ria Lo: So the thing that's being contemplated is a temporary closure. It would not effect the 1
long-term [inaudible 25:54]. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: And what does temporary mean in terms of city planning? Because 4
we've had a temporary thing at Crescent Drive for a long time. 5
6
Ria Lo: We're still exploring what it means ourselves. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. That's fine. It's fair. That's a fair answer. I just wanted to make 9
sure that we understand what are the durations that we do know? And do we – we don't 10
anticipate any changes to that? Nothing is scheduled to talk about making changes to that 11
crossing at – the grade crossing plan currently? 12
13
Ria Lo: No. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 16
17
Ria Lo: We're – we have a schedule that we've been working on with the Rail Committee. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: And is the Seale bike/ped crossing still – it's a separate project? 20
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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
Ria Lo: The Seale Avenue pedestrian/bicycle undercrossing is considered to be part of the 2
Churchill grade separation. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Okay. And there's no way to – all right. I'm going to phrase this 5
differently and then I'm going to take it offline because we could go all night on this but any of 6
that – can that begin first in any way? Can we have that bike/pedestrian crossing begin before 7
the other part? 8
9
Ria Lo: So the – I mean, I think that would be part of the details. We're still at 15 percent. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, okay. 12
13
Ria Lo: So that would... 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: We're not... 16
17
Ria Lo: ...be... 18
19
Commissioner Templeton:...there yet. 20
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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
Ria Lo: ...a part of the implementation plan after you got to 100 percent. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Fair enough. Thank you for answering these questions. Appreciate it. 4
5
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Peterson. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: All right. So thank you to staff for all your good work with the rail 8
crossing. My son walks that route every day and, as a parent, I definitely feel much more 9
comfortable knowing that there is a crossing lifeguard essentially there to keep an eye on that, 10
not just for my son but for his friends as well. So it's – I think all parents in Palo Alto, knowing 11
that there's somebody there, it makes a big difference when you're not sitting at home all day 12
wondering is somebody keeping an eye on that crossing? So one of the questions is the guard 13
there around the – is it 24 hours? 14
15
Ozzy Arce: Correct, 24 hours. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: And then does the guard have a shelter? Is there a guard shack of 18
some kind or is the guard simply standing out in the weather? I know the guards, they can 19
stand in the weather but I am curious what's the facilities for the longer-term plan? 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
Ozzy Arce: I am not aware of what facilities are set up for the individual. I do know that they are 2
professional track safety monitors... 3
4
Commissioner Peterson: Right. 5
6
Ozzy Arce: ...so there's a specialty to the trade, so... 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: But it – maybe just – maybe plant the idea there that if there's an 9
ability to maybe dive into that a little bit and look at some resources because the guards stay 10
more alert when they're not having to literally stand there, essentially, at attention for a full 8-11
hour shift and oftentimes becomes a 16-hour shift. So something to think about on that. I 12
would recommend trying to look at how to make their job as resourced as we can to make sure 13
they have what they need to do their job. 14
15
So the other question I have is on California Avenue, thank you for the bollards out there and 16
the landscaping. California Avenue is beautiful. So one of the issues with California Avenue – 17
and I know we've gone over it, so I'm looking maybe more for an update. Is – down by the 18
railroad tracks where the Caltrain Station is it's – I don't want to say it looks like the street is not 19
complete but definitely when you get to the end of the street at the roundabout, it does look 20
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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.
incomplete. Is there anything on the road map to finish out the end of California Avenue, down 1
by the fountain? And then I did see some planning for the overpass by Oregon Expressway on 2
the back side of the California Avenue train station. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: So this may or may not be a question for Office of Transportation. 5
6
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. That was my... 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Public... 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: ...next... 11
12
Jennifer Armer: ...Works... 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: ...question. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Yes. The Public Works... 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: So this is... 19
20
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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: ...Department... 1
2
Commissioner Peterson: ...Public Works. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: ...does... 5
6
Commissioner Peterson: It's a street but it's... 7
8
Jennifer Armer: What I'd recommend, if you'd like to send these questions to me via email, I 9
can connect you with the correct people... 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: ...to get... 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. 16
17
Jennifer Armer: ...you some information. 18
19
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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: Maybe that's the question. It's a – so it's a – it's not a street issue then 1
for California Avenue for the Transportation? 2
3
Ozzy Arce: Right. Public Works has taken point on... 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: There we go. 6
7
Ozzy Arce: ...the – in conjunction with the CMO and in conversation with OOT around the 8
bollards and the landscaping that you see but it is a Public Works initiative. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Well, I want to give you commendations and congratulations for 11
doing good work on that. 12
13
Ozzy Arce: With the City Manager's Office. I don't want to discount their efforts. 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: So you can take all the credit for it. Say yes, we did it. We took care of 16
it. Thank you. Appreciate it. 17
18
Chair Akin: Thank you. Seeing no other lights, quick question, Mr. Arce. For the County CME 19
update, how do they interact with OOT? 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
Ozzy Arce: The effort just started, so I think that's part of the – trying to understand the 2
engagement plan but typically, staff is involved in a technical advisory group of sorts and when 3
material is shared for us to review internally before it hits the public. So there is that internal 4
coordination that happens. 5
6
Chair Akin: Okay. Good. No operational question there. I was just curious since we do have 7
important commute routes that are controlled by the County. Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I'm just thinking back to the last meeting. When we're doing 10
Planning things that require street changes, is that the Department of Transportation or is that 11
Public Works? 12
13
Ria Lo: We do have a staff member who does a review of the transportation access and 14
circulation and then the implementation can be varied. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Well, is – my specific question is we have seen a couple of projects 17
that are adjacent to each other using the same street and we did not, while deliberating it, have 18
access to a Transportation person. Is that something we can ask for or do you review it before 19
Planning brings it or how do we get access to your expertise for that kind of deliberation? 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
Ria Lo: Typically, we're – the – I think that Planning coordinates the Planning reviews and so 2
we're pulled in as needed. 3
4
Manager of Current Planning Claire Raybould: I'm not sure I totally understand the scenario but 5
if – when we're analyzing a project, we would certainly analyze access to the site and whether 6
that is [inaudible 33:22]. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: But if there's 2 abutting projects, each of them are going to have the 9
old through-put model for the street and there's no way to talk about the combined impact of – 10
so is that an area plan... 11
12
Claire Raybould: If they... 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: ...kind of... 15
16
Claire Raybould: ...were... 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: ...conversation or what? 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.
Claire Raybould: Well, if – I guess if they were happening at the exact same time, we would be 1
looking at them. But if they happened one and then the other, then the second project that 2
came in would need to be... 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: They're... 5
6
Claire Raybould: ...considered... 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...approved separately. Yes. 9
10
Jennifer Armer: So when we do have transportation studies, they are including looking at 11
pending – other pending projects in the area, so that is something that's looked at. We do have 12
review from the other departments as required, depending on the scope of the project. If you... 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Is that happening on the kind of project that we saw that was the... 15
16
Jennifer Armer: The... 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: ...builder's remedy project? 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: Development projects have review by the other relevant departments, 1
including Public Works, Utilities, Transportation. This, I think, is a really great example of if you 2
know that you're going to have questions on certain topics, please email staff ahead of time... 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, I told... 5
6
Jennifer Armer: ...because... 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...you 2 weeks ago. That's why we asked – I assume that's why 9
people came tonight. We asked... 10
11
Jennifer Armer: So... 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: ...those questions during deliberation. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: Right. And so as you were looking at that staff report for the last meeting... 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 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: ...if you identified some areas where you were going to have questions and 1
were able to send those questions or at least some kind of high-level topics that you know 2
you're going to want to discuss during the meeting, if you can send that on Monday or Tuesday, 3
staff is happy to try and arrange for additional expertise. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: It's a lot easier when we have Transportation here regularly, so just 6
going to throw that out there. You don't have to respond. Okay. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Ji, then Peterson. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: Just to maybe put a concrete example on what Commissioner Templeton's 11
saying, this project has an adjacent PHZ project, I believe, at 788 that staff reviewed during – at 12
the same time Council. So I think that might be an example. For example, when we were 13
thinking about what kinds of projects we might want to do in the special setback, I think that's 14
something where having OOT's perspective – yes, Ms. Armer? 15
16
Jennifer Armer: I just want to step in and caution. We're getting into a little bit of a back and 17
forth in discussion. I want to be careful about how far we're going into discussion since 18
[inaudible 35:56]. 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: Oh, sure. But I will use a different example. I thought that Rafael Rius' 1
comment at 660 University I thought was really insightful about the depth of the traffic light 2
signal and how we thought about the usage of the garage. So I just wanted to cite an example 3
of a previous project in which I thought OOT's expertise during our deliberations I think really 4
helped with the decision making. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Commissioner Peterson. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. Just want to return to the topic of the security guard 9
real quick. For full disclosure, I'm pretty sure I'm probably the only one that worked as a 10
security guard. So out of high school, I couldn't get a job in construction and my first job was 11
night guard on construction sites up in Sacramento. And so that's where maybe I wanted to 12
shine some light on why is it important to provide resources at the guard station? It's because if 13
the guards don't like the station, you won't get good guards. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Hm. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: They all get paid the same and I guarantee you each guard station is 18
very different. Now I was always gunning for the one that had the guard shack with the heater 19
and you didn't have to do anything. So the better you can make that facility for the guards 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.
just think from that perspective, the better the guards you're going to get there and definitely 1
the less fatigued they'll be and I think that's going to do a lot of good service for our students. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. Last call for questions from commissioners. All right. I think we're done. 4
Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate it. 5
6
Action Items 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 8
All others: Three (3) minutes per speaker. 9
10
2. PUBLIC HEARING / QUASI-JUDICIAL. 800-808/814 San Antonio Road [25PLN-00356]: 11
Recommend That the Planning and Transportation Commission Review the 12
Conceptual Plan to Rezone the Subject Properties From PC 5622 to a New Planned 13
Community/Planned Home Zoning and to Redevelop the Site With an Eight-Story 14
174-Unit Residential Building with 35 Below Market Rate Units and to Forward the 15
Project to the Architectural Review Board for Review in Accordance With Palo Alto 16
Municipal Code Section 18.38.065. CEQA Status: An Addendum to the Previously 17
Certified Housing Incentive Program Expansion and 788 San Antonio Mixed Use 18
Project EIR (SCH #2019090070) is Currently Being Prepared. Zoning District: Planned 19
Community (PC-5622). 20
21
Chair Akin: Now we move on to Agenda Item Number 2, reviewing the conceptual plan to 22
rezone from PC 5622 to a new Planned Home Zone at 800 through 808 and 814 San Antonio 23
Road. For those of you following along, this begins on Packet Page 8. Commissioners, do we 24
have any disclosures? Seeing none, may we have the staff presentation? 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.
Claire Raybould: Good evening, commissioners. Claire Raybould, manager of current planning. 1
The project before you tonight is a rezoning to a Planned Community, also referred to as 2
Planned Home Zoning, for properties at 800 to 808 San Antonio and 814 San Antonio, filed 3
under 808 San Antonio in our system. 4
5
So the project location is near East Charleston Road on San Antonio Road. There are some other 6
nearby projects that I did want to highlight; 788 San Antonio is a new proposed Planned 7
Community immediately adjacent to this property. There's 824 San Antonio, which is where this 8
boxing fitness studio is. It's a proposed or approved senior planning – or senior development. 9
And across Leghorn at 762 San Antonio, where Hengehold is, there is – and the Hertz rent-a-car 10
– a builder's remedy application for an exclusively residential housing development. 11
12
So just a quick overview of the proposed project. The project includes rezoning of the site to 13
redevelop the site with a new residential development that would be 8 stories with 174 units to 14
be provided at for – as for-sale units. Twenty percent of those units or 35 total units would be 15
provided as below-market rate at varying affordability levels, as detailed in the staff report. 16
There would be 2 levels of underground parking with 203 total parking stalls. These are all 17
designed in a lift system. Some of the highlights in terms of exceptions to development 18
standards include but are not limited to a height exception, a floor area exception, and a retail 19
floor area requirement. A separate Testing Tentative Map to merge the 2 parcels and then re-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.
subdivide for condominium purposes is – would be required as a condition of approval of the 1
project if they do not file it prior to approval – or prior to a decision on this project. 2
3
Just to generally explain the process, for a Planned Community Rezoning, it starts with a pre-4
screening with Council. I do want to highlight this as an interesting pre-screening. As we noted 5
in the staff report, they came forward with a pre-screening to Council but what was presented 6
at the time was different than what is currently proposed. And so we wanted to highlight the 7
comments that Council had at the time and generally, they were supportive of the project at 8
the time with a 5-story development and I believe it was 120 units. They are proposing 174 9
units in an 8-story development now. They're not required to go back to a pre-screening but we 10
just wanted to note, for your reference, some of the Council's comments. We noted in the staff 11
report we have the benefit of Council's comments on the neighboring property at 788 San 12
Antonio, which was proposing a similar 8-story project and some of the key things that they 13
highlighted that they were interested in for that project, which was making sure that there's 14
sufficient parking and considering step backs from the right-of-way or on upper levels. 15
16
And this project would – it comes before you the first time just to consider whether you want 17
to move this forward to the Architectural Review Board and so that's what we're asking tonight 18
of you. This would then go to the Architectural Review Board and then – for a recommendation 19
and then return to the Planning and Transportation Commission for a formal recommendation 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.
on the project for the ordinance that's moving forward and approval of the development plan 1
as well. And then it would go to Council for a final decision. 2
3
In terms of a CEQA, this is planned as an addendum to the previously adopted environmental 4
impact report, which evaluated the HIP Expansion EIR Program, an application to the San 5
Antonio Road Corridor and that analyzed approximately 800 units along this corridor. And so 6
this project, we are anticipating, would fall under that addendum and we are doing an 7
additional addendum to just document the project-specific changes that we would want to 8
consider. 9
10
And just some basic site plans, elevations. 11
12
So the project was previously – has a previously approved PC that applies to the site and the 13
zoning right now. One thing I did want to highlight is that they are making changes to the 14
circulation of some of the pieces of that, based on staff's comments and some concerns that 15
were raised about the increase in the density and wanting to provide some of the facilities that 16
were previously provided off site on site now. And so the applicant has made some 17
modifications to the plans that are before you tonight to provide, for example, trash pickup on 18
site instead of off site. And we are still exploring the fire access to the site but we anticipate 19
that there would be an option that would allow us to not have the curb cut that was previously 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.
approved along San Antonio. And we're looking to try and resolve that in coordination with the 1
applicant, to provide a solution that makes sure we preserve that right-of-way as much as 2
possible for our forthcoming San Antonio Road Area Plan. 3
4
This is just some basic elevations and the proposed materials that they're presenting. 5
6
And as noted, some of the policy considerations that you may want to weigh in on is the 7
proposed floor area. Right now, it's 4.7 Floor Area Ratio proposed where 3.0 is currently 8
allowed under the existing PC. The existing PC allows a 60-foot-8-inch project. They are 9
proposing 92 feet, 88.5 to the top of the parapet and 92 to the top of the mechanical 10
equipment. And the project does not include ground floor retail, which was previously included 11
in their PC that was approved; 1,078 square feet was proposed and approved as part of the 12
existing PC. And the ordinance would amend the uses to remove commercial and allow 174 13
units where 75 units is allowed per the current PC zoning. 14
15
So with that, staff would recommend that Planning and Transportation Commission take the 16
following action: provide initial comments and feedback and recommend that staff forward the 17
proposed project to the Architectural Review Board for further consideration. And with that, I'll 18
turn it back to you and recommend that you hear from the applicant. 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: Very good. Do you want to do clarifying questions of staff before hearing the 1
applicant's presentation or simply move on? 2
3
Female: [Inaudible 47:13]. 4
5
Chair Akin: All right. If we may have the presentation from the applicant then, please. 6
7
Principal at Lowney Architecture Mark Donahue: Certainly. Thank you very much. Thank you for 8
your time and let me get hooked into the system here. I didn't want to butt in while someone 9
else was talking, so I waited. So give me one moment. Okay. And one thing I want to say, I don't 10
have really a – technically a presentation per se. Really just wanted to give you the opportunity 11
to ask questions about specifics. We do have some bigger, prettier pictures that I'll leaf through 12
and a little bit more detail on things like the sections, really anticipating some of the concerns 13
that we heard the first time that we went through with the lower version and how we've 14
addressed those in the new version. So let me switch over to presentation mode. 15
16
Okay. So the new 8-story version, as you know, our neighbors to the south are proposing an 8-17
story building. And so after the presentation, we looked at how that would fit in – how our 18
project would fit in with the neighborhood and that's why we're here today to propose to this 19
new 8-story version. The previous version had 75 units. What we're proposing here is 174 and 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.
have prepared a slight comparison. So this was the previously approved project. And take note 1
of materials, style, generally the same; 75 units, 60-foot-8 feet tall, as pointed out by the 2
Planning staff – by Claire. And then if we go back the other way – hopefully I can – then this is 3
the new version. So the visual language we've adopted is primarily the same in terms of the 4
materiality. The base of the building, as you'll see when we get into plans, has changed 5
significantly. And this is primarily in response to Planning comments. 6
7
So while we're still on this image, I'll point out that over on the left, you'll see that at the base 8
there are some louvered screens. That is because we have the trash pickup area behind rather 9
than out on the street as we previously did. And so it will provide some relief in that area but 10
also screen the activities from the street. We do have units on the ground floor that address the 11
street and you'll see those in the floor plan in just a moment. 12
13
I'm going to skip over the data. It's a little small to read. But if we need to go back to it, it's 14
there for us. Okay. This is the one we were just looking at. 15
16
We still maintain the 2-story-high entry element, this lobby that visually connects to the 17
courtyard. And so that has not changed from the previous scheme. 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.
One other item. We are looking at doing a fully automated parking system and we've found a 1
manufacturer that does one that's ADA compliant, so you can park vans and ADA-style cars. 2
Within the stack, if we go up to the next level, you'll see that the drop-off stations are designed 3
to handle a van, so a van could open up into an 8-foot zone adjacent and that with the – any 4
kind of obstructions on the ground are within the footprint of the car and therefore would not 5
interfere with pedestrian travel. And we'll keep an eye on that. We know that's a concern. 6
7
So the ground floor, I think the primary difference here is that previously, we had the trash 8
pickup in – pull out on the street. All of that is occurring internally here on the upper left 9
corner. And what's happened is if we go up to the next floor, you'll see that we have a double-10
high space that would allow the trucks to maneuver inside. We do have 1 correction that we 11
need to make on our section in terms of the opening there. It'll – we're showing a 10-foot 12
opening but it'll be much taller for the truck. So the truck would then be able to perform a 13
turnaround – let's see – turnaround within the footprint here. And you can see that we've got a 14
tracing of how the truck would maneuver as it comes onto the site and comes off. The hatched 15
zone here off to the left, that is our proposed fire access. The aerial truck access needs to be 26-16
foot wide. And our proposal would be to include a rolled curb just at the entry point where the 17
trucks will come in and then they'd be able to exit through the regular driveway. And obviously, 18
this would have to be in coordination with whatever plans are made for the special setback. 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.
And I'll just quickly leaf through. As you can see, on the third level and the fourth level, very 1
similar. And then as we get higher in the building, one of the concerns we had before was about 2
light penetration to the courtyard. And so we've carved away the south portion of the building 3
that – to allow more sunlight in. And it's very clear in the sections, as we go higher, the decks 4
out there get shallower and shallower. And I can show that. And then the other aspect of this is 5
that we have a fairly extensive roof deck that's going to comprise the primary open space. 6
Because of a change in the building code, this will now be considered a high-rise building, so 7
we've incorporated the high-rise requirements. There's extra fire protection, vestibules on the 8
stairways, those kinds of things, so we should be compliant code-wise. 9
10
Elevations. I think just for reference, I think the question of the upper-level setbacks is going to 11
come up. Whoops. Uh-oh. I've lost control of my – all right. So I'm going to go back to the 12
elevations. There you go. This – on the front elevation, which is – you can see is with the entry 13
with the blue glass here. This dark area is what our proposed step back would be and it's the 14
top 2 floors. Sorry. Top 2 floors. And I think in section, it's clear. It's a 5-foot step back. And 15
then, of course, it is tied to balcony locations if we look at that front elevation. So this is more 16
apparent in the rendering but that surface at the back of the balconies matches with the 17
surface of the step back, so there's a coherent design idea that is this portion of the building is 18
pushed back and then the white portions of the building would step forward, so we welcome 19
any feedback on 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
There again, the section. There's another section that shows it as well. Oh, where I've even 2
measured it. This is the section right over the opening and this is the opening in question that is 3
incorrect. That needs to be quite a bit taller. 4
5
Here, we show the sections in the courtyard. And the ones I think are most important are in the 6
top section, on the left-hand side, you can see the terraces. This is a little bit – this particular 7
drawing is incorrect. The sun would never come from that direction. That's the north. I'll talk to 8
my staff about that. But I think the one on the bottom shows more clearly how we anticipate 9
the shadows would operate. This is not entirely accurate because the building mass that would 10
be behind us that's cut away in this section would create a horizontal shadow line right at the – 11
where the 2 angles meet there. But the kind of terracing that you see was intended to allow 12
light to come in from the south. 13
14
And then the material palette is the same from the smaller version of the building and with no 15
modifications. So that is our presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you might 16
have. 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.
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Donahue. Commissioners, I know there will be – I predict, at least, 1
there will be a good bit of discussion later. So do we have any questions to help enable public 2
comment or either staff or Mr. Donahue? Commissioner Ji. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yes. I had a procedural question for staff. So on Slide 3, you mentioned that 5
the process is PTC hearing(s) followed by ARB hearing(s) followed by PTC recommendation. Is it 6
– if the PTC wanted to continue this item hypothetically, would it be required to have multiple 7
hearings at this stage before it goes to the ARB or would it – when it comes back from the ARB, 8
could there still be multiple hearings? I was just curious because of the way that the slide is laid 9
out. 10
11
Claire Raybould: There could be multiple hearings at either stage. Yes. But there's only 1 12
required hearing. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Yes. Okay. 15
16
Claire Raybould: Yes. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I just was – wanted to clarify that. Thank you. 19
20
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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 Ji. Any others? 1
2
Public Comments 3
4
Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera, do we have any requests for comment from the public? 5
6
Administrative Associate Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, we have at the moment 1 request 7
to speak. And if there's any members on Zoom that would like to speak to this item, I'd invite 8
you to raise your hand. Then I would like to invite our first speaker, Herb B., to the mic. 9
10
Herb Borock: Thank you, Chair. 11
12
Mark Donahue: Sorry. 13
14
Herb Borock: All right. Thank you, Ms. Armer. Chair Akin and commissioners, there may be 3 15
issues, any one of which, depending on its status, would require a continuance. The first is that 16
the staff report says that the public notice on postcards and a newspaper ad but it doesn't 17
indicate whether that public notice indicated this was a study session or an action item. It 18
indicated a study session. Then it needs to be continued so the proper noticing was given to the 19
public. 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
A second issue is that it's scheduled and it may have happened already. I mean, it's not 2
happening until tomorrow. A regional plan for San Antonio Area. And if that's happened, that 3
information in some written form should've been available to the Commission before you make 4
a decision on the conceptual plan. And so it be continued for that reason. And the alternative is 5
if it hasn't happened yet, this will be 1 project that's part of that regional plan. You should hear 6
from that regional study session first. 7
8
And there's another one, that I tried to find this project on Permit View and I found only the 9
previous project approval but I did not find it. And from people who are interested in it – in the 10
project, they should have that available to them before they have an opportunity to speak 11
before you. In regard to the park land, I think this area's going to be needing its park – more 12
park land because of the intense development. And in terms of the Cubberley Project, I believe 13
the public will be willing to pay for that. What they wouldn't pay for, I don't think, on a tax 14
would be subsidizing regional organizations with exorbitant salaries who want to use Cubberley 15
and want to be subsidized from public taxes. And current environmental issues that may have 16
been studied in the EIR but I haven't had an opportunity to see that, the first is ground level – 17
ground water level. When you build a garage, you have essentially walls which create a dam 18
which makes that issue worse for neighboring properties. 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.
Another is the sea level rise. We've had an adaptation study but I believe current events 1
indicate that that's probably out of date and it'll probably be higher. 2
3
And finally, earthquakes. The Alquist-Priolo maps would indicate liquefaction in this area and 4
the need to protect against seismic problems. But until you see what at least that the current 5
maps are and whether they need to be updated, that's the final issue that would need to be 6
considered before going on to ARB and another continuation needed. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Borock. Mr. Tavera, do we have any other requests to speak? 9
10
Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, we have not received any other requests to speak. 11
12
Chair Akin: Okay. If I may, Ms. Raybould, can you respond to Mr. Borock's procedural questions 13
about noticing and other... 14
15
Claire Raybould: Yes. 16
17
Chair Akin: ...projects underway? 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.
Claire Raybould: Yes. So the – regarding noticing, it was noticed properly, as a public hearing, as 1
far as I'm aware. Is that accurate? 2
3
Samuel Tavera: It was noticed as a public hearing. 4
5
Claire Raybould: Okay. 6
7
Samuel Tavera: Yes. 8
9
Claire Raybould: Just wanted to make sure. And then with respect to availability of information, 10
it should be available on the portal. I'm trying to double check right now if there's any reason 11
but it's filed under 808 San Antonio and should all be available under the portal and links were 12
provided in the staff report. And with respect to San Antonio Road Area Plan, that is moving 13
forward for further discussion but it's an ongoing project. Do we know the anticipated timeline? 14
I mean, I know it's coming forward soon to the Planning Commission again on March 25, I 15
believe. 16
17
Jennifer Armer: Correct. So the Area Plan is in process but we don't expect that anything would 18
be adopted before 2027. This phase right now is looking at alternatives but then working into 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.
policy details, an environmental review would all be completed prior to any adoption of the 1
plan. 2
3
Claire Raybould: And I would just note that we're not looking to stop projects that are currently 4
on file but we are doing our best to make sure that we are preserving all of our options as part 5
of that Area Plan to make sure that anything we move forward will be a viable option in the 6
public right-of-way. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you both. I'm sure during our discussion, more on that subject will come up. 9
All right. Commissioners, let's see. Technically, we have time for an applicant rebuttal if Mr. 10
Donahue would like to speak to anything that's been heard. 11
12
Mark Donahue: So I think we always appreciate good public comment. I think the 2 that I can 13
speak to are the earthquake danger. Of course, all buildings that are constructed in California 14
have to meet the California building code and they have to meet the structural requirements 15
based on expiration of the soils on the site. And so our structural engineer will take these soil 16
data and will create an appropriate structure to resist earthquake, including dangers of 17
liquefaction in the area. I'll point out that we are proposing a secant wall under for the parking 18
and this is partially due to concerns about the strength of the foundation but also to handle the 19
water table – underground water table. And I think as part of that, we are required to provide 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.
hydrology studies and so that will be part of the permitting process. I think that's the only 1
architectural items that I heard. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you very much. It is time for us to move on to commissioner discussion. 4
Before we do that, I would like to set a little bit of context. So as Ms. Raybould noted, we have a 5
fairly simple decision to make tonight, whether to forward the design to the ARB. However, this 6
is our opportunity to give the applicant and the ARB a preview of the questions we might have 7
when the project comes back to us. So this is a great opportunity for us to provide that 8
feedback so that they have as much time as possible to work on potential issues. Staff has 9
asked us to provide feedback on quite a few things. I think there are 6 that are particularly 10
important and I'll list them in just a second. But I wanted to ask that commissioners consider 11
commenting on those specifically as well as making the other observations that you have in 12
mind. So these items are mentioned in the staff report, starting on Packet Page 13. Number 1, 13
ground floor commercial. Number 2, physical development standards. That's setbacks, step 14
backs, daylight planes. Number 3, parking. Number 4, the TDM Plan. Number 5, the San 15
Antonio Road Special Setback. And finally, Number 6, unit size and affordability mix. So I would 16
respectfully request as much input as we can get on those things to help inform the ARB's 17
deliberations and assist in getting answers from the applicant. 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.
Finally, it's a little hard to see where to work this in, but Commissioner Ji is our representative 1
on the San Antonio Community Advisory Group. So Commissioner, is there anything in the 2
public record from the CAG's deliberation that we should keep in mind before we begin general 3
discussion, so specific to the CAG? 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yes. I can start and then staff, specifically Jennifer who's there, can jump in as 6
well. So as public comment has previously mentioned, we do – the CAG does have an additional 7
meeting tomorrow to go over some of the transportation items. So I will start by talking about 8
the housing portion. And so in the last CAG meeting, we talked about different levels of density 9
that we thought might be appropriate for the area. The public was given – provided ability to 10
comment on approximately 6 floors, approximately 9 floors, approximately 18 floors, 11
something in that ballpark. I think that the main comment that came out of this that I thought is 12
interesting for folks here and mentioned in the CAG information is that traffic is really 13
congested on San Antonio. And in addition, there's a lot of interest in having some kind of a 14
mixed-use presence on San Antonio to eventually make it into a walking corridor. There are 15
beloved businesses that are currently on San Antonio that people would like to keep. Although 16
we have no control over that, I think it's interesting to think about what potentially mixed-use 17
could be involved here in this project as well as the zone as a whole. 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.
We were able to take a walk through the San Antonio area and one thing that I might note in 1
particular is that on the side of San Antonio of which this project is on, there are many utility 2
boxes that are right against the side of the road where the road is currently, which may impact 3
the ability to have certain transportation projects that occur in the special setback. The most 4
recent email that I got from staff about the transportation options does include potentially 5
using that space as a buffer. I don't know if, Ms. Armer, you have a copy of that slide deck that 6
we could maybe pull up at a later point. Don't worry. I have it. I can send it to you after – when 7
we go through the rounds. But I think it could be interesting to show what staff has looked at as 8
potential alternatives for usage of the special setback, especially for transportation means, as 9
we consider the usage for PHZs such as this which may or – this project in particular does not 10
encroach on a special setback but it may be interesting to think about for transportation 11
congestion management. I will stop there for now. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing I'd hoped we'd have to help inform the 14
rest of our discussion. All right. It's now open for commissioners and I see... 15
16
Female: [Inaudible 71:09]. 17
18
Chair Akin: Oh. Pardon me, Mr. Yang. I was not being observant. 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.
Assistant City Attorney Albert Yang: That's all right. I just raised my hand a moment ago. So I 1
just wanted to clarify. We went back and looked and apparently, the notice cards that were 2
mailed out did say study session and so the Commission may, if it wants to, continue this for re-3
noticing but I don't believe that is required for a couple of reasons. One, there isn't a 4
requirement that we send out that kind of notice for this hearing. It's not provided for in our 5
code. The only legal requirement is that we publish the agenda 72 hours in advance, under the 6
Brown Act, which we did and which had the correct information. The second is that even when 7
our code does require notices, we do state in the code that typographical errors aren't a basis 8
for requiring that a hearing be held again. So if the Commission as a body thinks that this was a 9
significant error that may have affected this hearing, they could continue it but I don't believe 10
it's necessary. 11
12
Chair Akin: And I presume you would need a formal action from us in order to do that. 13
14
Albert Yang: To continue, yes. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Can I – Chair, can I ask a follow-up question? 17
18
Chair Akin: Please do. 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 Hechtman: Just curious, to Mr. Yang, because of the sort of posture, it's not 1
often that things come to us with a staff recommendation to recommend that it go to the ARB. 2
And I'm wondering, in our ordinance processes, is our recommendation that it go to the ARB 3
necessary? Do we have to formally take that action or can we have our discussion, provide our 4
input in a study session context, and it will naturally under our code go to ARB with all of that 5
commentary? 6
7
Albert Yang: Yes. Our code isn't perfectly clear on this point and it – I do think you raise a good 8
point, which is that this is a fairly unique process in our code where the PTC has an initial review 9
but it's not making a recommendation on the project. It's just having the initial review before 10
the project is sent to the ARB. The code does say that if – that the PTC must act favorably, 11
which you could interpret to mean that it is – should be an action item on the agenda, which is 12
how we do treat these hearings. But it is unusual in that this is a preliminary step and the item 13
will be heard by the PTC again. 14
15
Chair Akin: Interesting. I'm not sure how to resolve the process question now. May we have 16
some guidance? 17
18
Jennifer Armer: If – I mean, there can be some discussion if there's uncertainty but I think what 19
we've heard from our city attorney is that it is acceptable for the PTC to make 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.
recommendation that this be forwarded on to ARB, that continuance to another meeting and 1
re-noticing is not required. And so discussion, providing feedback, identifying the things you'd 2
like to know more about. You will on the San Antonio Road Area Plan have more information 3
the next time you see this because it will be further in the process, all of those kinds of things 4
that you'd like to hear more about. It could then move forward. 5
6
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton, do you have something to contribute on this? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I wanted to say that I think the Chair was right, that the most 9
important part of what we're doing tonight is the discussion. And as far as making sure that the 10
public has an opportunity to engage on this project, not only do they have it tonight but they 11
will have it at the ARB and when it comes back to the PTC and when it goes to Council and with 12
the San Antonio Project. I feel that the spirit of the law is satisfied and I would really hope we 13
can have a good discussion tonight. Thank you. 14
15
Chair Akin: I'll request any further comments on the procedural issue at hand before moving on 16
to the discussion of the project. Anyone else have anything more to say? All right. My 17
inclination is to proceed, for the timeliness of the process and because I think we can deal with 18
the implications of the code in reasonable ways. Any objections? All right, then. Let's proceed 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.
to general discussion. I have Commissioner Hechtman and then Commissioner Templeton. This 1
was left over from the previous? All right. Let's begin with Commissioner Hechtman, then. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. So I do have some minor questions. I do 4
ultimately want to point this in the direction of the ARB, one way or another. And so I'm looking 5
at it through that lens and what we want them to know, particularly on these 6 items. I did have 6
a few related clarifying questions. Packet Page 21 and 23, this is one of those rare instances 7
where the auto-labeling of the agenda item has covered important information. It's surprising 8
how infrequently this happens but in this instance, on 21, it's covering max building height and 9
on 23, it's bicycle parking proposed. So can you just tell me what the max building height is? I 10
probably could've figured it out on the plans. 11
12
Claire Raybould: Max building height I know is 92 feet to the top of the mechanical equipment 13
and let me just look back at my presentation briefly. It was – sorry, 88 feet and 6 inches to the 14
top of the parapet. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. Thank you. And then on 23, the number of long-term bike 17
spaces proposed? 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.
Claire Raybould: Yes. Let me find that. Give me a minute. My recollection was it complies with 1
the code but I just want to double... 2
3
Chair Akin: Yes. 4
5
Claire Raybould: ...check. 6
7
Chair Akin: I believe the easy place to find that was on the plans. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: What'd you find? 10
11
Chair Akin: Yes. I can find it for you... 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh. 14
15
Chair Akin: ...again but... 16
17
Claire Raybould: There are 88 – oh, yes. Sorry. I guess I say 8 short-term bike racks. 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: Yes, 18 short-term. I can see that peeking out from under the label. 1
It's the long-term. 2
3
Chair Akin: It's on Page A0.1 and the bicycle parking, 184 spaces. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: 184. 6
7
Chair Akin: And 174 are required. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. Okay. All right. 10
11
Claire Raybould: Thanks. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. I probably could've asked the applicant. I am going to 14
have a question for the applicant in a minute, if that's okay. Let's see. Packet Page 10 says this is 15
not a housing inventory site, 13 says it is and 27 units. I suspect Packet Page 13 is correct but 16
I'm not sure. Whichever it is, I think you're going to recycle this report to some extent as it goes 17
to ARB, so clean that up. Either way, the proposed development is substantially more than 18
either 0 or 27, so it's in the same realm of magnitude. And a similar issue regarding ground floor 19
retail, on Packet Page 21, at the bottom of Table 1 on Packet Page 21, it seems to say that 2,294 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 ground floor retail are – maybe I'm misunderstanding it – are being proposed where I think 1
that number is 0. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: That was the previous proposal. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: [Inaudible 81:01]. 6
7
Claire Raybould: Yes. I'm sorry. I should've updated that. They... 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 10
11
Claire Raybould: ...were proposing retail... 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 14
15
Claire Raybould: ...in the initial submittal. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: In the 120 to Council or the... 18
19
Claire Raybould: In the... 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: ...one that went to Council. 2
3
Claire Raybould: ...120 to Council but even in the initial submittal on this project. However, 4
when they made the modifications to provide the trash pickup on site, that modified from 175 5
units down to 174 and removed the retail but that was an error, so thank you for... 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Yes. 8
9
Claire Raybould: ...catching that and [inaudible 71:37]. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Again, these things are just to cleanup when... 12
13
Claire Raybould: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: ...you redo the report. And then the third item of this nature, Packet 16
Page 22, Table 2 doesn't seem to be for this project; 32-foot-6-inch height existing and to be 17
maintained. So take a look at that and – it just seems like it's a different project. 18
19
Claire Raybould: Yes. I think you're right. 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: Okay. All right. So we don't need to dwell on that. I do have a 2
question for the applicant, if I may, Chair? Are we... 3
4
Chair Akin: Please. I was hoping we'd have a few. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. Thank you. Yes. So thank you for bringing this project forward, 7
reenvisioning it. I think that can be a challenge when you pointed the wheels in one direction 8
and do a fairly significant pivot and I like a lot of what I see and I'm interested to hear what the 9
other commissioners have to say. One of the things that caught my eye was the parking spaces, 10
203 proposed. I think 275 is the standard, so it'd be a 27 percent reduction TDM. And this part 11
of San Antonio, it's commented on in the staff report, there's not a lot of public transportation 12
along this corridor now. If there is in the future, I think it's quite a ways off and it'll be well after 13
I would hope you get your project built. And so you've got 1.15 parking spaces per unit. You 14
have a number that I appreciate of 2 and 3-bedroom units, which logically would tend to invite 15
more 2-car families. And so I understand, obviously, that there's a significant cost issue in 16
building parking but I think we would benefit from hearing your thoughts on why you think you 17
can sell these units with 1.15 parking spaces, right? Why will the market embrace 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.
Mark Donahue: Well, I think specifically, that's probably a question for the project sponsor but I 1
can tell you that part of what as architects we're grappling with is the burgeoning of automatic 2
cars and the fact that this area of the country is at the center of what is looking to be a 3
revolution in the way people get around. There's a generation that does doesn't really care for 4
car ownership and they have the ability to go out the door with their phone and have 5
something come and pick them up. It's hard to anticipate how successful that will be but I will 6
say that indications are that will continue to burgeon. And so in that case, the desire to or the 7
need to have the burden of an additional car starts to become more limited. Now all that being 8
said, whether that's true on day one in terms of selling, I would have to defer. 9
10
Yorke Lee: Thank you, commissioner. Yes. My name is Yorke Lee. I'm the owner of the project. 11
So this idea came out and our original plan [inaudible 85:38] this is being approved before we 12
met the requirement of the code for the parking requirement. But this new application 13
submittal, we got idea initially it is from a pre-screening meeting with Council member. At the 14
time, our neighbor project present at the same meeting, they proposed an 8 story. 15
Underground parking, it's very, very short, probably less than half as a standard. And then the 16
discussion session, we sit there on the meeting. Council member recommend our neighbor 17
project to provide them more parking but in general, they mention City is planning to have 18
some kind of transportation management program, meaning try not – they prefer to – 19
reductions to somewhat required to make less congestion, less needed, whatever study from 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.
City point of view. And we heard from that meeting. So then we discussed with the staff. Emily 1
was planner for our project, so we got idea, probably get 20, 25 percent reduction is reasonable 2
from a City point of view about a total new Transportation Management Plan on that area. 3
That's our idea we got. 4
5
And second, about the sales. So we – as you can see, we have 4 different types of units: studio, 6
1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, and 3 bedroom. So I didn't do detailed calculations. In a general sense, 7
it's – from 2 bedroom above may make sense for 2 parking garage and the studio, we don't 8
have 2. And 1-bedroom, if possible, we provide 1 parking, whatever. I didn't do detailed 9
calculations. We haven't gotten that detailed. But that's the 2 – so that's why we think, for 10
current situation, as Mark mentioned, those 200-plus parking generally is decent from a City 11
point of view, which we got from a pre-screen meeting and from a feasibility sales point of 12
view. But for several parking adjustments, it's not hard, may be able to, but that's the idea we 13
come out. Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. 16
17
Yorke Lee: Okay. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: That was really helpful. 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
Yorke Lee: Thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: And Chair, those are my questions. I'll come back in the second 4
round and discuss the items you had identified. 5
6
Chair Akin: Great. Thank you. I'm sure there will be follow up on a lot of that. Commissioner Ji. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I will follow the same format as Commissioner Hechtman 9
and ask my questions first and then provide comments later. I think the first question I had is 10
for the applicant. I think the very first question I had when reading the packet was, can you 11
explain a little bit more in detail why this project differs so much from the one that came at pre-12
screen? Is it just that – I think you mentioned in your original presentation, it was just that your 13
neighboring project is 8 floors. Can you provide some more detail here? 14
15
Mark Donahue: I think it really – it – part of it is that just by its nature, for a market-rate project 16
in this neighborhood, the perception of the importance of the project is affected by its 17
surroundings. So I mean, it seems simplistic but a 5- or 6-story building next to an 8-story 18
building would be diminished and the roof deck would be shaded. There was just a perception 19
that if the neighborhood is going in that direction and if this is a desire of the City to have 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.
kind of density, then we should respond. And I think the other thing is that there are certain 1
costs that are just set from the beginning. You're going to dig a 30-foot pit in the ground. That 2
cost is going to exist whether you have 20 units or whether you have 174. And so some of it is 3
probably just the financial calculus of if you're going to go in for a dime, you might as well go in 4
for a dollar. And then some of it too is just that we heard a lot of feedback from the Council 5
that they expressed disappointment on the smaller project that we weren't providing enough. 6
They wanted to see more. And so, in a very simple way, we've provided it. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: So I watched the Council meeting yesterday in preparation for today's 9
meeting. And just to clarify, my understanding of what Council said at that meeting was that 10
they appreciate the project – that – the size that was there but would've liked to see a more 11
composite of 2 and 3 bedrooms because that's what you reduced between the original project 12
and the current project at the time. Is that correct? 13
14
Mark Donahue: That's – that sounds like a good recollection. I did not review the meeting but 15
the – from our perspective, the issue at hand is that if you are doing 2 and 3-bedroom units, 16
you're occupying more square footage of the building to produce that unit and so there has to 17
be some kind of compensatory mechanism. 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 Ji: That I understand. So just to be clear here, the – are you saying that the 1
original project would've penciled out for you, the one that came to Council pre-screen? 2
3
Yorke Lee: So – can you say that again? 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 6
7
Yorke Lee: What's your question? 8
9
Commissioner Ji: So the original project that came to Council pre-screen, would that have 10
penciled out for you or is this that you need more units in the current proposal in order for the 11
numbers to pencil out? 12
13
Yorke Lee: Yes. Because with just the – this is – I think it's related to your previous question. 14
You said you listened to the pre-screen Council meeting, right? [Inaudible 92:06] to provide 15
more 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom units. And then – so once we changed the idea – Mark just 16
explained about it, the reason we changed at the time. We tried to respond to Council's 17
comments and then we added more 3-bedroom – I remember 120 unit, we have only 10-plus 3-18
bedroom. Now we have 25 three bedroom, so... 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: No. I understand that. I was just wondering, from a financial perspective, 1
would the project have penciled out in the proposal that you had at Council pre-screen? 2
3
Yorke Lee: So that may challenge it. It is a financial challenge, I think. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 6
7
Yorke Lee: So that's... 8
9
Commissioner Ji: So you're... 10
11
Yorke Lee: ...why. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: What you're saying is the project that came to you at Council pre-screen is no 14
longer financially feasible. Is that correct? 15
16
Yorke Lee: I think so. Yes. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 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.
Yorke Lee: Yes. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: So my next question is about the ground floor retail. So as you may recall from 3
the Council pre-screen for your neighboring project, one of the things that Council was 4
disappointed about about the neighboring project was the removal of the ground floor retail 5
that is – that was originally provided for that project. So I was wondering why – can you explain 6
a little bit more about your choice to remove the ground floor retail here? 7
8
Yorke Lee: Sure. So we – originally, we had our first floor retail space. During staff review 9
process, then we engaged other departments like Waste Control, Fire Department. All those 10
department comments about original design, they have a concern about trash pickup, delivery, 11
and those kinds of design in the original version. So in order to incorporate these comments to 12
make this work, to make this acceptable for the trash pickup, delivery, so we cancelled first-13
floor several units and especially with second floor, we removed several units to make, as just 14
presented by Mark. So we cut almost 3,000 square feet. So then financially, once we did some 15
calculation, that's why. We are not 100 percent [inaudible 94:34] back from – and then we just 16
used the original proposed retail space to become residential space but still short by – after this 17
change, trash pickup area and the redesign, we lost about 2,000-plus square feet. That's the 18
financial consideration. Yes. That's the reason. 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.
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you for that. And then I was wondering if you could talk a little bit 1
about – the floor area ratio that you have provided here is 4.7. And talking about neighboring 2
projects, right, your floor area ratio provided here is 41 percent higher than the average floor 3
area ratio for all the neighboring projects and higher than what we provided for the El Camino 4
Focus Area, which is 4.0. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how your 5
project – what you think is driving this. 6
7
Yorke Lee: That – so once you've given the number, that's good information. I personally didn't 8
do this kind of analysis. This change, it is – from footprint, we haven't changed any footprint. It 9
is just directly from 5 stories raised to 3 other stories. Yes. That may be – eventually, calculation 10
become a 4.7, something. We – I personally didn't notice this ratio but it's – we didn't change 11
the footprint. It's just adding 3 stories. Yes. That's what we did. Yes. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. And then finally, I have a question for the architect to help 14
me understand the shadow provided on Page A4.4. This is also in your slide deck. 15
16
Mark Donahue: Yes. 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: I just feel like I might be misinterpreting it but for the diagram up top, to me 1
this looks like the entire bottom is – the entire courtyard is shady, even though you said that 2
the purpose was to provide more sunlight. Help me understand what I'm looking at here. 3
4
Mark Donahue: So it is accurate to say that the bottom of the courtyard would be in shade 5
most of the year. The... 6
7
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 8
9
Mark Donahue: If it were just the direct sunlight that was in consideration, then we agree that 10
the amount of direct-path sunlight on the bottom of the courtyard would be limited. But part of 11
what we're trying to do is bring light into the courtyard in general, so reflecting off of surfaces 12
and giving it a feel of being lighter and airier. And we've done that through a couple of means. 13
One is by the connection to the western portal of the entry, 2 stories high. If you're sitting in 14
the courtyard during the afternoon, the sun will be coming through there. You'll perceive it. But 15
you're absolutely correct. And these sections should not be taken as being – meant to be 16
accurate because when you cut that part of the building away and you ask it to do a shadow, it 17
just does the part that's still left. We – what did in the past is that we provided renderings of 18
that experience in the courtyard and we're assuming that we would do the same. 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: That's all for me. Thank you. 1
2
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I want to thank you, the applicant, for bringing us 5
this project and being ready with so many answers. I know you've had to work on it and 6
improve it and take feedback and we're really happy to be part of the process toward getting 7
something wonderful built here. I just want to say that I echo Commissioner Hechtman in 8
saying that I'm excited to recommend – that I'll be recommending this project move forward to 9
ARB and I want to take the opportunity, as the Chair said, to talk about things that you can 10
anticipate will be possibly under more intense discussion when you come back to us. 11
12
So personally, I'm pretty excited about the idea that you were going to go higher on this 13
building because I think this is an area that – where density feels appropriate, as you 14
mentioned, from the neighboring properties. I am concerned about the transportation and 15
really glad that Commissioner Ji is going to be talking about that in his role on the committee. 16
But I want to stress to staff this is a big deal and it's outside the scope of this project but that 17
corridor is really built up and it is backed up. And the City just mowed it and redid it just a few 18
years ago, so I don't know why we didn't expand it or think about dealing with the traffic. But 19
it's connecting El Camino and 101, as you know, and that's a really important throughfare for 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.
people that are not necessarily living there but are going through there and blocking the roads. 1
So to that end, I want to appreciate that the applicant made an adjustment that would get the 2
trash collection off the street. And I recognize that that is at the cost, at the expense of the 3
ground floor retail, which is a good question now that we understand why. But I do think the 4
betterment for the whole neighborhood to not have that truck blocking traffic on a regular 5
basis. 6
7
And then I appreciate Commissioner Ji's questions about the sunlight and I think it's interesting 8
that the applicant brought it up that you're putting some attention to this and how do you 9
make this space really pleasant throughout the year with the height, how do you provide the 10
access? I want to share my perspective on this and I think, in addition to the comfort of the 11
people who reside there and that we all do occasionally – we are going to need the sunlight. 12
There is a factor of it can get hot and there is a little bit of an environmental tradeoff that could 13
benefit this property in terms of some of that shade may reduce utility usage over time. So 14
whereas I do want people to be able to have access to that light, I'm hoping that they can get it 15
outside, either on top of the building or in the neighboring parks as well. So I hope that the 16
whole community design plays into that, not just the 1 building, because we do hope people 17
get in and out. 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.
Lastly, I was just checking the distances to public transit regarding the parking and the 1
Mountain View Shuttle is about a mile away. The Caltrain's about 1.2 miles away, about a 20-2
minute walk but not a bad bike ride. But I went down this path – well, pretty close to this path 3
when I was working at Google and I imagine that people who work there would find this a 4
pretty convenient location. All this does, though, come back to the City making sure that bike 5
paths are available from there, which they currently are not. It's extremely dangerous to bike 6
from this property to Google, which is very, very close, because we just haven't provided them 7
those kinds of paths for this part of town because right now, there's not a lot of residences 8
there. You can go around to the Meadow overpass. So I guess that's my feedback to staff is to 9
see what we can get in the pipeline from either our Department of Transportation or whoever 10
their partners are that provide the crossing. Do we own the bridge? Or I would guess Highway 11
101 owns the bridge over Highway 101. Do we know? 12
13
Jennifer Armer: I don't know off the top of my head. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I don't either. So anyway, if we could find that out before it 16
comes back and maybe have some thoughts on that because, honestly, once we start putting 17
hundreds of more people in that location, we're going to see more biking. And currently, San 18
Antonio Road's lack of bike facilities is pretty much the Number 1 comment that we give up 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
Jennifer Armer: Yes. And as mentioned, you will have an opportunity to talk through it in depth 2
at your meeting at... 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: You... 5
6
Jennifer Armer: ...the... 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: ...asked... 9
10
Jennifer Armer: ...end of... 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: ...for... 13
14
Jennifer Armer: ...March. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: ...forewarning. Here you go. 17
18
Jennifer Armer: Thank you very much. 19
20
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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: There is a light at the end of the tunnel but it might be a train. I don't 1
know. We're just trying to understand what kind of questions we're going to get and anticipate 2
that. So part of it's the applicant's need of anticipating the questions but also staff's need. And 3
we really, I got to tell you, are hopeful that the – how many projects do we need here for 4
adding residences before we get those facilities, right? It's pretty urgent. So that's my 5
comments for now. Thank you. 6
7
Chair Akin: Thank you very much. Commissioner James and Commissioner Peterson, do you 8
have anything on this round? Commissioner James. 9
10
Commissioner James: Yes. I just want to echo that I think there are so many – this checks so 11
many terrific boxes in terms of providing housing that is at a certain – it feels attainable in an 12
area where we're looking for growth and what it's replacing and I think the list is pretty long of 13
virtues. I will be completely honest, I got very used to the 5-story building and kind of fell in 14
love with the portions of it. You show me something beautiful and then you change it and I 15
might have a little hard time getting used to that. I have a slightly different perception when I 16
look at the rendering and perspective than when I look at a straight side elevation. One seems 17
much more like a big edifice, a big wall in a way that concerns me a little bit and I feel like this is 18
mostly the ARB's sort of mandate but I feel like there's – when you just add stories, you're – you 19
still – now you have a big mass and sometimes the features that worked best at 5 stories 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.
starting to look a little small to me. This is just a personal impression but I kind of hope that – 1
my sense was – I wasn't here the first time this came by but my sense was from talking to my 2
colleagues that this was kind of a shining example of how iterative design and responsiveness 3
of both the design and the owner to feedback had – gave us the 5 story. And I'm hopeful that 4
maybe some of that same process can sort of render some further refinements. And I just – I 5
understand the – all of the reasons why it's 8 stories. The one next to it is 8 stories. It's 6
financially more viable. You don't want to seem sort of inferior but I still feel like, particularly 7
when I look at it in elevation, it's still a pretty big wall and I think we all worry about that sort of 8
canyon effect. And I don't mean to suggest this is not doing a lot of work but I do have some 9
concerns about the features that are trying to create the illusion of not a flat surface of a giant, 10
8-story rectangle if that makes sense. And I respect all the decisions and what you've done, I 11
just hope that maybe that could sort of get a little bit better. I too was concerned with the light 12
in the well. I can think of examples where that – architectural examples where that has worked 13
well. I take your point about if there are light-colored surfaces and the light bounces around, 14
that might be some very nice light at the bottom. 15
16
I wanted to ask, you brought up the access for fire emergency equipment. This is a peculiar 17
question but if you were to have a fire in a EV battery inside the parking area, how is the – how 18
can fire equipment get into that area? 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.
Mark Donahue: So that is a great question. We are working through that with Fire because, of 1
course, these days, that's top on their mind. We will have – I don't think that it's shown 2
properly in the plan – but we will have 2 access stairs. And so they won't be able to get a truck 3
or anything down there but they will be within standpipe and hose pole dimensions from those 4
staircases. And the staircases will allow them to get to the bottom of it and to fight the fire 5
from the bottom or the top. It's about a 30-foot deep pit and so it would be akin to them 6
fighting a fire on a 3-story building. 7
8
Commissioner James: I just – I guess I worry about the heat of a battery… 9
10
Mark Donahue: Sure. 11
12
Commissioner James: …that is getting rid of all its energy stacked on cars that are full of 13
gasoline and I've seen a few of these fires. There was one at the dealership here and it was… 14
15
Mark Donahue: They're spectacular. 16
17
Commissioner James: …quite spectacular. 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.
Mark Donahue: Yes. There is – so this automated system does have the required fire sprinkler 1
per bay and the hope is that that will at least keep the kind of thermal transfer down until it can 2
really be addressed. But I've actually heard that the fire department's method for dealing with 3
electric car batteries is to let them burn. So we'll just have to talk to them about what kind of 4
sprinkler concentration, whether it's a deluge type or just sprinkler head per bay that we need 5
to install because that would be a disaster. 6
7
Commissioner James: Yes and I sort of – I certainly don't know about that sort of output of heat 8
and energy and so forth but I don't know if it's hot enough to start to worry about steel encased 9
in concrete. 10
11
Mark Donahue: The basement will – you're talking about the reinforcing? 12
13
Commissioner James: Yes. 14
15
Mark Donahue: Yes. I'll be referring that to our structural engineer. 16
17
Commissioner James: 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: Thank you. I'm going to follow Commissioner Hechtman's lead and have a quick 1
question and then have a little more depth in the next round and the segue is perfect because I 2
wanted to ask about the parking system. So as I read the plans, it looks like you drive in onto a 3
pallet and then the pallet is moved into place in a storage cubby. Is that correct? 4
5
Mark Donahue: That's correct. The provider that we've been working with for this particular 6
system, AutoMotion, they have some great videos. They're based in New York. And so they 7
have some YouTube videos showing how the system works in their facilities in Manhattan 8
where, as you can imagine, we're talking about 20 stories high and 40 feet wide. It's pretty 9
fascinating. The other thing that's great is that when the car gets delivered back to you, it's 10
facing out, so there's no need to do any reversing. You pull in, you say goodbye to your car, you 11
do a card reader and it brings it back facing out. 12
13
Chair Akin: That's perfect because the next question I was going to ask you was about videos so 14
we could see how it operated. 15
16
Mark Donahue: AutoMotion. 17
18
Chair Akin: I'll do that. 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.
Mark Donahue: Okay. 1
2
Chair Akin: And it's just occurred to me to ask whether, once a vehicle has been stored, 3
whether its location is fixed or whether you can repack. 4
5
Mark Donahue: So I think – the way that I understand the system to work – I would really want 6
to get their expert opinion – is that it shuffles the deck however is most efficient. They have 7
criteria that they use for delivery. And so there are things that they record, like how often is 8
that particular car brought out and if it is not very frequently, it gets stacked in the back 40. And 9
because – I think they have a target time of 90 seconds to get the car there. 10
11
Chair Akin: Yes, perfect. So a least-recently-used cache. Thank you. That's it for me for this 12
round. Shall we begin the next with Commissioner Hechtman? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: All right, so the Chair had laid out 6 items from the staff report. And if 15
you could describe again Item Number 2, which was the setback, step back. 16
17
Chair Akin: Pardon me, physical development standards… 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: 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
Chair Akin: …which includes setbacks, step backs, daylight planes… 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Height… 4
5
Chair Akin: …if you had such a thing. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Height included that? I'm trying to figure out where to fit my 8
comments. 9
10
Chair Akin: Sure. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Well, I'm going to run through sort of my feedback on these 6 items 13
and try to stay in the order that the Chair described them. So starting with the ground floor 14
commercial, I'm really not troubled by the absence of ground floor commercial. I have seen a 15
number of residential projects that were saddled with ground floor commercial and that's really 16
what it is. It is not a situation where if you build it, the renters will come. It has to be right 17
placed and there has to be synergy to it. And San Antonio is not and we haven't seen the vision 18
yet for the San Antonio plan but it's hard for me to imagine that it's going to be the Grand 19
Walking Boulevard of Palo Alto and I just don't see it. The last thing you want is empty 20
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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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
storefront. That does no one any good. And so here it was de minimis anyway. I don't have a 1
real problem and I understand why its space was needed, so I'm okay with that. In terms of the 2
physical development, it's a big building. And I think we're going to be bigger on San Antonio 3
but I'm just going to throw out an idea for you to cogitate as you move forward. It occurred to 4
me that if this project were 7 floors with a rooftop garden instead of 8, it addresses some of the 5
impacts. For example, it would reduce the overall FAR down to something – I didn't do the 6
calculation – pretty close to 4. It changes the parking ratio. You've got – well I noticed in your 7
sheet, A2.8, there are 20 units on the 8th floor. So 20 fewer units means you've got 155 units. It 8
doesn't change the parking. You've still got 203, so your ratio is a little better. Takes a little 9
pressure off the TDM. By dropping it down a floor, I think you reduce some of the costs that the 10
architect mentioned when you hit that 8th floor, so those might be reduced. I'm mindful, of 11
course, that the distribution of units on the 8th floor is listed on that Sheet A2 and I'm wiping 12
out roughly $31M of sale product. And so I can't say that the numbers work but it's worth some 13
investigation. I think it also has an impact on the upper level setback because, again, it's a lower 14
profile. Also I don't think at 7 floors with 8 next to you you're going to get significant shading 15
from the taller building but what it does is, as you're coming down San Antonio from 101, 16
you're rising to density. Your 7 leads to their 8 and maybe there's something shorter than you 17
on the freeway side. So we're climbing, announcing the density and so I think there could be a 18
synergy there. In any event, it's just something to think about. It may involve a remix of the 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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distribution of units, right? You've got 15 two- and 3-bedroom units on that 8th floor and if you 1
don't have those, there could be some recalculations. So I'll leave that. 2
3
Let's see – the parking. Assuming 175 units, 203 spaces. I do think that is a concern. I'm 4
concerned that the owners of those units will have more than 203 cars and I don't know where 5
they'll park them. And so I think that that needs some thought. And related to that is Item 4, 6
the TDM. That's all just going hand in hand. I think the TDM is sort of the last piece of the puzzle 7
because it's going to be based on where you ultimately land with the number of units versus 8
the number of parking spaces. 9
10
San Antonio Road setback. I'm just not a big fan. And I've said this on other projects on El 11
Camino. I'm not a big fan of giving up housing to have buildings have a little more of a V shape 12
at the top. San Antonio is a very wide boulevard and we have a special 24-foot setback. So to 13
me, that's enough. Other commissioners may feel differently and in the past have on that issue. 14
But I like the fact that you have sort of made a nod in that direction with the 5-foot step back, I 15
think on the 7th and 8th floor, if that's right. So I don't think that there's much benefit to losing 16
more housing space to gain a little more of an aesthetic light and air up that high. 17
18
Unit size and affordability. I've said it before, it's a tremendous. I'm salivating at the number of 19
2- and 3-bedroom units that this project could bring and so I'm hoping as this goes forward we 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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still have a predominance of those. And Item 7, which was not on your list but it's in the staff 1
report, about parks. 2
3
Chair Akin: I deliberately left that off to save time because I thought there would be little 4
controversy over it. Am I wrong? 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, a short comment that – first of all, you've met the open space 7
requirement with 150 square feet per unit, so that's excellent. Having an actual park to serve 8
this stretch of San Antonio is going to be a challenge if you ignore the phenomenal, amazing 9
hundreds-of-acre park that is a mile away down San Antonio. It's the Baylands. And that is just a 10
phenomenal resource that people who move into this area are going to learn to love. I don't 11
know how far we're supposed to have our parks from our units but it's almost exactly a mile. 12
But in terms of putting another park somewhere on San Antonio, you couldn't do it on this. 13
Even if we took this whole property, it's 38,000 square feet, just under an acre. That's not a big 14
park. That's a little park. And so I think, in our San Antonio planning, we're really going to have 15
to think through this because there's not going to be a development big enough that they're 16
going to say, okay, we're going to build all these units and we're going to give you a 3-acre park 17
here. There's no landmass like that. And so I think the City is at some point going to have to 18
decide do we really need to park right on San Antonio and if so are we going to take all these 19
park in-lieu fees that we collect from this corridor and buy a piece of property to make that a 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
park? So for now, I think park in-lieu fees are the right approach for this project that's in front 1
of us. So thanks for listening. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you and thank you for starting off, Commissioner Hechtman. 6
My goodness. All right. I've already said how I feel about the ground floor retail. I support your 7
decision to move the traffic – the regular trash pickup traffic off of San Antonio and if that's the 8
price we pay, I support that. We'll see – it sounds like that was feedback you got from staff and 9
from Council as well, so it's very likely they'll be excited about that change. I also, by the way, 10
just really liked the little wheels tracks that you added in red. I thought that was very helpful to 11
visualize. 12
13
Anyway, moving on to physical development standards. I'm not too excited about losing 20 14
units from a floor because those as – you noted this would be a trade-off – 20 units, if it's the 15
large units but we don't want to lose those. They added those in at Council's request. So I'm not 16
– I don't see the point in making or asking this developer to lose out on the opportunity to 17
provide housing in our city and this location and also thinking about the property value. That's a 18
lot of value that doesn't make sense for them to lose or the City to lose in terms of housing. So 19
I'm not interested in asking him to make it smaller. Frankly, I just think this is a good project in 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the right place. I do think to make it better we're going to have to get some changes from the 1
City. But anyway – next – oh, you mentioned something about going from 101 gently into the 2
density – no I want to go gently into the density from the neighborhoods, from 101. Look at 3
what's happening at that intersection. There's no gentle nothing. There's a JCC right there. 4
There's other gigantic apartment buildings. So I – that does not work for me. I think it's fine 5
where – the way it is there. I just want to make sure that we understand that there's an area 6
being developed at those heights and there's areas that are not being developed at those 7
heights and that's where I want the gentle transition. And maybe I misunderstood. I don't 8
know. 9
10
Okay, parking. When I lived in Germany, we had a parking structure like this. It was super cool. I 11
loved it. Felt so high tech. This was 20 years ago, so I'm sure it's even more high tech now but it 12
worked fine. Very rarely did we have problems but when we did, boy is it a big problem. So 13
make sure you have backup repair people nearby for emergencies. 14
15
Okay, the setback or step back or whatever on the upper floors. It seems fine as it is. I could 16
imagine if people wanted to have a little bit more dynamism to the front of it that you'll hear 17
that from the ARB. I don't feel like really we are – we're artists in our hearts but when we sit up 18
here, I think we've got to do the thing that we do here. So I would – I'm very interested to see 19
what advice they have you and give feedback on the presentation part once the ARB has 20
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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.
spoken with you. But I do like that you have started to differentiate. As it gets up to a certain 1
level, you want to show some differences and make it not one giant wall. So I already 2
appreciate what you've done there and I think we'll like what we see next even more. 3
4
The unit size and affordability – yay to 3-bedroom units. Thank you for adding that. I realize that 5
it's going to make the conversations with us a lot longer because it means that you're adding 6
height but I appreciate because I think this is the right place to have this conversation. I can 7
imagine some of the other buildings we've seen it would absolutely be a no-go. I think here, 8
given the surrounding neighborhoods, you read the room so to speak on San Antonio Road and 9
to me it feels appropriate. You're going to hear mixed feedback here. My advice is obviously 10
you're going to continue to iterate on it but the deciders are Council. We recommend, we 11
analyze, we think it through, we make sure they have a nice package when they review your 12
proposal. I don't have any comments other than appreciation that we have more family units. 13
That said, because I promised you drama for parks and Vice Chair Chang is not here tonight, so 14
I'm going to channel my inner Vice Chair Chang and say now that we're adding so many family 15
units to this property, we have to talk about families crossing San Antonio Road. And that is not 16
on the developer; that is on the City and it's up to us to make sure they have safe ways to get 17
across and safe access to Cubberley, which is another more traditional park that's very close by. 18
And then, for the Baylands, we need to get those bike lanes going. So that's challenging 19
because we've got 101 right in the way and you have to go pretty significantly out of the way, I 20
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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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
think, Commissioner Hechtman, to get to that bike bridge. And I don't – is the one under 101 1
closed permanently now? Sorry. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, I think so. So you're doing you're doing the Fabian, right… 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: …to the overpass. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: We used to be able to just boo-boo-boo and that would work but 10
now, because we have a new fancier bike bridge, we have more of a detour so we have to think 11
about the lanes or some other option. And I know it's terrifying. I accidentally rode that my first 12
trip to work and I'm still scarred from it. We have to we have to fix it if we wanted people to 13
bike to the Baylands or walk to the Baylands from this property. But I love the idea, so maybe 14
that's something we can talk about either on your CAP group or in other conversations with the 15
developer. All right, that's my – I think I got everything. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner Ji. 18
19
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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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I too just want to take a moment to talk about the great 1
things about this project. I tried to reserve my first section for mostly questions but I do want to 2
highlight that, like Commissioner Templeton said, removing the trash pickup and putting that 3
on site I think is a huge plus. People talk about traffic congestion on San Antonio. Well, if you 4
have a big garbage truck that's taking up one of the lanes, that is the definition of traffic 5
congestion. So I think that that's incredibly exciting. The other thing that I want to talk about is 6
although slightly inaccurate on Packet Page 22, the commissioners may know that I've spent a 7
lot of time with the PC Ordinance and so I am pretty excited to say that there is no 8
encroachment on any of the setbacks and so that's exciting. But just for staff, I also want to 9
jump on what Commissioner Hechtman said on Packet Page 21 where there's the ground floor 10
retail identified as 2,294. There's another instance of it above. On the maximum floor area for 11
HIP, there is a percentage that's listed for commercial. So just noting that for the record. And 12
then I also had a quick question, because we're talking about encroachment, I do see that there 13
is some below-grade parking encroachment on the back by 10 feet but the entire rear yard is 10 14
feet – on Packet Page 20. I know the back is a little bit slanted, so does this just mean that it's 15
not fully encroached? Can you kind of tell me a little bit more about this here? 16
17
Jennifer Armer: Sorry. Give me one second. You're just asking if the project encroaches at 10 18
feet or more than 10 feet? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Commissioner Ji: Is there actually no rear yard setback on the backside because it's 10 feet and 1
then you're encroaching 10 feet? 2
3
Claire Raybould: I'll have the applicant respond to their plan sets. 4
5
Mark Donahue: Okay. So the most encroachment is on parking level 1 and there's the 10-foot 6
setback and in this iteration, we're encroaching about 5 feet. But I was looking at this when we 7
were looking at the packet and I actually think that we can reduce that further. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Okay, maybe work with staff to make sure this table is updated for the ARB. 10
And then also a question on the row below where it says below-grade parking encroaches up to 11
3 feet into rear setback but this is for the row that's the interior side yard, so I guess for staff, is 12
this accurate? 13
14
Claire Raybould: Sorry. Say that one more time. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: In this diagram on Packet Page 20 on the interior side yard, fourth from top, it 17
says 'below-grade parking encroaches 3 feet into the rear setback,' but this is for the interior 18
side yard. So is is there a mismatch here? 19
20
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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
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Claire Raybould: Hold on. The setback on the side yard… 1
2
Commissioner Ji: And then the description says that… 3
4
Claire Raybould: …for below grade, right? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes, the description says 3 feet into the rear setback. 7
8
Claire Raybould: Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, that's I think there's a typo on that. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: I'm just channeling my inner Commissioner Hechtman since we're talking 11
about different folks here. Okay. I also just want to say that, like Council and the many of the 12
commissioners here, I'm pretty excited about the 2 to 3 bedrooms. Just want to echo that 13
sentiment. I do have quite a few comments about some of the different items that the Chair 14
has mentioned but also kind of going in line from where I started the loading zone, which we 15
now expect the trash pickup to be on – I think it's on one of these pages. Maybe A2.1 for the 16
rear-loading garbage truck. So I'm wondering if the applicant can talk about is this expected to 17
also be like a pedestrian pick-up/drop-off area? 18
19
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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.
Mark Donahue: Yes, it can function for drop-offs, for Uber, for temporary food delivery, that 1
kind of thing as well. Yes. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. So now I'm going to go through my comments against what 4
the Chair has said. So I think for me one of the things that I would recommend is go back and 5
re-watch the Council pre-screen on the neighboring project because I think that while this 6
project has improved the number of 2 to 3 units, I'm afraid that it might have created a series of 7
problems that the Council would like to see changed about your neighboring project. For 8
example, the Council explicitly was disappointed to see that there was no ground floor retail 9
preserved in 788 and I'll defer to the recording to kind of comment more specifically on that. I 10
think that, unlike what Commissioner Hechtman said about the kind of failing ground floor 11
retail, I think it's very easy to look literally down the street in San Antonio on the Mountain 12
View side and you will see 7-story buildings with ground floor retail of which none of them are 13
empty. And so I'm pretty – I think it's pretty clear, to me at least, that if it can survive one mile 14
down the street that it can probably survive here especially as we continue to build higher 15
density around here. So I understand that the loading zone is very important but I also would 16
like to ideally see the ground floor retail come back in some shape or form. 17
18
So then my next comment is about height and density. So I feel like one of the ways in which 19
we look at PCs is to look at other parts of the code in which – that help guide the kind of realm 20
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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 discussion that we have for PCs. And one area that I feel like is pretty pertinent to do a 1
comparison against is the El Camino Focus Area of which we have provided some kind of design 2
guidelines. And for those who are interested, the El Camino width is about a hundred feet 3
across from one side to the other while San Antonio is about 75 feet. And one public comment 4
that we've gotten pretty often about El Camino is we don't want to see it look like a canyon. 5
And if at a hundred feet wide we're saying that at 55 feet we're asking for an upper level 6
setback of 10 feet, then I think it should – we should have potentially an equal or more setback 7
for a narrow street, which is San Antonio at 75 feet. And the height limit for the El Camino 8
Focus Area is also 85 feet of which this project goes above that at 92 feet. In addition, I also 9
want to call out that many of the neighboring projects also don't hit this limit. So for example, a 10
larger project that we saw on El Camino at 3606 has a floor area ratio of 3.3 and a height of 11
83.5, which is kind of the height is higher because it's on a podium but the 4 area ratio is 12
approximately similar to what you provided previously. Similarly for other projects on San 13
Antonio at 788, their floor area ratio is 3.31. At 762 San Antonio, their ratio is 3.33. At 3997 14
Fabian, it's 3.19 and you can see that many of the sister projects have a lower floor area ratio 15
than the one that you've provided here, which is 41 percent higher than the average and 18 16
percent higher than the next highest floor area ratio. And I get that for certain areas such as El 17
Camino where we have more mass transit, it may be helpful to have a higher density but as 18
mentioned during the council meeting, this is a bit of a transit desert. And as Commissioner 19
Templeton mentioned, it's over one mile from any reasonable high-frequency transit. 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 I kind of want to talk a little bit about the item about parking, which is kind of related here, 2
which is that, as Councilmember Bert mentioned during the city council meeting, there really is 3
no street parking. San Antonio, you really cannot street park. And on Leghorn, which is where 4
there's potentially other street parking, it's completely covered with RVs. There is no place for 5
you to street park there. And I feel like that makes me a little bit more concerned about the 6
parking issues here. So I would like to echo that I think the TDM is essential if you continue to 7
be in a parking deficit. Also mentioned in the city council meeting is the fact that your project is 8
providing significantly more parking than your neighbor and the Council actually really 9
appreciated that, so I think that is something to keep in consideration there. 10
11
Regarding the special setback, Sam, I was wondering if you could just pull up the presentation I 12
sent you to Slide 52. While he's doing that, I will say that I think that for the setbacks and step 13
backs and daylight planes, I think using something that's pretty similar to the El Camino Focus 14
Area is probably my recommendation on that front. Okay. Thank you. So anyway, this is just a 15
quick representation for what staff is presenting to us for – as part of the San Antonio 16
Community Advisory Group. So these are a couple different options for what the special 17
setback may look like. It's shown on the right here. You might want to zoom – pinch and zoom 18
in if you would like on on the right side, which kind of shows that in this option there's a buffer 19
and then a sidewalk and then kind of a walking space. I think that's kind of the plan for 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.
And then, in the next slide you'll see that's not impacting this property but on the far left the 1
difference is that there is a shared-use path on the other side of the street. And then on the 2
next slide you'll see that there's a proposed both bike lanes on both sides. So I think that there's 3
some pretty exciting transportation projects that looks like staff is going to be providing for the 4
special setback. So I just want to say again that the – I'm pretty excited about the special 5
setback being maintained because I think that the City has a lot of plans for the usage here. 6
7
And then for the unit affordability, I am channeling my inner Vice Chair Chang when saying 8
maybe it could be helpful for staff to provide the distribution on Packet Page 15 of the below 9
market rate unit calculation also by unit type. So you're saying here that 14 units are very low 10
income, which is great. That's awesome. But are they all studios? In order for me to – I know 11
that's not true. I looked at the plans and ensured that's not true but I think that the ARB and 12
Council would be really appreciative to demonstrate this is actually quite a plus that your 13
distribution of the below market rates aren't all of a single type. 14
15
And then I know that the Chair purposely tried to avoid the parkland discussion but I will 16
provide a one-sentence comment, which is that I think that staff identified either this area or 17
the area right next to it as – but definitely in the San Antonio Focus Area – as parkland desert. 18
There aren't very many parks that are within 15-minute walking distance, which is unfortunate 19
for this area but our resident Baylands expert, Commissioner Hechtman, will note that the 20
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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 are pretty close by and I do hope that the in-lieu fees can help promote some kind of 1
parkland, although there is an ample amount pretty close by. So that will end my comments. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. Very comprehensive. Commissioner Peterson or Commissioner James, 4
anything to follow on? 5
6
Commissioner James: My switch is not working here. Maybe I'm not… 7
8
Chair Akin: It worked that time. 9
10
Commissioner James: Okay. 11
12
Chair Akin: Commissioner James. 13
14
Commissioner James: Let me just run down the list that you've suggested. In terms of limiting 15
the ground floor retail, every time someone spoke on that, I agreed with them and they all 16
didn't agree with each other, so I think it probably suggests I don't have a lot of conviction 17
there. I would love it if this was sort of a walking area and you could have a coffee shop there 18
and I don't know whether to expect that to be reasonable or not. But certainly, if it was a trade-19
off between the off-street garbage and if, in fact, that is the trade-off, I think that's the right 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.
decision. The – in terms of setbacks, step backs and daylight planes, I'm very wishy-washy 1
tonight but I sort of liked Commissioner Hechtman's idea about dropping down a floor. I felt like 2
the building would look better. It would solve some parking issues. It would solve FAR. And 3
then, when Commissioner Templin pointed out it would eliminate a lot of much-needed 4
housing, I agreed with her. So I think this is the real difficult trade-off. I also feel like, 5
aesthetically, it would be probably more appealing to me as a 7-story 5 with 2-story setback but 6
that feels kind of piggy and selfish and aesthetically annoying that that would matter more than 7
2- and 3-bedroom housing. So I'm hopeful that some design considerations can be considered 8
that would give the large facade some slightly different massing, a little more relief with color 9
or maybe depth or maybe it is a 10-foot step back. But anyway, I'm – hopefully that can kind of 10
get refined. 11
12
The – I'm in favor of setbacks. I like setbacks on big thoroughfares. And as far as parking is 13
concerned, I was less concerned about this than I think some of my colleagues and I think that 14
is because I – and it's not – it's an intuitive sense that a lot of people in the life of this building 15
who have studio apartments may choose not to have cars but that's profoundly unscientific but 16
it's my sense. The TDM, I'm not sure what my comments on that would be. I talked about the 17
special setback. I think, just like El Camino Real, San Antonio would benefit from that and 18
maybe it can even take a a bike lane on the other side of the utility boxes. Love the unit 19
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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.
affordability and the size differentiation. Echo what Commissioner Ji said about please, on the 1
on that table, put the size not just the numbers of units that are horrible. And that's it for me. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Peterson, anything to add? 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: No. 6
7
Chair Akin: Okay, thank you. Then I will run through my list. Concerning eliminating the ground 8
floor commercial retail, whatever it turned out to be, I regret that but I agree that eliminating it 9
in order to get the trash pickup intrusion into San Antonio eliminated is the right decision. 10
Physical development standards. I would like to see step backs of some kind to improve 11
daylight. Definitely on the San Antonio Roadside – daylight and massing – and preferably also 12
next to 788, which may well [inaudible 147:27] another huge attempt to build another huge 13
vertical wall. However, I feel completely comfortable deferring that decision to the ARB. So this 14
is just me registering my preference for their use. 15
16
Parking. So is anyone else watching the saga of The Fay in San Jose? The Fay is a 330-plus unit, 17
23-story project in San Jose in an absolutely stellar location downtown that was highly touted 18
and a beautiful piece of work, foreclosed a couple of weeks ago. And the reports from the 19
analysts are that this happened because occupancy is poor due to a lack of parking spaces. So 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 prompted me to do a deep dive into the San Jose permit system. I was unable to get a set 1
of plans for the garage floor areas but I was able to get the area from the permits and derived 2
from that area, it works out to be about 0.9 spaces per unit. Now, the proposal we're looking at 3
today has about 1.17 spaces per unit. And for me, that's uncomfortably close. So I suspect you 4
may have to be very cautious about what turns out to be marketable based on what we're 5
hearing about this other project. Unlike some of the other projects we've looked at, this one 6
does not have the option to overflow into adjacent streets, so that safety valve is not available. 7
And finally, since we mentioned autonomous vehicles, it's worth remembering that using an 8
autonomous vehicle for transportation rather than a vehicle you park at your destination adds 9
vehicle miles traveled. So you have to pick up the rider, deliver the rider, and then move to the 10
next ride. So the effect is going to be increased traffic on San Antonio if we're relying on that as 11
a primary transportation mode. So be careful about that as a solution to the parking problem. 12
And of course, that leads directly to the TDM plan. Whatever is done for parking, given the 13
location and the amount of parking, the TDM plan really is essential. And I keep harping on this 14
but it has to be enforceable, not just aspirational. And we've taken baby steps towards that on 15
some other projects but we need to do at least as well here and perhaps quite a bit better if we 16
have many other projects on San Antonio with similar characteristics. 17
18
Thank you for maintaining the San Antonio special setback and also avoiding encroachment 19
below grade. I hope that will give us options of the kind that Commissioner Ji described to bring 20
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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
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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multimodal transportation up to par in this area. On unit size and affordability, well, we always 1
want more affordability but this proposal seems acceptable to me. Given the financial 2
constraints, we can't do everything. The unit mix seems heavy on studios for an ownership 3
project to me, so I have a question as to whether you anticipate some of those will be leased 4
because that could change the demand characteristic. 5
6
Yorke Lee: So we look at the trend for condo development basically becomes smaller and 7
smaller. The reason being is affordability. Affordability is a big challenge. So that's why average 8
space of a unit is smaller for this version. And we added some studio. Could be somebody who, 9
because we only have, I think, 30-plus units like this type. Somebody who purchased this can 10
rent this out for whoever need it. So percentage-wise, it is not a lot, the studio. Yes. So that's 11
why we think it should be okay. 12
13
Chair Akin: Yes, I'm not objecting. I'm just curious to understand how the financials work out 14
and that makes sense. 15
16
Yorke Lee: Thank you. 17
18
Chair Akin: All right. So I'll wrap with the overall comments, which are just that there are many, 19
many things I like about the project; I hope we can work out the details. And just a quick 20
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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.
comment. Thank you for your development program statement. I understand that's required 1
but this one was much more useful than many we see, so I appreciated that. That's all for me. 2
Commissioner Ji and then Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. I had 2 quick comments, one of which is I actually want to 5
comment on your comment about autonomous vehicles. So I actually work at an autonomous 6
vehicle company and I asked some of our experts about the loading zone that you have 7
provided for autonomous vehicles and the answer is basically it's unusable at this time and in 8
the near future for autonomous vehicles because they really can't back up by themselves. So 9
they can't – so in the diagram, you've provided both a dead end and also a T-shape. There is 10
basically no real feasibility for autonomous vehicles to be able to do that maneuver any time in 11
the near future, including Waymo, which is currently the leading in autonomous vehicles. So I 12
just want to call that out as I – it's totally doable for an Uber or Lyft. Human driver can do this 13
maneuver but an autonomous vehicle will not be able to do this maneuver in the near future. 14
So I wanted to comment on that. 15
16
And number 2, I kind of want to talk about a little bit about the false dichotomy for the upper 17
floor units. We're saying, oh, if we remove the 8th floor, we might lose 2- or 3-story units due 18
to the whole floor removal but one thing that we've seen with kind of angled step backs and 19
daylight planes is that you can just reshuffle the units. You can make it so that, oh, previously 20
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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.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
on an 8th floor, it was a 2- or 3-bedroom unit but you shuffle that down to the bottom floor 1
and now you put a studio up at the top and now it's kind of set back a little bit more from 2
whichever side that you're looking at and you're still able to keep the unit composition in a way 3
that we can still keep some of those 2- or 3-bedroom units. And I also want to echo the Chair's 4
comments about setbacks against the neighboring developments. As previously noted, there's a 5
development at 824, there's a development at 788, and I think that the way we should think 6
about our daylight plane standards is similar to as if the projects are already being built because 7
they are already in the pipeline. So we should think about them as they will also be there, not 8
whatever is there right now, which is like a commercial something or other. So I think we 9
should be using – we want to make sure that we're developing in a way that is cohesive for an 10
area, not just for each project in the silo. Thank you. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Templeton. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I really appreciated your comments about the 15
autonomous vehicles. Thank you for sharing that. I had my first ride in one this weekend. It was 16
terrifying. I can only tell you that I prefer humans at this point but I know you're working to 17
make it better. So yes, we had a right turn across 4 lanes. I was like, oh, okay, I'll just hold on 18
really tight. Anyway, yes, I appreciate the conversation we're having about the upper floor. And 19
you're right, we could mix and match and lose some other floor, which would be even more 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.
units of reduction in the project size. So one of the things I'm thinking about is we have targets 1
in the city and if we don't build them here, where are we going to build them? And you're like, 2
well, we're not building them on El Camino. Well, you're right. You're right. We have limits 3
there that we don't have here. So I'm just thinking about what are some ways that we can make 4
this project work and we can hit our numbers or get closer to our numbers because we can 5
read the writing on the wall. If we continue to fail, we're going to have less and less autonomy 6
as a city and that terrifies me. So I just want to think about what are the ways that we can 7
support, like the developers taking a lot of good feedback from the City Council and that helps 8
us. So for me, I'm okay with it. I remember being very jarred when some of those developments 9
went up on the Mountain View side. They were – they felt pretty tall. But then again, I felt the 10
same way when some of the other larger developments went up here in Palo Alto. But I love 11
the JCC and I love the adjacent buildings and we can find a way, I hope. And I do think your 12
point – I appreciate you sharing those slides because seeing that the City is already working on 13
this and has some progress means that probably before I die, we might have some. You laugh 14
but I've been around here a long time; it will take a while. So I really do hope that we can get 15
that working out. 16
17
I did press the button because I wanted to make the staff motion but if we have more 18
discussion, we can do that. 19
20
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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: In fact, there are no other lights. And if you hadn't suggested that, my next move 1
would have been to request a motion. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: I'm clued in. I got your number, Chair. So I move that we forward this 4
proposed project application to the Architectural Review Board for review of the development 5
plan. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Second. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. 10
11
Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera. 12
13
Samuel Tavera: Yes. Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 16
17
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson. 18
19
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 20
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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: Commissioner James. 2
3
Commissioner James: Yes. 4
5
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 8
9
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 12
13
Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin. 14
15
Chair Akin: Yes. 16
17
Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 6-0. 18
19
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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 very much. Before we move on to the next item, I believe it's time for a 1
break, so let us resume at 8:45. 2
3
ACTION ITEMS 4
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. All 5
others: 6
Three (3) minutes per speaker. 7
8
3. Request for a Zoning Text Amendment to Palo Alto Municipal Code Title 18 (Zoning) 9
Section 18.18.120 (Noncomplying Uses and Facilities) to allow existing floor area to 10
be replaced in new buildings without increasing the degree of existing non-11
compliance. CEQA Status: Exempt from CEQA per Section 15061 (b)(3) (Common 12
Sense). 13
14
Chair Akin: Let's begin Agenda Item Number 3, Request to Amend 18.18.120 to allow existing 15
floor area to be replaced in new buildings provided the degree of existing non-compliance is 16
not increased. This begins on Packet Page 27. May we have the staff presentation? 17
18
Senior Planner Steven Switzer: Good evening. Bear with me while I share my screen. All right. 19
Well, let's take a trip around downtown. So this is a request for a text amendment for the 20
commercial downtown non-complying uses and facilities and that would allow the existing non-21
complying floor area to be replaced without restricting the existing building envelope of those 22
said structures. We call it the Shrink Rap Rule. So just a little bit of background. This did go 23
before or come before the PTC, should I say, of last year in October on the 8th. Just kind of 24
structuring the conversation here with a little bit of that legislative history. So if we go back in 25
time to the 1980s – 1986 when that commercial downtown district was formed. Following that, 26
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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 was a informational report sent to Council in 1988 concluding that those non-complying 1
buildings, the buildings that were affected by the new zoning district standards, could be 2
remodeled and replaced if there's no increase in non-compliance. And staff ran with that 3
interpretation for roughly 27 years until, in 2013, there was a proposal to relocate 4
approximately 6,000 square feet from below grade of basement across the street at 261 5
Hamilton to a new proposed rear addition. So following that in 2014, Council clarified that that 6
section of code up for discussion this evening prohibits the shifting of non-compliant building 7
area in downtown, including from below grade to above grade. Following that in 2015, Council 8
further directed staff to prepare some code amendments to reinforce and clarify that provision. 9
And that came in 2017 where an ordinance, 5373, clarified the definition of a building envelope 10
as well as explicitly stated the prohibition of replacing that non-compliant floor area beyond 11
that building envelope definition. So in 2022, there was a pre-screening for 616 Ramona Street 12
to kind of revisit this and perhaps go back to an earlier version of that code interpretation from 13
the 1980s. 14
15
And at that pre-screening and just highlighted on the screen here and detailed in the staff 16
report, Council noted a number of items to consider when a text amendment would be brought 17
forth. So here we are with the text amendment. All right. So the project description is to simply 18
remove the (a)(2)(C) as well as the (b)(2)(C) sections, what's detailed on the screen here, as well 19
as an Attachment A with the red line struck through as well as the references to grandfathered 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 ordinance due to negative connotations with the term. This would effectively allow 1
existing non-compliant floor area to be demolished and replaced with new structures that 2
could have differing heights, footprints, or building envelopes so long as they complied with the 3
governing zoning district. I do want to note here that we just are advancing the applicant's 4
proposed text amendment. If we recall from the October 8 meeting at the PTC last year, there 5
was an additional staff proposed amendment with some considerations for retail as well as 6
housing and that leads me into my next few slides here for some considerations where staff felt 7
it was more appropriate for the discussion rather than providing that suggested language to the 8
PTC. 9
10
So from that previous discussion, there was a general support for reducing barriers to 11
development downtown and several commissioners also preferred the simplicity of the 12
applicant's proposal. Staff is noting that there are a number of ongoing efforts in the Downtown 13
area as well as policies that are underway and currently being reviewed. So notably, the 14
Downtown Housing Plan, Senate Bill 79 with a tentative Council date in March, Housing 15
Element 3.9 with a tentative date in March as well with the Policy and Services Commission and 16
keeping in mind the Council priorities of housing and retail and the number of properties that 17
would be affected by this set ordinance. 18
19
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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 with that, if we look on the screen as well as in that Attachment C, is the number of 1
properties affected. There's 302 parcels currently zoned in that commercial downtown district 2
and out of those, there's been 87 parcels with remodels and additions between 2011 to 2025, 3
which are unlikely to rebuild soon with just recent remodels or additions. Nineteen of those 87 4
parcels have a 1:1 for area ratio or above that, which would place them in the non-compliant 5
category. So that leaves us with 47 parcels that would be likely affected if that code 6
amendment shouldn't move forward. 7
8
So for tonight's recommendation, staff is recommending to consider the applicant's request to 9
modify the code section and recommend to City Council to not pursue the amendment at this 10
time due to the ongoing efforts of these other policy considerations in the Downtown area. And 11
with that, I wanted to also provide some alternatives as listed in the staff report. The PTC may 12
also continue to a date certain and the PTC may also forward a recommendation of adoption of 13
the modification or text amendment, with or without modifications, to City Council. And with 14
that, I can entertain any questions and the applicant is available in chambers. 15
16
Chair Akin: So will Mr. Hayes be giving us a presentation or simply be available for Q&A? 17
18
19
Ken Hayes: I have a presentation very similar to the last one that you saw but a little bit shorter. 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: All right. If we may then, let's have the presentation and then we can ask questions 2
both of staff and of yourself. 3
4
Ken Hayes: Okay. Let me share. Okay. Great. Good evening, Chair Akin and fellow 5
commissioners. My name's Ken Hayes with Hayes Group Architects. I want to, before I start, 6
thank staff for helping us bring this item forward tonight as a action item and hopefully a 7
recommendation to City Council. So when I was here in October, I said the Downtown is 8
paralyzed because of the Shrink Wrap Rule, which is what we're talking about. I advanced a 9
proposed tax amendment at that time that would remove the Shrink Wrap Rule and I think I 10
had your attention and I believe I had pretty good support for what I was proposing. However, 11
staff at that time asked for no recommendation to Council. And tonight I'm looking for your 12
recommendation to Council and specifically the alternative recommendation, which is Action 13
Item Number 2 on Page 33, which is the addition or the adoption rather without any 14
modifications or with or without modifications. So adoption with or without modifications. So 15
at that hearing, I showed and staff confirmed that not one new building subject to the Shrink 16
Wrap Rule had been built in the last 10 years in the Downtown; however, there was one lucky 17
building, 355 University, which is the Design Within Reach building now that actually we did and 18
this was done in 2017. And this renovation was actually done by Design Within Reach and I 19
believe they had signed leases before the Shrink Wrap Rule became effective in 2016, so they 20
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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.
were kind of forced to continue with their plan. But this project was restricted by the Shrink 1
Wrap Rule. And it all started in '86. Council adopted Ordinance 3696 that staff mentioned, 2
which reduced the FAR in the CD Zone from 3 to 1. It went on to say non-complying facilities, if 3
when built were complying, shall be deemed to be complying and such facilities shall be 4
permitted to remodel, replace site improvements and they can expand only with exceptions to 5
floor area, so TDRs, bonus floor area, things like that. And it led to a little bit of confusion. In 6
1988, the city's manager's office issued this clarifying language to the ordinance and it says, 7
"where existing floor area at or above grade is eliminated, the whole building or a portion of 8
the building, such buildings would be permitted to be remodeled and replaced provided there 9
be no increase in the building's non-compliance in floor area or in height. However, in that 10
remodeling or replacing, such buildings would be permitted to be reconfigured in terms of 11
length, width, and height so long as the existing floor area was not increased" except for those 12
permitted exceptions I just mentioned. Also in no event would a building's height be allowed to 13
exceed the 50 feet. And it went on to provide examples to interpret that language. And they 14
said, essentially, a 10,000 square foot building on the left, let's say an existing building on the 15
left, 2 stories could become a 10,000 square foot, 3-story building so long as other site 16
development restrictions were not exceeded. And they went on to say that this would lead to 17
improved building design and enhancement of the Downtown. Development in the CD District 18
went on for 30 years with that interpretation. I can remember climbing around buildings 19
measuring mezzanines and things like that to try to justify existing floor area. 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 these are a number of our projects – there's been plenty by others – in the last 30 – or the 2
30 years preceding 2016. In January 2016, Council adopted Ordinance 5373. I know staff keeps 3
saying 2017 – I'm pretty sure it was 2016. And basically, the Shrink Wrap Rule was born. It is 4
suffocating legislation for the Downtown. The Shrink Wrap Rule added 2 sentences for non-5
complying buildings, which I've highlighted in red here. Everything else is the same. Everything 6
– all the text there in black but added these sections that I have highlighted in red and it says 7
for the purpose of this section, "building envelope shall mean the 3-dimensional shape and size 8
occupied by an existing building. It is not the maximum buildable potential of the site." And at 9
that hearing, it was described by a staff member as picture shrink wrap over your building, thus 10
it became colloquially known as the Shrink Wrap Rule. The Shrink Wrap Rule renders non-11
complying facilities frozen in time unless an owner wants to eliminate existing floor area that 12
exceeds the 1:1 requirement for a new – or in the Downtown – to build a new, better building. 13
So if you want to change your building, you need to remove any non-complying floor area. In a 14
Class B commercial building in the Downtown, that floor area is worth at least 1200 bucks a 15
foot, probably more. So if you have a 2-story, 10,000 square foot building on a 5,000 square 16
foot lot, you have to eliminate 5,000 square feet if you want to replace that building or 17
redevelop that building with some other use. That's $6M. Nobody is going to tear their building 18
down to lose $6M before they even start the project. It gets worse if the building's a 15,000 19
square foot building on a 5,000 square foot lot. Now you're talking about even more real 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.
money. So no owner, as I've said, is going to tear their building down to lose value and the facts 1
kind of prove it. Since the adoption of the Shrink Wrap Rule in 2016, the development's been 2
dead in the Downtown. For the last 10 years, there's been one building in the Downtown that 3
was remodeled under the Shrink Wrap Rule and that was the Design Within Reach building that 4
I showed you. 5
6
What I'm showing here is that there was one new building built in the Downtown, 620 7
Emerson, the Nobu Garden building, but it wasn't subject to the Shrink Wrap Rule. It was a – 8
there was a complying building there that they tore down and then they built that. There's also 9
was 429 University that everyone knows about but that was approved prior to the Shrink Wrap 10
Rule, so it was never subject to the Shrink Wrap Rule. And then 585 Hamilton on the corner of 11
Hamilton and Webster, a mixed-use project there, also was not subject to the Shrink Wrap Rule 12
when it was built or approved and then built. There have been 2 buildings that have been 13
remodeled, one 480 Litton and that was not subject to the Shrink Wrap Rule because it was a 14
complying building and then 355 University. So it kind of boils down to, if you look at new 15
buildings built or remodeled in the Downtown in the last 10 years that are subject to the Shrink 16
Wrap Rule, one. And before that, dozens probably in a 10-year period. 17
18
The color-coded plan here, basically, is the Downtown housing group study area that I had put 19
together showing the disposition of each parcel according to this plan area and our numbers 20
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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.
are a little bit different than staff's because they're using the CD zone and we're using the 1
Downtown housing group study area basically but it's still relevant. So subtract – oops, sorry. 2
Subtracting the parcels that have been redeveloped in blue, all the blue parcels, the historic 3
parcels are all in yellow. A lot of historic parcels in the Downtown. Public facilities are brown 4
and those are primarily city hall and parking lots and residential parcels in green, leaves 98 5
properties available for redevelopment and this is the legend. I can go back and we can talk 6
about it more if you need to but basically the point here is 98 buildings have been – are 7
available – properties available for redevelopment. According – so of those, 42 are subject to 8
the Shrink Wrap Rule. According to my map, 43 percent, basically, of the available properties 9
are subject to the shrink wrap. If you look at staff's numbers, it's even higher, 47 out of 66 10
properties and so that's 71 percent of the properties are subject to the Shrink Wrap Rule. Now, 11
this text amendment does nothing to increase floor area. This is all the existing floor area. What 12
it – if it's not – if the Shrink Wrap Rule is not repealed, what it means is that this building is 13
going to be there for – until it falls down by itself because no one's going to have an incentive to 14
do anything with it. 15
16
Here's what would happen if the Shrink Wrap Rule was repealed. This building has very 17
insufficient floor-to-floor heights, 9 foot 6 on the first to second floor, 9 foot 6 to the second. 18
Very below standard in terms of what we build today for commercial properties. If this building 19
were torn down and just the floor area was replaced at more current floor-to-floor heights, 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.
might have that, all right? Not a big deal but a much better building design if one undertook 1
that project. Here's a property on University Avenue. Ironically, it has the same travertine on it. 2
And same thing. These are – it's maybe just over 10 feet floor-to-floor. That's terrible retail 3
space. And we're in competition with other cities for retailers. You've got to offer product that 4
wants them to come here. As long as the Shrink Wrap Rule is enforced, they're going to be 5
prevented from remodeling these buildings. In addition, I'm on the Seismic Advisory 6
Committee, some of these buildings are unsafe but there's no incentive for that building owner 7
to tear the building down if they can't put the floor area back in a better building even though 8
they'd be doing the seismic upgrade. So it has many, many impacts across the city. 9
10
So the benefit – and that's how that would be redeveloped, potentially, with reasonable 11
heights. And that's just with the existing commercial floor area. So it's not a big visual impact. 12
The benefits to the Downtown and the building owners by eliminating the Shrink Wrap Rule are 13
many. We have better buildings responding to contemporary needs, healthier buildings and 14
workplaces, energy-efficient, all-electric buildings with solar arrays offsetting embodied carbon, 15
greener buildings with daylighting, safer code-compliant buildings, accessible buildings. I just 16
said seismically safe buildings because now there's an incentive. More desirable retail spaces 17
with higher ceilings and storefronts. Encourage owners to build mixed-use housing projects by 18
allowing them to replace their commercial floor area, which helps make the project that much 19
more financially feasible to add housing on upper floors. We all benefit from an increased tax 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.
base. There's no increase in the commercial floor area so there's – and there's no increase in 1
parking impacts. These buildings already pay – these owners pay in-lieu fees for their parking in 2
most cases. And it restores the natural process of renewal that was interrupted by the Shrink 3
Wrap Rule in 2016. And I believe it is fair to building owners who have paid property taxes and 4
parking assessment in-lieu fees for years on the existing floor area. 5
6
So I propose and ask for your support to remove the Shrink Wrap Rule sections that are noted 7
there. Removing these 2 sections will allow existing building floor area above grade to be 8
replaced in new buildings that better respond to the natural and built environments. These new 9
buildings will have different footprints, heights, and envelopes and they will be able to maintain 10
their existing floor area without increasing the degree of non-compliance while complying with 11
all other site development requirements. So thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer 12
questions. 13
14
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Hayes. Commissioners, clarifying questions of staff or Mr. Hayes? I 15
have Commissioner Peterson and then Commissioner Hechtman. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: So I have a quick question for staff. What's your primary concern with 18
removing this Shrink Wrap Rule? I saw your presentation but it didn't come across. 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.
Steven Switzer: Right. So I think to just structure the conversation here, I think it's definitely 1
staff's opinion that the proposed amendments are would effectively restore redevelopment 2
flexibility that existed prior to 2016. I think considering the timing of making the changes in the 3
context of these other downtown initiatives is something that we have a little bit of pause on 4
just because there's a lot of uncertainty with some of these other initiatives that Council hasn't 5
acted upon. The applicant did file and paid a fee and we're advancing this application forward. 6
So not wanting to stand in that way, staff does support revisiting the Shrink Wrap Rule but just 7
wanting to provide some context that there's ongoing initiatives that perhaps should be 8
evaluated first before this is. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: So if I clarify, would you say staff is trying to maintain this current 11
downtown and its current current state? Is that the objective? 12
13
Steven Switzer: I wouldn't put it in those words. I think if we want to package it a little bit more 14
in a concise statement, staff is in support of revisiting the Shrink Wrap Rule and revisions to it, 15
it's just a matter of when and having that consideration go before Council to make that 16
determination. 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Appreciate it. 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 could add to that as well just the fact that revisiting the Shrink Wrap Rule was 1
one of the components that was being discussed as part of promoting housing downtown as 2
part of the Downtown Housing Plan. And so by just removing it completely without any tie to 3
specific uses, that takes away one of the tools that was under consideration. 4
5
Chair Akin: I have Commissioner Hechtman, then Ji, then Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: I'll hold till after opportunity for public comment. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Ji? 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Yes. Staff, do you mind helping me understand the difference between 12
recommending the Council not pursue versus continuing to a date uncertain? Is it that like if we 13
recommended that we do not pursue, then it would just not come back and then it's just a 14
negative recommendation? 15
16
Steven Switzer: No. So it would be a recommendation to Council to effectively say stay the 17
motion. So this would be paused at Council's discretion until these other initiatives were moved 18
forward and then continue to a date uncertain would be that the item would come back to the 19
PTC rather than advancing to Council. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: So the staff's recommendation would allow the application to go to Council for 2
discussion and then Council could make the determination based on your recommendation, 3
any additional input that you would want to share with them in terms of considerations, and 4
then they can make the determination as to whether to send it back to Planning Commission 5
for consideration once certain things have been accomplished or to grant the application. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And I was wondering if you could also elaborate a little bit more on 8
– I understand that staff supports revisiting the current Shrink Wrap Rule and the timing, so I 9
guess how long of a delay are we thinking here? I'm trying to just understand. Is this days, 10
weeks, months, years? I don't have a sense of time about how these other items are unfolding. 11
I know you've provided that there's a March timeline but is it we would want this to 12
immediately happen after the March or is it like at any point? I'm just trying to get a better 13
sense of timing here. I feel like that's something I'm trying to understand. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: So I don't think we would be moving forward on this immediately after March. 16
So the short answer is it'd be later in the year most likely because once we get direction, for 17
example, on SB 79, there would be additional work that would likely be done on that. The 18
Downtown Housing Plan has made it a significant way through their effort but we are waiting 19
for that direction on the SB 79 efforts before restarting the work on the Downtown Housing 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.
Plan. So that's – I think there's still a reasonable chance that that could be completed before 1
the end of the year and so we would have a better sense at that point what components of this 2
might be able to move forward. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And one thing I'm just trying to understand here is I feel like the 5
applicant has talked a lot about the impacts on commercial developments. Does this only apply 6
to commercial developments at this time? 7
8
Steven Switzer: So the zoning text amendment would be for the commercial downtown district. 9
There's varying uses that are either permitted by right or with conditional use permit. When 10
we're thinking about the non-complying uses, ground floor office space being one of those, so 11
majority of the development that would be affected by this would be commercial or retail 12
spaces. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Okay. I see. So you could hypothetically have a residential on a commercial 15
district space and that's why the intersection with SB 79 is pertinent to the discussion. Is that 16
my understanding? 17
18
Steven Switzer: Correct. 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. Thank you. 1
2
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I'm going to rephrase what I think I heard you say and 5
then you're going to rephrase it better. 6
7
Steven Switzer: All right. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I think you said it's fine, we can have all these buildings be 10
completely unsafe for many years until we decide to make some changes to this Shrink Wrap 11
Rule but until then, good luck, don't die in those buildings? 12
13
Steven Switzer: That would be a hard no. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Well I – so what I really want is a – honest feedback because what do 16
you actually mean? That's what we heard the developer say. 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.
Claire Raybould: So I think there's a few things that should be noted. I would say that they Mr. 1
Hayes was correct that it is – that this rule has effectively stopped development in our 2
downtown. I think that is a correct statement. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: However, there are options. So there are options to redevelop sites 7
with transfer development rights right now, which some projects are pursuing and that has 8
been an option. And if you do seismic upgrades, you can get TDRs and you can apply them to 9
your property as well. And so that is an incentive for doing TDRs. I think that's really why – but 10
what Mr. Hayes is saying too is that the – there is still kind of a shrink wrap on the ground floor 11
space that's not with TDRs and so if you want to do higher ceiling heights and stuff to make it 12
more viable, that is currently restricted under the current design. And that's why when we had 13
moved this forward the first time to PTC we were saying maybe we don't change the whole 14
thing and get rid of it all together but we give some flexibility for projects that want to do those 15
redevelopments and add something with TDRs or maybe add certain uses that we want to 16
incentivize and be able to have some flexibility in providing some nicer spaces. But right now, 17
yes, you would need to use seismic upgrades or things like that if you wanted to redevelop. And 18
so there are some options for developers right now. 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 one additional piece of information is that the Policy and Services 1
Committee on February 10 did have a discussion item on progress and direction for seismic 2
hazards identification and risk management ordinance update and so there actually is a 3
separate parallel effort that's going forward to identify those buildings that are a seismic risk 4
and potentially require upgrades to ensure that safety of buildings is a priority. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: So we could make them – we could force them to make it safe or not 7
lease it out but we can't let them completely refurbish the building in modern standards unless 8
we remove the Shrink Wrap Rule. 9
10
Jennifer Armer: Depends on what you mean by modern standards. If you're talking about floor 11
heights, yes, that change in floor heights would not be allowed under the current rule but that 12
is why we are here for this discussion with the PTC tonight. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: And what would the applicant do if we follow staff's 15
recommendation? Would they just sit and twiddle their thumbs for the unknown amount of 16
time or how does this – how does their thing go forward. 17
18
Steven Switzer: Right, well, it would go… 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: It would make their case. 1
2
Steven Switzer: It would – the case would be made to Council… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: On a per exception – per project exception basis or they would have 5
to continue with this making the change to the entire law? 6
7
Steven Switzer: Staff's recommendation, should the PTC move that forward, would advance this 8
to Council and the discussion would be at Council to determine whether to modify the code 9
text amendment. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: And can you clarify what harm this – as I understand – and I am 12
trying to interact so that I can understand because we're in a clarifying round – can you clarify 13
what harm this will do on the housing process? As far as I understood what you said, it was 14
well, we have to wait around for the senate to figure out what they're doing and everything's in 15
stasis until then. Is that right? 16
17
Jennifer Armer: No, that's not correct. It's a question of what the City Council wishes to do in 18
terms of implementation of Senate Bill 79. And so this was – this portion of the code was 19
identified as an opportunity to encourage housing by doing some loosening up of 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.
constraint to allow that floor area to expand beyond the existing building shape but focus it for 1
housing. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: So you want to coerce developers to add housing to their 4
commercial projects by using this hanging over their head? I know I rephrased that wrong, so 5
why don't you do it better but… 6
7
Jennifer Armer: The housing element directs us to find ways to encourage housing particularly 8
near transit and so this was… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: I don't – I – seriously what you guys are saying is so in contrast to 11
what we're hearing from the applicant. We're really trying to narrow it down. So what is the 12
problem? What is the problem with changing this? 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Staff's recommendation is that this move forward. Our recommendation is to 15
not make the complete change at this time because we see benefits to other options but we 16
are open to whatever the Planning and Transportation Commission's recommendation 17
[inaudible 205:13]. 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: I understand. I'm just trying to understand what the position of staff 1
is because it's unclear here, it's unclear in the presentation, it's unclear in the responses… 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 4
Commissioner Templeton: …and it's – we're going to be making a recommendation on stuff 5
you're working on, so we just want to understand it better. 6
7
Claire Raybould: Again, we have 3 initiatives that are all moving forward in respectively 8
supposed to be happening in March, July, and by end of year for all these ongoing initiative, 9
so… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Will this be resolved for them by the end of the year? 12
13
Claire Raybould: Presumably we are looking at resolving how we want to make changes at the 14
end of the year. It may be that the changes occur as part of something like the Downtown 15
Housing Plan without the need for a developer to make changes through their own pathway 16
but ultimately in all the documents and information that we are reviewing as we go through 17
this effort and talk to Council about what they want to see, what's been very much highlighted 18
to us is that in the Downtown area in particular it is very difficult to provide housing but that is 19
an area where we want to have housing and the only way that we are going to get housing 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 is if we provide incentives to do that. And if we are not looking for ways to provide 1
incentives to do that and making code modifications accordingly, then developers are not going 2
to be incentivized and they are not going to develop housing in the Downtown area. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: But they're currently not – why would they change what – the 5
presentation we heard was why would they change anything? They're getting money hand over 6
fist with what they have. 7
8
Claire Raybould: Exactly. And so the – what we would be interested in doing is allowing them to 9
continue to have their non-complying floor area and to improve that non-complying floor area 10
but allowing them to do that as an incentive… 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Got it. Okay. 13
14
Claire Raybould: …[inaudible 207:34] providing housing [inaudible]. 15
16
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you guys for indulging in this conversation. I think I have a 17
better understanding. 18
19
Chair Akin: Mr. Yang, were you seeking to weigh in there? 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: I was just hoping to clarify but it seems like the commissioner got the answer she 2
was looking for. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I got an answer. Thank you. 5
6
Chair Akin: Okay, thank you. Yes, my guess about your concern – and please, as part of the 7
clarification here, tell me where this is incorrect – was that the Downtown Housing Plan and 8
our implementations for SB 79 offered us opportunities, particularly for more housing, which 9
was directly relevant to the Housing Element. But if we removed the Shrink Wrap Rule 10
unilaterally early, sites might redevelop with smaller projects and therefore be unavailable for 11
these potentially more valuable projects under the new rules being developed. So is that 12
accurate? 13
14
Albert Yang: I'll take a stab at this. So I think that's part of the answer. It's that if we remove the 15
Shrink Wrap Rule kind of in a vacuum, then there won't be an incentive for these non-16
complying commercial properties to redevelop with mixed use. They would just be able to 17
redevelop with their non-complying commercial floor area and leave it at that. And we are 18
looking for ways to convert this commercial area into a mixed-use area. 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. That's a more accurate and clear way of expressing what I was 1
attempting. Any other clarifying questions, commissioners? Commissioner James. 2
3
Commissioner James: So yes, I'm trying to kind of do this in my head and I forget how many 4
potential sites there were but it feels like there were like 44 or something. I don't know. I guess 5
what I'm trying to puzzle out in my head is we're assuming, I think, that some of these sites, 6
we're going to potentially lose some housing development but it's not clear to me if all those 7
sites are are suitable to that. It seems like we might be talking about – I think we're just 8
assuming all of those sites are the same, like have the same potential and that feels wrong to 9
me. So I'm not sure – can we go back to the inventories a little bit, to the – where it sort of said 10
how many sort of fell into those categories? 11
12
Steven Switzer: Right. So there's 66 parcels that would have above the 1:1 floor area ratio, 13
which would constitute a non-complying building. 14
15
Commissioner James: Right. 16
17
Steven Switzer: So there would be 66 properties that would be directly affected by this 18
ordinance if it were to advance and out of those 66, there's been 19 of those properties that 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
have been redeveloped or had additions since – say in the past 10, 15 years. So a more 1
contemporary, probably unlikely to redevelop soon. 2
3
Commissioner James: Right. 4
Steven Switzer: So that would reduce the number of potential properties to redevelop down to 5
47. So out of those 47, I think that's a great point to try to further parse out whether those 6
properties could be developed with housing with feasibility could be, whether it's 1 to 15, 7
perhaps 30 units or whatever that would look like. 8
9
Commissioner James: Yes. I'm just sort of – don't think I want to jump to the conclusion that all 10
47 of those would be suitable for housing. 11
12
Claire Raybould: I would say that that's a reasonable conclusion. Our general feeling from a 13
staff level is that it's – there's not a huge number of units that we'd be talking about in terms of 14
loss but it's the question of whether we want to incentivize and get even those small number of 15
units for the downtown area. If there might not be a lot of opportunities, do we want to take 16
advantage of the minimal opportunities that there are and… 17
18
Commissioner James: And I should probably know this but have we identified – I'm sure we 19
have – sites that have potential for housing and where do these overlap? Presumably there 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.
– I'm just trying to understand these sets and if they're the same, if they're overlapping. It's kind 1
of I'm trying to figure what the trade-off is. Are we are we holding back – a lot of the Downtown 2
looks a little long on tooth and it would be really nice to have – every time I think about our 3
downtown, I kind of use San Luis Obispo as one of my benchmarks and Stanford shopping mall 4
and we don't come close on either one. So I – and I felt that since I moved here in 2019. What is 5
going on here? And I know there's some competition and some sort of various limits here but I 6
just – I find it very tempting to want to release the hounds. Let's get the forces of free market 7
to improve the Downtown. And I just – I can't sort of sort out for myself. Are we really, if we do 8
that, how many sites are we – and housing units – are we really talking about? I feel like we 9
should be able to do this math somehow. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I can do it but I feel like it's 10
doable. 11
12
Chair Akin: All right. I think we should determine if there is any public comment because we 13
have certainly gone into clarifying questions in considerable detail. Mr. Tavera. 14
15
Samuel Tavera: Yes. Through the Chair, I've received one request to speak and no raised hands 16
on Zoom, so I'll invite John S. to the mic. 17
18
John Shenk: Thank you for all of that. Good evening, Chair and members of the PTC. My name is 19
John Shenk. I represent the Thoits family. The Thoits family opened their first shoe store 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.
1893. In 1899, they moved to 174 University Avenue. After doing some great business, by 1913, 1
they redeveloped the property with the building that exists today, a 2.0 FAR building, retail on 2
the ground floor, office above. That building today, if we wanted to – if something happened, a 3
fire, an earthquake, damage, any – we can't build it back. The City has taken away that square 4
footage and in the Downtown, the upper floors typically are office. The office space commands 5
higher rents. There's more value, so in not having that floor, not only is it half the value in it – in 6
this 2-story building example, it's more than half of the value. It's a huge taking in a lot of ways. 7
It's hampering. We're not redeveloping. We're not reinvesting. To think of, hey, I want to put 8
solar on the roof and do the electric and I would – do I? If something happens, I can't get it 9
back. We're mummified. I appreciate that we're all focused. I'm on the Housing Committee. I'm 10
on the Retail Vibrancy Committee. I'm on the Seismic Committee. We want all these great 11
things to happen. This issue is teeny. It's correcting a wrong from 10 years ago that took away – 12
it takes away what people did. 13
14
The Thoits, in 1913, built a building. It complies with codes, was long – all these memos that –15
when they changed the thing 40 years ago were to protect the rights of the people who already 16
had built those buildings. All we're saying is, you don't lose it if you rebuild it and it's a little bit 17
different shape. You can't violate the site development guidelines and all of that but you're not 18
going to lose it. And the idea that, well, we're going to leverage this to get housing, sadly, the 19
City's housing committees and the consultants who've done all of this have concluded nothing 20
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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.
pencils financially in the Downtown. Sites are too small. It just doesn't. That's a function of 1
today's world. Hopefully it pencils tomorrow but it doesn't. So here, oh – the idea that oh, well, 2
we'll let you have what's really yours if you do something else, it seems crazy. I'm very focused 3
with the community and the City to come up with how do we incentivize housing? How do we 4
do these things? There's other mechanisms but I boil inside it, oh, we want to keep on the table 5
this one. This is so focused and small. It's a couple fixes to the text to give people back the 6
rights to own. If you all had a 2-story house and we said, oh, anything happens, you can't put 7
the second story back. What? Why? It complies with zoning… 8
9
Samuel Tavera: Thank you. This concludes your time. 10
11
John Shenk: Happy to answer any questions or participate if that's welcome. Thank you. 12
13
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Shenk. 14
15
Samuel Tavera: And through the Chair, I have no other requests to speak. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Tavera. All right. I think we're open for discussion. I believe – yes, 18
technically we could have a rebuttal if Mr. Hayes wishes to rebut Mr. Shenk's comment, I guess 19
and… 20
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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
Female: [Inaudible 218:40] 2
3
Male: Go for it, staff. 4
5
Chair Akin: If you have anything to add, you are welcome to do so. 6
7
Ken Hayes: I think I have something I can – hopefully it's thoughtful. Let's not throw the baby 8
out with the bathwater. Yes, we need housing but we need better commercial spaces as well 9
like Commissioner James said and he was not impressed with Palo Alto's commercial stock, 10
especially in the Downtown. And think about the effort that's gone into trying to make the 11
streetscape, which is the necklace that kind of ties everything together, better if it's still just 12
tying rocks as opposed to diamonds together in terms of what the buildings might look like on 13
the street. You are in competition with Burlingame – maybe not San Luis Obispo but as 14
beautiful. I love San Luis Obispo – Burlingame, San Mateo, Mountain View, all these – Redwood 15
City. All these communities are attracting tenants, retailers, restaurants, new office space. Now, 16
in this case with the Shrink Wrap Rule, it's not new office space. It's existing floor area that was 17
mistakenly taken away from commercial building owners. So that's one. And I just want to say, 18
cities are living organisms. They need to renew and subdivide and be relevant and vital and this 19
is one way to take a step in the right direction. And I honestly think that if Council is considering 20
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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.
SB 79, get this on their agenda too because they – maybe they need to talk about them 1
together. They want to hear your recommendation. This should not be serial. This should be 2
parallel in process, so I would still ask for a recommendation to Council to adopt this change. 3
Thank you. 4
5
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Hayes. Clearly we have interest in discussion. I have Commissioner 6
Peterson, then Hechtman, then Templeton. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: I'm favorable to sending this to Council and we like staff. I don't know 9
– I assume everybody likes staff but I really like the staff here. I'm partial to the staff from Palo 10
Alto. I think because Palo Alto attracts some of the best and the brightest and so it's always 11
hard to kind of look past the staff and look at the local businesses and the people of Palo – are 12
they Palo Altans? Is that what we are? 13
14
Female: Yes. 15
16
Commissioner Peterson: The Palo Altans. Kind of like Whoville, right? And to have them say, 17
look, we just got to push this one forward. And staff is awesome. You do great jobs and you're 18
all – staff, the passion you have is always awesome. And so that's – I think Council – and I think 19
the key is Council would like to see all of this together and I think Council is brilliant. Obviously 20
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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 could put all these pieces together. They're not – it's just a recommendation. They can 1
repackage everything however they want and they will. I don't think there's any doubt about 2
that and that's why I'm confident to just say, yes, let's push it across the line. Let Council take it. 3
And the general use permit for Stanford is coming up and I think that's where the housing is. 4
They own all the property along the railroad tracks or something like that and they have a 25-5
year deficit of community impact mitigations and I think that's where you're going to find the 6
housing at. Thank you. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Hechtman. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: And thank you. I'd like to start actually with a question for Mr. Hayes 11
if you want to come up. 12
13
Ken Hayes: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: So when you started this process of trying to seek this amendment, 16
you had written a letter, November of 2024, which emphasizes that one of the benefits of 17
eliminating the Shrink Wrap Rule is that you get new buildings that could include housing and 18
without it, if you can't replace the commercial floor area, you're not going to get that potential 19
housing. 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
Ken Hayes: Correct. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: So in your analysis, your color-coded map, 42 sites, do you have a – 4
and… 5
6
Ken Hayes: How many are… 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Well, I… 9
10
Ken Hayes: …viable? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: …have a sense that you really know our downtown area and I'm 13
wondering if you have a rough sense of whether many, if any of those are legitimate candidates 14
for housing given that the couple examples you showed us were University, storefront, 15
commercial over office. 16
17
Ken Hayes: Yes. Right. 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: Right? 20
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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
Ken Hayes: Right. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: The hypothetical I'd like to pose to you is assume we remove the 4
Shrink Wrap Rule only for those projects that are willing to add housing units, okay? Of the 42, 5
do you think we'll see any in play? Do you think we'll see half of in play? A few? What's your 6
sense? 7
8
Ken Hayes: If you remove the Shrink Wrap Rule but then burden the project with to do that, 9
you have to provide housing? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Correct. 12
13
Ken Hayes: Yes. I – not every – so it's not just the property. It's the owner of the property. Many 14
of these properties, the Thoits Bros. has – they have many properties but there's others that 15
are smaller owners that are mom and pops that own the property or the business might own 16
the property and the last thing they want is the hassle of managing a mixed-use project. So you 17
have to kind of strip those sorts of properties out just because the disposition of the owner is 18
not amenable to a mixed-use project. Anything along University Avenue that doesn't have an 19
alley behind it, I would probably scratch off the list because you just have one way – you've just 20
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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.
got one way out to University Avenue and University Avenue doesn't allow any kind of driveway 1
cuts or anything like that, so you'd have a project that would have no parking at all, which can 2
work. But like the discussion we had earlier or you had earlier, it may not be the best thing to 3
do especially if you're trying to sell something. So I would say – if I was to guess, I'd say 4
probably 25 percent… 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 7
8
Ken Hayes: …would be viable. But they're also very small lots. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 11
12
Ken Hayes: It's rare that you even get 10,000 feet as a lot and so to really make housing work, 13
you need to assemble parcels and that's difficult in the Downtown with the histories of these 14
parcels' ownership going back so far. There are maybe 4 that are 7,500 square feet and then 15
the rest are 5,000 and 2,500. It's not the best. We've done 3 mixed-use projects in the 16
Downtown but they're not providing lots of housing. Now, another impediment to housing, if I 17
can just add this, in the Downtown, is the requirement in the zoning code that it has to be 18
mixed – I'm sorry – it has to be multi-family. So we used to do projects in the Downtown. In 19
fact, all of our mixed-use projects in the Downtown are technically non-compliant now because 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 do a mixed-use project in the Downtown, it's a requirement that it be multi-family, which is 1
defined as 3 units or more. These smaller properties are great for 1 and 2 units that you can 2
add on the second and third or third and fourth floor but – so it's not a heyday of housing. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: No. 5
6
Ken Hayes: Right? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 9
10
Ken Hayes: Or an abundance of housing. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: All right. That's very helpful. Thank you. So I'm just going to give my 13
comment. When this was here in October, as staff has described, staff had proposed an 14
alternative, what if we focused the release of this Shrink Wrap on these things we want to 15
incentivize, retail and housing? And at that point, my position, and I think I was part of the 16
majority there – thought it should be broader. We should just be getting rid of it. But we were 17
concerned about what's our blind spot, so we sent staff away to look for are there unintended 18
consequences if we just get rid of the Shrink Wrap Rule? I did not anticipate that it would come 19
back in this posture where not only is staff recommendation, not, hey, there are no unintended 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.
consequences – that's the question you asked. That's the answer. Or no, there are some and so 1
we still like the retail housing limitation. Instead, there's so much going on, and we do have 2
direction from Council that they're looking for ways to incentivize retail and incentivize housing 3
and so the staff now recommendation is really just, let's just sit. And that's not very satisfying. I 4
understand where it's coming from. It feels a little bit like analysis paralysis. 2 things are going 5
to Council, one in March, one in July and my thinking is, we should be recommending getting 6
rid of the Shrink Wrap Rule. And when we send that to Council, they can fold it in, as 7
Commissioner Peterson said, with all of their other discussions and they can figure out how all 8
these things work together. Because we're not even seeing all those pieces, so I don't think we 9
have that opportunity to make the nuanced call but they can, if they get a clear message from 10
us – and I don't really have a sense of what my fellow commissioners are thinking – that this is 11
not good. Fix it in a way that serves the other purposes that you want but fix it. I think that's the 12
message rather than table it. And again, I understand staff's perspective on that but I think we 13
do better by sending it to Council to make them wrestle with it. So I'd be supportive of moving 14
the version of the Shrink Wrap Rule to Council – the version in our staff report, which I believe 15
was provided by the applicant. Pardon me? I think there's only one version now. I think – in 16
October, we had two. 17
18
Claire Raybould: Yes. We didn't present 2 options… 19
20
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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: Yes. 1
2
Claire Raybould: …just the… 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. It's… 5
6
Claire Raybould: …applicant's proposed… 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: It's appearing on Packet Pages 34 and 35 and a line or 2 on 36. Yes. 9
So that's where I'm coming down tonight. 10
11
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton, then Commissioner Ji. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair. I agree with Commissioner Hechtman. The analogy 14
that was coming to mind for me was when 2 people have been dating for a long time and one 15
says to the other, should we get married now and they're like, well, I don't want to marry you 16
right now but just hang on the line a little bit longer and we're going to get – I want to marry 17
you at some point. And this uncertainty creates so much tension and frustration and I think 18
that's kind of where my empathy is lying with the applicant. It's not that I don't believe there is 19
a grand plan. I know you're working on it and it's hard. You don't have all the staff you need 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.
it's a lot of projects that are in this space right now. It's a lot to coordinate, so I understand the 1
desire to have more time and I really like Commissioner Hechtman's suggestion and 2
Commissioner Peterson about working with Council to try and have them sort of navigate the 3
order in which they do this but from our perspective that we can go ahead and give you that 4
discretion to move it when it's appropriate. And I understand there may be time constraints 5
because we have an applicant, so, yes, unfortunately, that – it is what it is. 6
7
But I have worked in many of these buildings that are very old and very non-compliant and very 8
unpleasant to work in. I have also worked in new buildings in Palo Alto that are a godsend. It 9
was a delight to be moved to one of these newer buildings when I was working, so I don't just 10
offer that the property owner has the rights and they should be able to improve their property 11
and I also argue that it's for the benefit of the workers as well and, of course, the improvement 12
of the neighborhood. I think it's – the most compelling thing I heard tonight was that many of 13
these lots are small and not suitable for the kind of housing constraints that we're hoping could 14
go there. I remember working on the ad hoc for the downtown area and it was not rife with 15
opportunity the way that perhaps we hope and are holding out hope for, so I would like to go 16
ahead and recommend this without adoption – I mean recommend this adoption without 17
modification to the Council whenever the time comes and that's where I'm leaning at this point. 18
Thank you. 19
20
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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 Ji. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. Not to harp on this a little bit more. Can staff provide a 3
timeline? Suppose we recommend this, either the staff recommendation not to pursue the 4
amendment or to forward the recommendation of adoption with or without modification to 5
the Council, when would it get to Council, do we think? 6
7
Steven Switzer: So a tentative date based on kind of our projections, it would be in May, 8
potentially early May. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: So the reason I ask this is because we've been talking about how Council will 11
have to wrestle with SB 79 and these other items but even if we were to forward this to 12
Council, it looks like it would come after the SB 79 discussion anyway, so I'm wondering from 13
staff, does that impact the way you're thinking about this? Because you had said that we want 14
to hold on based on all these other things in the air but it looks like this will come out 15
afterwards even if we were to make the recommendation without modifications. 16
17
Steven Switzer: I can take a first stab at that. So a lot of these are ongoing efforts. The writing of 18
the staff report occurred at the same time as some of these other staff reports coming to 19
Council, so effectively, this was the first published report, the kind of dealing 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.
Downtown as we're viewing some of these other ongoing efforts, so wanting to just voice that 1
concern but as the cookie crumbled with this, it turned out that this probably would be ending 2
at – following those other items even though this report was published first, so… 3
4
Claire Raybould: If I could just add that the first discussion on SB 79 is moving forward soon but 5
that is just an initial discussion presenting some alternatives and unless they direct us to do 6
nothing, presumably we'd be coming back to them, ideally very – in very short order given that 7
SB 79 is effective July 1. And I think that the Downtown Housing Plan is where a lot of the 8
discussion is happening and that's an ongoing effort that's supposed to be finished by the end 9
of this year and – if it's still on track, so… 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Yes. Thank you for that. And then I have a really random question on Packet 12
Page 32 about the stakeholder engagement. It says that notice of this public hearing was 13
published in a local paper and occupants of a property within 600 feet of the subject property. 14
Is there still a subject property for this? 15
16
Claire Raybould: No. I'm sorry. There – I – there was – I was removing language because it 17
wasn't noticed to a radius given that there is no specific property but it was noticed in the 18
paper. 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: Thank you. And then for the applicant, I was wondering a little bit more about 1
how the timing impacts you because you had proposed this back in 2022 and you sent this 2
letter in 2024 and now it's 2026. 3
4
Ken Hayes: Well, the building's been sold. Okay. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: So just trying to understand here – help me understand how does the time 7
delay impact you so I can get a better sense here? 8
9
Ken Hayes: How does the time delay? Well, there is… 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Like… 12
13
Ken Hayes: …there is no project right now that is tied to this application but there are potential 14
projects of others that are out there and ongoing that are probably interested in the outcome 15
of this, so it is timely in that regard. We had proposed a project in 2022 and went to Council as 16
a pre-screening and it's taken us kind of – we delayed for a little bit but it's been a process. Yes. 17
So not directly affecting anything that I'm working on but there are others that probably would 18
be affected if this drags out. Yes. So… 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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: Thank you. That's all my questions for now. So I think I'm probably the last one 1
to chime in here but it sounds like, from my perspective, that the majority of the Commission is 2
interested in moving this to Council and I would like to agree with that sentiment. Specifically, 3
like Commissioners Templeton, Peterson, and Hechtman mentioned, I think Council is the right 4
place to have the discussion. A one-paragraph discussion about SB 79, I think, does not do 5
justice about the tremendous impact that is coming through and I simply feel like we're not the 6
right body at the right time to be making these judgment calls around this area at this time. So 7
yes, I would also be supportive of Alternative Action 2 without modifications at this time. Thank 8
you. 9
10
Chair Akin: Any further comments, commissioners? We'll – oh, Commissioner Hechtman. 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. I honestly feel like the direction we're giving isn't really too far 13
from staff's ultimate intention here, which is to not let this tail wag the dog and I think we can 14
tee it up that way so it won't. I think it sends a better message to do it this way because when 15
they have their next – I can't remember what the March meeting is but as part of the staff 16
report, either the written report or the oral report, you can mention and you probably will, this 17
is going to be coming back to you maybe in May depending upon what you, the Council, tell us 18
when you want to hear it, but the PTC is recommending that you get rid of the Shrink Wrap 19
Rule. And so that can form part of their thought process as they go through these other 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.
and it may be that they want you to not bring this to them in May. Maybe they want it at some 1
other time to dovetail with something else and that's fine. So I think their timing will address 2
the concern expressed in the staff report that this shouldn't advance prematurely. So I'm 3
prepared to make a motion if others don't have comments. 4
5
Chair Akin: I have nothing to add to the articulate summaries I've already heard, so may I have a 6
motion? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: I move that the PTC recommend to Council a modification of the 9
PAMC Section 18.18.120 to – as reflected in the Applicant Proposed Text Amendment 10
appearing on Pages 34 through 36 of our staff report for February 25. 11
12
Chair Akin: Do I have a second? 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: So moved. Second. 15
16
Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera. 17
18
Samuel Tavera: Yes. Commissioner Ji? 19
20
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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. 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 3
4
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 5
6
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 7
8
Commissioner James: Yes. 9
10
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 17
18
Samuel Tavera: Chair Akin? 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: Yes. 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 6-0. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you all. 5
6
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 8
9
4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Summary & Verbatim Minutes of 10
January 14, 2026 11
12
Chair Akin: Next we have approval of the Draft Summary and Verbatim Minutes of January 14, 13
2026. Mr. Tavera, do we have any public comment? 14
15
Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, I have received no public comment cards for this item and I 16
did want to make a note that everyone was here for that meeting. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Okay. May I – Chair, may I move? 19
20
Chair Akin: Please do. 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.
Commissioner Ji: I'd like to move approval of the PTC Draft Summary and Verbatim Minutes as 1
revised, probably by Commissioner Hechtman and others. Yes. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Second it if Commissioner Hechtman doesn't want to do it. We're 4
just sharing the load tonight. 5
6
Chair Akin: People are getting punchy up here. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I think so. 9
10
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 11
12
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 15
16
Commissioner James: Yes. 17
18
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 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: Yes. 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 5
6
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 9
10
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner – Chair Akin? 11
12
Chair Akin: Yes. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 6-0. 15
16
Chair Akin: Thank you very much. 17
18
Commissioner Questions, Comments, or Announcements or Future Meetings 19
and Agendas 20
Members of the public may not speak to the item(s). 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.
1
Chair Akin: Do we have any commissioner questions, comments, or announcements tonight? 2
Commissioner Ji. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: I'll let Commissioner Templeton go first. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Oh, thank you. I just wanted to echo the sentiments people said 7
earlier about appreciating City Council and the staff for getting the guards at the train tracks. 8
I've heard a lot of very positive sighs of relief from the community in response to that. I'm 9
hearing – people are emailing and texting me left and right about how exciting this is for them 10
and to echo the kind of relief that Commissioner Peterson mentioned. So I just thought I would 11
share a little appreciation for staff since we've had a – lots of discussions this evening. Thank 12
you. 13
14
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: I want to express specific appreciation for OOT's presentation today. I really 17
enjoyed that. I know they're not here to hear it and I think I would like to say the sentiment of 18
the Commission is that we really appreciate the update there. And this is my bad for not 19
announcing this earlier but I believe that Commissioner James and I will be hopefully attending 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 next meeting from the – I always forget the name. Is it the California Cities Planning – I 1
don't – Ms. Armer… 2
3
Chair Akin: Cal Cities is good enough. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Yes. League of California Cities. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: The League of California Cities Conference. And we will hopefully have an 8
update to provide you all next time. 9
10
Chair Akin: I think you'll really… 11
12
Commissioner Ji: I'm hoping to attend remotely but will finalize that once I look at the agenda 13
for the conference. 14
15
Jennifer Armer: And you might talk with some of the other members who have attended this 16
training, planning commissioners' training, in the past. There may be other activities that you'll 17
want to attend at that time. 18
19
Chair Akin: Yes. I think you'll really appreciate it and you will be busier than you expect. 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. Duly noted, Chair. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: Any others? Thank you all. We are adjourned. 4
5
/eke 6