HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-03-25 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: March 25, 2026 2
Council Chambers & Virtual 3
6:00 p.m. 4
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Call to Order / Roll Call 6
6:00 p.m. 7
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Chair Allen Akin: Good evening, everyone. I call to order the March 25, 2026, meeting of the 9
Planning and Transportation Commission. 10
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ROLL CALL 12
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Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera, would you call the roll? 14
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Samuel Tavera: Yes. Chair Akin? 16
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Chair Akin: Here. 18
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Samuel Tavera: Vice Chair Chang? 20
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Vice Chair Bryna Chang: Here. 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.
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Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? Commissioner James? 2
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Commissioner Todd James: Here. 4
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Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 6
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Commissioner Kevin Ji: Here. 8
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Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 10
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Commissioner Forest Olaf Peterson: Here. 12
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Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Templeton? 14
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Commissioner Cari Templeton: Here. 16
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Samuel Tavera: For the record, we have quorum. 18
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Chair Akin: And Commissioner Hechtman hopes to join us a little later tonight for the record. 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
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 2
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 3
4
Chair Akin: Assistant Director Armer, do we have any agenda changes tonight? 5
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Assistant Director Jennifer Armer: Good evening. We do have one agenda change. We are going 7
to move the public comment on items not on the agenda to the end of the agenda after Item 4. 8
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Chair Akin: Thank you. Make a note of that so I don’t forget it later. 10
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City Official Reports 12
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1. Director's Report, Meeting Schedule, and Assignments 14
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Chair Akin: Next we have the City Official Reports from Assistant Director Armer and Senior 16
Transportation Planner Arce. 17
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Jennifer Armer: Good evening. We’ll share a quick PowerPoint as usual about upcoming 19
meetings. First, we have planned for your April 8 meeting, a discussion of alternative housing – 20
this is in relation to one of the housing element implementation programs – and a first review 21
of a new planned home zone at 788 San Antonio Road. Second, here, April 29, we currently 22
have tentatively planned a consideration of a tentative map at 4103 Old Trace Road and a – the 23
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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.
next consideration of Stream Protection Ordinance. We do also expect at that meeting to 1
conduct the election of chair and vice chair for the next meeting, assuming we do have the 2 2
spots that – we’ve gotten direction from Council on the 2 spots that were open for recruitment. 3
I do want to thank our Commissioner Peterson and Vice Chair Chang for participating in the 4
interviews that the Council did conduct on Monday. Next, for Council dates, on the 16th, we did 5
have approval by City Council of the project at 2100 Geng Road, for the project at 4075 El 6
Camino Way – that was also approved based on the Planning and Transportation Commission’s 7
recommendation for reduced size project – and the Bird-Friendly Design Ordinance was also 8
approved with only minor modifications. 9
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Upcoming meetings. April 6 will be a discussion – study session of the San Antonio Road Area 11
Plan that you’ll be discussing tonight. That will be with Council on April 6. And April 13, they will 12
be considering the – a decision on the project at 3606 El Camino Real that did come before PTC 13
for recommendation. That concludes my presentation and I will pass it on to Transportation. 14
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Senior Transportation Planner Ozzy Arce: Thank you and good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and 16
members of PTC. My name is Ozzy Arce, Senior Transportation Planner, and here with the 17
March 25, 2026, Office of Transportation updates. Next slide, please. 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.
Just starting with a quick note about a smaller yet impactful project, the street improvement 1
with new bollards and signs installed on car-free Ramona Street replacing the temporary water-2
filled orange barriers, so if you get a chance, go check them out. Next slide, please. 3
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An update on the ongoing analysis for a temporary Churchill Avenue rail crossing closure. This 5
has been a fast evolving issue for both City staff and the community with substantial work in 6
coordination with the California Public Utilities Commission, CPUC, and Caltrain. OOT staff 7
attended a very well-attended community meeting on March 12 and many people spoke about 8
their concern about youth mental health and access to lethal means represented by the tracks 9
in this location. On March 17, OOT staff held a diagnostic meeting for the Churchill Avenue 10
temporary closure effort and this is a key step in understanding the process of evaluating the 11
implications of a potential temporary closure. Many thanks to OOT staff Ripon Bhatia on 12
excellent preparation for the meeting, including assembling a multi-agency team and draft 13
concept designs for the team to discuss, so progress is well underway. And lastly, a note on 14
here that there is a meeting, a City Council meeting, scheduled for April 13 to present those 15
options, receive direction, and next steps. Next slide, please. 16
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At the regional level, Santa Clara County is conducting a Foothills Expressway Multimodal 18
Feasibility Study. This advances the County’s active transportation plan’s recommendation for a 19
continuous Class 1 shared-use path along Foothill Expressway and Junipero Serra. The County 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.
shared 2 alternatives for the corridor and is asking for community feedback on a preferred 1
alternative and there are some upcoming engagement opportunities that we just wanted to 2
highlight for the community. There is a survey open now until April 15 and a virtual community 3
meeting on the topic on Thursday, March 26 at 6:30. There are some links on the slide as well 4
as the project web page. If folks are interested in learning more, we encourage folks to visit the 5
project web page. And lastly, also at the regional level this time, VTA, the Valley Transportation 6
Authority, initiated a new effort, the Across Barrier Connection Plan, ABC Plan. This effort aims 7
to develop a prioritized list of locations for pedestrian and bicycle improvements across limited 8
access freeways. In Palo Alto, this is Interstate 280, U.S. 101, so think Embarcadero Crossing, 9
San Antonio Crossing. So there is upcoming engagement opportunities and the community is 10
invited to take another survey, this one opening on April 1 through the 26th and also hosting a 11
virtual community meeting on April 22. And the project web page is also on this slide if folks 12
have more – for more information. And that concludes my updates for March 25. Thank you. 13
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Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer, Mr. Arce. Commissioners, do we have questions? I have 15
Commissioner Templeton, then Commissioner Ji. 16
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Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Mr. Arce, thank you for the update about the Churchill Crossing 18
conversation. I just wanted to clarify part of your statement, just for the purposes of making 19
sure we’re all understanding what the issue is. You mentioned the lethal means is the – having 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.
the tracks in that area and it’s slightly – I’m being pedantic here but it’s not the tracks. It’s the 1
at-grade crossing that is accessible to pedestrians, bikes, and vehicles, so if – without moving 2
the tracks, if that at-grade crossing was eliminated, it would remove the lethal means from the 3
school district adjacency. So it’s a really good conversation and it’s good that everybody has 4
been coming out and talking to the City staff and making their thoughts known. I think – did you 5
say there was still a survey open for this one, or is – I know there was but I don’t know if it’s still 6
open. 7
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Ozzy Arce: I am not aware of a survey open on the Churchill Avenue topic. 9
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Commissioner Templeton: If you go to the web page, there is a form field there where people 11
were… 12
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Ozzy Arce: Oh, right. Right. 14
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Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 16
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Ozzy Arce: Correct. 18
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Commissioner Templeton: Were able to… 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.
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Ozzy Arce: The open form. 2
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Commissioner Templeton: …give some thoughts. 4
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Ozzy Arce: Correct. 6
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Commissioner Templeton: So I just encourage people to think about that and what we can do 8
to make it safer because as you mentioned, there was an analogy made about access to lethal 9
means. No one would want to leave a loaded gun on a school property or adjacent to it and so 10
that’s the conversation that was had. At least that’s what was discussed at that meeting, so just 11
appreciate you being clear about it’s not the tracks itself but it’s the at-grade crossing that 12
we’re trying to work on. Thank you. 13
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Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 15
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Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Mr. Arce, for addressing the signal phasing 17
question that I had at a previous meeting. I was wondering if you could shed a little bit more 18
light onto it. I know you’ve provided an email that says that – well, actually I was wondering if 19
maybe you could explain some components of it. For example, you mentioned that this is tied 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.
to a train preemption program. Is this only impacting the Meadow Crossing in particular, or do I 1
personally just feel it more because I drive the Meadow Crossing? Is this issue that you’ve 2
identified here, it also occurring at the Charleston, Churchill, and other crossings that we have? 3
4
Ozzy Arce: I – Commissioner Ji, I apologize. I – I’m not the best person to answer that question 5
but we can definitely relay that to our traffic engineers to give you the best answer. 6
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Commissioner Ji: Okay. Just to summarize for the Commission, on this email that was sent to 8
everyone, the question that I posed on February 25th was about why at the Meadow Crossing I 9
notice some skipped signaling. For example, coming from the El Camino side on West Meadow 10
going across the tracks, it skips 2 or 3 signals at a time, which causes pretty severe backup in 11
that area. And according to the email sent to us from Mr. Arce, they had mentioned that, 12
quote, “The behavior observed is tied to the train preemption programming at this intersection. 13
Because Meadow/Alma is located immediately adjacent to the Rail Corridor, the traffic signal is 14
programmed to prioritize safety and clearance when a train is approaching.” But I didn’t notice 15
that this occurs at any of the other intersections, at Charleston or at Churchill. Go ahead. 16
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Jennifer Armer: Through the Chair… 18
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Commissioner Ji: 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
Jennifer Armer: …I can jump in and just share that that is standard practice when we’ve got the 2
railroad, the train coming through, that it is going to get preemption over the cross-traffic. And 3
so we can confirm and if it’s otherwise, we can let you know but it is standard at the – at all of 4
those intersections. 5
6
Chair Akin: Yes. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I think it’s safe to say that Commissioner Ji and I, when posing that 9
question, were aware that that was the standard practice. I think what he’s trying to identify is 10
anomalous behavior and so we were trying to alert you of that. Right? 11
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Jennifer Armer: Okay. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So the… 15
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Jennifer Armer: Great. Thank you. 17
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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: …specifically the skipped signaling that I notice is not when a train is present. 1
The – there is no train present. I totally understand when the skipped signaling is there but I 2
would like to have staff look into this if – that would be great. Thank you. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: Okay. Great. Thank you very much. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioners, any further clarifying questions? Nothing? I would just 7
like to ask if you had a chance to connect with Nathan Baird to get an update on his parking 8
meeting efforts. 9
10
Ozzy Arce: Short answer is yes. We reached out to Nate to inform him of the Commission’s 11
interest in receiving more information around parking policies and updates around the Parking 12
Management Program, so happy to relay that information – or we have relayed that 13
information to him and we’ve discussed it could come in either the form of an informational 14
report or an email or another type but the message has been relayed. 15
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Chair Akin: Great. Thank you very much. We’re looking forward to that. No other questions? All 17
right. 18
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Study Session 20
Public Comment is permitted. Three (3) minutes per speaker. 21
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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.
2. San Antonio Road Area Plan Land Use and Transportation Alternatives Study Session. 1
CEQA Status: Exempt under CEQA Guidelines Section 15262. 2
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Chair Akin: Agenda Item Number 2 tonight is a study session on the San Antonio Road Area 4
Plan. The staff report begins on Packet Page 8. Commissioners, we expect more than the usual 5
amount of discussion tonight, so we’re going to experiment with time limits to see if we can 6
spread the discussion for each round around more evenly. We’ll limit ourselves to 3 minutes 7
each for clarifying questions and then 5 minutes in each round of the general discussion but of 8
course we’ll have as many rounds as we need to make sure everything is heard. So the ARB 9
uses this and you may remember it came up during our last joint meeting with the ARB and it 10
seemed like this might be a good opportunity to try it and see if it works for PTC as well. May 11
we have the staff presentation? 12
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Commissioner Templeton: Chair, did you see my hand raised? 14
15
Chair Akin: Pardon me. No, I didn’t. 16
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Commissioner Templeton: I just wanted to encourage you to check and make sure we all want 18
to participate in that idea in case you wanted our input. 19
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Chair Akin: Sure. Let’s get feedback. 21
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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
Commissioner Templeton: I was not in favor of it with the ARB. I don’t think it’s necessary here 2
because I don’t know what problem we’re trying to solve but I’m open to if other people feel 3
like we need to be limited or run this experiment. It’s fine with me but I don’t see yet what the 4
problem is. 5
6
Chair Akin: Yes. I’d like to run the experiment and I’m not convinced that it will make a 7
difference either but this is the best way to find out. Vice Chair Chang. 8
9
Vice Chair Chang: When the Chair suggested, I thought it was a good idea just because I’m 10
worried about how late we’re going to be here tonight, so I thought any experimentation, it 11
might result in the same outcome that we have. But I thought anything that might move the 12
needle towards us speeding up a little bit was a good thing to try. So… 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: How will we know if we’re successful? 15
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Vice Chair Chang: We can discuss afterwards if we want to or maybe at a different meeting. 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t feel like we’ve hit this 19
problem before and so I don’t know that we need to experiment solving it. However, if that’s 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.
what you guys want to do, we can do it. I just don’t know how you’re going to feel about it 1
when it’s imposed on you in the future. Well, no. No. No. Because it won’t be imposed on you 2
guys. 3
4
Chair Akin: What I was trying to accomplish with this suggestion was to make sure that we 5
didn’t have one round with very long discussion that limited the ability of the other 6
commissioners to contribute in the first round, so I don’t think it will make things faster but I 7
think it may spread the load more evenly. Now, whether that turns out to be worthwhile may 8
be entirely subjective but we’ll see. Commissioner Ji. 9
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Commissioner Ji: Just a quick aside, is this a pilot program that we can revert? Or – no. Just 11
kidding. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: But I’m not kidding. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: That is exactly what I have… 18
19
Commissioner Ji: 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
Commissioner Templeton: …in mind. Thank you. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Anyway, so I don’t know. Maybe we – I’m curious about the idea. I think the 4
idea of having a shorter first round, I think, could warn some merit but I think having time limits 5
afterwards may not, so just making sure that everyone gets something in before we all dive in 6
could be useful as kind of a first level but I don’t know if having this for subsequent rounds 7
makes as much sense. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you all and it may turn out that we don’t need it. We don’t always speak 10
more than 5 minutes for a round anyway. 11
12
Commissioner Templeton: We’re the best-controlled commission there is. We’re so good. We 13
don’t even need to reign ourselves in, so anywho, I just kid. 14
15
Chair Akin: All right. May we have the staff presentation? 16
17
Principal Planner Robert Cain: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Robert Cain. I am a 18
principal planner with the Department of Planning and Development Services. I’m here to talk 19
to you tonight about the San Antonio Road Area Plan. You might remember we came to you 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.
last fall back in September when we were in our earlier stages of the plan. Since then, we’ve 1
been doing a lot of work in developing some potential alternatives for the plan, which you can 2
find in the packet that was published for this meeting. We’re not going to go through 3
everything in that packet bit by bit because it is quite a long attachment that we provided you 4
but I’m going to give you just a brief reminder of the project, talk a little bit about timelines, our 5
philosophy of how we got to where we are right now, and then request some specific feedback 6
from the Planning Commission – Planning and Transportation Commission. This feedback will 7
be included to the City Council, which we are scheduled to go to the first Monday of April. We 8
have been going to lots of other boards and commissions, which we’ll maybe talk about a little 9
bit but I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about this subject. Next slide, please. 10
11
So just a brief rundown, a project update, our overall design strategy, and then what our 12
requested feedback is. Next slide, please. So as a reminder, the San Antonio Road Area Plan 13
covers about 275 acres in the southern portion of Palo Alto along the Mountain View Border. It 14
includes a nearly 2-mile length of San Antonio Road from Alma all the way to the Bay and 15
several important intersections and pieces of cross streets at Alma, Middlefield, Charleston, as 16
well as East and West Bayshore along 101. Currently, it contains a mix of industrial, office, 17
service, commercial, and residential uses. The adjacent neighborhoods on both sides of the 18
plan include a lot of single-family residential homes and the southern part of the planned area 19
is adjacent to the San Antonio Caltrain station. We’re hoping with the plan to create a more 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.
livable community, improve mobility and safety throughout the corridor, as well as support the 1
City’s sustainability goals. We’re also looking at how to enhance economic vitality and we’re 2
going to, in the end, hopefully have a plan that includes zoning and development standards for 3
the area as well as implementation tools and strategies, including financing ideas as well. Next 4
slide, please. 5
6
So we are currently nearing the end of Phase 2, which is where we develop these land use and 7
mobility alternatives. As you can see, we’ve gone to several other advisory boards and 8
committees during the month of March. We’ve also done some public outreach. We had a 9
community workshop at the beginning of the month. We are currently running a survey, which 10
people still have a few more days if they wish to take. That’s located on the project website. 11
And then we also were at the Cal. Ave. Farmers’ Market the other weekend, engaging with 12
residents there as well. Once we conclude this phase, we will then begin developing policy 13
recommendations and really drilling down on specific portions of the plan and hope to come 14
back to all of the relevant bodies for a – for study sessions or action items near the end of the 15
year. Most of 2027, we envision finalizing the draft plan as well as conducting the 16
environmental review and we hope to have final adoption of the plan in early – the first half of 17
2028. Next slide, please. 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.
So in order to manage our development of this plan area, we felt that it wasn’t appropriate to 1
try to have the same recommendations throughout the entire 275-acre area or along all of the 2
multiple miles of roadway, so we’ve broken the plan area down into smaller, more discrete 3
subareas. We’re focused on redevelopment of infill of where there’s currently low-density 4
commercial with higher-density residential and mixed-use products. We’re looking at where to 5
include parks, plazas, and other third spaces that will be community gathering places. We’re 6
also considering how to improve the roads themselves and make them – they’re already very 7
traffic focused but they can be improved from that focus as well as improving the ped-bike 8
experience throughout the plan area and looking to add transit and improve connections to 9
transit as well, including not just the roads themselves but particular influence – particular 10
focus on the intersections. Next slide, please. 11
12
So as I mentioned, the first thing that we tried to do to organize the plan was to create 13
subareas. We have identified 4 different subareas that we think there will be a lot of change 14
occurring in. This is based on either development applications that the City has received or 15
interest that has been expressed by developers to City staff. Those areas are Central San 16
Antonio, which is essentially from Middlefield to East Charleston but also includes a couple 17
parcels just west of Middlefield, including the current Toyota dealership. Then there is North 18
and South Fabian areas. South Fabian includes some institutions that are not likely to change 19
(like the Jewish Community Center) but also other areas – other properties that we’ve seen 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.
developer interest in. North Fabian is primarily currently the Maxar site but also some other 1
commercial across the street – across Fabian Way from there. And then the fourth area is what 2
we call the CTI area. That’s because it contains Commercial and Transport Streets and Industrial 3
Avenue and those – it’s easier to say the first letter of each of those streets than say all 3 4
streets every time. That area is a mostly low-scale, 1 to 2-story commercial, light industrial, 5
some community services currently in that area but there is developer interest in consolidating 6
some of the small lots. It’s – right now it’s many small lots unlike the Maxar site, which is one 7
25-acre site but there is interest in consolidating lots and maybe doing something at a larger 8
scale in the CTI as well. 9
10
In addition to those 4 primary areas that we’re focused on, there’s also areas of the plan along 11
East and West Bayshore and along Alma where there is limited potential for additional 12
development there as well and then areas that we call the areas of stability. Those include the 13
Greenhouse Development and other condominium/townhome developments along South San 14
Antonio, that because of ownership structure are unlikely to turn over and have new 15
development. It also includes – we’ve also included in this the Greenmeadow Neighborhood. 16
Greenmeadow is not part of the area plan; however, with the recent passage of Senate Bill 79, 17
they are within the area affected by that as being within a half mile of a major transit stop. But 18
even so, because of the small lots, individual ownership, and high value of those single-family 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.
homes, we don’t expect there to be much change occurring in that area even though the 1
development potential has been increased by the state law. Next slide, please. 2
3
So we’re looking for feedback on a few things. First, the overall plan direction. Are – does the – 4
do commissioners have thoughts on the overall plan scope, direction, and timeline that we’ve 5
discussed? Second, about the subarea classification, how we’ve broken it up into these discrete 6
areas and labeled them as primary, secondary, and areas of stability. We’re looking for 7
feedback on residential density and building heights, which are pretty tied because the building 8
heights directly impact the density in realistic cases for most developers. We’ve got 3 main 9
options throughout the plan area. One is to maintain a 60-foot height limit, which is pretty 10
common throughout the plan area already, which would be about 90 dwelling units per acre. 11
The next is to go up to 90 feet in height, which would allow up to 8-story mid-rise development 12
and approximately 135 dwelling units per acre and that seems, from our analysis, to be the 13
most financially feasible way to get multi-family apartments into the plan area. And then the 14
third option is to allow high-rise, which moves away from wood construction and into steel 15
construction. Doesn’t start turning profitable until you get to somewhere between 160 to 250 16
feet. We haven’t set any official limit should that be the direction that advisory boards or the 17
Commission – or the Commission or the Council wish to go but we’re providing it as an option 18
because it does give the developers a lot more flexibility. 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.
We don’t necessarily think there will be a huge rush to build this model type because it is very 1
expensive to do but with that flexibility, there also comes benefits, which we’ll talk about with 2
the residential and commercial mix. So we’re looking for feedback on whether we should ignore 3
any of these or remove any of these height tiers from future development and on the low end, 4
we think that the – these heights could yield the potential – the capacity for 3800 new units; at 5
the high end, the capacity for 7400 new units, not that all of those would necessarily be built, 6
certainly not in the short term. Next slide, please. 7
8
We’re also looking for some feedback on whether or not we should vary building heights by 9
location. We got some feedback from the ARB on this, so we wanted to bring that to you as 10
well. We heard that perhaps we should allow high-rises along 101 and along the interchange 11
but that we should maybe also restrict heights in the areas that are directly adjacent to single-12
family residential properties. For office development, we’re looking for feedback primarily for 13
the CTI area, which is where we’re looking to potentially add new office. There’s a – there are a 14
couple of scenarios that are provided in the packet where we do residential development only 15
and don’t allow new office and research and development. And then there are 2 options that 16
allow research and development in office space. One essentially does not increase the net 17
amount of office and research and development space between the Maxar site and what’s 18
currently in CTI and we would put a cap that does not – that basically requires a one-for-one 19
demolition and rebuild. And the second would be a more generous allowance up to an 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.
additional 150 or maybe 200,000 additional square feet of office and residential – that’s net 1
new beyond what the existing is between those 2 areas. Under either of those scenarios, plan-2
wide, there would be a net reduction in commercial space as many of the buildings are 3
expected to transform to residential but we didn’t want to just compare the entire plan area. 4
We wanted to compare just this area near 101 when we’re looking at whether or not we want 5
to stay stable or allow a – some amount of net increase. 6
7
These 2 neighborhoods are also currently park deficient. They’re more than 10-minute walk to 8
any publicly available open space, including the Baylands, including Ramos Park, including 9
Cubberley and Middle – and Mitchell Park, so we would like to add additional park space in this 10
area. This could be done as part of the development process, especially if the Maxar site 11
redevelops as a large parcel. There might be a way to – there – we think it would be easy to 12
incorporate open space there and we think that if there is parcel consolidation in CTI, we could 13
have a similar but perhaps smaller influence there as well in parks. And when it comes to those, 14
we’re interested in knowing whether or not we should focus on a large consolidated 15
neighborhood park in each of those areas or have dispersed smaller parks located throughout 16
the neighborhoods, whether or not they should be interior to the neighborhoods or adjacent to 17
the major roads, and whether or not they should be co-located with retail such as cafes, ice 18
cream shops, and those types of things that people might go to and then sit in the park and 19
enjoy what they’ve just purchased. Next slide, please. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
We’re also wondering if we should be looking to add additional parks and plazas at other key 2
intersections such as Middlefield and San Antonio, which is not as park deficient – which is not 3
park deficient but could still benefit given that there are so many new residents that we’re 4
expecting to have within the plan area. Another item that we’re looking for feedback on is 5
ground-floor retail. We’ve heard a lot about struggles with ground-floor retail from the 6
developer’s perspective and staff is wondering whether or not we should focus that on the new 7
neighborhood areas at the north end of the plan or whether or not we should also include it in 8
the Central San Antonio area, which might have some challenges given that we don’t anticipate 9
there will be enough foot traffic along San Antonio or potentially enough parking to really bring 10
people from outside of those buildings themselves to retail in those buildings. Is it still valuable 11
to have the – push for retail on the ground floor as the City currently tries to include in these 12
types of developments? Next slide, please. 13
14
And this is not just a land-use plan. It’s also a transportation plan. So for mobility, we’re looking 15
for feedback that’s sort of general in terms of whether or not our improvements should be 16
more modest and quick and easy to implement or if we should be going bolder and doing more 17
developed things. Bicycle paths are something that are particularly – in a wide range, we could 18
do on-street bicycle lanes that are still separated from traffic but are perhaps less comfortable 19
and perhaps not as safe as a sidewalk-level facility. And we could do multi-use paths on the 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
sidewalks, which consolidates the need for land but also provide challenges when you have 1
conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists. Or we could do full separated – sidewalk-level 2
separated bikeways and sidewalks that are separate from each other, which are highly 3
desirable but also very expensive to implement. Would probably require us to rebuild the curbs 4
along San Antonio Road, for example, and possibly on Charleston as well, in order to 5
accommodate this, so there’s a lot more to do to get that done. Another possibility could be to 6
start with Option A, which is the street-level bike lanes while we’re then building towards one 7
of the other options later on. And so we’re specifically looking at that one section between 8
Middlefield and Charleston as an example of how we can build out. It’s in your packet and on 9
the slide, the 3 different options that we’ve laid out for you, as well as the portion of East 10
Charleston south of San Antonio, between there and the city of Mountain View and how to 11
build better bike and pedestrian facilities there that we then would work with Mountain View 12
to hopefully connect as they cross the city boundary. Next slide, please. 13
14
That concludes my presentation. We have – just the next slide is the main topic areas that 15
we’re requesting feedback. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present and we’re 16
looking forward to answering your questions. I’m here. We also have our consultants here in 17
the room. We have our subconsultant for Transportation as well as Sylvia Star-Lack, the 18
transportation planning manager for the City, available virtually. If you have questions for any 19
of us, we’re happy to take them. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Akin: Thank you, Principal Planner Cain. Commissioners, do we have any clarifying 2
questions? Commissioner Ji. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Thank you, Chair. And am I looking over here? Okay. Perfect. The clock’s 5
running. So my first question is – it’s not listed anywhere in the slide deck but how long, 6
generally, are we thinking this area – is this like a 20-year plan, a 40-year plan? How long are we 7
looking here? 8
9
Robert Cain: Yes. We’re looking at a 20 to 25-year plan. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. And I had a question that’s a little bit more kind of about the 12
wording. So we’ve described this as an area plan. I was wondering if there was a difference 13
between this and what a specific plan is. Is this our version of a specific plan? 14
15
Jennifer Armer: Those can be used interchangeably. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 18
19
Jennifer Armer: They… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Ji: So for the purposes here, they are the same? 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. And then I had a question about Slide Number 4, the project 6
timeline. So my question here is, I see that this is coming back to the PTC for analysis and policy 7
recommendations. Can you help me understand what’s different – like what kinds of different 8
levels of feedback we’d be providing at this level versus the next level so I can tailor it towards 9
what would be helpful? 10
11
Robert Cain: Sure. So we’re hoping at this level to get sort of big picture framework-type 12
feedback. That’s what we’re hoping to get. Eventually, in June, we want to go back to the 13
Council and have them have a vote and say these are the main alternatives, the main things we 14
want to see done, the – so the things we talked about. About what are the preferred heights? 15
What are the preferred types of bicycle facilities? What do we want to see in terms of parks? 16
And then we’re going to take all of that and we’re going to start writing specific policies of how 17
do we get to that bigger picture? And so when we come back in the fall, we’ll be looking for 18
feedback on whether or not those policies and those specifics match – one, match with what 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.
the framework that we decide on now and also how we can improve those if they’re not getting 1
us to where we need to go. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So let’s take concretely some of the questions you asked about, like 4
height and density. So if we provide the feedback here, what’s the difference between – for 5
that in terms of what we have now and the policy recommendation? Help me parse out the 6
specifics here. 7
8
Principal Planner Chris Sensenig: Yes. We’ll be looking at details. Let’s say you say X height but 9
then it should transition across Adobe Creek or down to Adobe Creek or something, right? So in 10
the next phase for that, we would begin writing the policy and the zoning of what does it mean 11
to step down building height to Adobe Creek? Kind of that finer grain detail. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: All right. Thank you. 14
15
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Commissioner Peterson. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. I have 2 questions and I’ll try and fit those within my 18
allocated time. So I’m pretty sure the last time this came up, I think I asked the same 2 19
questions, so I’m just going to start off with those. Is – one – and as Commissioner Ji asked, 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
what’s the timeline of this? So it’s going forward longer term, I think is generally the answer. Is 1
– there’s an anticipated amount of sea-level rise in the future, so how do you want us to 2
consider that, or should we just be blind to any potential impacts in the future and just assume 3
whatever policy decisions we make now will get figured out later on? 4
5
Jennifer Armer: I’ll jump in and say that that is something that would be looked at as we look at 6
the environmental review for this but expressing concerns or interest in having any of these 7
policies developed with that in mind is helpful at this stage. 8
9
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. And then the second question I have is also water-related. We 10
have a riparian corridor policy in front of us that’s still going and one of the key pieces was, on 11
the other side of 101, which are showing within this plan where there’s a small area adjacent to 12
the Baylands, same question. How do you want us to consider the crossover between those 2, 13
or should we just take this as a single item and just not try to think through how would this 14
work with the corridor? 15
16
Jennifer Armer: As we develop the policies, we’ll ensure that this does take into consideration 17
any stream corridor protection that has been adopted, either by reference or with 18
modifications to this plan since that is expected to move forward to conclusion prior to any 19
decision on the area 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
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. And so it’s safe to say – because I do see the clear separation 2
between these that these are not intermingled enough that it’s going to be a problem there. 3
They’re separate-enough topics. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Correct. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Templeton. 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. On Slide 5, you have designated some areas with little 12
circles that are bike and pedestrian improvements and I noticed the Charleston and San 13
Antonio Road – this is one I worked on right at the very beginning, probably 7 or so years ago. 14
And at that time, the City said, oh, the other side of that intersection is Mountain View and 15
probably still is but I see it here. What is the – can you clarify what is the scope of the kind of 16
improvements we can make in that area? 17
18
Robert Cain: Sure. So it’s a little tricky because… 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: Yes. 1
2
Robert Cain: …there’s a portion of Charleston where one side of the road is Mountain View and 3
one side of the road is Palo Alto. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 6
7
Robert Cain: If you’re heading towards Costco from San Antonio, down Charleston, there’s a 8
KFC and a Taco Bell that are right next to each other. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 11
12
Robert Cain: One of those is in Mountain View and the other one is in Palo Alto. That’s where 13
the dividing line is on that side but on the other side of the street, the dividing line is further 14
down, just before the former Best Buy. So we are somewhat limited in what we can do because 15
we can’t cross the city boundary. We’ll have to coordinate with Mountain View, which we’re 16
currently doing, to try to make sure that any improvements move through and feel seamless to 17
a bike rider or pedestrian. But the – it is – there is – there are some challenges with that 18
intersection. We are looking at potentially tying into the 101 interchange, which is – which will 19
have a grade-separated crossing across San Antonio to get from one side to the other 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.
trying to direct people to use that instead of using the intersection that they’re walking or 1
biking but also making improvements – and I don’t know if you want to talk about some of the 2
improvements that we could do. I don’t know if you’re interested in hearing that little detail… 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: I… 5
6
Robert Cain: …at this point. 7
8
Commissioner Templeton: I am interested and I don’t know to what extent you’re crossing the 9
– our imaginary boundary here about what’s clarifying and what’s not. So before you answer, 10
my point about this that’s clarifying is, are we actually able to work with Mountain View now? 11
Because 7 years ago, we were not. We were told explicitly, don’t talk about improving the 12
safety of this horrible intersection because Mountain View is in a whole other planet of 13
communication that we can’t access. 14
15
Robert Cain: So we do have good communication currently with staff in Mountain View. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: Right answer. I love it. 18
19
Robert Cain: Yes. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. That’s great. Thank you. And feel free to go ahead. You – 2
feel free to run out my time. 3
4
Chris Sensenig: All right. I’m just going to point you to Packet Page 130… 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 7
8
Chris Sensenig: …and that section there goes over the alternatives that were laid out for the 9
intersection in Charleston. There’s still… 10
11
Commissioner Templeton: That’s fine. 12
13
Chris Sensenig: …work to do. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. Yes. Thank you very much. 16
17
Chair Akin: Great. Thank you for that reference. Any further clarifying questions for staff? 18
19
Oral Communications 20
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 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: Seeing none, Mr. Tavera, how many requests for public comment do we have? 2
3
Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, I have not received any public comment cards on Item 4
Number 2. If there are any members of the public that would look to speak on this item, I 5
would like you to raise your hand. We do have 2 at the moment. Give me 1 second. Our first 6
speaker is Sherry – is Amy L. Amy, you may now speak. 7
8
Penny Ellson: All right. Sorry. Can you hear me? 9
10
Samuel Tavera: Yes. We can hear you. 11
12
Penny Ellson: Okay. I’m on a friend’s computer. This is Penny Ellson. I’m a resident of 13
Greenmeadow, a member of the CAG. Tonight I’m speaking as an individual. The SARAP area 14
can carry a lot of new housing, though a 25 percent increase in city-wide dwelling units, the 15
upper range of development potential this plan envisions, which, by the way, exceeds the total 16
state mandate – housing mandate for Palo Alto by almost 1,000 units plus office space, is a 17
significant change that requires massive investment in infrastructure and community facilities 18
to support it. How will this be funded? We haven’t yet seen a traffic study. We know land use 19
has to be decided first and there’s an order to these things. What – in my experience, what we 20
study in the EIR usually gets built, so I want us to really think about what it is that we want built 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.
in these areas. There’s a great deal of community concern about traffic impacts in this 1
development. Maintaining travel times on San Antonio Road and it’s Middlefield and Charleston 2
cross streets is a key issue for residents who commute via 101 to regional jobs. There are also 3
worries about congestion on San – that congestion on San Antonio Road may encourage 4
diversion of traffic onto neighborhood, bicycle, boulevard, and school routes. Please define 5
what you will study in the EIR traffic analysis. I think we should be looking at cumulative traffic 6
impacts of growth planned in Palo Alto, Mountain View. I think a moment ago you just talked 7
about that. We should also be looking at what Google’s doing nearby and the VTA 101 8
interchange plans. 9
10
Renovation and development of Cubberley is an important piece to this puzzle. We need a fully 11
functional Cubberley Community Center that is well connected by all transportation modes to 12
the SARAP areas and existing Palo Alto neighborhoods. SARAP and Cubberley work should 13
actively incorporate Cubberley and Mitchell Park Superblock as an essential community hub. 14
The average Palo Alto citizen does not seem to understand the scale of housing growth that’s 15
coming, somewhere between 21 and 25 percent increase in city-wide housing units, which will 16
result in similar population increase. We need to be talking about this. I see little budget money 17
earmarked for such investment. Again, how will this be funded? And finally, regarding retail, 18
there’s been some discussion about not requiring retail along San Antonio Road. In my view, 19
this would be unwise. It could undermine ground-level vibrancy that’s essential for walkable 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
environments of this urban scale. Also, there are – certain services really do need to be 1
immediately available to people as they commute to and from work and I just want to remind 2
us that we’ve been – one of the reasons we’re putting all of this housing here is because there’s 3
a train station nearby and people are expecting foot traffic to that train station. So when I hear 4
that – I – when I hear staff say that there won’t be sufficient foot traffic to support retail, I 5
wonder – it seems like we’re talking out of both sides of our mouths on that. So let’s be careful 6
about that. And finally, I want to say that I was – I… 7
8
Samuel Tavera: Thank you. This concludes your time. 9
10
Penny Ellson: Oh. Thank you. Sorry. And thank you. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you for your comment. That was very comprehensive. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: And through the Chair, I want to apologize. We do have some tech issues and 15
so I accidentally started the wrong clock and that was on my fault, so I will ensure that the clock 16
is displayed for the next speaker. Our next speaker is Sherry. Sherry, you may now speak. 17
18
Sherry: Hi. Thanks a lot. I appreciate all the work that you’ve done. I actually live in this area 19
and I don’t know if any of you guys do but I’m super, super concerned about traffic on San 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Antonio. In this entire area between 101 and Alma, there’s probably 1500 residential units, 1
which includes some affordable housing, some multi-family stuff. And we’re adding 4,000 to 2
7,000. And I – I’m just concerned that San Antonio is going to become a parking lot and the 3
cross streets. We’re already seeing that. There’s so much more congestion than there was 5 4
years ago on Leghorn, on Middlefield. People have trouble making left turns onto Middlefield 5
already, so this makes me super concerned about the discussions around building heights and 6
all of this stuff. So related to that – and again, Mountain View is building at the whole CVS area 7
on El Camino, on California Avenue, high-density residential, the Kohl’s area. So it’s not just us. 8
Half a million square feet of office space right next to this. So traffic, traffic, traffic. I – we can’t 9
lock everybody who lives here in except in the middle of the day on a weekend or something. In 10
that vein, I think that we should be conservative with how we allocate the bike space. I bike on 11
this street all the time. It is a nightmare. The – but the physically-separated lanes would be a 12
huge win. We don’t need to use up the sidewalks. We should preserve the canopy but I also 13
think we’re going to need some kind of a shuttle or a bus lane or something that goes up and 14
down the street. I don’t know what but we should be careful with allocating bike space in my 15
view. 16
17
And then finally, I strongly object to building any office space whatsoever. We have plenty of 18
office space in Palo Alto – arguably far too much – and the less that we address our ABAG ratio, 19
the more the State’s going to keep coming after us. It is just insane to me that as part of this 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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extremely expensive, extremely disruptive project, we’re considering digging ourselves a 1
slightly smaller hole by building office space. No. I just think that’s a terrible idea. Finally, I just 2
want to add a note that on parks, I think parks, large parks, provide much more value than 3
small parks. Small parks are substitutes for them. You have plazas, etc. You don’t want to just 4
provide a bench for the ice cream store. A large park, you can play sports, you can have events, 5
you can have July Fourth festivals, whatever, and it’s – they’re irreplaceable and only something 6
the City can do, so I am a strong advocate for large parks. Again, thank you so much for the 7
effort that you’re putting into this and please pay attention to traffic. Thanks. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you for that comment. 10
11
Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is John P. John P., you may now speak. 12
13
John P.: I actually live in the Greenhouse Condo and like the other speakers, I am concerned 14
with traffic. I think there’s a reasonable consensus that traffic in that area between Charleston 15
and Middlefield is already barely tolerable and bringing – and I don’t see anything in the plan 16
yet that speaks to improving the traffic, the wait times, the complications. What I do see is the 17
parking lane being taken away from the people who live there and converted into bicycle lanes. 18
I don’t think that’s a good trade-off. Looking at the situation, it seems like we have 3 problems 19
we’re trying to solve: traffic, bicycles, pedestrians. And I don’t – I just don’t think there’s 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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enough space on San Antonio Road unless you start to take land away from the current 1
residents. I don’t think there’s enough space on that road to solve – to come up with a good 2
solution for bicycles, for pedestrians, and for traffic. 3
4
So instead of beating our head against the wall, let’s – perhaps we should think outside the box 5
and move the bike lanes off of San Antonio and perhaps to Montrose or one of the roads in the 6
neighborhood that runs parallel. Conveniently, Montrose runs from Charleston to Middlefield 7
and it’s right – and it’s – and has a traffic signal at that point. And the other side of the traffic 8
signal currently is the parking lot for Cubberley. So with a little reconfiguring – configuration of 9
the plans, you could perhaps have a nice bicycle path in that most troublesome area that the 6 10
and 700 Block of San Antonio – again, it’s the part of San Antonio that runs between Charleston 11
and Middlefield. So – and I think that should be explored and I guess I’d like to congratulate the 12
people who are doing the planning so – they’ve put a lot of effort into it but I think there – I 13
think this particular problem doesn’t – just doesn’t have enough space to do what everybody 14
wants to have – wants to see for that part of San Antonio Road again. So please think outside 15
the box and think about moving bicycle lanes off of San Antonio completely and into a parallel 16
neighborhood. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Akin: Thank you very much for your comment. 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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Samuel Tavera: And through the Chair, I have not received any more requests to speak. 1
2
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Tavera. Ms. Armer or Mr. Cain, would you like to follow up on any of 3
the public comments before we begin discussion? 4
5
Jennifer Armer: No but if… 6
7
Chair Akin: For… 8
9
Jennifer Armer: …if any of the commissioners wish to ask for clarification based on that, we are 10
happy to answer those questions. Also for the record, noting that Commissioner Hechtman has 11
now joined us, we have confirmed he – given the character of this item, he can participate in 12
the discussion this evening. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Akin: Thank you, Ms. Armer. Welcome, Commissioner Hechtman. You’re just in time for 15
the general discussion. 16
17
Commissioner Bart Hechtman: Thank you and I’m sorry I’m delayed. I was able to listen to the 18
broadcast from 6:15, so I know about the clock and I was able to hear the thoughtful public 19
comments of all but the last public commenter. 20
_______________________
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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1
Chair Akin: Excellent. All right. We are now open for a first round of discussion. Be sure and 2
address the high-level issues that Mr. Cain requested of us and anything else you would like. I’ll 3
begin with Commissioner Dr. Peterson and then Commissioner Templeton. 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. I actually wanted to follow up on one of the 6
comments by a caller, so maybe it’s a little bit more clarification but it works fine for here. So 7
one of the callers said that they support larger parks rather than parklets and so that raises the 8
question, how large of a park is available to be placed in this location in general, in numbers of 9
acres? 10
11
Chris Sensenig: So in the CTI with the small parcels, I think the size of the park is very limited. It 12
would take, I think, a lot of effort to get anything really over an acre that’s aggregated. I think 13
the Maxar site has a lot of different issues and there – not speaking to financial feasibility there 14
but there – there’s a lot of space there, so I think you could easily get something around 4-plus 15
acres in size location-wise and space-wise. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. So about 1 acre is generally what we’re thinking about. Is 1 park 18
for 1 acre or 2 parks of 1 acre each? 19
20
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Chris Sensenig: I think you might be – in CTI, I think you can get 1 space that’s probably 1
somewhere between a half acre and a acre and plus some smaller things and paseos and other 2
things that function as publicly accessible open spaces and gathering places. 3
4
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. So it’s 1 park or 1 acre for the whole region? 5
6
Chris Sensenig: No. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: No. Okay. 9
10
Chris Sensenig: I think within CTI… 11
12
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 13
14
Chris Sensenig: …our – we kind of looked at between 1 and 3 acres… 15
16
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 17
18
Chris Sensenig: …in that neighborhood. In the Maxar site, I think… 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 Peterson: Okay. 1
2
Chris Sensenig: …Maxar, there’s a lot of different factors but from a strictly space perspective, 3
you could have a larger park there. 4
5
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. Thank you. That’s helpful. Appreciate it. 6
7
Chair Akin: Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. I’m just going to run through things. I like the subarea 10
classification that you have proposed. Seems sensible to me. Building heights, when I – when 11
you were initially talking about it, I thought, oh, gosh, I’m not excited about high-rises. But you 12
mentioned the idea of potentially having spaces near the highway that are not adjacent to 13
existing single-family homes be a site where high-rises could be supported and I’m intrigued by 14
that, so I’m – was thinking about crossing it off but I’m kind of okay with hearing more. I’m a 15
little open minded to how that could work out, especially because of the proximity to the 16
highway. The initial concern I have with that is, just remember this is migratory bird paths. You 17
don’t really want things to get too tall over there because then this whole bird strike situation 18
just going to get really worse. So I still want to see it kept on the lower side but I’m intrigued to 19
hear more about where some taller buildings might fit in the city limits. 20
_______________________
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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1
Jennifer Armer: Would it be helpful for us to share the list of topic areas we were looking for 2
feedback on? We could do that. 3
4
Commissioner Templeton: Yes. I’m just going through the slide where all the questions were 5
asked… 6
7
Jennifer Armer: Great. Thank you. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: …so – but yes. Have it up. Office development. Gosh. I worked for a 10
long time in offices on the other side of the highway here in Mountain View and that’s a lot of 11
office space. And finally they’re adding some residential. We’ve been the residential for some 12
of that office space that exists across the way. I’m not sure how much more we need here but I 13
liked the idea that you said if we do add, it would be replacement or less, so I’m intrigued by 14
that. I do think about just planning design philosophy and how it’s important to have these 15
spaces that are active during the day and the evening for optimal safety, so to some extent, 16
there is some value to having people around during the day so that it doesn’t become vacant 17
and encourage crime. So I’m okay with that as well. Just some – same amount or less is 18
probably the best for Palo Alto. 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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Parks. Love the idea of parks. I strongly feel that people who will live in these new 1
developments will use the Baylands as the park if they can get to it and that’s one thing that we 2
haven’t fully addressed with this plan is how we’re going to operate with adjacent organizations 3
to make sure that that pathway, which will be used, is safe. We’ve talked about this before but 4
it would be fantastic to have a footnote that says and here’s a similar project that’s adjacent to 5
ours where this kind of access and safety will be improved. Because I do know what’s going on 6
and we even had, I think, Mr. Arce talk about a little bit this – or this – earlier this evening. But I 7
– people got to have somewhere to take their dogs out. I would love to have a big space 8
available but there is a really big space not too far away, so I just want to make sure we’re 9
thinking about having some space suitable for a dog walk or a stretch of the legs. It sounds like 10
you have different kinds of open space in mind and that will probably cover it but just weighing 11
in on that since you asked. Ground-floor retail. Yes. I – housing is so much more important right 12
now. The question is, will it add value to the housing if the ground-floor retail is there? We 13
heard one public comment that said potentially it would but I just worry about the vacancies 14
and that will make it less safe, so we really have to think about safety. If I were to have my 15
druthers about the ground-floor retail, I would want it to be family and community-oriented 16
kind of businesses, dance studios, Taekwondo, coffee shops, those kinds of things, so that’s 17
where I would start. All right. Thank you. 18
19
Chair Akin: Thank you. Vice Chair Chang. 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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1
Vice Chair Chang: Okay. I’ll cover what I can in the first 5 minutes and then save the rest for 2
later. First of all, on – regarding – so I’ll just go down the list of requested feedback. First of all, 3
it’s a tremendous amount of work. It’s amazing what’s been accomplished in this short amount 4
of time, so thank you to everybody who has put in all this work and thank you to the public 5
commenters for diving into this large amount of information and coming back with some 6
concrete feedback. So I think the subarea classification makes a lot of sense and it makes it a 7
much more manageable way to think about it, especially the idea that certain areas are more 8
likely to develop than others. And also because it is such a large area sort – and because it’s 9
going to have the density that makes it equivalent to some of other – to certain – to basically all 10
other neighborhoods in Palo Alto, it does make sense to sort of think of the character within 11
section by section, so I think that’s great. So the – I’m going to take the office development first 12
because I think it relates to the residential density and building heights to some extent. I align 13
my comments completely with the comments of our public commenters who were very 14
concerned about office development. This – what’s being proposed here is going to greatly 15
change the character of this part of our city and that can be a good thing but it is very, very 16
expensive to do so and it’s going to have a lot of impact transportation-wise. And I haven’t seen 17
anything that convinces me that what is currently almost a parking lot won’t become a 18
complete parking lot with respect to San Antonio and Charleston. 19
_______________________
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1
So until I see – so we’re trying to create more housing and the reason why we’re trying to 2
create more housing is because we’ve got our jobs in balance. So if we’re putting all this work 3
in, I don’t know why we wouldn’t just tread water. Even within – we want to – I just really don’t 4
think that we should build office either. Decreasing the amount, great. Treading water and 5
replacing, no. So there were options – so I don’t think CTI B3 and CTI B4 are great ideas. With 6
respect to the residential density and building heights, again, what I – what I’m looking at is 7
Packet Page 81 and Packet Page 81 talks about a 20-year buildout. So right now, this current 8
RHNA cycle has 1500-ish, 1500 approximately, units slated for this area. What we’re talking 9
about is dramatically more; however, in this RHNA cycle, we put 25 percent of the RHNA 10
housing in this – along this one street, so it’s a very small part of Palo Alto. It doesn’t make 11
sense to me that in the next several RHNA cycles – because we talked about this being a 20, 25-12
year plan – that we would put proportionally the same amount of housing in this area of the 13
city. It makes sense to spread it out so that all the impacts aren’t all in one place and also just 14
imagine, we can’t have all the kids that show up commuting all the way to the other cross of – 15
the other side of town in North Palo Alto where their schools will be empty. Right? 16
17
So it just – it doesn’t – we need to think about the right – let’s say we continue this pace of 18
development. That says to me over 3 RHNA cycles, it’s around 4500 units of housing. Right? So 19
3 times what we have now. If you look at Packet Page 81, the lower-density alternative 20
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projection says 3800 to 5420 units of housing. Why we would want to do more than that, I 1
don’t understand because it doesn’t make sense to put all that housing in – along one street. 2
We can do it in other areas and we need more housing but Stanford Research Park is there and 3
that would disperse the transportation impacts. So I’m sort of towards lower residential density 4
and lower building heights based on the 20-year buildout and based on the fact that we 5
decided to put all of our housing for this RHNA cycle in this part of the city. And that doesn’t 6
seem to make sense to continue as a strategy necessarily. So that’s it for the first 4 and my time 7
is up. Thank you. 8
9
Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice Chair. Commissioner Hechtman? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Sure. Why not? Okay. So first of all, tremendous job on this draft 12
plan. I was really blown away. I know people have been working on it but I was not expecting it 13
to be so comprehensive, which it is. I wasn’t expecting it to be so helpful with its breakdown of 14
some conceptual alternatives, which it has. And so I think it’s a terrific start, so I want to thank 15
staff and the consultants who did that. My overall comment is, we have to decide through this 16
process whether this plan is going to be aspirational or implementable because there’s a 17
difference. And I would like us to eventually get to a plan that is implementable, that has some 18
tether to reality, both in terms of land use and economics. And I think some of my comments 19
sort of flow in that direction. Subarea classification. I have no issue with the way the map 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
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been broken up in the draft plan. Residential density and building height. So when I’m looking 1
at this plan, I was trying to think about it in the context of Palo Alto and I want to call new 2
California suburban because Palo Alto’s a suburban city and typical in a lot of ways. But with the 3
housing demand and the state housing requirements, we’re being forced to densify and that’s 4
going to make sort of a new-looking suburban city. And so what I’m seeing is we are going to try 5
to protect our low-density existing residential areas and we’re going to have to make pretty 6
dense the other areas. And so this one and the whole El Camino Corridor, that’s where it’s 7
going to happen. 8
9
So in general terms – we’ll get to the specifics later but in general terms, I like the basically 8-10
story buildings, with shorter buildings adjacent to the lower-density residential. And I don’t 11
think that high-rises, 16, 25 stories, whatever, are part of the new California suburban. I think 12
that’s something else. That’s something for bigger cities. If you can avoid it on builder’s remedy 13
projects– so that’s my feeling on Number 3. Office development. So I get it. We have a dislike of 14
office, though it has really made Palo Alto the destination it is. But we have aging office stock 15
and I don’t want Palo Alto to be the place that tech vacates because the only spaces available 16
have become decrepit. I think we have to turn those things over. And I think that in order to 17
spur the kind of residential density we’re looking for in this corridor, we need to incentivize by 18
allowing at least a one-for-one replacement of office because economically, if we don't allow 19
office here, you’re not going to get residential any place there is an office because it won’t pay 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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to change. So we want to encourage that behavior by allowing them to build a new structure 1
with office and residential. And it’s mentioned in the plan – this is a place where TDRs I think 2
can play a really useful tool, to let the office move around and to let the residential move 3
around. 4
5
Parks and outdoor space. Yes. I like the larger parks offset from the main boulevards so a little 6
bit interior. Ground-floor retail. I’m going to talk about that when we talk about the San 7
Antonio/Middlefield intersection because I think we need – not ground-floor retail. We need a 8
shopping center, a shopping district, a central place. So I’ll talk about that more later. And 9
mobility improvements. Yes. I’ll talk about the details later but absolutely I like the direction 10
that we’re looking. Thanks. 11
12
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Ji, then Commissioner James. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And I will say thank you to staff. I’m part of the Community 15
Advisor Group. I know how hard staff’s been working and we’ve had lots of meeting and I really 16
appreciate the community engagement and the thoroughness of the presentation like our 17
other commissioners. I had a quick question about the South Fabian area, the drawing of it. So 18
as discussed during the ARB meeting, many of these buildings may not be changing. There’s the 19
JCC and there’s another school that designated itself as its forever home there. I’m wondering if 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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you know how many of those parcels actually are developable because you listed it as one of 1
this – the primary areas here. And also including the bottom half because I think that 2
potentially the part that’s on the – I’ll just say the bottom of Charleston there, or Charleston 3
kind of cuts that area in half – is there a difference between these 2 areas? So those are my 2 4
questions for right now. 5
6
Chris Sensenig: Yes. I – the area has seen applications in, right? There’s the one on the 7
northeast corner, a 7-story building. And while the – there has also been an application 8
between Charleston and Fabian, that little – directly across from that intersection, south side – 9
now, that application has lapsed but there has been developer interest in that area. So it’s a 10
smaller parcels. It might take longer for that area to develop because sites probably need to 11
aggregate to get to a feasible parcel size. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: And what about the portion that’s on the bottom half of Charleston, in that 14
area there? 15
16
Chris Sensenig: Well, that’s one of the areas that I was speaking of. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Oh, that has the smaller parcels? 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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Chris Sensenig: Yes. Where there’s – Fabian kind of makes that… 1
2
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 3
4
Chris Sensenig: …queue? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 7
8
Chris Sensenig: Between Charleston where Fabian makes that queue, there has been a 9
development application in. It has lapsed but that does show that there… 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Okay. 12
13
Chris Sensenig: …has been some interest in that side. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I also – I just want to step back and say I appreciate the urgency 16
with the work here because as you’ve stated, there are many projects and the faster we get this 17
area plan out, the faster we can make sure that all projects that are in the pipeline can conform 18
with the standards that we – the City would like to see here. I am wondering potentially if 19
maybe that area that’s down there on the bottom half, the little queue that we just mentioned, 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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may belong potentially with Central San Antonio. And the reason I say this is because when you 1
walk that area, it’s – the kind of queue part exits you out onto Central San Antonio and from 2
talking to folks who live there, just kind of walking by, I’ve noticed that they tend to walk to the 3
ramen place. They tend to kind of, from a behavioral standpoint, participate more potentially 4
with the folks on Central San Antonio that are on that – the – I guess the left side of the map 5
here, so that’s one potential option that I would like to say, although generally, I would say the 6
areas here drawn are great. 7
8
My other question is, you’ve spent a lot of time both in the work but also in the presentation 9
about North Fabian, which primarily is the Maxar site. What is the likelihood that we’re seeing 10
that this may actually redevelop at this time? 11
12
Robert Cain: So we were in discussions with the property owner as representative about what 13
they could potentially do there as a residential site. They then decided to offer the site up for 14
sale and had marketed it as a potential residential site. So I can’t fully answer what will happen 15
with that site until we know if the sale go – a sale goes through or if the owner decides that 16
they don’t want to sale – sell after they get their offers but we think that there is definitely 17
interest in doing something there. I can’t tell you if that’s short term or if that’s longer term. 18
That’ll depend on who the owner ends up being. 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: That’s helpful. And then my other question is, most of the information 1
provided in the packet for the North Fabian area is the Maxar site but you’ve drawn a bunch of 2
items on the other side. Is there – do we see any projects there, or is that just lumped in 3
because it’s part of the focus area? 4
5
Chris Sensenig: I – you’re speaking about the other side of Fabian from… 6
7
Commissioner Ji: The left side of that part. 8
9
Chris Sensenig: Yes. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Sorry. I’m just using the map here. 12
13
Chris Sensenig: That – those sites – under current zoning, allow residential and – we would 14
probably see them in similar densities as the ARB spoke and some people here about looking at 15
standards that may go down to Adobe Creek. But there’s a few schools there but – and then 16
there’s an office building, which, just like any other area has the potential for redevelopment. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: So I’m out of time. I got to Item 2. Thank you. 19
20
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Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Ji. Commissioner James. 1
2
Commissioner James: Thank you. I also appreciate the work and the breadth and depth that’s 3
gone into the – this packet. The subarea classification makes sense to me, the ideas that others 4
have expressed about kind of thinking of them as neighborhoods with some differences that 5
are helpful. As far as residential density, I’ve kind of oscillated a little bit on the – on this height 6
question. But Commissioner Ji and I both were fortunate to go to the League of California Cities 7
and it was very enlightening. One of the things I think I appreciate more is how developers use 8
the smorgasbord of legislation to be able to kind of change the nature of the project, right? And 9
so particularly the density bonus that they can get with providing affordable housing. I’m 10
starting to think that we should begin our negotiation, if that’s the right way of thinking of it, at 11
5 stories because it could potentially double. So I don’t really want to start with 8 stories and 12
then double with a housing bonus. So I feel like that’s important. I think the other thing that 13
makes me feel that way is that we can see on San Antonio some existing 5-story hotels that I 14
think feel very comfortable with the scale of that street. They’re nicely – there’s green around 15
them and there’s setbacks and they’re nicely massed buildings. We may not get that level of 16
finish here but I think it’s sort of proof positive that 5 stories can actually comfortably fit along 17
San Antonio. So I think those 2 things make me feel strongly in favor of 5-story, 60-foot, over 18
higher buildings for that type of building. 19
20
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I am not opposed to townhouses in the Maxar region if that is sort of how that develops. I 1
became more aware that – from the developer’s perspective, that’s where they think the 2
market is. That’s what they want to build. That’s what they believe people want to buy. I think 3
it’s – makes sense to be aware of the marketplace, that we’re not building this with our own 4
money, so I am – I’m fine with those in the proper setting. I was kind of interested in the high-5
rise option. I came back from this conference feeling like everybody was running away from 6
that kind of building. I guess not because it looks like Mountain View has one that’s right across 7
from CTI that they’re planning. But my general sense – and I’m curious about yours – is that the 8
cost of building a steel structure is high but more importantly or – is there’s something I don’t 9
fully understand but about a liability insurance for defects in the building and this seemed to be 10
a big hurdle for developers of that kind of building. And I just wonder how – I know we’re 11
talking about 20, 25 years here but I wonder how viable you think those are maybe now and – 12
would they seem more viable in the future? 13
14
Robert Cain: I think it’s hard to predict exactly what development trends and costs are going to 15
be in the future. I agree that right now it is significantly more expensive to build a high-rise than 16
it is to build these 60-foot or 90-foot structures, so there’s actually a gap that we found that 17
between 90 feet and 160 feet, it doesn’t make sense… 18
19
Commissioner James: Yes. 20
_______________________
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1
Robert Cain: …to build because you’re not going to get the return on the investment for that 2
height. 3
4
Commissioner James: Yes. Yes. 5
6
Robert Cain: And then beyond that, there’s a potential but it depends on the very specific 7
factors of that particular building and location. 8
9
Commissioner James: Yes. 10
11
Robert Cain: So we don’t know that a developer will propose a high-rise if we allow it but our 12
thought is that if we had that flexibility… 13
14
Commissioner James: Yes. 15
16
Robert Cain: …if someone thinks they can make it work, we can have policies that say if you 17
choose to do a high-rise, these are the things you have to do in the community, on the 18
property, to make that work as an option. But if we’re opposed to that level of height entirely, 19
we don’t even have to have it as an option. 20
_______________________
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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1
Commissioner James: Yes. 2
3
Robert Cain: I’m going to let our consultant add some more. 4
5
Chris Sensenig: Yes. I just want to add to that, that that is very specifical to residential. Office is 6
a different animal because offices out of steel and concrete are ready, so the increased cost to 7
go to a high-rise is not significant. And that’s why you see – generally, across the South Bay, you 8
see 8-story, 130, 160-foot buildings that are all high-rise for office. And the Mountain View 9
project that – the application in is actually an 11-story, 170-foot-high office. But the residential 10
on that side is below 90 feet and 8 stories. 11
12
Commissioner James: Okay. So I guess I – the only place I could sort of imagine something 13
higher would be adjacent to where it’s higher on that side. Moving on to parks, I’m… 14
15
Chair Akin: Can we… 16
17
Commissioner James: Oh, did I run out? 18
19
Chair Akin: …try the time limit and see if it works out? 20
_______________________
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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1
Commissioner James: Yes. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner James. Believe me, we will have another round, at least, 4
to go over these in more detail. For my comments, I’m going to approach this a little differently. 5
I’m going to take a deep dive into the office occupancy discussion because although Ms. Armer 6
and Mr. Cain have heard this, the rest of you commissioners have not. But of course I want to 7
begin by saying I’m in awe of the tremendous amount of work that’s gone into this, not only the 8
attention to detail but also the depth of creative thought that’s gone into it and how quickly it’s 9
all come together. I wish I had another 2 days just to go over the mobility options. It feels like I 10
barely scratched the surface on that. But office occupancy. The hypotheticals that we see in the 11
plan today are based on VTA’s estimate of 300 square feet per employee; however, a Cushman 12
& Wakefield study estimates Silicon Valley’s average at 191 square feet per employee, 13
considerably denser. Tech is even more dense, currently tending toward about 130 square feet 14
per employee and very high-density tech offices have as little as 80 square feet per employee. I 15
recommend googling Silicon Valley office space per employee as a start if you’d like more 16
information. 17
18
But there’s another constraint. On Packet Page 152, you’ll see that at current capitalization 19
rates, office lease rates have to go up by roughly 10 percent just for the prototype offices in 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
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plan area to be feasible Higher lease rates require tenants to pack in more employees per 1
square foot to manage costs, so there’s another factor driving employee density. I think the 2
bottom line is that if we build offices in the plan area, there are going to be a lot more 3
employees than the current plan estimates. And by a lot more, I mean conservatively 60 4
percent more and for tech at least 100 percent more. If we were to build as much new office as 5
the plan envisions, the extra impact on parking and transportation demand would be huge. I 6
note that we underestimated office employee density Downtown and that’s one of the main 7
reasons we had to implement permit parking in the neighborhoods for employees. We don’t 8
have that escape hatch in San Antonio, so we have to do a better job of getting it right. Finally, 9
at the densities I’m talking about here, the jobs-housing imbalance that’s discussed on Packet 10
Page 37 would be drastically worse. In Scenario 3, the new offices in the CTI subarea alone 11
could offset the entire housing gain across the whole plan area. So for this discussion, I certainly 12
don’t support net new office space but maybe more accurately, I don’t support a dramatic 13
increase in the number of jobs in the area because that’s what drives the jobs-housing 14
imbalance. 15
16
The higher densities I’m discussing here imply a reduction in square footage for office. We 17
really only get one shot at this. If we develop too much office too early, those sites are never 18
going to be available to redevelop with housing and we won’t be improving the City’s jobs-19
housing imbalance overall. So when it comes time to create policy for this area in the next 20
_______________________
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.
round of development, I’d like to suggest either an office space cap for the area or a 1
requirement that balancing amounts of housing be entitled before office is entitled. Hopefully 2
that will provide an incentive to develop early and to develop without an imbalance. In my next 3
round, I’ll talk about some of the more detailed things that you’ve asked about. Thank you. 4
Commissioner Dr. Peterson, next round. 5
6
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. So returning back to parkland, I can see now that 7
you essentially have an A/B option with large parks or smaller parks and then I do feel that 8
larger parks are preferable. I live by California Avenue and I think that’s a region where we do 9
have larger parks and even as it is, the parks almost feel too small. But I see the community 10
using those park spaces tremendously. We have 3 parks in that area and so in this new San 11
Antonio area, we’re talking about adding 2 parks, which of course we do have the large 12
Baylands, which is almost comparable to the Stanford Dish Area that we have near California 13
Avenue. So it’s a very similar type of layout and people use – I think the space is going to end up 14
being about the same. So one piece of the park is – of course, people with dogs use the park 15
quite a bit. But the other one is the kids in the community. That’s their gathering point. There’s 16
always people sitting in the park. We have retirement homes. A lot of times retirees are out 17
there sitting in the park, so one of the questions is, what is the requirement of park space per 18
1,000 residents and are we going to be able to meet that requirement? Because it doesn’t look 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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like the amount of acreage that we even have on the high end is going to make it for – we’re 1
talking how many thousand residents moving in there? 2
3
Jennifer Armer: I’ll start with a couple of points. One, when I’ve dealt with state law 4
requirements for parks per resident, it generally is done at a city level rather than an area level 5
and so in that case, we’ve got a lot of open space for the City of Palo Alto. We’re not deficient 6
overall. But as has been identified here, we are trying to make sure that it – the distribution and 7
the access is available to the new residents and people who will be in this area. 8
9
Robert Cain: So I can add that in our planning document city-wide that we do have a goal of 10
having 2 acres of neighborhood parks plus 2 acres of district parks for every thousand resident 11
– residents and 5 acres of neighborhood park, district park, recreation facilities, and open space 12
as well, when that’s looked at as part of our parkland dedication goals. So if we’re talking about 13
4,000 new units potentially, that’s perhaps 10,000 new residents. I don’t see us adding 40 acres 14
of parkland in the planned area but that is something that as a city as… 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 17
18
Robert Cain: …as Ms. Armer mentioned… 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 Peterson: Right. 1
2
Robert Cain: …we’ll look at how we’re managing all of the open space throughout the city. But 3
we do think it’s important to add neighborhood parks to these 2 areas specifically that are 4
currently more than 10-minute walks from either the Baylands or any other neighborhood park. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: And new development would be required to either pay – either provide open 7
area, parks, or pay an in-lieu fee or pay a fee towards maintenance of parks. There is that that’s 8
part of new development that would be required and so that is one tool. One of the things we 9
are looking into as part of this is what – including that tool, at what level the – should that be 10
set for this area and what other tools might there be to ensure that there is open space 11
available. 12
13
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. So for those reasons of the almost 1 to 10 ratio, nine-14
tenths below where we might want to be, I would be more in favor of having more parkland 15
with larger parks that you have laid out here than the smaller parklets. And then even in the 16
Baylands, when you think about it, it’s really just pathways. A lot of the Bayland Park is not 17
necessarily – it’s a marsh, right? So it’s – if you’ve measured the acreage of the pathways in the 18
Baylands, it starts shrinking down and then sea-level rise of course is going to shrink things a 19
little bit more. So those are the reasons why I would be in favor of keeping the larger parks 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
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trying to keep on the high end of that in this region. And in my last 15 seconds, I’m just going to 1
prefeed my next point that I’ll bring up next, which is going to be accessibility to the Caltrain 2
Station. Looking through this, I think that almost it needs to parallel the Highway 101 walkway. 3
Thank you. 4
5
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Templeton. 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thanks. Good points on the park stuff. What is the highest, tallest 8
building over in the JCC Modal area? I’m sure you provided it. I’m sorry. I don’t remember. 9
10
Robert Cain: I believe it’s about 6 or 7 stories. I can look it up right now but it – it’s in the mid-11
rise category, so it’s, I believe – yes. They’re 4 over 2, it looks like, so it’s about 6 stories. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Okay. That’s interesting. I feel like that’s pretty tall, when I’ve been 14
to that facility. I think that’s tall enough. Can you clarify any more about the comment about 15
doubling that Commissioner James made? 16
17
Robert Cain: So I’m not an expert in State Density Bonus Law but there are concessions that 18
developers could request from cities or waivers from local standards… 19
20
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Commissioner Templeton: Yes. 1
2
Robert Cain: …if they provide sufficient affordable housing and other criteria that the State has 3
laid out. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: So are we now in the position that laws designed to increase housing 6
availability are asking – are putting us in a situation where we have to set our heights lower to 7
navigate around these laws? 8
9
Robert Cain: I – so one thing we’ve done is try to create alternate pathways. That’s one of the 10
things that the HIP program does, the Housing Incentive Program – is we say if you don’t follow 11
the State Density Bonus Law and follow our process instead, we will give you certain benefits to 12
following our process. I don’t know if the assistant director has more to say. 13
14
Chair Akin: Or Mr. Yang. 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Yes. Yes. Mr. Yang may actually have more to say in terms of what the 17
opportunities are but yes, we – that is part of the reason that we’ve had things like the El 18
Camino Real Focus Area to try and provide some of the things that could be done potentially 19
_______________________
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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through those other pathways but with a little more control in terms of the things that are 1
particularly important and of concern to the City. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Mr. Yang. 4
5
Albert Yang: So I would just reiterate that yes, it is possible for developers to use state laws like 6
the Density Bonus Law to go beyond the standards that we create and I guess I would just add, 7
while it’s theoretically possible for them to ask for a 100 percent density bonus, realistically, 8
what we see is that they qualify for bonuses between 20 and 25 percent. So – and that is a 9
bonus. It’s probably going to be expressed in terms of FAR that they will get 20, 25 percent 10
additional FAR. It’s not necessarily a 20 to 25 percent increase in height. That all sort of 11
depends on how the site is laid out. 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Worst-case scenario is? 14
15
Albert Yang: So the thing about density bonus, we don’t – we really can’t control height under 16
State Density Bonus Law. We can control… 17
18
Commissioner Templeton: We can… 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.
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Albert Yang: …density. 1
2
Commissioner Templeton: We’re being asked to control height right now. 3
4
Albert Yang: Right but I guess when you’re trying to think about what is the worst-case 5
scenario, what State Density Bonus Law allows us to control in terms of setting the base that 6
then gets a multiplier added to it is FAR or density. But if a developer wants to create a very 7
skinny and very tall tower with that density, they are allowed to. So if there’s – at the same 8
time, they could build something that is within the height limit that we set but just has… 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: All right. 11
12
Albert Yang: …fewer setbacks. 13
14
Commissioner Templeton: So I am in a unusual situation where my time with you is being 15
controlled, so I’m going to throw this out and see if you can answer. I don’t think your time is 16
being controlled. So what you’re saying here is, if we want to limit buildings to between 5 and 8 17
stories, it still could be interpreted in such a way that a 10-story or a 12-story building could be 18
built. Is that correct? 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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the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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Albert Yang: That is correct. 1
2
Jennifer Armer: I will jump in and remind you, though, that – above a certain height, then it is 3
difficult because it changes construction type for housing. And so that does provide some 4
consideration in terms of expectation. 5
6
Commissioner Templeton: But this is a lot of mental gymnastics… 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 9
10
Commissioner Templeton: …to try and put down into law. It really does defeat the purpose, so 11
it’s frustrating. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: A recommendation might be to consider, what is our vision for this area? What 14
is it we’re looking for? And then when we’re coming through with policy, we can keep in mind 15
the concern about the impacts of these state laws. 16
17
Commissioner Templeton: You guys can figure it out? That’ll be great. Thank you, guys. 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.
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Chair Akin: Thank you. That was a very useful discussion. Vice Chair Chang, then Commissioner 1
Ji. 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: I’d just like to chime in. I remember us saying, oh, we – if we want this height, 4
then the FAR that corresponds to it is this because that was the way to – and then they could 5
get up to 100 percent of that FAR. So that was the – that’s the way I think about it. So they’ll 6
translate our heights into FARs. Okay. So I just wanted to say, I really align my comments with 7
those of Commissioner – sorry, it’s late for me already and this is a different time zone – with 8
Commissioner – with Chair Akin regarding the concerns about office occupancy. I’m very 9
concerned about that and that was also why I wasn’t interested in new office development. 10
And then also with Commissioner James regarding the 60-foot, kind of because of the density 11
bonus issue. Where – so in general, moving to – specifically to heights, is it possible to pull the 12
slide back up that – so… 13
14
Jennifer Armer: The one with the questions… 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: Yes. The one with the questions. 17
18
Jennifer Armer: …or – yes. 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.
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Vice Chair Chang: So regarding specific office heights, I think 60 feet is good in general for the 1
whole area. The one area where I think it might make sense to go higher – and this is going to 2
be connected to some of what I say about retail – is potentially in North Fabian, kind of along 3
the freeway there. And I think we also – I think Commissioner Templeton also discussed 4
something like that too but we want to be careful of birds. With respect to retail, I – it – the 5
nearest retail to this area is going to be the new development on the Mountain View side and 6
Costco and that whole area and then the Carmel Village Area at San Antonio and El Camino. 7
And so it would really be good to have retail in this area. My first preference would be 8
something like what Cupertino has done for Vallco. It’s been an amazing – it’s a very, very 9
vibrant area, their Main Street area. Now, I don’t know enough about – I’m sure staff and 10
consultants have considered things like that and maybe it’s not feasible but when I look at the 11
acres that we’re talking about here in the North Fabian area – so Vallco was about 50 acres. We 12
have potentially 24½ with Maxar and up to 35 with – in that North Fabian area, so that seems 13
to me to be quite a bit where we could do ground floor stuff with housing on top and a little bit 14
of open space and make it an incredibly lively area. 15
16
So if you go to the Main Street area of Cupertino, it – at – late at night on a weeknight, it’s busy. 17
There’s a lot of people there and we always talk about wanting things to do in Palo Alto, so this 18
could be things to do. And because it’s also next to the freeway, it could be potentially a good – 19
I commute to Cupertino to go get those things there, so this could be also a draw for other 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to 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.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
people. And so that’s just kind of my brainstorming thought. But if that is not possible, because 1
it might not be possible for a whole host of reasons, then I would like to see retail in other – in 2
another area. And I think what we’ve learned with everything that we’ve done with retail is we 3
need to concentrate it and so I look at the Central San Antonio area as the most appropriate for 4
that. And we’ve already got some hotels in there and they already have some pretty good 5
restaurants, actually, on the ground floor. So if we were to have ground-floor retail there, it 6
would be really – and we’re – and to require it. I don’t think we can do it organically, right? I 7
think we need to kind of specify where we want that density. 8
9
Now, I’m also not privy and I haven’t done the analysis to understanding which of those sites in 10
the Central San Antonio area have – already have plans that we’ve already approved that don’t 11
have ground-floor retail but I would love to have a section where we would see student – the 12
middle school students hanging out after school and something for them to do over in this area. 13
So I am going to stop right there and save my other comments for another round. 14
15
Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice Chair. Commissioner Ji. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: I will attempt to play some catch-up since I’m still on Item 3 but I want to 18
jump back on Commissioner Templeton’s comments about what is the height and the density 19
that we’re looking for in this area. And as part of the CAG and also what I’ve been hearing from 20
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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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the commissioners here is something between 5 and 8 stories seems approximately 1
appropriate. And I want to call attention to the State Density Bonus, specifically around a zero 2
percent bonus, so that’s something that we learned about during the Planning Commissioners 3
Academy that other cities are seeing where you can apply the State Density Bonus with zero 4
percent additional bonus and still get waivers and concessions against what we have designed 5
for an area. So with that, that makes me a little bit more nervous about approving the – or 6
suggesting the 8-story mid-rise because we could say that and then all of a sudden, they’re like, 7
well, actually, that is what we want to build but we want more waivers and concessions than 8
what you already have. So maybe that’s like we required ground-floor retail but now we’re 9
going to remove it. We were going to put a loading zone in the front but we’re going to remove 10
that. I think that I’m pretty nervous about the application of the zero percent bonus and I hate 11
to describe it in the way that Commissioner Templeton said, which is we are lowering our 12
requirements so that when they reapply in a bonus, then we get back to what we want. I feel 13
like we’re playing some mental gymnastics here but I think that the 60 feet option creates this 14
opportunity that if they would like to apply a State Density Bonus, we don’t get severely 15
impacted from getting something that we wouldn’t like to see. 16
17
In addition, I want to talk a little bit about the financial feasibility. And the financial feasibility of 18
projects a couple years ago was 5-story mid-rise is what was most financially feasible. And all of 19
a sudden, now we’re seeing that 8-story mid-rise is what folks want to see. And if we kind of 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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point back to what Chair Akin had mentioned on Packet Page 151 about residual land values, 1
you’ll see that it appears, according to this diagram, that 5-story and 8-story office have 2
negative residual land value, which I – I’m curious about the impacts of that in Palo Alto 3
because we see that there’s a significant demand for office space, so that’s kind of curious to 4
me. But previously on Packet Page 149, you’ll see that the 5-story multi-family and the 8-story 5
multi-family are kind of hovering around the land value line. I don’t know if it makes the most 6
sense necessarily to work towards what is financially feasible at this specific moment because 7
even before we finish approving the San Antonio Road Area Plan, the financial feasibility of 8
these different sizes may change. So that’s my perspective on the residential density and 9
building heights. I also think that if there was a region that could potentially – we may want to 10
see some kind of height transition, I would agree with Vice Chair Chang about along the 11
highway, so either that’s in the North Fabian side, kind of in the back. I believe that in one of 12
the diagrams, staff has already identified this. I believe this might be Packet Page 55 where you 13
can see the potential site configurations for the Maxar site, so I would be interested in ones 14
where the higher density is located along the outside. 15
16
In addition, another area where potentially we could see a higher density or height could be in 17
the CTI region along the Mountain View site. The Mountain View site, as previously discussed, is 18
already 11 stories, so putting something that is on the 8-story side of things, I think I wouldn’t 19
be opposed because it’s a relative transition, one may say, with the frontage against Mountain 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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View. Okay. So now in terms of office, I will just plus one what the Vice Chair and the Chair have 1
mentioned. I won’t go into detail there. And then for the parks and outdoor space, I guess I will 2
preempt some comments by saying I think that it would be helpful if maybe staff could describe 3
some parks in Palo Alto that are the relative sizes. What is a Palo Alto park that is .5 acres, .75 4
acres, 1 acre, or 2 acre so that the rest of us here can help understand what that is like? So 5
that’s my – I think that might be helpful to pull up if you could at some point. 6
7
Chris Sensenig: Yes. I can point to some of those. Well, Commissioner Chang, you brought up 8
Vallco. That is actually a half-acre plaza. Now, it’s surrounded by diagonal parking and stuff, so 9
it’s a little bit separate than the retail next to it but that is a half-acre. Similarly, the Landsby 10
Project, which is just on California Street and San Antonio on the north side of California Street, 11
that is also about a half-acre open space, which I think both of those are good examples of tight 12
little urban spaces. Particularly, the Landsby has a nice green aspect to it. I’ll have to come back 13
to you on the other size ones. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Not to jump my time but I just think it would be helpful to describe Palo Alto 16
areas. I know – and also for those who live in Palo Alto and may not frequent some of these 17
other areas, so… 18
19
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Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Hechtman or Commissioner James, do you 1
have something for this round? Commissioner James, I don’t know why your light is 2
misbehaving. 3
4
Commissioner James: Thank you. So yes. Let me sort of run through this. I want to say we were 5
just talking about height and density. I agree with Commissioner Ji and others that if there is an 6
area that’s more tolerant of height, it would be along that 101 on the Maxar site or adjacent to 7
– at the – on the other side – on the CTI side next to Mountain View. The – in terms of parks, I 8
prefer public-facing big parks over small green spaces. I think they’re better shared spaces that 9
encourage social interaction. I have the pleasure of being a couple of blocks from Johnson Park 10
and it gets lots of use. Lots of use. And I like the way people interact there. I think the feasibility 11
analysis on Packet Page 143 shows that 2-acre parks appear to be financially viable if I read that 12
correctly. 13
14
Chris Sensenig: Yes. An aggregate of that in the CTI is potentially financially viable. I will note 15
that the CTI has a bunch of small lots. Aggregating space in the CTI, we could aspire for the 16
largest possible but it is very difficult. 17
18
Commissioner James: I guess I was thinking and I wasn’t clear. Two acres, I feel like more on the 19
Maxar site seems – was what I had in mind and thinking about the CTI site. Imagine a smaller 20
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park there, kind of centrally located to that neighborhood. Seems like it would be a good 1
choice. Commercial and retail. Commissioner – Chair Akin got into that much more deeply than 2
I thought about it. I think the guiding light there is not to hurt ourselves. Well, I don’t want to 3
hurt ourselves in terms of economic growth but I certainly don’t want to hurt ourselves in 4
terms of the ratios of office to – I mean, of housing to jobs and make our life harder in terms of 5
RHNA number, so I feel like that should be kind of the guiding principle there. Pedestrians and 6
bikeways. Oh, I guess I should – retail. I feel like if retail is done right, it can be a big benefit to 7
the neighborhood. I am not going to say that I clearly know how to steer that to that outcome. I 8
would love it. We’re – if we’re going to try and have pedestrian/bikeways commuting to trains, I 9
would probably trade a floor of height for some ground-floor retail if that’s a possible trade or a 10
negotiation with a developer to get some along Central San Antonio where I think it might do 11
well or where it maybe is needed. 12
13
The pedestrian and bikeways. I strongly favor the separated – that those be separated from the 14
roadway by green space and trees to kind of soften the experience of walking and biking next 15
to a very busy and, at times, intimidating road. And I also feel like it’s got to be welcoming. You 16
can’t be in the road. You need a little bit of safe space there. Specifically, I like the left side of 17
Alt. MSA Number 3 and I have a sense that it might be that we could do just one side of the 18
road if you have both the bike and the pedestrian separated and a green space and safe 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
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crossways to the other side. But I’m not sure I’m right but that’s – that was my takeaway. And I 1
think that’s – did I miss anything? I think that’s it for me. Lightning round. 2
3
Chair Akin: Okay. Thank you. 4
5
Robert Cain: If I may, there are some questions about parks. So if you’re familiar with Bowling 6
Green and Heritage Park in Palo Alto, those are both about 2-acre parks. 7
8
Commissioner James: Yes. 9
10
Robert Cain: Cameron Park is about a 1-acre park. 11
12
Commissioner James: Okay. Thank you. 13
14
Chair Akin: Thank you. That’s very helpful. Commissioner Hechtman, I don’t see a light but I 15
would like to hear your comments. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. First, let me understand sort of the flow of our discussion 18
tonight. Are we going to get to a point where we each take a turn talking about Central San 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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Antonio, for example, or are we just doing it in this format and we can just talk about whatever 1
area we want, and try to associate it with one of the 7 items? 2
3
Chair Akin: I had asked Mr. Cain what organization he preferred and it sounded like you were 4
leaning more towards the type of subject matter discussion we’re having now rather than an 5
area-specific one. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 8
9
Chair Akin: Nonetheless, I assume you’re prepared to accept area-specific comments. 10
11
Robert Cain: That’s correct. If anyone has any area-specific comments, we’re certainly open to 12
them but we did think that it was more useful to go through topic by topic than go through 13
every single subarea and a up-and-down vote on every alternative type of discussion. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. So I will, as part of my clusters 16
of comments, make the sub-area comments that I want to make. And so I’m going to start with 17
the Central San Antonio. I like the CSA-A2 alternative, which is the 90-foot limit. I have heard 18
my fellow commissioners talk about the fear of what density bonus could do. And I just have a 19
couple responses to that and one of them the Assistant Director has made. If we cap it at 8 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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stories and somebody wants to use their density bonus to push it up to 25 percent, 30 percent 1
to 11 stories, fine because the reality is that won’t pencil out. They have to change the entire 2
structure of the building and so they’re not going to do that. And so if they don’t do that, 3
they’re going to look for other waivers. Well, if the waiver they want us to knock out ground 4
floor retail – and again, I’m not a big believer in that in a lot of instances – it’s only because it’s 5
not profitable. They view it as not profitable because developers want to build things that make 6
money. And so if they’re looking for a way to avoid ground floor retail, it’s because they think it 7
will lose money, meaning it won’t generate enough rent and could be dark. And so I think I have 8
maybe less fear than my fellow commissioners that by going to the higher level we’ll get an 9
issue with that. 10
11
Could we pull up a map of Central San Antonio, please? So Cat Stevens has a song, “Where Do 12
The Children Play?” I think most of us should know that. What’s lesser known is – he wrote 13
another song that he never finished called, “Where Do The Parents Shop?” And when I look at 14
this whole plan, that’s really the big question I’m asking and it’s not where they’re going to take 15
their dry cleaners or where they’re going to get their shoes repaired. It’s where are they going 16
to buy their groceries. We’re thinking about all this density, primarily residential in the San 17
Antonio Corridor and I think the logical place to put a Safeway or a full-service supermarket like 18
that is on one of the 3 corners of San Antonio and Middlefield. All three of which are in play in 19
this plan, which isn’t popping up but that’s okay. I think we all know that intersection pretty 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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well. The Toyota dealer, SummerWinds wrapping around the gas station and whatever that – 1
Marine store – used to be a Marine store − is on the other corner next to – I think Mike’s Bikes, 2
whatever. 3
4
Chair Akin: It used to be West Marine, yes. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, West Marine. So you’ve got a Piazza, which is a great store but 7
it’s not my choice of everyday shopping store. For some people in that area it is because it’s 8
super convenient. But maybe they should have some competition. My brother lives in 9
downtown Seattle in a high rise that has a Whole Foods at the base. Now it’s not totally 10
comparable because that’s 25, 30 stories and it’s got housing in it. It’s got office and it even has 11
a hotel in it. So that model isn’t comparable but maybe there is something here that could be 12
parking with a grocery store with something else on top. Housing, right, where you take an 13
elevator down and do your grocery shopping. But that doesn’t seem contemplated in any of the 14
alternatives. And I think that’s something that people are going to need. They’re going to need 15
to shop. And while I heard the Vice Chair talk about maybe some image of that at the Maxar 16
site, I remember the discussion regarding the redevelopment of Edgewood Plaza and a grocery 17
store there and one of the big knocks – there was an effort to not have to put a grocery store in 18
there because what we learned is grocery stores like 360-degree customer coverage. 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.
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In other words, they want people to be able to come from every direction to shop. And they 1
didn’t like that Edgewood place because it only had 180 degree. Because of 101 and the 2
Baylands. And that’s the concern I have about the Maxar site for a big grocery store. It doesn’t 3
have that kind of coverage. More central in this San Antonio/Middlefield. And so I’d like – ad 4
maybe some consideration was given to it and there are reasons why it was ultimately decided 5
against and if so, I’d love to hear those. But I think we need more major shopping, not Mom-6
and-Pop retail along the street. Thanks. 7
8
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. I think it’s my turn. I want to get into the more 9
detailed points now. As for height, I’m taking my cues from the prototype feasibility studies 10
that start on Packet Page 146. And as a way of trying to summarize those – please correct me if 11
I’m wrong here. Townhomes are feasible; 5-story multifamily is not feasible unless rents rise by 12
at least 10 percent and cap rates decline; 8-story multifamily is not feasible unless rents rise by 13
at least 10 percent or cap rates decline; 5-story office was not feasible unless cap rates decline 14
a lot but there’s some concern about that diagram. I may have misinterpreted it. Eight-story 15
office was not feasible unless cap rates decline or rents increase at least 10 percent. Nine to 16
fourteen story, not feasible. Above that, we begin to get into expensive but feasible again. Now 17
to me that says that if we’re going to get any development in the foreseeable near future, we 18
have to target 90-foot height limits. And I think that’s also consistent with the recent changes to 19
applications elsewhere on San Antonio, like 800, that we’ve seen. I am nervous about limiting 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.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
height to 60 feet, specifically if we say we’re doing it to avoid the consequences of Density 1
Bonus Law because the state could very easily identify that as a constraint on production and 2
there would be consequences. So I’m reluctant to use that as a tool. 3
4
Parks. I don’t have a strong opinion on this but my inclinations are to avoid small, linear parks 5
because of the risk that the spaces get privatized, which is something that we saw repeatedly 6
with PCs. I’d also avoid a park fronting on Charleston because of the noise and safety hazards. 7
So for mobility, one of the defining characteristics of Silicon Valley is job mobility and that’s 8
because people change jobs more frequently than average for the nation and companies grow, 9
shrink, and move here very frequently. The jobs in Silicon Valley are really spread out and that 10
means on the average, the most attractive job for you is probably not going to be within 11
bike/ped distance over your career. For certain points of your career, it will be and for a lot of 12
your career, it won’t because most of the jobs are just elsewhere. So I think that argues for a 13
priority to at least maintain the effectiveness of longer distance transportation. And I wonder if 14
that should affect the mobility priorities that are shown on Packet Page 25. You already have 15
improving access to Caltrain, which is an essential one but maybe you should raise the priority 16
of that and add improving access to 101 or maintaining truck route capacity, which is also an 17
issue on San Antonio. And some of these things are mentioned in passing on Packet Pages 90 18
and 95 but they’re really pretty buried. 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.
So I know you’re aware of the issue but just questioning whether it should be made more 1
visible. Finally, related to the public comments, for the mobility alternatives that remove on-2
street parking, where does the parking demand go? Do we need to anticipate building parking 3
garages – public parking garages here? And if so, where would they go? I have a minute left. I 4
don’t have much insight on locating retail at this point. If you do build a lot of office, beware of 5
retail specializing to support the daytime workers rather than the residents. Pre-pandemic, we 6
were beginning to see some of that downtown. According to the consultant we had with retail 7
revitalization, concentrations at intersections are particularly important. This is supporting 8
Commissioner Hechtman’s and Vice Chair Chang’s comments. All right. That’s it for me. 9
Commissioner Peterson for the next round. 10
11
Female: Do we need a break? 12
13
Chair Akin: Oh. The issue of a break has been raised. I was going to go through to the end of the 14
item but if we need one now, that’s perfectly okay. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: End of Item 2? 17
18
Chair Akin: Yes. 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: [Inaudible 144:05]. 1
2
Chair Akin: Yes, end of Item 2. That sounds like a vote for a break now. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: I think so, yes. 5
6
Chair Akin: Very well. Let’s do a break now. Fifteen minutes. Return at 8:25. 7
8
Chair Akin: Is everyone back? 9
10
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 11
12
Chair Akin: I think so. 13
14
Jennifer Armer: And for the record, Commissioner Templeton has had to leave, and so she will 15
be missing the remainder of the meeting. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you for that. Let’s resume this third round of discussion beginning with 18
Commissioner Peterson. 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.
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Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. So one of the things is back on the parks. I heard the 1
topic that the park plan and – is it CTI? I’m starting to learn the names of these sections. 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: Could we have the slide again just so that we can organize [inaudible 160:44]. 4
Thank you. 5
6
Commissioner Peterson: I like seeing myself on there. So the – is – it’s difficult to put together a 7
park simply because you have to buy the lots and bring them together. So I guess that is a 8
concern on – are we able to give feedback and say, “If it comes up and you’re able to put 9
together a larger block of lots, then go ahead and do that.” But if not – I mean we all 10
understand reality. 11
12
Chris Sensenig: Yes, I would say that that would be good feedback – is – would be like one 13
direction would be yes, we want to see the largest aggregated park possible in that area. 14
Another avenue of feedback like the – would be well, no, that’s an area that a ½-acre 15
plaza/park is appropriate. Both of those are like kind of two different directions. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. I’ll leave that one there. And so now I’m going to pivot to – real 18
quick – I’ve heard a lot of the discussion about the height of buildings and what’s feasible and 19
as they say pencils out. That – I just want to bring it to everyone’s attention that with the AI 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.
revolution, it’s drastically changing the construction industry. Our past experience of what 1
could be built and what penciled out, you can just throw all that out the door. It’s really 2
changing. I mean the fundamentals of labor, equipment, and material are still there but really 3
what’s changing is the degree of mistakes that you make. We all hear about RFIs and change 4
orders and in the industry, we know that’s where the money is. But it really is changing it 5
because with better planning, better design, it’s just really – it’s taken that whole game out of 6
the industry and as I say sharpening the pencil. So I think that could change a lot of the – kind of 7
the assumptions you’ve been building off of what – past 15, 20 years was real. The next 15, 20, 8
it could be different. So now pivoting to my topic – is – I want to talk about mobility. And so – 9
because I use Caltrain. I haven’t had a car since 2008. I 100 percent walk, public transportation, 10
a little bit of Lyft, so because of that I’m pretty familiar with all of the Caltrain stations and just 11
how to get around Palo Alto and different areas. 12
13
And in particular San Antonio station, it is just incredibly awkward to cross Alma. It’s like that 14
old game with the chicken or whatever. You’re trying to get across the street. I mean it is a 15
difficult street to cross. I mean it’s a lot of lanes and in that section, people are not slowing 16
down. I mean that’s like a – it’s like a high-speed throughput and then it’s got the weird, kind of 17
on-ramps where when they’ve redesigned stuff. It’s got these little, weird streets. And then 18
even when you look at the picture there where you talk about the sidewalk, I mean that’s not 19
even a sidewalk; it’s just like a concrete kind of – it is a sidewalk but it has – doesn’t really have 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 curb. I mean you feel like you’re standing really on the street there. So I want to just 1
encourage that – my feedback is to really rethink that entire intersection of how do you get 2
from that Caltrain station. If you go to California Avenue, you have the underpass and you can 3
cross the – all through Alma. But here, you don’t have that same underpass. We have the 4
overpass but you don’t have that same design focus that you have like over on Highway 101 5
where you’re looking at how are we going to get over the Baylands and I saw the overpass. You 6
almost need that same type of redesign of how do you pull together – it’s almost like 4 squares 7
there because you got the commercial on – I think that’s even Mountain View, then you have 8
the Caltrain. 9
10
You get over there, there’s like a lumberyard there. And then you have that residential area in 11
the fourth corner. And they really – none of those tie together. If you stand there, it’s almost a 12
little bit awkward to go to any of those 4 corners from that Caltrain station. So looking at what 13
you have there, I don’t think it’s really – it’s technically probably walkable but it’s really not 14
welcomely walkable. It’s – you have to know where you’re going and where you are to be able 15
to navigate that intersection. And in fact, one of the things I saw is that from the Caltrain 16
station, it shows in some ways the bike path as you go to the right of that commercial space. I 17
don’t know what business that is there. It’s like a tech company. And you go around it to the 18
right and then come back around to San Antonio. And it never crossed my mind to cross that 19
street, go through that tech thing and then come around the back of it. I’ve always tried to kind 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 cut to the left of it through that on-ramp, so I think some of the stuff like that that you have 1
in there just needs probably more attention and probably more money putting at – figuring out 2
that intersection. So that’s my feedback there from as a – from a walkability standpoint. Thank 3
you. 4
5
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. I see no lights on. Who’s next? Vice Chair 6
Chang. 7
8
Vice Chair Chang: Okay. Hopefully, this is my last round, if I can do it. We’ll see. So just wanted 9
to make a few comments and clarification. I love Commissioner Hechtman’s idea about a 10
grocery store. When I was speaking about doing retail in the North Fabian area, it wasn’t about 11
a grocery store; it’s kind of more Santana Row-esk but we should all go to Vallco and go hang 12
out there and visit the really cool stores that are there and take a look at all the housing that’s 13
there and the green space that they’ve got. I – one more note about density. I’m trying to make 14
sure I tick off all my notes. For the Maxar density, I thought that the alternative MB-1 was the 15
one that I would go for, so that’s kind of keeping the – it’s still decently high density with 40 16
dwelling units per acre. But my caveat to that would be if we could do something like Vallco 17
and again, I don’t know what all the levers are. Then I would be like sure, let’s do some higher 18
density there. And I had said earlier that the edge of the Maxar site might be a place where it 19
really makes sense to go higher too. Okay. Also wanted to make a quick comment about office. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 have a brand new office in our city that still has yet to be occupied, like 441 Page Mill, 1
where the Olive Garden was. There’s an empty building. 2
3
There’s also abandoned, older buildings. And there’s a new one on Park Boulevard that’s new 4
but hasn’t been occupied. I think the – in Menlo Park, Springline’s got a lot of vacancies too and 5
it’s brand new. So maybe we don’t need that much more. I don’t know. I’m sure you, staff, and 6
consultants have done a lot of productions but I remain not in favor of more office. And then 7
finally, wanted to talk about parks and then mobility. We’ll see if I can do it. For parks, I’m in 8
alignment with my colleagues that bigger swathes of park rather than small, little parks. What I 9
would say is that I recognize that in CTI, it’s going to be difficult to do that. So I don’t think any 10
park space below say about – well, definitely below a ¼ of an acre is that valuable. Because if 11
you think about Escondido Village in Stanford and the way – where the low rises are, the little 12
park in the middle of a bunch of family units effectively becomes people’s back yards, which is 13
lovely for those people but it then becomes less usable in a way just in the feel for everybody 14
else and we really want access to this green space for everybody. Similarly, where the old mill 15
used to be, so this is like under San Antonio and Alma, like right around there. There’s a bunch 16
of duplex house developments that’s gone up and there’s like a little quarter acre park there. 17
18
And again, it’s effectively the back yards for all these people who have no yard space and that’s 19
really valuable and really important but then it really only serves the people who are 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.
there. And so that’s why I think kind of like ½ acre is something more towards where we want 1
to head; this is specifically for CTI. Of course, for the Maxar side, if we can get something that is 2
larger, that would be great. I think it should be accessible and visible from the bigger streets 3
around it, like Fabian, so that it serves the larger community rather than kind of being hidden 4
away. I – with respect to CTI, I think those – because of Charleston and the noise there, we 5
would – and traffic and everything, we would want those parks a little bit inside as other 6
commissioners have said. And then in the last 50 seconds, for mobility, I − I’m probably going to 7
have to go again because I have questions for staff and consultants. Which of these options will 8
ultimately allow the most tree cover? Like not necessarily – so I’m interested in both impact to 9
current canopy but ultimately – because we want to be visionary about this area, which of 10
these options allows the option – allows the most canopy? 11
12
Chris Sensenig: My professional opinion on that would be Alternative 2. 13
14
Vice Chair Chang: Okay. So I think that I would be most in favor of 2 for a couple of reasons. The 15
first is that you’ve got a sidewalk on one side the pedestrians can use. This is all prefaced on the 16
– predicated on the idea that we can cross the street. But you have an ability for bikes to go on 17
the left side in both directions. You don’t really need to duplicate that on the other side 18
necessarily. And this section of Palo Alto isn’t going to feel like the rest of Palo Alto if it doesn’t 19
have more trees. It already isn’t going to feel like the rest of Palo Alto but we want the cooling 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
effects of – we don’t want it to be a heat island over there, which it already sort of is. So those 1
are my thoughts for now. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you, Vice Chair. Still no lights. Commissioner Ji. Followed by Commissioner 4
Hechtman. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes. Okay. So I will talk a little bit about the park space. I won’t go on too long 7
because I feel like my colleagues have covered significant portions of it. I want to echo Vice 8
Chair Chang’s comment about a small park being not too interesting for several – the reasons 9
that she’s previously provided. I’m looking at Packet Page 66 with some of the different 10
alternatives that you’ve provided for the park. And I think that having a park that’s not on top 11
of Charleston would be nice because Charleston is pretty busy and I think that’s kind of what 12
the CAG had also said. So something kind of similar to what we’re talking about here in 13
Alternative CTI A-3, the one large park seems to align with what a lot of my colleagues have said 14
previously. I did have a question for staff about this green arrow that’s provided here. Is that 15
technically park or like what are we looking at here? 16
17
Chris Sensenig: So there is opportunities to break down these larger blocks into smaller blocks 18
and connect with paseos. So one that we’re showing is between industrial and the Mountain 19
View project to really kind of connect those – connect open spaces. So those are seen as 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
paseos. They would be publicly accessible pedestrian pathways, so closed to vehicles. And while 1
they may not be "park," these type of spaces can provide nice outdoor space and connections 2
and smaller places to be and connect. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: I do understand that. I’m wondering from the park fees that – the in-lieu fees 5
that – would these be used to pay for the paseo, or do you think the paseo would come in as 6
we work with the developers there? 7
8
Chris Sensenig: I would probably say it’s too early to pinpoint that but we’ll be looking at a 9
number of ways to achieve the amount of open space and it’s very different between CTI and 10
Maxar. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Yes. So I think that it is important, as noted by staff, the blocks on the 13
CTI area are pretty big. So having some kind of breakup would be – induce more pedestrian 14
activity in this area, although I am curious more about the tradeoff here between having those 15
cut-throughs in the big park. I think you’ve heard from my colleagues here that having the big 16
park is pretty important here. I am trying to look through the – can we pull up the slide again 17
with the questions? I also just want to take this moment to plus one Commissioner Hechtman’s 18
comment about the grocery store. I think that’s a good idea. No idea how we’d implement it 19
but I think that would just be a nice addition for one of these areas here. So in terms of other – 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 terms of ground floor retail, one of the ways I think about the Central San Antonio area is it 1
reminds a lot of what we’re doing on El Camino. So El Camino is 100 feet wide. San Antonio is 2
about 75 feet wide. The types of buildings that we’re seeing on Central San Antonio are 7 or 8 3
floors, which is consistent with what we’re seeing in the El Camino Focus Area, about 85 feet. 4
And with that, we are trying to encourage lots of the retail with our retail nodes that we’ve 5
provided for much of El Camino and in my mind Central San Antonio potentially serves as that 6
here. 7
8
So it’s about the same size as the central node that we’ve described in the El Camino Focus 9
Area. So I would be strongly in favor of considering retail requirements potentially for the 10
Central San Antonio area. And I think that it’s okay that we are requiring it but if we decide that 11
for whatever reason we can work with developers to negotiate some of that – so for example, 12
as we saw with 800, having a loading zone may take priority over having the ground floor retail. 13
But I think that in general my preference would be to have as much ground floor retail as 14
possible here in the Central San Antonio section. And boy, does 5 minutes feel very short. So I 15
will just pass again. 16
17
Chair Akin: I have a feeling you’ll have more opportunity in the next round. Commissioner 18
Hechtman. 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: Chair, I’ve spoken twice and before I speak a third time, I wanted to 1
make sure anybody that wanted to speak a second time had, including you. 2
3
Chair Akin: I believe we got everybody through 2 rounds. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. I’m going to flow through some of these items. And first, I want 6
to react to something the Chair said, I think maybe in his first remarks, about questioning some 7
of the density assumptions in the plan for office. And I have no idea what the correct figures are 8
but I think I’m supportive of investigating that comment to see if we are using the most 9
appropriate measurements. Because again, I’m looking for an implementable rather than an 10
aspirational plan here. And so if we’re underestimating the density, we need to make some 11
adjustments. So I think that’s an excellent point. Packet Page 43, Central San Antonio – let’s 12
see. Consistent with my thought that one of these 3 corners should be a grocery store-13
anchored shopping center, I like CSA-B2 – Option B2: Allow limited commercial office space on 14
the ground floor focused on professional service. Because I think that can complement as you 15
fan out really to the east from that intersection. That can provide some synergies with that 16
anchor, even if the anchor is on a different property. So I like that. Going to 47, 48, which is 17
South Fabian. I know I gave a plug for 8 stories before but I did mention feathering down where 18
appropriate adjacent to lower density. And so here’s an example of 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.
I like A1 which is the 60-foot height limit transitioning to the area north of it and then that’s on 1
47. And on 48, again, I like B2, limited commercial office use on lower floors focused on 2
professional services. It’s different from ground floor retail but it presents some useful 3
functionality;again, the idea is to get these new local residents walking distance from some of 4
the services they need. Moving into North Fabian. So we’ve got the Maxar site and then we’ve 5
got this strip on the other side of Fabian. On that strip on the other side of Fabian, I like a 60-6
foot max because you want to feather to the lower density residential to the north of it. On the 7
Maxar site, I’ve heard some of the commissioners talk about wanting higher density on the 8
freeway side and I’m just kind of wondering if that works. 9
10
We got SummerHill, who built that townhouse development along the freeway up Bayshore 11
and I’m wondering if that’s better than 8 stories of people looking at 101. If there’s more desire 12
for that without so much visibility. So I was thinking at the east end, I like the lower densities, 13
like 60 dwelling units per acre B2 but maybe B1, which is 40 at the east end. And in terms of the 14
height, which is on 54 – so that’s C2, which is the 90 with C1, the 60 feet, if we go with B1 at the 15
east end, which is again adjacent to the freeway. In terms of the concepts that are shown on 16
55, I like B and C because there’s a lot of for sale in all the examples but – well, this is a separate 17
point. In all these examples, there’s a lot of for sale but will any of it be profitable enough to 18
justify a 3-acre park in the Maxar. So that’s the math that needs to be done. And back on the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
concepts on 55, I think A and C, I like the vision of more for sale along the highway. So I’ll stop 1
there. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you. I again see no lights but I anticipate Commissioner Ji has something more 4
to say. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Okay. I guess I will just continue where I left off. So – okay. So for the Central 7
San Antonio area, I was wondering − the ARB had mentioned the benefits of having some kind 8
of back alley for management for trash pickup and other things. I don’t think that’s feasible 9
here but I was just curious about if that’s been thought about. 10
11
Chris Sensenig: Correct. It’s – it would be very hard to implement. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Just want to confirm that. So as previously stated, in the Central San 14
Antonio area, I would be in support of CSA-A1, the 60-foot height limit and then the – probably 15
this – for the land use alternative. I think CSA-B1, restrict all commercial uses, for the reasons 16
why the Chair and the Vice Chair mentioned; however, I’m curious about the potential carve 17
out for the grocery store that Commissioner Hechtman had mentioned. I also was wondering – 18
you listed on Packet Page 43, consider connecting the bike path to – I don’t even know how to 19
pronounce this Wyandotte. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Wyandotte. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Wyandotte. Is that something that we’re actively still looking into? Or what’s 4
the potential feasibility there? 5
6
Chris Sensenig: So that is a type of connection that would significantly impact that property but 7
there’s always possibilities of the city purchasing property, etc., to make key connections. We 8
suggested and put that in there as – the direction was to look for ways to lessen the block size 9
and that is one location where a connection is possible to an existing street. But again, it would 10
have to go through a private property and would be a significant impact on that property. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. For the South Fabian sub area on Packet Page 47, the ARB 13
mentioned that because significant portions of the section here are pretty developed out, that 14
the SF-A1, the 60-foot height limit, would be their recommendation. I support that as well. And 15
for the ground floor uses, I think that ground floor retail may not be best for this area given that 16
it’s a little bit tucked in. And I would, again, not to repeat myself, restrict the commercial and 17
office usage for − I think – for South Fabian. And then on – for the North Fabian area, on Packet 18
Page 55, that Commissioner Hechtman had mentioned, the – my understanding from the CAG 19
is that the folks from the community would prefer having the higher density along the highway 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
because it’s further away from the residential areas and it would kind of drop down in height. 1
So this is an area where I think that potentially the 90 feet could work for the areas along the 2
highway and kind of taper down towards the middle. 3
4
And I think that here having a larger park makes more sense to me, so something maybe in the 5
realm of Concept D or B would be my preference in terms of the park size. For the office, I’m 6
again skeptical about that, so I won’t go into that. But I really want to echo Vice Chair Chang’s 7
comment about the Vallco area because I too also commute from Palo Alto to Cupertino to go 8
and visit those establishments that are there. So I think that there’s a lot of opportunity there 9
as well. But if I were to have the retail there, I think it could be interesting. I don’t know if we 10
would end up having something where it’s faced inside, like in Concept C or maybe potentially 11
something that’s more closer on the Fabian side, for example, Concepts A or D. So again, I guess 12
I will let someone else go this round before I continue. 13
14
Chair Akin: Vice Chair Chang. 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: Okay. So I had a really quick question about the mobility improvements. 17
There’s a suggestion to put a bike path on Alma and I don’t understand, like can somebody tell 18
me more about the thought process behind that because even if the bike path is completely 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.
separated and off the road, Alma – I mean it would be like biking next to a freeway. So I’m 1
trying to understand like the value of it. 2
3
Chris Sensenig: So I can say we have heard from some people that say that going that direction 4
through the neighborhoods is challenging because of the circles and that people that aren’t 5
super familiar tend to get confused and just avoid it. And so there would be a value to having a 6
two-way bike track on the east side of Alma that would help people get up into closer to one of 7
the railroad crossings that they’re looking to go to the other side of the Caltrain tracks. We’re 8
still in the ideas phase. We’re still listening to feedback. But it would also provide a connection 9
hopefully to the Caltrain station at San Antonio as well for people that live further north of the 10
train station of San Antonio Road. 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: Further north. Okay. So my thought on that is we have all sorts of really good 13
bike paths that are pretty separated from the cars that make for a pretty pleasant experience in 14
Palo Alto. And the way we handle it is like we have this – we have signage for the bicyclists to 15
say this way to such and such a location, this way to cross over to Mountainview, this way to 16
cross over to Los Altos. So I wonder if − I understand that the circles are confusing because they 17
are. It took me a while to learn them and I live over there. But it might be – we might be able to 18
handle it that way. Part of my negative reaction to a bike lane on Alma is that every once in a 19
while I see a bike with a bicyclist biking in the car lanes on Alma. And it is just so dangerous. 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.
I know that we can’t stop people from doing that but what I wouldn’t want is for people to be 1
biking and then go, “Oh, whoops. No more bike lane. And let me just continue on Alma.” And 2
that’s just not what we want. It’s not good for safety. It’s not good for traffic throughput. And I 3
think there might be a solution that could just be solved potentially with signage if we – that’s 4
just my 2 cents. I haven’t thought about the problem maybe as much as you all have. Thanks. 5
6
Chair Akin: I’m seeing no other lights. But I suspect there are other comments. So I don’t think 7
we need to stick to the strict round structure any longer. So please go ahead. 8
9
Male: [Inaudible 190:12]. Do you want to go next? 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Do you have comments you want to make? I’m happy to go but if… 12
13
Chair Akin: Yes, minor. I’ve already covered the things that I thought were important. I was just 14
trying to figure out what the jobs housing ratio is at Vallco because the things that you like 15
about Vallco may exist because they built a whole heck of a lot of office there. And the last set 16
of plans I have from 2019, the ratio was 3:1. If I’m just looking at units that I can pull off the 17
web this instant, it looks like it is closer to 5:1. But take that with a huge grain of salt. But any 18
rate, that’s just pertinent to the comments we have about if you’re willing to blow your jobs 19
housing imbalance out of the water, what can you get for it? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yes. You can’t get things for it. 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: Maybe I don’t want it. 4
5
Chair Akin: All right. Commissioner Hechtman. And then Commissioner Peterson. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: I’m going to move to the CTI and the issue of the park size and 8
location. And I really thought that there’s a bit of analysis at Packet Pages 143, 144, about how 9
parks are funded. And if I can collapse the math, it’s pretty simple. More density equals larger 10
parks. And there’s probably a critical mass in there where if you don’t have enough density, you 11
get no park because it’s too small. And so again, I want this to be an implementable rather than 12
aspirational document, so it’s not going to work if we say, “Wouldn’t it be great if all the CTI 13
were townhouses and a 3-acre park?” Because the numbers won’t work. And so we have to 14
look at something different. So on Packet Page 66 − as I mentioned before, I like the one park 15
idea off of the main street, so here off of Charleston, a little more centrally located. And I think 16
one of our public commentors talked about the benefits of that larger area just being more 17
flexible, and I heard other commissioners resonate some other ideas. And so I really like that 18
A3. Going to Packet Page – do you want to run the clock for me or no? 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.
Female: [Inaudible 192:52]. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 3
4
Chair Akin: I think we’re past that at this point. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. Fine. I should finish in 5 minutes, especially if it never starts 7
ticking. On Packet Page 74, again we’re looking at the CTI alternatives and I like B3, which is 8
office and residential up to 90 feet, 8 stories of residential, 5-story office. It’s mixed use and 9
what I’m thinking here is we replace the commercial in the CTI in kind. And if we do that – and 10
again, there are maybe some density flaws here that need to be looked at but what I’m reading 11
here is if we do that, we may get the same amount of commercial plus a 1,000 residential units 12
plus a park. And I do want to clarify I’m not talking about more commercial. I’m talking about 13
the same square footage of commercial torn down and rebuilt as part of something else. Let’s 14
see. Going to Packet Page 85, I’m on East Bayshore now. When I read through this, it doesn’t 15
seem to me like there’s much incentive to allow increased office in this location because that’s 16
the incentive we’d need to add housing but this isn’t a good housing site. So if we can’t get the 17
housing, why would we want to bump up the office there? On West Bayshore, the next page 18
86, I’m just wondering if this office space would be more likely to redevelop in this location as 19
3-story townhouse rather than the current HE site, which is 90 dwelling units per acre, 8 stories. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 what are the economics? Again, I’m looking at this location. I’m thinking of the SummerHill 2
project, which is right now on Bayshore. They went townhouse. What makes us think that this 3
would work for this other prototype? I’m going to go to mobility alternatives, Packet Page 117. 4
So I love the idea of MS-3, or MS-2. Those are both wider. Those both involve expansion of the 5
right of way. But that requires acquisition of private property because not everything is going to 6
be developed at the same time. But we would want it to be done uniformly. So I like MSA-1, 7
which is keeping within the existing right of way. We got existing 100.5 feet and that’s all we 8
need for MSA-1. And so we don’t have to change it. I do note – and I think one of the other 9
commissioners said− that this one and 3 both involve removal of 101 spaces and where are 10
those people going to park? But that’s what I like there. I like MS-1 because it’s achievable. 11
Pages 133 and 134, Charleston Road south of San Antonio. I like Alternative Number 2 Street 12
Section. To me, the main trade seems to be the inside lanes are 10 feet instead of 11 feet and 13
we get a two-way bike lane on one side. 14
15
So maybe there’s a traffic safety issue there I’m not aware of. I mean maybe there’s a reason 16
that that middle lanes are 11 feet rather than 10 but that’s what’s attractive to me. And then 17
just a question on the market analysis, which has been referred to a number of times. I was 18
looking at Pages 150 to 152 of the Packet. Does it matter what is in the 8 stories? Can an 8-story 19
single use versus residential over office – can those provide the same results? I mean it seemed 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
like we’re looking at 8-story office buildings or 8-story residential. Is there some kind of blended 1
sweet spot in a mixed use product? So I was curious about that. And again, it ties to this 2
possible concept that I mentioned for San Antonio and Middlefield where you might have a 3
mixed use with a shopping center and parking at the base. That’s it. That was the last question. 4
I’m all done. Just finished. Five minutes. 5
6
Chair Akin: Well, the… 7
8
Chris Sensenig: Was that a question expecting an answer or is it… 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: If you have one, that’s great. If it’s worth reflecting in the next 11
iteration of this plan, that’s fine too. But I don’t need an answer tonight. It’s just I couldn’t tell 12
from the plan because it wasn’t addressed and I presume that’s because it doesn’t work. It was 13
looked at but doesn’t work. But if it’s something that is a variant that the Council should know 14
about, then maybe make a reference to it. 15
16
Robert Cain: Through the Chair, if I may. I just want to clarify some things about the San 17
Antonio Road alternatives. For both MSA-1 and MSA-3, there’s the potential to do them 18
without acquiring additional right of way. We show in MSA-3, additional acquisition to widen 19
the sidewalk to make it more comfortable but we could do it without widening the sidewalk 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
potentially. But MSA-3 obviously has moving the curb, so there’s that expense and also 1
replanting of trees. There’s a lot that goes into it. Replacing infrastructure. A lot to consider. But 2
both can be done without expanding the right of way. MSA-2 would require additional right of 3
way as it’s currently designed. So I just wanted to clarify on that and we’ve also floated the idea 4
of − for the practicality that you mentioned, doing MSA-1 as a short-term project with the 5
hopes of building out 2 or 3 at some point in the future. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. That’s useful. Just a follow-up on Packet Page 117, it does list 8
MSA-3 as requiring an additional 5 feet of right of way. Perhaps it’s a typo. I mean it says 105.5 9
but that one maybe should be 100.5. 10
11
Male: [Inaudible 201:02]. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: That was part of what I was reacting to. 14
15
Male: Yes. 16
17
Chris Sensenig: I would say at this level of detail, these are conceptual. They’re fine tuning 18
them. And I think what you were saying is like instead of an 8-foot sidewalk and the 2- way, 19
right, you can go with a 5-foot sidewalk. There are different ways to do it. I think the direction 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that we’re kind of I think looking for on the mobility is like should we go with trying to have 1
separated and two-way bike facilities on both sides of the street or should we go with 2
Alternative 2, which is focusing two-way on one or the minimal, like just having separated bike 3
ways as in Alternative 1. But there’s a lot of design detail to figure out in later stages of this 4
project and beyond. 5
6
Jennifer Armer: And I do want to jump in with a reminder that this is still a truck route. So as 7
we’re talking about the design of this, that needs to be in the back of our minds as well. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. So I guess then my overall point on these alternatives is the 10
one I like is the one that does not require the acquisition of additional right of way. And then 11
however we can fit things in to have a safe bicycle and pedestrian access within that, I think 12
that is the most implementable plan and so that’s the one I’m suggesting we pursue. 13
14
Chair Akin: Vice Chair Chang. 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: Just wanted to jump in now that I’m understanding these options a little bit 17
more. I don’t think MSA-2 is my preferred alternative necessarily because I notice that there’s 18
parking there. But I think what I wanted to emphasize is that when I look at MSA-3 where you 19
have separated bike way on both sides − that’s bi-directional on both sides. I’m not sure 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.
that is necessary all the way along because the bikes can go either direction, assuming that 1
there is a way to cross the street. And I think that was the main takeaway. I’m not sure that 2
parking is necessary here. Just – I haven’t fully thought it through but where I see people 3
parked is in the – like frontage road that there is there. And so I would need – I think that needs 4
to be considered because it’s pretty heavily used in – right next to Charleston and San Antonio, 5
right at that intersection. But as you go further down towards – if you go further west, I think 6
there’s less parking that’s like used heavily. So – and I love the idea of starting out with MSA-1 7
and then aspiring for something for something else. I was concerned that MSA-3 would be the 8
most expensive because of the utilities’ issue and so I was also concerned about managing that. 9
Thanks. 10
11
Chair Akin: Thank you all. Do we have any further comments? Yes, we do. Commissioner Ji. 12
Then Commissioner Peterson. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: All right. To let Commissioner Peterson have some time, I want to jump into 15
this bike discussion. I was wondering – you said Sylvia is on the line. I was wondering if Sylvia 16
could comment more on the utility boxes during our walk. Yes. 17
18
Jennifer Armer: Yes. We do have both her and our transportation consultant. What was the 19
question you were particularly interested 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.
1
Commissioner Ji: Yes. Sylvia, when we did the walk down San Antonio, you talked about the 2
many utility boxes that are along the south side of San Antonio. Can you talk about how the 3
intersection of those utility boxes are with some of the different alternatives that are provided 4
on this page – on Packet Page 116? 5
6
Transportation Planning Manager Sylvia Star-Lack: Good evening, Commissioners. Sylivia Star-7
Lack, Transportation Planning Manager. Yes, we did see them. They do exist. They would need 8
to be – they’re various kinds of utilities that would be in the path depending on which choice is 9
made. But I believe Robert might have more information. I – is your concern about what it 10
would cost to move them, like are they moveable? Or what exactly is your question? 11
12
Commissioner Ji: So I have a couple different questions. So one is approximately how far away 13
from the curb are they? Because you can see the different alternatives that are here. The 14
different options are different direction − like kind of widths away form the street. So that’s 15
kind of my first question. My second question is if we were to move them, what is the potential 16
costs prohibition there? 17
18
Sylvia Star-Lack: Right. So I think Robert might have that information. I think he had 19
conversation with staff about that. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Robert Cain: I don’t have an exact figure. We’re not at that phase yet. We can identify that that 2
is the most expensive of the 3 alternatives because – partially because of relocating utilities. I 3
believe there are some that are in that strip – the planning strip between the curb and the 4
sidewalk. And then there are other utilities that are on the far side of the sidewalk. So any 5
number of those might have to be relocated. The curb itself would be rebuilt in Option 3. It 6
would not be a short-term project that the city could do. It would be a long-term project that 7
would be expensive. But our transportation staff believes that it is the best option in terms of 8
meeting the stated goals of the City and the bike ped plan as well as for safety and comfort of 9
all users. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: So to summarize, the utility boxes are the most expensive component for this 12
potential project and they were at varying distances away from the street, which may make 13
different levels of cost prohibition for different options. Is… 14
15
Robert Cain: So I wouldn’t… 16
17
Commissioner Ji: …that fair? 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.
Robert Cain: …say that utilities themselves are the most expensive part. I don’t think we’ve 1
drilled down. I would say the option itself is the most expensive of the 3 options, partially 2
because of utilities, partially because of tree replanting, partially because reconstructing the 3
curb. There’s a – just a lot of pieces that go into that. I don’t have a breakdown of which of 4
those pieces is the most expensive of those. I can just tell you that yes, it would be more 5
expensive than the other 2 options. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you. I’ll keep my comments then more high level just so that we 8
can move on. So in general, I like the idea of the left half of MSA-3 where we have the bike and 9
ped separation. If we expect many bicycles to be using this route, I do think that having a 10
separation of bike and ped would be helpful. Going to Commissioner Hechtman’s earlier 11
comment about the potential feasibility here on the – what is now the left side of the diagram. 12
The entire – most – the entire stretch, I believe here, is almost completely covered by the green 13
houses and is mostly just the – just grass. I believe there is a picture of this on one of the packet 14
pages. I think it is Packet Page 120. So you’ll see here that creating the extension onto the area 15
that is out of the greenhouses is relatively easy to extend because it is primarily 1 parcel and 16
also because there is not very much there right now. So just in terms of feasibility, that’s one 17
potential consideration there. Echoing what the Vice Chair had said regarding the double bike 18
lanes on both sides, I’m not in support of that. I think that if we did something where – similar 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 El Camino where we have the flashing crossings − I don’t know what the – there’s like some 1
term for them. But if we have more of those, I think that that would be good. 2
3
And I also want to draw my attention – the attention to the usage of the bike lane on the south 4
side of San Antonio. And that is about the number of new developments that we have that will 5
have curb cutouts with driveways. So one of the things that I’ve noticed as someone who lives 6
pretty close to both Park Boulevard and El Camino is what do I prefer to use to bike around? 7
And for me on Park, there are just fewer cars coming out of driveways. If we expect that most 8
of the south side of San Antonio, where we see all of these pipeline projects, will have hundreds 9
of cars potentially coming out of each of these curbs, I’m pretty nervous about biking on that 10
side of the street and would prefer to bike on the north side as much as possible until getting to 11
a place where I can cross over. So – and I felt that also when I was kid biking to school. So that’s 12
something that I just want to call out that I as a biker would prefer to bike much more on what 13
is the north side of San Antonio as much as I can and then cut over. So some kind of hybrid 14
between the options. Although for practicality’s sake, I also support MSA-1 just in the short 15
term, though I am curious about what the Chair has mentioned regarding the parking overflow. 16
17
We could right now remove the parking because there’s not that much housing. My 18
understanding of the parking right now is that there’s a lot of school drop-off and school usage 19
for a lot of the parking that is there on San Antonio right now. But the moment that we start 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
adding more of the housing and specifically most of the projects that we’re seeing, for example, 1
800, 808 San Antonio and 788, which is coming to us next meeting, are pretty under-parked, 2
we’ll suddenly see that the parking overflow is going to impact this area. So I think potentially 3
having some kind of pilot study could be interesting, although the parking overflow analysis 4
that we would do by removing the parking for MSA-1 would be hard to really see what that 5
would actually look like because none of the buildings where all the people that are going to be 6
under-parked are – have yet to arrive. So if they don’t exist, it’s kind of hard to be able to plan 7
for that. So I’m going to let Commissioner Peterson go for a little bit now. 8
9
Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson. 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. Appreciate it. Can we go to Page – what is it here – 92? If 12
you could put Page 92 up on the screen. There we go. So what I’m going to do is I want to dive 13
down into that intersection with the Caltrain station and just try and walk through what does 14
that look like. So if we look at the bicycle segment map there, that’s where it shows – there we 15
go – in green – crossing under the tracks through the walkway. I don’t know if anyone’s familiar 16
with the station there but it’s – you walk under the tracks, you cross the street, crossing Alma, 17
and then it’s showing the green bike lane. You continue straight across the street and you can 18
wrap around – I don’t know the name of the street. Is it okay if we open Google Maps? Or is 19
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
Jennifer Armer: Might… 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: Do we need to stay with what’s on the slide? 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Well, if I may, just kind of stepping in noting the hour, noting that we have 6
another item, it could be that just – I mean we’ve heard clearly a concern that there isn’t good 7
access to the train station and that that is something that needs careful attention as we 8
develop these. 9
10
Commissioner Peterson: Got it. 11
12
Jennifer Armer: And so it could be that that is sufficient at this point. If there are particular 13
areas that you want to make sure that staff is paying particular attention to… 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 16
17
Jennifer Armer: …you can mention those. 18
19
Commissioner Peterson: 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
Jennifer Armer: You can also share those with us via email… 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: Let’s go Page… 4
5
Jennifer Armer: …or follow up. 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: …91 then. And we’ll wrap that up. I see what you’re saying. With the 8
level of detail, we’re there. I think we – in – we talk about level detail 100, 200, 300, maybe we 9
just hit 450 or – so let’s see. Ninety one. Here we go. And if we look at the left graphic and the 10
right graphic and then we’ll be done with this. On the left one, it shows where there’s a 11
sidewalk and where there is not. Purple is no sidewalk; blue is a sidewalk? 12
13
Chris Sensenig: Yes. 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: And you can see it turns purple across from the Caltrain station. I just 16
want to point that out. And that’s why it gets a little bit awkward trying to figure out where 17
you’re supposed to walk. And then on the right side there where it shows the bluish aqua, I 18
guess, dotted line, it shows you essentially walking through that same section where there’s no 19
sidewalks. And then the dark blue line – this is the one I just discovered that maybe this is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
where I should have been walking, where it goes across from Alma and it makes that – goes up 1
through Mountain View and then makes that hard left turn and it goes in the neighborhood. 2
Maybe that’s the walkway. But when I looked on Google Maps, it’s not even clear that that’s a 3
walkway to that industrial area. But the next time I’m down at San Antonio, I’m definitely going 4
to take that walk and see – maybe that’s the easy walkway. But that’s what I wanted to point 5
out is the – even on this one here, it’s really showing 2 different ways of walking through there 6
and I think there’s probably one that makes sense. 7
8
Robert Cain: I’ll just add that that site across from the Caltrain station is a Google X site where 9
they do a lot of the Waymo development. It is private property. 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: It’s private property. Okay. 12
13
Robert Cain: It is not – people are not barred from walking through and along the sidewalks 14
through that property currently. 15
16
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 17
18
Robert Cain: But the city of Mountain View, which is located within, does not show it as an 19
accessible route because it’s private property. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Peterson: Okay. 2
3
Robert Cain: And could – that access to it could change based on the owner’s desires at any 4
point. I do think it’s important for us to talk with our partners in the city of Mountain View 5
because so much of this routing is through their jurisdiction… 6
7
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 8
9
Robert Cain: …and potentially with the property owners to see what we can do there. And so 10
that is a good note but it’s not something that we can as City staff advise people to do right at 11
this point. 12
13
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you. I’m glad I asked the question because this is also – this is 14
the one station my kids will go on their own when they were little kids, 10, 12 years old. They’ll 15
take the Caltrain because that’s where the movie theater is at San Antonio. And − so I know this 16
is a major thoroughfare from where people are going to be living on San Antonio here to get 17
over to the San Antonio Shopping Center. So it is an important walkway to make it connect all 18
the way through. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Ji, did you have any final 1
comments? 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Sure. I have some questions about the retail in the CTI area. So in the 4
Mountain View project as is, how much retail is there already planned? 5
6
Chris Sensenig: I believe they have planned about – I would have to get the slide up but I 7
believe it’s somewhere around 40 or 50,000 of commercial. Now I should note that’s not 8
necessarily capital R retail; it’s like a daycare, it’s a gym, it’s some other things. And one of the 9
things I think we’re looking at is between the Mountain View project and what happens in the 10
CTI that they really need to be one neighborhood and it’s not like both of those nodes can serve 11
a lot of retail. There’s like going to be one place between those two. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So… 14
15
Chris Sensenig: Most likely. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: …I want to echo that in that I think probably the CTI area is not a good area for 18
retail for that specific reason. There’s also a Costco across the street that not just has the 19
Costco and also has a bunch of supporting businesses that exist in that same plaza. So 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.
reason, I do not think that the CTI area would be a good area for retail. I had a comment about 1
Packet Page 75 with the school map. And so I want to draw the Commission’s attention to the 2
fact that in the CTI area, half of its drawn into the Palo Alto School District and half of its drawn 3
into the Whisman Los Altos School District. So I think that’s something to note as one of the 4
options for the transportation that we’ve thought about for that area in San – in Charleston – is 5
that I think that it’s – it potentially is more important to consider what transportation Mountain 6
View is doing there because I notice that – I think it was whichever page had Commissioner 7
Peterson’s safe routes to school but had the safe routes to school on the Mountain View side 8
going via Independence on the other side. Oh, I think it’s listed on this page; that’s my bad. 9
10
So I think that coordinating with Mountain View is the most important for the Charleston leg 11
from San Antonio to 101, especially also because of the changes to the traffic due to the 101 12
improvements. So I wanted to ask a question about the mobility volumes on Packet Page 136, 13
which show the traffic volumes for East Charleston and Fabian at this intersection. So I was 14
wondering if staff could tell me is this number of cars per hour? How do I interpret the numbers 15
on this page? 16
17
Chris Sensenig: I think that would be a question for Amanda. 18
19
Chair Akin: It looks like a count during the peak hour [inaudible 219:48]. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: So is it like a single hour? Is it average across multiple… 2
3
Chris Sensenig: We have our transportation consultant, I believe,, still on line. 4
5
Amanda Leahy, Transportation Planner at Kittelson & Associates: Yes. Hello. This is Amanda and 6
I can confirm that… 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Sounds like the volume is very low. 9
10
Amanda Leahy: Oh. Here we go. How’s this? 11
12
Chair Akin: Still a little light. 13
14
Amanda Leahy: Okay. I can… 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: It might be on our side. 17
18
Amanda Leahy: …[inaudible 220:10]. This is Amanda Leahy with Kittelson. 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: That’s great. Thank you. 1
2
Amanda Leahy: Great. Yes, these are peak hour volumes. So you can see the a.m. peak hour on 3
the left and there is written text above the graphic that shows a.m. peak hour and p.m. peak 4
hour. The a.m. peak typically occurs between 7 and 9 a.m. and the p.m. peak between 4 and 6. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. And what’s the big number that’s like 215, 256 that exists kind of 7
at the bottom here? 8
9
Amanda Leahy: That is a node number. So that is particular to the Synchro network that this 10
was created in and that’s like a node ID; it’s not a volume. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Okay. So I should ignore that? 13
14
Amanda Leahy: Yes. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: So the reason why I want to bring this up is that if we look at the values at the 17
San Antonio and Charleston intersection, the largest values are just – I’m using reference to this 18
page − on Charleston going to the right. And that’s 737 cars during the a.m. peak hour and 592 19
cars in the p.m. peak hour. Interestingly enough, it’s the same direction as the most volume 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.
regardless of whether it’s the a.m. hour or the p.m. hour. But I suspect that this will change 1
quite significantly once the 101 improvements occur because my guess is that a significant 2
portion of these people are going to take the southbound 101, which exists at the end of this − 3
the end of the street here, which is one of the most horrible highway ramps. If you’ve ever 4
been on it, it really sucks. It’s really short and it’s very dangerous. And with the routing of the 5
traffic probably to the left – well, they’ll most likely make a left turn onto San Antonio − is my 6
best guess once they move the ramp. I think that that leaves a lot more flexibility to the 7
segment of Charleston that is between San Antonio and the end there − to make it more 8
neighborhood feeling, although it probably isn’t going to be the most neighborhood feeling. But 9
we will probably see significant fewer car volumes once the 101 improvements have occurred. 10
So I just want to comment on that. 11
12
13
And so with that, specifically I think having − like normally, one thing that concerns about 14
having the bikes on San Antonio that we’ve described, for example, MSA-1, is that we’re going 15
to – it’s − because it’s a truck route, we expect these large trucks to be driving right next to a lot 16
of the bikers. And so hopefully with the reduction in traffic on Charleston, pass San Antonio, we 17
will see fewer cars going that direction. So I think that that’s like an exciting place that we could 18
be having more – some kind of traffic calming or some kind of easier routes that we expect 19
more people to be going on. So that’s my comments there. And then I had a question on Packet 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.
Page 95 about special setbacks. So I feel like we – the Commission has seen many projects on 1
San Antonio where we’ve talked about this 24-foot setback but I notice that in the CTI area, 2
there’s a bunch of special setbacks there as well. So I was wondering if staff can talk a little bit 3
about that and whether − like kind of what’s the history behind why there are special setbacks 4
there. The roads there feel pretty narrow as is. And then whether we plan on having any 5
changes there? 6
7
Chris Sensenig: Yes, we are looking at changes there. There is a page where there are very small 8
sections in the CTI. I believe it’s – let’s see. Forty eight plus 15 – it’s late. My head’s not doing 9
the math. 10
11
Male: Sixty-three. 12
13
Chris Sensenig: Sixty-three. On 63, we are showing some potential internal streets. It’s not 14
something we need direction on, I think, at this time. I think we’ll be going into more detail 15
about what is the right street section as these narrow streets potentially are in the middle of a 16
mixed-use community with potentially office and definitely the higher-density residential. 17
18
Commissioner Ji: Okay. So I think that this is – I just want to call this out as something 19
interesting that – to continue exploring because the streets there are pretty narrow. I wonder if 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.
partially the reason why I feel that is because there’s lot of RVs parked there right now. So it 1
feels like so narrow. I don’t suspect that will be the long-term vision for that area but I think 2
that’s something that could be pretty interesting there. And then I had a question – oh, I had a 3
comment about the portion of Charleston. I think that given the traffic study, removing the left 4
turn lane that’s going onto the small u-shaped part of Fabian from Charleston, I think that’s an 5
area of improvement that we could potentially remove due to low – extremely low traffic 6
volumes and potentially reduce some of the usage there as well to reduce some traffic there as 7
well. And then I wanted to echo Vice Chair Chang’s comment about bike lane on Alma. I’m 8
pretty against that − to have the bike structure on Alma. I work at a self-driving company and 9
our usage of highway before we got allowed to drive on the highway was Alma and Central. So 10
we treat that as the same kind of driving patterns that we would see on a highway. And so I 11
think that whatever kind of bike infrastructure you end up – like would not make – is not in my 12
mind compatible with Alma. 13
14
I would rather the City decide to invest in ginormous 10 feet by 10 feet street signs in the circles 15
to be like, “Go this way” instead of investing in what is significantly more expensive and 16
probably more dangerous for bike infrastructure on Alma itself. And I also noticed that – kind of 17
jumping off of what Commissioner Peterson said about connections to the San Antonio 18
Caltrain. So I was wondering − on Packet Page 122, there’s a diagram that shows that 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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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
underpass is at Mayfield Avenue across the San Antonio, so I was wondering is – are you saying 1
that Mayfield Avenue is the private street that goes through Google X? 2
3
Chris Sensenig: Yes, Mayfield is the private… 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Okay. So… 6
7
Chris Sensenig: …[inaudible 217:01]. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: …it’s – I see. So it’s – even though it’s listed as like a street, it’s – that’s a 10
private street, is that correct? 11
12
Chris Sensenig: I believe so, yes. 13
14
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Then I have no further comments there because I thought – like 15
personally for me, I think that if we have this Mackay/Nita connection, I think that could be 16
awesome. But of course, we have no control over that. And then − yes. So those are my 17
comments for that. And then I had a question about − in the feasibility study for Packet Page 18
151. I feel like the Chair and I and Commissioner Hechtman have been referencing this. What 19
I’m trying to understand – from what we’re seeing on the Commission, we see that more 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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buildings want to build more office but what I’m reading here is that these 5 to 8-story offices 1
would lose residual land value. So I’m trying to understand. Am I interpreting that correctly? 2
What’s – how do I understand and reconcile this? 3
4
Robert Cain: Sure. So there’s a lot of assumptions that went into this report. We’ve also did a 5
different report that went to Policy and Services. Was it this month? Like I have been to so 6
many public meetings in March, like it’s hard to keep them straight. But we’re looking through 7
the Housing Element to find ways to incentivize residential development in places where the 8
office market is very strong and we found that the office market in Palo Alto is very specific to 9
certain sub areas within the city. So it’s not the same throughout. So you might see some parts 10
of the city where developers are really eager to build office. Another one is where they’re really 11
eager to build townhomes. The – it’s not the same across the city. And one of the concerns that 12
our consultant had when developing this analysis was because there’s currently no Class A 13
office in the CTI area, there’s more of a risk to putting – being the first person in to put in Class 14
A office here. So that’s part of it. Chris, I don’t know if you have more to add. 15
16
Chris Sensenig: Yes. I think what I’d have to add is development is also – is often personal. It’s 17
personal to the landowner, to developer, and I think you saw those probably in the projects 18
that came across on San Antonio, the residential ones. You have different developers with 19
different like objectives. Some are willing to come in with no parking. Some want the parking. 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.
It’s similar with the office. The one thing that we do know is that one of the landowners in CTI is 1
interested in developing office. They have proposed a 480,000 square foot office development 2
in their Mountain View holdings across the parcel. So while the report might say something, 3
development is also very subjective to the landowner and developer. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: All right. Thank you. So I think that wraps up my comments here. 6
7
Chair Akin: This may be a good point at which to wrap up this item. Any last questions or 8
comments? Do you need anything more from us tonight? 9
10
Robert Cain: So I think we’ve heard from most of the commissioners on most of the topics but 11
I’m not sure if we got Commissioner Ji, Commissioner James, or Commissioner Peterson’s 12
thought on office limitations fully in the CTI area. If we did, I apologize for not catching it. 13
14
Jennifer Armer: If you have them. If you don’t have direction, that’s fine as well. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: I would say no office is my preference. 17
18
Commissioner Peterson: My preference is the same as Commissioner Hechtman’s. 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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Commissioner James: I just felt like my guiding principle is like don’t get the jobs and housing 1
out of balance. I don’t want a hidden cost here in terms of like more RHNA allocation. So the 2
Chair was sort of drilling down on that a little bit and I’m not sure I know exactly to put a fine 3
point on it but I think that would be my guiding principle − is not getting our ratio of housing 4
and office having it put us in a deeper hole on RHNA allocations. 5
6
Robert Cain: Thank you. 7
8
Chair Akin: I take it we have a wrap. Thank you all for a long but deep and insightful 9
conversation. Thank you again for all the work that has gone into this plan and we look forward 10
to seeing the reality. 11
12
Robert Cain: Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. 13
14
Action Items 15
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 16
All others: Three (3) minutes per speaker. 17
18
3. Recommendation on an Ordinance to Amend Various Sections of Title 16 (Building 19
Regulations) and Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Implement Retail 20
Vitality Policies in the Comprehensive Plan. CEQA Status: The Ordinance is Consistent 21
with and Represents Implementation of Adopted Policies in the Comprehensive Plan, for 22
Which an Environmental Impact Report (Comprehensive Plan EIR) was Certified 23
24
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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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Chair Akin: Agenda Item Number 3 tonight. I would like to at least get started on this without a 1
break, if there are no objections. Agenda Item Number 3 is an action item to recommend 2
updates to Title 16 and Title 18 for retail revitalization. This begins on Packet Page 162. May we 3
have the staff presentation? 4
5
Jennifer Armer: Thank you. And thank you for sticking with us through I know a very long 6
agenda this evening. For this item, we do have Jean Eisberg with Lexington Planning joining us 7
on line to make the presentation. And then we will also have Alex Andrade, the Manager of 8
Economic Development for the city who’s available as well as part of this evening’s discussion. 9
10
Jean Eisberg, Principal at Lexington Planning: Okay. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Akin and 11
members of the Commission. I’ll try to keep this pretty succinct; I know it’s a late hour and we 12
did have a study session. So I’m going to talk about some highlights about things that have 13
changed since then and what we have presented going forward in terms of a draft ordinance. 14
So tonight, we’re looking for you to make a recommendation on the draft Retail Ordinance and 15
then we will move on to the City Council. We − as you recall, we had a study session in October. 16
Since then, we met with the Retail Subcommittee in January. And just as a reminder, the 17
interim ordinance will sunset at the end of the year, which is why we’re working on this 18
permanent ordinance now. So some feedback from the Council Retail Subcommittee is in your 19
packet. They supported many of the recommendations that the PTC had discussed in October. 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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Also raised the concept of allowing bars; those are standalone bars that do not have food 1
service. That’s something – a use that’s not currently allowed in Palo Alto. They talked a lot 2
about design standards, particularly for the retail-like uses and other commercial uses, like 3
office and medical office, just ensuring that those types of uses look like retail, that they have 4
transparency. But that’s a way to provide more expanded uses on the ground floor beyond 5
traditional retail. 6
7
To summarize the contents of the ordinance, it aims to expand the types of retail permitted to 8
retail-like to other office and medical office uses. As we talked about last time, there are a 9
number of places in the ordinance that have conflicting standards for certain areas of the city, 10
particularly Midtown/Charlestown areas and so we’ve aimed to reduce that confusion and 11
streamline use regulations. Additionally, we’ve added some more standard conditions for 12
specific uses, like animal care and alcohol services. Removed subjective – overly subjective 13
findings and aimed to link findings to the purposes of a zoning district, so the purposes of the 14
CN District, for example. I’m going to just go through 6 key topic areas. First is eating and 15
drinking services. Right now, there’s one eating and drinking use classification. So it’s a catch-all 16
for basically restaurants; restaurants that might have more full service, table service, seating. 17
Other uses like a deli or a café are not – they’re classified as intensive retail services, which is a 18
term that unless you’re really in the know and you have notes in the margin of your ordinance, 19
as a retailer, a restaurateur, you’re not going to know that that’s the use that you need to 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.
at. So instead we’ve created this new use classification eating and drinking limited service, 1
which has that ready-to-eat food service like picking up a coffee or going to a deli. And that is 2
important here because it has a distinct parking regulation. 3
4
It’s not somewhere you’re sitting for a long time. There’s much higher turnover. And then 5
based on that feedback from the Retail Subcommittee, we have recommended a new use 6
classification bars. And so that’s something we didn’t really talk much about in October. And so 7
that would be a bar that doesn’t have to meet that threshold of 50 percent of its revenue 8
coming from food service. And so we’ve recommended it in some of the more active 9
commercial districts, downtown, California Avenue but not in the neighborhood commercial 10
district that has more retail − excuse me – residential adjacencies. So second key topic − and 11
this given the hour, this is probably the more critical topic that may be worth discussing tonight 12
− is the issue of offices and medical offices. So you’ll see that the draft ordinance allows 13
neighborhood-serving offices, which is a term already defined in the code, allowing them 14
downtown and on California Avenue, not fronting University or California Avenue but in the 15
rear tenant spaces or fronting side streets. Second, allowing medical offices with on-site retail. 16
So that’s a key component there on University and California Avenues, so those uses could 17
front the avenues if they have on-site retail but they would still require a Conditional Use 18
Permit. And so that allows staff to apply conditions or if a use is elevated to the Commission, 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.
the Commission to apply additional conditions to the use. All of these uses require and would 1
continue to require compliance with certain design standards. 2
3
So that ensures − currently in the code, ensures that there’s transparency at the window level, 4
there’s landscaping, that it looks like retail. Window coverings in particular are not allowed for 5
these uses. We did discuss during the October study session, this – the issues right now in the 6
Midtown and Charleston Shopping Centers in particular, currently there are 3 different use 7
tables that potentially apply to these areas, which creates a lot of confusion. So what we’ve 8
proposed in the draft ordinance is that the CN, the Neighborhood Commercial, use table would 9
regulate uses in these areas. And then there are a series of footnotes that call out specific 10
permitted or conditional use permissions for these areas. So where they’re distinct from other 11
CN locations in the city. And I should mention that means removing the GF − or ground floor 12
designation from the zoning map. That’s what‘s proposed there. Next, we have a number of 13
changes that I get at streamlining permitting. The first is really a change or – excuse me – so at 14
times, you’ll see in the use table, whereas today, it’s a – requires a CUP for a particular use. The 15
recommendation, if it’s not a controversial use, is to instead allow it by right. And so you’ll see 16
some of those locations where a CUP has changed to P. Another area that’s more of a – really a 17
name change and not a process change is throughout the code, the global change would be to 18
change the term Conditional Use Permit to Administrative Use Permit. 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.
And that really acknowledges that that permit today and − is a staff-level permit. So unless the 1
– unless it’s elevated to the Commission − because it’s potentially a controversial issue. For 2
example, use permits for schools are often elevated to the Commission; otherwise, it’s 3
approved by staff and it’s really just a name change so that the community and tenants can 4
understand that the process does not necessarily require a public hearing. So the fifth item is 5
about parking. There’s a few really surgical changes to the parking regulations. First, to add a 6
blended rate to the California Avenue parking district, similarly as what you have today in the 7
code for downtown. Some changes to the Transportation Demand Management program. 8
Development center staff have indicated that sometimes the TDM program is triggered for very 9
small uses or retail addition that just is triggering 1 or 2 spaces and suddenly needs to provide a 10
TDM plan, which for a small retailer can be very onerous. And then you see modifications to 11
parking ratios and the shared parking allowances to provide more flexibility and to streamline 12
those parking ratios across different districts. For example, right now, office uses have different 13
parking standards in different districts. And then lastly, the Retail Preservation Ordinance. 14
We’ve recommended exempting certain retail – excuse me – certain zoning districts from the 15
applicability of the Retail Preservation Ordinance. This includes multifamily residential zones, 16
which have a few sites that have commercial retail uses that would be subject to this ordinance 17
in the case of redevelopment. 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 then in office manufacturing zones, including the GM zones. I will say most of those sites, 1
as you can see from this map − they’re shown in pink patching. These are sites that have retail 2
businesses that would be subject to the Retail Preservation Ordinance if they turned over but 3
most of these sites are along San Antonio Road or nearby within the plan area that you were 4
just talking about. And so alternatively, if the Commission recommends waiting for that process 5
to unfold before making changes to that area, that’s something we could look at removing from 6
the ordinance. So that is the summary. The staff recommendation is to recommend approval to 7
the City Council to implement these retail vitality measures. And that concludes my 8
presentation. I am joined by my colleague, Christine Firstenberg, you may remember last time 9
as a retail broker. And as Assistant Director Armer said I want to pass the mic now to Economic 10
Development Manager Alex Andrade, who’s on Zoom. Thank you. 11
12
Alex Andrade, Manager of Economic Development: Thank you, Jeannie. I hope you can hear me 13
okay. 14
15
Chair Akin: Yes, we can. 16
17
Alex Andrade: Excellent. Good evening, Chair and commissioners. My name is Alex Andrade. I 18
serve as both the assistant to the City Manager and Economic Development Manager. I – 19
tonight, I’m here as your Economic Development Manager. I’ve been with the City for about 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
4½ years and I’m really excited about this conversation because we’re talking about flexibility in 1
land use and zoning in commercial districts. In January, 2 important meetings took place; the 2
first one being the City Council Retreat, which took place on January 24, where they discussed 3
values and priorities for the calendar year. They developed a new priority entitled, “The 4
Enhanced Business Vibrancy.” And I took that to mean that the City Council was acknowledging 5
the importance of economic development and the connection between the – between a 6
healthy local economy rather and the City’s long-term fiscal sustainability. And secondly, as 7
Jeannie was just indicating, the Retail Committee, which took place on January 22, I believe, 8
which is now known as the Economic Development Committee and they discussed the Retail 9
Vibrancy Ordinance that we’re talking about today. At that meeting, the Retail Committee 10
supported many of the staff’s recommendations but one particular one that I want to hone in 11
on is exactly as Jeannie mentioned in her presentation, where the Retail Committee wanted to 12
make sure that ground floor uses were activated, of course, and that medical health and 13
personal uses be considered. 14
15
So from the Economic Development perspective, I’m here in support of the consideration of 16
flexible land use and zoning on the ground floor as it relates to retail and commercial spaces; 17
that would include personal services and health, of course. I think it’s important to kind of give 18
you a sense of what’s been happening from a vacancy perspective on Cal. Ave. and University 19
Avenue. So just a little data. The vacancy rate on Cal. Ave. as of Quarter 4, 2025, roughly 5.5 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.
percent and that’s down from about 10 percent from a year ago. So from the Cal. Ave. 1
perspective, things are moving definitely in the right direction from an economic vitality 2
perspective. In terms of University Avenue, however, the retail vacancy rate was somewhere 3
around 13.5 percent late to mid-2025. Over the last 10 years, the highest vacancy rate that 4
we’ve seen in downtown was almost 18 percent going back to Quarter 1 of 2024. Thankfully 5
though, on University Avenue, we’ve seen openings of businesses like Molly Tea and 575 6
Miishien and there are new businesses that will likely be opening soon, like Auntea, La Corneta 7
and Zhangliang Malatang; however, with University Avenue, there are some spaces on the 8
ground floor that tend to be a little bit difficult to occupy because they’re a little larger. 9
10
And so coupled with the respective tenants’ specific space needs, it makes it a little different. 11
So recently, I proposed what I’m calling the BREA strategy, which stands for the Business 12
Retention Expansion and Attraction strategy, which is really focused on various things but 13
specifically to ensure that in Palo Alto there’s a competitive advantage and to provide a 14
favorable business environment that can lead to overall economic prosperity. So just to 15
conclude my comments here, flexible zoning in land use, such as health and personal services, 16
will help myself and my colleague in Economic Development to track uses to the ground floor 17
along University Avenue, Cal. Ave., and other commercial districts. So what we know is the 18
retail industry has been evolving for some time and since the pandemic, things have been 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.
exacerbated. So flexibility is definitely the key moving forward. Thank you. I really appreciate 1
the time. 2
3
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Andrade. 4
5
Alex Andrade: Thank you. 6
7
Chair Akin: Any further presentation? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: No. We are available to answer questions… 10
11
Chair Akin: Okay. 12
13
Jennifer Armer: …or if you’d like to jump to public comment because I know we do have some 14
public commentors here in the chambers. 15
16
Chair Akin: Yes. Commissioners, any objection to moving directly to public comment? Very well. 17
18
Public Comments 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: Mr. Tavera, how many requests to comment do we have? 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, we have 3 at the moment. Our first public commentator is 3
Peter G. I’ll invite Peter G. to the podium. 4
5
Peter Giovannotto: Sorry about that. Given the time, if I turn into a pumpkin halfway through, 6
just please forgive me. Good evening, Commissioners, and thank you for providing me an 7
opportunity to speak. My name is Peter Giovannotto and my family are the owners of 451 8
University Avenue in downtown, which is under discussion tonight. Your packet contains a 9
letter we wrote that goes into more detail and what I’ll be touching on tonight but I thought it 10
might be helpful to speak through a few of the items. First off, I’d like to thank the Commission 11
and the staff for taking on the much appreciated task of modernizing and adding flexibility to 12
permitted uses on University Avenue. As longtime Palo Alto residents and local business 13
owners, my family shares your goal in creating a more vibrant and attractive University Avenue 14
by helping fill long vacant spaces, like the one that we happen to own at 451 University Avenue. 15
Our building at 451 University Avenue has been a tough one to lease and has been vacant for 16
several years. Now part of the reason for that is that it has a tricky layout. It’s a little bit larger 17
and deeper than most other spaces in the area and it has a second floor that does not have its 18
own access; however, another major reason for its sustained vacancy is that it’s located at the 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
far end of University Avenue, which is often referred to as University Ave.’s dead zone due to its 1
lack of foot traffic. 2
3
It’s a one-two punch when you’re trying to fill a space with something other than short-term, 4
seasonal tenants. Fortunately, we have a great perspective tenant that we believe would be an 5
asset to University Avenue, Neko Health. We have a representative here who’s flew in to speak 6
about the company. So I won’t dwell too much on what they do. But within their modern, spa-7
like spaces, they do use advanced scanning technology paired with computer modeling and AI 8
to make preventative health screening easy, fast, and accessible to give customers a better 9
picture of their overall health. A key thing to note is that Neko Health offers a diagnostic 10
screening but does not treat customers. Let me repeat. They provide diagnostic screenings, not 11
treatment; however, given the blanket prohibition on any staff having medical training on 12
University Avenue, Neko Health would be forced off Palo Alto’s premier street. That seems a 13
shame to me as this business perfectly aligns with Palo Alto’s reputation for showcasing 14
technological innovation and championing health. 15
16
Now the new GF combining district does address this but could be clear in allowing 17
preventative health screening, not treatment, as a use. Our letter proposed a few modest 18
refinements to the draft language and these would allow Neko’s diagnostic use to fit within the 19
zoning without simultaneously opening the door to more intensive medical or health uses in 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the GF-combining district. We’re proud to share this opportunity to increase the vitality in 1
downtown Palo Alto with an exciting company that showcases innovation and will improve 2
health outcomes for our community. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Giovannotto. 5
6
Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Trevor C. 7
8
Trevor C.: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Trevor and I’m here on behalf of Neko 9
Health in support of the proposed updates to Palo Alto’s retail use code, specifically the 10
expanded definition around medical spa and personal services on University Avenue. Neko 11
Health was founded by Daniel Eck, the founder and ex-CEO of Spotify, as a means to bring 12
prevention to the forefront of healthcare. Let me first start with what Neko is not. Neko is not a 13
traditional medical office. We do not diagnose. We do not prescribe. We do not treat. There are 14
no physicians performing clinical procedures on site. What we do is use non-invasive visual and 15
thermal scanning technology combined with AI to give clients meaningful health data points 16
about their own bodies. The data behind our model speaks for itself. Out of their first scans, 17
nearly 80 percent of members receive a clean bill of health, 13 percent are found to need 18
medical treatment or monitoring for conditions they had, 6 percent had significant conditions, 19
and mainly 1 percent received life-saving interventions for things like aortic aneurysms, severe 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
cardiovascular disease, and malignant melanoma. None of the serious cases knew anything was 1
wrong before they walked in. That last number is why we exist. This brings me to why retail 2
corners, like University Avenue, are exactly where we belong. We deliberately chose to operate 3
in vibrant, walkable retail environments because we believe personal health services should 4
feel accessible and welcoming. 5
6
We have worked hard to create an experience that feels nothing like a trip to the doctor’s 7
office. And that approach is reflected in the demand of our service and in our unique custom 8
interior designs often exceeding several times the national average for a build-out retail cost. 9
We currently have a waitlist of over 300,000 people; that is consistent, reliable traffic every 10
hour for whatever block we call home. Our operating hours reflect our client’s lives, not 11
traditional medical schedules. We’re open on weekends and into the evenings on weekdays 12
because our wait list demands it. What makes Neko truly unique is that we do not just operate 13
health screenings. We design and manufacture the technology behind them. So locations are 14
constantly at the forefront of health prevention technology. Frankly, there is no better place to 15
plant this flag than Palo Alto. The city has quietly been the epicenter of nearly every technology 16
that has reshaped modern life. The people who live and work here understand better than 17
anyone what it means to be early on something important. We are looking for a home that 18
reflects our ambition for what preventative health can become. Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: Thank you very much. 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Our next speaker is Jim B. Jim, you may now speak. 3
4
Jim B.: Hello. Am I coming through okay? 5
6
Samuel Tavera: Yes. 7
8
Chair Akin: Yes. 9
10
Jim B.: All right. Hello. My name is Jim Bridger. And I’m sure that a lot of you all are aware that 11
we have a constitution in the United States of America and free speech is protected. So I 12
wanted to tell you all that the problem that we have with our government proposing to send 13
$200B more so that they can go and bomb Iran just like they did… 14
15
Chair Akin: Mr. Bridger… 16
17
Jim B.: …killing young children. 18
19
Chair Akin: Mr. Bridger, this is not relevant to the item at hand. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Jim B.: Well, I think it is… 2
3
Chair Akin: So… 4
5
Jim B.: …very relevant… 6
7
Chair Akin: …do… 8
9
Jim B.: …because it’s a public comment, all right? 10
11
Chair Akin: This is not the… 12
13
Jim B.: We know that this… 14
15
Chair Akin: …public… 16
17
Jim B.: …has happened… 18
19
Chair Akin: This is not public comment. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Jim B.: …throughout history and these Jews… 2
3
Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera… 4
5
Jim B.: …have been… 6
7
Chair Akin: …I think we… 8
9
Jim B.:…expelled from… 10
11
Chair Akin: …[inaudible 254:43]. 12
13
Jim B.: …every country they’ve ever been in. 14
15
Chair Akin: All right. As you know – Ms. Armer, were you about to… 16
17
Jennifer Armer: I was… 18
19
Chair Akin: …step 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.
1
Jennifer Armer: …going to just step in to provide clarification to the speaker that there will be 2
an opportunity to speak on items that are not on the agenda. But please, Chair, feel free to 3
share additional thoughts. 4
5
Chair Akin: Yes, Mr. Bridger, we do have a time reserved for items not on the agenda and 6
tonight that is at the end of the deliberations for this item. So if you care to contact us again 7
then, that would be the appropriate time. Mr. Tavera, do we have any further comments? 8
9
Samuel Tavera: There is one more request to speak, if you’d like to allow it, although normal 10
policy is that we would… 11
12
Chair Akin: We would have concluded as… 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Yes. 15
16
Chair Akin: …of the first speaker. Yes, we’ll stick to the normal policy tonight. 17
18
Samuel Tavera: Thank you. Then that concludes public comment for this portion. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Tavera. So Ms. Eisberg, would you like to follow up on any of the 1
public comments before we begin discussion? 2
3
Jean Eisberg: No. Unless there’s anything specific you’d like me to address, no. 4
5
Chair Akin: And we’ll have an opportunity during the clarifying questions round – or during the 6
questions round, I suppose. So let’s begin with that then. I have Commissioner Peterson and 7
then Vice Chair Chang. 8
9
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. So a clarifying question I have is the removal of the 10
requirement for 50 percent of its receipts to be in food for an establishment that serves 11
alcohol, is that correct? 12
13
Jennifer Armer: That’s the distinction between a restaurant and a bar. That if they are making 14
more than 50 percent from the alcohol, then it would be moved into the category that would 15
require a Conditional Use Permit. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: So do you have information on how many establishments on California 18
Avenue don’t meet the definition of a restaurant and they’re defined as a bar? Well, we don’t 19
have the bar definition… 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Correct. 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: …currently, correct? 4
5
Jennifer Armer: This is a definition that is new and so it would allow potential for more 6
flexibility on the types of uses and to make sure that we’ve got categories to accommodate the 7
different uses that the community is looking for. 8
9
Commissioner Peterson: So that would mean that every establishment on California Avenue is 10
currently a restaurant and that their − more than 50 percent of their revenue… 11
12
Jennifer Armer: Based… 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: …is… 15
16
Jennifer Armer: …on the information we had when they came in to request that use in that 17
location, they provided information to describe the business and it was evaluated to be 18
conforming with that. So, yes, that 50 percent is what’s currently in the code. 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: Okay, thank you. 1
2
Chair Akin: Vice Chair Chang. 3
4
Vice Chair Chang: Hi. Two areas of clarifying questions. The first is regarding our current 5
conditional use permit process, soon to just be renamed the Administrative Use Permit, 6
assuming that we agree with that tonight, which I do. So I was trying to do research on the 7
process, and there's 2 ways that it could be elevated to the Planning Commission and City 8
Council, correct? The first way is that the director of planning could just choose to elevate it 9
because the director deems that this is going to be something that's a high-profile item of 10
community interest. The second one, is it correct that there's notifications of everybody within 11
600 feet of a conditional use permit that is going to be approved and then at that point, 12
somebody can – anybody who received that notification could ask for a hearing? 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Yes. 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure I understood it. And then the second 17
question I had is whether Ms. Eisberg has any concerns about the suggested language changes 18
that were sent in by the public commenter, Mr. Giovannotto . 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.
Jean Eisberg: I think I read 2 different suggestions. One, right now, the draft ordinance on Cal 1
Ave and University Ave indicated that a medical office would have to have a retail component 2
to be permitted on University or Cal Ave. The addition, I believe, was to add personal service to 3
that. So that would just be a more expansive opportunity for a medical office, the idea being 4
there are – you're not maybe just walking in to make an appointment but there's something for 5
sale or there's some kind of service that's not medical. It doesn't fall under the medical office, 6
which requires some kind of licensing with the state of California, so it's just a more expansive, 7
more flexible type of medical office. The other suggestion was to expand what constitutes a 8
personal service. There, I think, again, it's a way to expand what we – is under the umbrella of 9
personal service. The only issue is that we would want to define what that language really is. 10
We don't have a definition for preventative health or that level of specificity or definitions for 11
wellness in the code. So we're trying to reduce the amount of interpretation that needs to 12
happen, and for new uses, that can be challenging. 13
14
Vice Chair Chang: Thank you. 15
16
Chair Akin: Following up on that question, without the definition, is there a concern that it 17
could be interpreted to mean a much broader variety of services than we currently have in 18
mind? 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.
Jean Eisberg: Well, for example, the – now I'm looking at the letter. Health diagnostic spas was 1
the suggestion to personal service. That is just not a common phrase in my lexicon, so what 2
does health diagnostic spas really mean? What does that constitute? We've talked about this 3
particular provider as a new use and so… 4
5
Chair Akin: Okay. I think I understand the context a little better now. Thank you. Commissioner 6
Hechtman. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: So more follow up for Ms. Eisberg. If we don't make any change to 9
the code to address this public commenter, is this an area where the director has discretion to 10
determine that a proposed use falls within the category even though it's not specifically 11
named? Or is this kind of use, from the description we've received, pretty clearly not falling in 12
the types of uses that we're envisioning for these locations? 13
14
Jean Eisberg: From what I understand about this use, it does not require licensing from the 15
state, but when we look at the medical office definition, the bright line is that it requires 16
licensing. And so it is a new use, but I think the interpretation could mean that this use is not 17
medical office; it's a personal service more like the day spa within that personal service 18
definition. I would also defer to Assistant Director Armer, who may have a different perspective 19
or more to add 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, thank you. The bright line that we've used is a doctor or licensed 2
professional, and so I think it really does depend somewhat on the description that we get of 3
the use. If they're talking about licensed medical professionals, then that's the kind of thing that 4
tips it over into a medical office for staff. That's the threshold that we've been using and that's 5
been strongly supported in the past. And so what we're looking at here is – I guess it's a bit of a 6
question about what kinds of medical professionals they have involved in these uses because 7
the ones that we had seen up until this point did involve – they talked about having a doctor or 8
other licensed professional involved and on site. And so, therefore, it was not something that, 9
under the current regulations, was being allowed. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: So if we keep our bright line that medical offices requires some 12
presence of someone with medical licensing, then when we look at this use, the issue is does it 13
fall into personal service or not. And so that's the second possibility of a change they've made is 14
to add a specific reference to this thing, health diagnostic spas, which as Ms. Eisenberg said, is 15
not currently part of our typical language lexicon but cat hotel wasn't until fairly recently either. 16
So it may be the coming wave. But my question is, is our current definition of personal service 17
limited to the 4 items that are listed in the code there? Beauty shop, nail salon, day spas, office 18
barbershops. Is that the extent or does the director have discretion to find something similar in 19
nature to those? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Jennifer Armer: So the director does have some discretion here where it's not something that's 2
explicit. The list of uses are examples; it's not an exhaustive list because we know that new uses 3
come up that don't quite fit into the category. And so yes, there is some flexibility and I think 4
we just need to make sure that we've got clarity with each of these. My concern is that there 5
might be something very similar to this but then does have a medical licensed professional, and 6
it might be the same character, the same activity level, the same appearance on the street and 7
then we wouldn't be able to allow it. So making sure we've got clear indication in your 8
recommendation tonight will be helpful. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. And so those are the questions. I'll talk about my thoughts 11
about it a little bit later. 12
13
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Yes. I just want to bandwagon on this. So I just want kind of a simple yes or 16
no. So if we make no changes, would this use be or not be allowed? I got a little bit confused by 17
Commissioner Hechtman's comment about the director does have some leeway but is this or is 18
this not, so I just want to know, either from staff's perspective or maybe Mr. Yang can opine, on 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.
whether or not this use right now would be allowed with the version that we have drafted 1
without any modifications. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: So I think I am going to defer to our consultant because I have not read the 4
most recent description of this use, and so I'm cautious since the previous descriptions of 5
similar uses often had those medical professionals. 6
7
Jean Eisberg: My interpretation is that because the draft ordinance says that a medical office 8
with retail sales, with retail services is permitted with a CUP, this use would not be allowed. My 9
understanding, this use does not have retail sales. The change made by the public commenter 10
would make that change by adding 'and personal services' to medical office that has retail sales 11
or personal services with the CUP would be allowed on University, and if we interpreted this 12
use, which I think is possible, as a personal service, then that would be the change required to 13
allow it. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Okay. Thank you on that. And then I have a question for Mr. Andrade. You had 16
provided some vacancy rates for Cal Ave and University. I was also wondering if you happen to 17
know the average rent per square foot because that's something that Ms. Firstenberg had 18
brought to our attention last time where there's a strong correlation between the vacancies 19
and the rent and that the rent on University – they could potentially be charging a square 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
footage rent that is similar to VC office, which many of the ground floor retail really can't afford. 1
So I was wondering if you had any information on that. 2
3
Alex Andrade: Thank you, Commissioner. Great question. And I'll say apologies, I thought I had 4
my camera on when I was speaking earlier. At the moment, I don't have the cost per square 5
foot, and of course, it ranges. The particular space that we're talking about is challenging in that 6
it's 2 levels. It's around 7,000 square feet, so if the property owner is seeking one tenant versus 7
2 tenants, then things get a little bit more difficult. But what I will do in just a little bit is I'll go 8
off camera and I have documentation on I think what is square footage perhaps going to 9
quarter 4 of 2025. So I'll raise my hand and – when I find that information, I'm happy to share 10
the cost per square foot on University Avenue if that's okay. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. Yes. I wasn't talking about the specific property; I was hoping to 13
get some averages across the general areas for Cal Ave and University and also specifically, if 14
possible, it'd be nice to slice between what is overall the average rent versus the properties 15
that are vacant. So it's possible that the average is $50 per square foot, but the ones that are 16
vacant are all $100 per square foot and that could be a reason why. So that would be awesome 17
data whenever you get a chance. 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.
Alex Andrade: Yes, absolutely. And it would be not 451 University Avenue specific, it would be 1
across, kind of an average. And I believe that we in Economic Development have that 2
information in our economic activity report, so I'll be back with you in just a bit. Thank you. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. 5
6
Chair Akin: And just to remind everyone, we have seen that data in the reports from Michael 7
Baker International, so we actually have pretty substantial vacancy and rent correlation data in 8
detail not only for University and Cal Ave but for other areas in Palo Alto and Santa Monica and 9
a number of other areas. I probably have it on my laptop; I can send it to you if that's of 10
interest. Any further clarifying questions? 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: Just because it really is a clarifying question, I didn't bring my computer and 13
so I can't look up the definition of personal services. Since we were just talking about the 14
subject, I think it would be really helpful if somebody could help me find it. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: I've got it. I'm looking at it right now… 17
18
Vice Chair Chang: Thank you. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: …and it's very long. 1
2
Vice Chair Chang: Oh, okay. 3
4
Commissioner Hechtman: I'd read it, but it's very long. 5
6
Vice Chair Chang: Code section? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 9
10
Jennifer Armer: You're looking for the definition of personal service? We have it online. 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: All right. Because it's a broad definition. Okay. So we're on to comments, but 13
if you don't mind just leaving this up for a second, I'd appreciate it. 14
15
Chair Akin: Commissioner Peterson followed by Vice Chair Chang. 16
17
Commissioner Peterson: Thank you, Chair. So one concern I have is we don't have any public 18
comment, no letters, nothing from any of the institutions on establishments on California 19
Avenue. Those are the ones I'm most familiar with, so that's where I'm going to limit my 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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. And the establishments that are there now, all of them, as best I can tell, serve food 1
and alcohol, so I assume that's why they're all about 50/50 splits. And so if we change this 2
definition, we're changing the mix of business on California Avenue where a bar could open up 3
next door to a current establishment, which I think is not necessarily fair to the current 4
establishments that are already there. They're established. They can't necessarily change 5
themselves overnight from a mixed food service to a pure bar and – unless that's what they are 6
wanting to do – but I don't see any indication whatsoever that any of the businesses or 7
establishments on California Ave have requested this and that they would possibly be 8
blindsided because I would think they would've submitted some comment seeing this coming at 9
them. I think there's about 6, maybe 7, on California that all fit this classification. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: We have not received any comments from them. 12
13
Chair Akin: [Inaudible 273:44]. Vice Chair Chang. 14
15
Vice Chair Chang: But all these recommendations were done, and just to piggyback on 16
Commissioner Peterson's concern, these conversations were had with the Chamber of 17
Commerce, correct? 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.
Jennifer Armer: The most recent conversations were actually with the Retail Committee, the 1
Council members who are on that. We did have participants in that meeting as well from the 2
public who were coming and sharing their thoughts primarily on this question of the personal 3
service, medical spa-type use. I'm not sure. I don't know that we've received outreach or had 4
engagement with others. It does look like Mr. Andrade does have his hand up now. I don't 5
know if it's up for this or the previous question. 6
7
Chair Akin: Mr. Andrade? 8
9
Alex Andrade: Thank you. Yes, this is in regards to the cost per square foot question. If I may, I 10
can give you some averages. Is that okay? 11
12
Jennifer Armer: Yes, go ahead. 13
14
Alex Andrade: Thank you. So I will start with the University Avenue Business District. And so the 15
average annual asking retail rent for vacant properties within the University Avenue Business 16
District is $83.52 cents per square foot as of quarter 4 of 2025. That would equal somewhere 17
around $6.96 per month. And in regards to the Cal Ave Business District, the average annual 18
asking retail rent for vacant properties within the California Avenue Business District is $56.28 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.
per square foot as of quarter 4 of 2025, and that would be a little less than $4.70 per month. 1
Thank you. 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: Okay, thank you. So I think it's back to me. So I'm just going to start by – I 4
have a long list of comments, some of them quite detailed – about the ordinance that I think 5
are actually material. I have a draft email I'm ready to – I'm getting ready to send to Ms. Eisberg 6
with some typos that I won't talk about. So first off, I'd say that I am supportive of the bars 7
because I – because the conditional use or the – I'm going to keep saying conditional use permit 8
until we say that we're changing the name. 9
10
Jennifer Armer: That's why we left all references to that and just had the statement at the end. 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: Right. So because of the CUP process, everybody will be notified, and then, I 13
think, if there's a big problem in a particular location, then I think there's the opportunity to 14
object to that. I know that the – having studied the retail revitalization effort for, gosh, I don't 15
know how long because I was on the ad hoc and then it came to the PTC maybe 6 times. We 16
know that there's a – that the reason why we would want to consider this is twofold. One, 17
there's a desire to increase the vibrancy and to make things less sleepy. Two, anything that we 18
can do to decrease vacancies while kind of keeping the vibrancy is something that we should 19
consider. So I think that we've seen in other cities – like Mountain View has a bar on Castro – 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that this can work. And historically, the reason why Palo Alto hasn't done it is because we're 1
worried about disruption. So on the topic of bars though, I think that staff made the right 2
decision. It's in a packet – it's a packet question about should bars be allowed in Charleston and 3
Midtown, and I think no because of the character of those areas is different. And so I think 4
they're just these – the neighborhood, commercial, and downtown areas are defined differently 5
in our comp plan and sort of the uses are a little bit different. 6
7
And since we're on the topic of bars, going deep into the code now, I had a question because I 8
think it's unintentional in the code. It's on Packet Page 198. On the preceding page, it talks 9
about the findings that must be made in order for a bar to be allowed. And it says at least one 10
of the following, and one of the – so C says the applicant has operated a licensed establishment 11
that has not been the subject of violations. I think what we're trying to say, I think, is that we 12
don't want any bar to be permitted if the applicant has had violations, and that should be the 13
case for all bars, I believe, with the caveat in C that says that the decision-making body may 14
consider the number and frequency. In other words, if you've had a recent problem, you 15
shouldn't be permitted – the finding cannot be made, but if it's a long time ago, then we'll let 16
this – then we'll consider that application. So my – I think the intent is that we want to flip the 17
language around to say that the applicant has not operated a licensed establishment that has 18
been the subject of violations and one of A or B. So I think – I just want to give that comment to 19
staff and to let you take a look at it because to me, as written, my understanding would be 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.
you could meet the requirement for A or B and then have had a lot of recent violations, and you 1
would still be allowed to exist and that's not – I'm pretty sure that's not the intent. So I don't 2
know if we're trying to rotate, but I have so many more I can let somebody else speak and then 3
we can… 4
5
Male: [Inaudible 280:03] another minute. 6
7
Vice Chair Chang: Well… 8
9
Chair Akin: If it's counting up. 10
11
Vice Chair Chang: It's counting up now, yes; so I think somebody else can go. I have many other 12
things to talk about. 13
14
Chair Akin: Well, just as a matter of etiquette then, we'll rotate around. Commissioner 15
Hechtman, you're next. 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: A couple preliminary thoughts. I get what we're doing adding the 18
definition of bars, but on Cal Ave, the Nut House –the peanuts were free, and I can't even 19
remember food there. I'm pretty sure there was, but they had to make more than half their 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
revenue on alcohol. So whether we were calling them a bar back then or not, under this new 1
definition, they would now be a bar. And I think currently on Cal Ave we got a couple of things 2
that we refer to as wine bars where, again, I'm positive that they make more than 50 percent of 3
their revenue from alcohol sales. So I don't think we're necessarily going to get a mix change on 4
Cal Ave; I just think we're going to be calling things some different things than historically. 5
Those wine bars are not going to be food and beverage service places anymore; they're going 6
to be bars, maybe. So I don't really have an issue with that. 7
8
And then on this preventative health care screening that we've heard tonight, I've read through 9
the ordinance language, and if you want to pull it back up – first of all, I think it's pretty clear 10
that that use does not fall within any of the subcategories that give descriptions, and that takes 11
me to I think it's 18.04.030, Subpart 114. That's where we want to go rather than Packet Page 12
198, where we are. Can you pull back up the ordinance? 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Can you read that number again? 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, 18.04.030. It's not in the packet. You have to go to the municipal 17
code; you had it up here before. 18
19
Jean Eisberg: I'll share it. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Yes, thank you. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: Yes, that was on one of the slides that we've got, so Ms. Eisberg can share. 4
5
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. So I read through A through I, and it doesn't really fit. Those are 6
all examples, kind of categories, but the general definition is a use providing services of a 7
personal convenience nature, cleaning and repair or sales incidental thereto, including these. I 8
think if they walked this issue into the director and said we think we're a personal service, I 9
think the director would not likely agree. And so I think the question we have tonight is do we 10
think it's appropriate for retail store frontage because if we do, then I think all we really need to 11
do in that situation is tell staff and they will figure out the right language to add, whether it's an 12
add-on to A through I, or it's a new J, whatever. So I'm teeing that up even though now that I've 13
worked that part through, I have to think about whether I think it should be somehow included 14
on this list. So I've got a bunch of specific comments on the ordinance, but I'm going to end this 15
round here and come back to those. 16
17
Chair Akin: I also have a bunch of specific comments, but I think I will postpone mine as well. So 18
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: So am I starting off the next round then? 1
2
Chair Akin: Yes, you, then Vice Chair Chang, then Commissioner Ji. 3
4
Commissioner Peterson: So just to make sure that none of the businesses that are on California 5
Avenue are at some kind of a disadvantage, I would certainly want to see this include that the 6
current establishments that are restaurants, full-service restaurants, would be allowed to 7
automatically convert to a bar if that's what they want to do. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: I'll jump in and say that they already received a conditional use permit for their 10
use if they serve alcohol because all alcohol service, including restaurants currently, requires a 11
conditional use permit, so this would not increase what they are required to do. They are 12
permitted use and would be allowed to continue. 13
14
Commissioner Peterson: Is there – what would they have to do? Let's say – I won't name any of 15
the bars on the street – that if they're a restaurant right now and their revenue from food sales 16
is low, like the wine bar. I don't know what – they're probably a retail outlet and it's – they're 17
giving samples – and they want to convert to being a bar, what's the process for that? And they 18
would – they're just going to stop serving food. 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: So they'd stop using the commercial kitchen that they currently have. 1
2
Commissioner Peterson: They'll just shut down the kitchen and just become a bar because I'm 3
sure at least 2 of them will. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: I guess it could be a modification to the existing conditional use permit. We do 6
have a reduced fee for modification to existing conditional use permits, I believe. 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: Would we be able to add a motion that just – a one-time conversion 9
that there's no fee, they can just come in and convert so that way they're not at a disadvantage 10
to another institution coming in next door? 11
12
Jennifer Armer: It would be a a lesser fee than those other uses are required for a new 13
conditional use permit at this point. 14
15
Commissioner Peterson: What's the fee? How much is – I don't even know. 16
17
Jennifer Armer: I do not know the numbers off the top of my head, no. 18
19
Commissioner Peterson: I'm guessing it's $20. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: No, it's usually several thousand dollars. 2
3
Commissioner Peterson: Right and that's what I'm thinking. That's pretty substantial for some 4
of the businesses there on the street. 5
6
Chair Akin: Is that it for the moment? 7
8
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 9
10
Chair Akin: All right. Vice Chair Chang. 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: I wanted to jump in here because I wanted to give my thoughts about the 13
medical office – the business that we're considering and where I struggle with it. I'm trying – 14
because I don't think that the definitions suggested by the public commenter are what we 15
would want assuming that we allow that. Assuming that we think that this business is 16
something that we want, I'm not sure that that's the right way to add the flexibility because I 17
think it would have some consequences and we would be allowing some things that we maybe 18
don't want. But I'm not – again, I don't know what we want and what we don't want. But the 19
speaker emphasized that it was health diagnostic spa, which again, is not a term that we know 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 that there's no treatment there, but how does that then differ from anything like Labcorp 1
or Quest Labs where everything is diagnostic, nothing is treated. You do a blood draw; it's 2
diagnostic. There is licensed professionals at Quest Labs, and I think if you're getting an 3
ultrasound, you need a licensed ultrasound tech, so that is a distinguishing factor. Would we be 4
okay, hypothetically, with having Quest Labs right on University? It would have a lot of foot 5
traffic potentially, and if we have the window there, I don't know. You have a waiting room with 6
a lot of people behind it, not unlike a optometrist, for example; there just wouldn't be glasses 7
there. There's a lot of foot traffic from blood draws, from lab services, those – so that's a 8
question to the Commission. 9
10
But what – but with the language that's suggested, what's a personal service? Is a blood draw a 11
personal service. Is – and then you kind of go into – if I go into the dermatologist and he 12
removes a skin tag, is that a personal service? If – is the difference because insurance is 13
covering it versus it's out of pocket because all the cosmetic stuff is not covered by insurance. 14
So this goes down a whole bunch of stuff that I'm just not sure I understand. I'm not sure I can 15
make that decision tonight unless somebody can come up with – unless we're – unless on the 16
one hand we're comfortable with just saying well, medical office is fine as long as there's this 17
window there or somebody can come up with a more restrictive definition. In general, with 18
respect to medical office, I worry a lot because the economics of medical office are dramatically 19
different and we want the shopping street – I believe that is – we want the shopping and then 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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 restaurant and that type of street. If we allowed medical office, the economics are such 1
that I worry that we would have a medical office street, and I don't think that's what we want. 2
So we just need to be careful about what we're doing here. I'm not saying one way or another 3
whether this particular service is right or wrong, but I don't think that the suggested definitions 4
would work, and I gave you a whole bunch of examples as to why they may not. So that's just 5
my thought on that one. 6
7
Chair Akin: Commissioner Ji. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. Do you mind pulling up the personal service definition again, Ms. 10
Eisberg? It's – I feel like we might be referencing it a couple more times. So when I look at this 11
definition, something I think about is can I just wander along the street or along this 12
commercial area, can I just walk into one of these things and do one of these activities? So 13
when I think about what I like to do on University or Cal Ave, it's oh, this shop is open; let me 14
wander in, let me walk, let me kind of browse at some of the items. This is a food 15
establishment; let me walk in, let me grab some food. This is a fitness class that maybe I can 16
just walk into. This is a dry cleaner that I can drop off some clothes at. And part of me thinks 17
that potentially some of the uses that we are looking at tonight may or may not be supportive 18
of that. And for me, I want a vibrant street such that each of the places I go to can be 19
somewhere that I can partake in and it feels very alive in this kind of significant movement. To 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
contrast this, I have been pretty – a couple times to a Stanford lab area that's right off of Cal 1
Ave, not on the Cambridge side, on the other side, where it's a building that mostly does some 2
kind of scanning like CT scan or ultrasound. And that's a little bit different because it's not in a 3
P-designated overlay, so it's mostly just brick and you walk in the door and you walk into a 4
lobby. With the P overlay that we have in some of the areas that we're looking at tonight, you 5
would probably be forced, as Vice Chair Chang mentioned, to have some kind of big window, 6
and you would look into a room of people probably sitting there waiting for their appointment 7
if we decide to go this route. 8
9
So those are some of the things that are kind of top of mind. I, again, am also am trying to 10
figure out how some of the newer services fit into this. As Commissioner Hechtman mentioned, 11
I had not thought anything at all about the definition of a cat cafe until we were forced to. And 12
thus, you will see later in our packet that we do have a section on animal management, which I 13
think commissioners may have a comment on separately. But I think that some of these new 14
uses we do want to get ahead of and we don't want to be followers. We want to help provide 15
and be ahead of the trends so that we don't get caught off guard with this, but I'm trying to 16
think through some of the different options there. 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.
In addition, I want to jump into the bar discussion. So since we are still talking about that, I did 1
have a question. So the City is not doing any kind of maintenance for this 50 percent threshold, 2
right? It's an arbitrary threshold that we just hope that people are meeting, Ms. Armer? 3
4
Jennifer Armer: Sorry, can you state the question again? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Okay, so at what point – the City does not go and audit the 50 percent 7
revenue, right? We're doing none of that. 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Right, unless we had a complaint. 10
11
Commissioner Ji: Unless we had a complaint, yes. So I just want to understand here, clearly, 12
that if an existing use wants to convert to a bar, they would go through this somewhat fast-13
tracked, somewhat cheaper process… 14
15
Jennifer Armer: Correct. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: …and that is the main way to do this. And as Vice Chair Chang mentioned, the 18
businesses would be notified appropriately. I just want to make sure that this is clear. Okay, 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that's my comment there. I'm supportive of the bar language as is then, and I will move on to 1
the next round. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: And if I may jump in, through the Chair, just for some language that might assist 4
with what Commissioner Ji was just speaking about. The difference between drop-in service 5
versus appointment only may be a distinction that's helpful language. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: Is there a code pointer for this? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: No, but if we were trying to define, you were describing a characteristic of 10
something that you could drop in on and that that felt different from something where people 11
were just waiting for their appointments. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: That's pretty interesting as a commentary. Would love to hear Commissioners' 14
thoughts on that as well as a potential definition. 15
16
Samuel Tavera: Could you repeat it? 17
18
Jennifer Armer: The difference characterizing something as appointment only versus drop-in 19
available may be a way of describing the difference that Commissioner Ji was getting at with 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.
business that he could just kind of pop in and and do something rather than a medical office 1
where you're coming in for appointment only. I also did get some additional information from 2
our economic manager about the reminder that the character of the med spa that was 3
described, it isn't just normal business hours, but it actually is 7 days a week and it is until 8 4
p.m. is kind of their model. So it's a little more active than some medical offices might be where 5
you then have it closed in the evenings and weekends. 6
7
Chair Akin: Vice Chair Chang. 8
9
Vice Chair Chang: I'll just play devil's advocate really quickly regarding the medical issue and 10
trying to solve that with – again, I don't know what the right answer is but trying to solve that 11
with operating hours because I was able to go get an MRI at [Inaudible 297:01] at 8.30 p.m. So 12
because, again, the economics for these types of scanning things, they're trying to amortize the 13
cost of that really expensive piece of equipment, so oftentimes you can go in from 6 a.m. all the 14
way – and so I think that they, if we wanted to specify operating hours, it could work. Now, the 15
question is, is this what we want there, and so that's the bigger question. 16
17
Chair Akin: Yes, I think that is the essential question, and I don't understand how to come to 18
grips with it yet, so we'll see if someone comes up with an idea. I have a half dozen things. I 19
think I'll just touch on the bar-related questions on this round and then perhaps switch to 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman, and we can begin covering other issues. Regarding the definition of 1
bars that's on Packet Page 174, since we'll soon have open container sales on Cal Ave, do we 2
need to generalize this by eliminating the restriction to on-site consumption? I suggest just 3
eliminating that phrase. And regarding bars in CN, my inclination is largely the same as the Vice 4
Chair's. By analogy, liquor stores require a CUP in CN but not in CC and CS, so there clearly is a 5
distinction being drawn about liquor availability in CN. So I would be inclined to disallow bars in 6
CN for that reason. All right, that's enough for me. I will switch over to Commissioner Hechtman 7
now. 8
9
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. And can staff pull up Packet Page 176? I'm going to start 10
with this preventative screening, not treatment issue, and then move into some changes. But 11
on 176, we have a definition of retail-like, and maybe you can expand it so we're just looking at 12
that part in the middle, the 125.1, if you can do that just so it's more easily legible. So again, I'm 13
trying to figure out if we want it in, do we have to find language for it or not? And actually, 14
when I read this, once we can see all of it, I think that this falls within the director's discretion, 15
and he might well find that this particular use fits because it doesn't – sorry, we're… 16
17
Samuel Tavera: Yes, apologies for that. It won't let me. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, just go to normal-size 176 then. Scroll down 2 pages. Okay, so 1
retail-like use. Open to the public during typical business hours, we heard that this kind of use 2
is. Engaged in providing services related to but distinct from retail services, which this isn't. 3
What they want to do doesn't fall within retail. And then here's a list of examples. One of those 4
is personal service. Well, I don't think this fits into personal service for the reasons I previously 5
explained, and I don't think it fits within any of A through J either, but then we get to K, and K is 6
this kind of throw to the director, but there's guidance there. Accessible to the general public. 7
My understanding is this is. Generate walk-in pedestrian clientele. Now, it sounds like you could 8
do that. They have a wait list, so I know they work by appointment, but I actually haven't heard 9
from them. The place I get my hair cut works by appointment too, but sometimes you can walk 10
in and they might have an opening. You might have to wait for an opening. You could do it. So I 11
don't know that that's an excluder. Contribute substantially to a high level of pedestrian 12
activity. From what we hear from the speakers, this generates more street traffic, and I can 13
imagine that for the reasons that the Vice Chair said about other uses, like the blood draws. 14
15
And then it has to meet the intent of the pedestrian shopping design standards. That's more of 16
an architectural issue that can be worked out at the staff level. And so on balance, I don't have 17
an objection to this use, but I don't think we need to carve out something special for them here. 18
And I'm hesitant to do that because there are 25 other similar situations that I'm not thinking 19
of, like cat hotel, that I'm not sure that it fits into one of these A through J, and so maybe it's 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.
director call on K. And so my impression is I think it fits in K. I think the director would be within 1
his discretion to find that it's retail-like. So where I fall on this now is I don't think we need to 2
make a change. I'm comfortable with the director applying the code as we're considering 3
revising it, which now includes these design standards for the pedestrian shopping. 4
5
Now, I do have a question in this last sentence. Not all retail-like uses permitted in zoning 6
districts are permitted in zoning districts that allow them. So the question is, on that sentence, 7
is University a place that does not allow retail-like? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: And that – thank you for that question. That is why I was going to step in. This 10
definition is not something that's used in our use tables. Retail-like. We have specific uses listed 11
in the use tables. Retail-like is a term that is used in some areas of the code, but it's in retail – 12
retaining the retail ordinance and other sections. Ms. Eisberg may be able to speak more 13
specifically to what areas it is. But it is not something that is – there's concern that some of 14
these uses might not be appropriate, for example, on University Avenue. And so part of the 15
modifications we were doing was taking some of these uses and adding them to those use 16
tables because retail-like was never added as a listed, allowed use in those tables. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: 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.
Jennifer Armer: So it's not quite the solution I think you were hoping for. 1
2
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay. 3
4
Chair Akin: Vice Chair Chang. 5
6
Vice Chair Chang: All that said, even if it were included in the use tables, I'm not sure – again, I 7
don't know what we want; I want flexibility, though. But if – without – so if we – here's what 8
the letter said, that the bright line is whether there's a technically licensed professional by the 9
state, right? I think that – can you please confirm? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: That the line that we've been using is a state licensed medical professional. 12
13
Vice Chair Chang: So with that line, I think it makes me feel more comfortable because there's 14
something else kind of – so because if I look at Quest Diagnostics, again, maybe we want Quest 15
Diagnostics, in which case it's fine. The Quest Diagnostics, you can walk in. There are 16
appointments; there are not appointments. You can walk in, you can just decide that day and 17
pay out of pocket on your own for a cholesterol test or many other tests. And you can just say I 18
want one as long as state law doesn't say you need a physician's prescription in order to get 19
this. You don't need an appointment necessarily, and it generates a lot of traffic, a lot 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.
than a hundred people, which is what the letter is that we got. So it would fit all – a lot of this, 1
but again, I'm still not sure that we want it because of – we definitely don't want University to 2
be filled with Quest Diagnostics kind of the way that little neighborhood by El Camino Hospital 3
is where it's just like x-ray place after C, MRI place after lab after, that's not what we want. So 4
that's on that. 5
6
I have a whole bunch of different areas, and I'll just kind of highlight them. I'm not sure that we 7
want to address them tonight, but I think that they are kind of pretty large concerns. For 8
example, I had that bar issue where I said I'm not sure this is exactly what we wanted to say in 9
the code. So I'm just going to list them and I won't discuss them in detail. So we talk about 10
giving director flexibility to change uses in commercial PCs. Are commercial PCs defined in our 11
code, and what does that mean? My concern is around what happens, for example, if there's a 12
grocery store and the community benefit for the PC was this grocery store. Based on the way 13
the code is written, we didn't say that it still needs – that the substantially similar use needs to 14
meet the community benefit. And another example is we have a movie theater. Presumably the 15
movie theater is entertainment benefit. I could see that putting in a laser – let's say in the 16
future interactive gaming becomes this thing that's kind of like going to the movies and that's 17
what it is, but it still meets that entertainment function. So – but as our code is written, you 18
could also just substitute something that has the same traffic noise and employee hours. And so 19
it's not quite right necessarily, so I have a concern there. I support the idea in theory, I just think 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that the ordinance isn't doing the right thing necessarily. Maybe I'm not understanding the 1
ordinance correctly. 2
3
So I'm – I think that retail in the ROLM, RP, and GM zones should probably be bundled with the 4
San Antonio plan. I am concerned broadly about the way that we've collapsed under – 5
collapsed parking on page 201. I'm not going to go into it in more depth. I think that there's 6
some language that's not as clear as it should be regarding residential use in Charleston Center 7
and Midtown. And on the tables on page 178 where we tried to collapse Charleston and 8
Midtown – Charleston Center and Midtown into a larger table, I am concerned that we haven't 9
used the footnotes everywhere as we should. So for example, we've added the new use of 10
automobile showroom, and then if you look at footnote number 8 where it says in Midtown 11
shopping district and Charleston shopping center, a conditional use permit is required for retail 12
uses above 20,000 square feet, if a conditional use permit is allowed – is required for retail – 13
retail retail, not just automobile showroom above 20,000 square feet, wouldn't it also then be 14
necessary for an automobile showroom? So I think that in the effort, the admirable effort that 15
staff made to collapse all of this, I think there are some – a number of things that I caught 16
where I said, hmm, is this really what we meant? Again, I support the intent for all of it, but I 17
think the execution of it may need some work, and I was not able to spend the time with the 18
ordinance to know if I caught it all. So that's where I'll end for 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.
Chair Akin: Thank you. Commissioner Ji. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: So I will jump on what Vice Chair Chang has mentioned on Packet Page 196. 3
Many of you know that I spent a lot of time with the PC code, and so I also am curious about 4
this. Actually, Vice Chair Chang had a specific question here that in the staff report it lists that 5
commercial PCs should have this indication, but based on what I'm reading on Section 6
18.38.030, I don't see anything that's special about these that are commercial PCs. Is that a 7
technical definition? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: I think the indication was or the intent was that if it was residential only, then 10
there wouldn't be any purpose for this because it's all going to stay residential, that there 11
wouldn't be any substitution, and the goal here is about commercial uses. Also, to address one 12
of the comments brought up by Vice Chair Chang, the concern about something that's 13
specifically the public benefit of the PC, that that's something that clearly we wouldn't be 14
changing if that's specifically named. I know we have one of the commercial PCs that has that 15
specifically part of it. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: So one of my concerns here is that the Palo Alto Commons, for example, is 18
considered – would that be considered a commercial PC? Yes, right? 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: That is a good question, yes. 1
2
Commissioner Ji: So it would be yes, and their listed public benefit in the last version of the 3
ordinance that was passed was, I believe, some compost bins and some bike parking of which I 4
don't presume this would impact. But looking at Subsection 1, the neighborhood generates 5
traffic, deliveries, noise, and lighting uses, you could see a pretty significant usage change from 6
the assisted living home that requires the same amount of traffic generation. You could convert 7
this to an office potentially. There – I think that the number of uses that is potentially allowed 8
given the requirements that are here I feel like is a little bit too loose for my preference. Ms. 9
Armer, I feel like you were going to step in there? 10
11
Jennifer Armer: No, I just wouldn't characterize office as a similar use to assisted living. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: But there's no requirement that it is a similar use, right? Where am I looking? 14
15
Jennifer Armer: At the beginning: determine that… 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Oh, materially similar. 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: …an unlisted use is materially similar to the listed use, and then it gives some 1
specifics about the characteristics, but that first phrase would be critical in terms of the initial 2
determination. That we'd be looking for a use, not just the characteristics of it, but the use itself 3
that is materially similar to an allowed use. 4
5
Commissioner Ji: Yes. just for my personal preference, I think that language is a little bit vague, 6
and I am uncertain about that. I also want to echo that for the purposes of office manufacturing 7
zones ROLM, RRP, GM, etc., I would defer – I would prefer deference to the San Antonio Road 8
Area Plan because we are spending a lot of time going through that, and I think that having a 9
general zoning there would be more helpful. 10
11
I had a question for staff on Packet Page 198, Section H, Subsection B. What does it mean 12
sightlines the public areas near the establishment? Can Ms. Eisberg or can you comment on 13
what the reference here is? 14
15
Jean Eisberg: Yes, so this is about operational conditions for alcohol service. So the idea is 16
sightlines, so places you can see from the establishment, making sure they're free of trash, they 17
are well-lit, just trying to avoid potential impacts due to noise, refuse, particularly after hours. 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: So just to clarify, it's things that you can see from a public area you want to 1
maintain, is that the purpose of what you're saying here? 2
3
Jean Eisberg: Yes, because it's typically on the sidewalk in front of a business, in front of a right-4
of-way. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Okay, that's helpful. And I'm about over time, so I'll pass it on to the next 7
commissioner. 8
9
Chair Akin: I don't know that we're observing the time limit so closely this time around. I'll jump 10
in here with my relatively minor comments and then try to make a more general observation. I 11
also am inclined to leave RPO and ROLM alone and defer to the San Antonio Road Area Plan, so 12
let's go that way. 13
14
I mentioned this in pre-meeting, but I will bring it up again just for the public record. Regarding 15
exempting small retail additions from TDMs and TDM plans and transportation fees, I support 16
the intent here, but I'm a little worried about the loophole that you could add 1,500 square feet 17
multiple times year after year after year. So I would suggest that maybe it's worthwhile to 18
specify an effective date in the ordinance and base the exemptions on the total additions after 19
that date. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
For parking requirements – this is on Packet Page 201 – I appreciate the goal here as well, 2
although I found it a little odd that we're relaxing parking requirements in places where it's not 3
obvious that we have the need and perhaps have relaxed parking requirements in places where 4
we have quite a lot of space. For example, RP. Since the ROLM requirements will almost 5
certainly change as part of the San Antonio Plan, I'm not sure it makes sense to try and 6
regularize those two. So my inclination would be to leave the existing standard of 1 space per 7
250 square feet unchanged everywhere else, as it is now, and apply that to RP as well if you 8
want to maximize consistency across districts. And ROLM will be taken care of by the San 9
Antonio Road area plan, so we can still achieve the goal of consistency without making a change 10
that may be detrimental in a wide range of areas throughout the city. Those are the last of my 11
specifics. 12
13
Trying to figure out generally what are we going to do with this tonight. It's clear to me that we 14
are going to make improvements of this kind in the future, so it's not as if we have to solve all 15
of the problems tonight. We do have to get far enough to achieve a recommendation one way 16
or another. I do think what we have here is a major improvement, not only in relaxing 17
constraints, but also making all the remaining ones a lot more intelligible. So that has value, and 18
I'd like to make sure we don't lose that value. On the other hand, I've heard a lot of specifics 19
brought up tonight that I think create questions about whether we're ready to go. And at 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.
very least, we are still struggling with the new medical-like uses, and I have no confidence that 1
we can solve that tonight. And I'm not sure we should try, because as Commissioner Hechtman 2
has mentioned, the potential variations are beyond our ability to analyze tonight. So I see 3
Commissioner Hechtman has a comment and then I think we need to try and think about what 4
kind of message we can pass along either to staff or to counsel. Commissioner Hechtman. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: All right, thank you. So here's where I end up on preventative 7
healthcare screenings. With the proposed change to the medical office to kind of expand that, I 8
think there is a potential for all kinds of unintended consequences with that. So I don't like that. 9
I don't think whether you call it health diagnostic spa or even just preventative healthcare 10
screening with no treatment, I don't really think that fits in personal service. It's a different 11
concept. We have talked about retail for years and we wrestled with bigger picture do we want 12
to keep the RPO in place, and the Council has made clear they do and they want to iterate. They 13
want to protect retail on University, and to me this use isn't classic retail. While it might be a 14
good idea, it doesn't fit right now the parameters of what Council has told us, and so my idea is 15
to kick it to Council. I'm not wanting to recommend that they allow it, but I would like them to 16
consider it and decide if they want to fold it in. If they do, staff will. 17
18
Now, I would just like to go through some language issues in the draft ordinance to, again, bring 19
some clarity to a few things. I'll just take you to the specific pages. So the first one is on Packet 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Page 174, bottom half of the page. In the existing definition of eating and drinking service, 1
which we're now making the full service definition, fifth line down, I think you can get rid of 2
from an eating and drinking service because you're operating inside of the definition of the 3
thing. So that is what we’re talking about. You don't have to say this is what we're talking 4
about. 5
6
In new Part B, so this is the new definition of limited service, and this raises something scholars 7
have debated for centuries and that is how long does it take to make a pizza? And I think the 8
weight of authority is that it takes more than 10 minutes. And so if you hadn't listed pizza shops 9
here, I would have thought they weren't included because it's a little too fast. So I would just 10
suggest make this 10 to 15 minutes. That's – even a burrito place I go to, if they're busy, they 11
tell me come in 15 minutes when I call it in, and so I think 10 to 15 minutes will be closer to 12
what we mean. 13
14
Down in Part C, same page, second line, consumption and which, just take a look at that. I think 15
you mean either at which or where. The sentence doesn't flow. And then the last sentence, this 16
definition of bars, such establishment is also licensed by ABC. Well, isn't it true for the other 17
two? If they serve alcoholic beverages, don't they need at least a beer and wine license? And so 18
I don't know that that adds anything to bars, but it makes it seem like you don't need it for 19
eating and drinking establishments even if they serve alcohol, so take a look at 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
Going to page 177, this is the first place where CUP is mentioned, and so I'm going to take it on 2
faith that this will – this entire ordinance, because there are about a hundred places – more. 3
That's an underestimate. I take it on faith that you'll cleanse that. Next is 179, bottom half of 4
the page under the table, you've added a sentence, we're talking about residential uses may be 5
located fronting rear and interior side yards on the ground floor or on upper levels. So what 6
that means to me is you can't have retail on the street on the second floor, but I don't think 7
that's what you meant, so I think you have to look at turning that around. I think you mean you 8
can have it residential on the upper floor – that's like Santana Row, right? You got your 9
residential above the retail looking at the street or first floor behind the retail use. So take a 10
look at that. 11
12
Next is 183, top half of the page. The new definition in A3, we have a standard here not well-13
suited to other uses. In the staff report, we talk about we're trying to get rid of the subjective 14
stuff. A lot of these changes are to make things more objective. That one is pretty subjective, I 15
think, and so I just encourage staff to look at that; how will staff decide if it's not well-suited? 16
So they may need some guidance on that. 17
18
Let's see, page 190 is next. The definition of specific purposes toward the bottom of the page, 19
second line: where applied in combination with such district to allow only retail eating 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.
service-oriented blah blah blah. When we say eating here but not drinking because we have 1
this other eating and drinking definition, does that mean bars are excluded? You might have to 2
look at that. 3
4
Let's see, that is 190. Next is 192, middle of the page, Subpart B2, the retail use has to occupy 5
30-foot depth of the ground floor as measured from the street frontage. So is that the curb? 6
Because if the sidewalk is 15 feet, then you only have 15 feet inside the building. Or does it 7
mean the ground floor building frontage? 8
9
Jennifer Armer: Yes, I think the addition of the word building frontage. 10
11
Commissioner Hechtman: Okay, all right. And that does appear a couple other places. I think 12
195, the middle of the page as well. Street frontage maybe should be building frontage. And 13
then on 195 at the top, at the end of the table, all other uses permitted in the underlying 14
commercial district provided they are not located on a ground floor. And so does this prohibit 15
behind retail on a ground floor? That's something for staff to look at. 16
17
Let's see, that's 195. Then on 196, alcoholic beverages. There's the first of a number of times 18
where we talk about alcoholic beverage sales or service. So what's the difference? Alcoholic 19
beverage service, I think that's when you serve me a drink, like a bar. But is sale like package? Is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that going into a liquor store? Because I'm trying to understand is that what this whole section 1
is about is liquor stores and bars? Or actually, liquor stores would be the sales, bars and eating 2
and drinking establishment would be the service. Is that the difference? That appears once on 3
196 and twice on 197, so that might need to be something that's clarified. 4
5
On page 198, as the Vice Chair brought up, top of the page, Subpart C. Actually, the way I read 6
it is you couldn't have a bar unless you already had a bar, right? The applicant has operated a 7
licensed establishment, and so you had to be experienced, right? No first timers, but it doesn't 8
sound like maybe that was staff's intent. And so I think you have to look at this, and I think it 9
needs some refining because the way it's written is it seems like it's one strike and you're out 10
forever, but that's inconsistent with the second sentence that you can determine how long it's 11
been and whatnot. So anyway, I think that needs some more work. 12
13
And then finally, on 200 in the table, Vehicle Parking Requirements. Here we have 3 places 14
where we refer to 150 or 250 gross floor area, but I think you need, like the rest of the table, 15
square feet of. That's it. Now, that was worth waiting for. 16
17
Chair Akin: Thank you. Definitely necessary. All right, so my intuition about this is that we have 18
too many loose ends here to make a recommendation tonight, so we may have to continue this 19
item. So Commissioners, what's your reaction to that idea? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: If we did that, continued it, I think we need to find out if staff feels 2
they have clear direction on what we need to see whenever it comes back so that we can make 3
a recommendation. So I'd want to know from staff if they have that now or not. 4
5
Jennifer Armer: I'll invite Ms. Eisberg to share her thoughts. 6
7
Jean Eisberg: I think where we're missing clarity is on this medical office issue. As several of the 8
commissioner said, it's really about what do you want, and I don't have a good sense of which 9
types of medical offices or health and wellness personal services are desirable and which are 10
not, and then we can devise definitions or use classifications appropriately. 11
12
Chair Akin: Well, I think what I heard from Commissioner Hechtman is that this is a case where 13
the appropriate answer is guidance from Council, so I'm not sure we would try to resolve that 14
as part of this process. 15
16
Commissioner Hechtman: Right, that's not something that we would need staff to come back to 17
us on. 18
19
Jean Eisberg: Okay. Great. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: So we're back to the question of do you have sufficient guidance that we could 2
make a recommendation, or do we need to continue in order to make sure all the other issues 3
that have been raised have been resolved, and I believe Vice Chair Chang has a few more to 4
add. 5
6
Vice Chair Chang: I think there's some where we've heard, say, Commissioner or Vice – Chair 7
Akin say, for example, about parking on page 201. I concur with his idea, but I don't know if the 8
rest of the Commission agrees on that, and there's a number there that might – maybe the rest 9
of the Commission says, sure, that's good. Then we're all done, and we could even forward that 10
portion on to Council. But I think there's some other things where, as I started to go down the 11
path on Packet Page 178, we're talking about – it's actually Packet Page 177 through 170 – 12
through 180 where we've removed the overlay, the ground floor overlay, but I don't – and I 13
think we were trying to do it in a way that would maintain – it would be equivalent, that would 14
keep Charleston Center and Midtown the same. Essentially nothing's changing there and yet, 15
suddenly small adult daycare homes are permitted in CN, so then they would be permitted, I 16
believe, in Charleston Center. And I'm looking at the page – top of page 179. And I think it's all 17
these large family daycare homes, small adult daycare homes, large adult daycare homes, those 18
would all – well, I'm sorry, one is a a conditional use permit. But if you go back to page 178, 19
small family daycare homes would be allowed at Charleston Center and in Midtown? That feels 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
strange to me. And I don't – and when I looked at the original ordinance that was crossed out, I 1
think daycare services were allowed – which I actually question is that right, also while we're 2
trying to clean this all up – because I'm having a hard time envisioning a daycare center at 3
Charleston but maybe it's okay. So I think that some of this could be potentially corrected with 4
footnotes, but there's several lines where – like home occupations in the middle of page 178. 5
I'm not even sure I know what that is, but that would be allowed in Midtown and Charleston 6
Center. Maybe it's okay. 7
8
Jennifer Armer: Yes, home occupation is when you, for example, have a an office in your house 9
and you have your nonprofit organization or whatever business and that's your mailing address 10
for that business that you don't have a storefront [inaudible 334:33]. 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: Okay, I suppose that one's okay because… 13
14
Jennifer Armer: Right. If you have residential [inaudible 334:34]. 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: If you have residential, we can allow it. That makes sense but then residential 17
care homes? Maybe? I don't know. But these are not things that were allowed before 18
necessarily. And is it at ground floor or not? So I think that this whole section kind of needs to – 19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I only got through comparing it partially, but it's hard to smash together our messy code. So 1
that's one area. 2
3
I had another question about the 30 feet of depth of retail on California versus University. And I 4
understand that that's probably driven by lot size, but if I think about what we're trying to do in 5
terms of keeping retail vacancies to a minimum, are we thinking that there's going to be 6
different types of retail at University versus California Avenue and that 30 feet is better for one 7
place versus the other, and it will be fine? What is that? I understand that we're basing it based 8
on lot size, but what about the goal of making sure that we're not – that we're trying to 9
minimize retail vacancies? And is that space of 30 feet deep good for retail on Cal Ave because 10
we're trying to optimize for the retail, not necessarily optimize for the office behind it. So – and 11
I probably have a few more. I think Commissioner Hechtman caught a bunch of them. I 12
definitely still have some concerns about just tightening up the language on the PC piece. 13
14
Jean Eisberg: Can I make a couple clarifications? On the Charleston and Midtown shopping 15
centers, our intention was not to keep them the same as they are today in the code. The 16
intention was to expand uses as we did in each of the district, so it's not necessarily a one-to-17
one. If there are places where we want to have footnotes, we can do that, but things like 18
residential care facilities, any residential uses, the proposals that they're only allowed above 19
the ground floor or in the rear, for example. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice Chair Chang: That helps but then there's also stuff like the automobile – should the 2
automobile showroom have the same square foot limitation as other retail? So, yes. And then 3
our day – what about daycare centers? Should they have a limitation for the daycare? I guess 4
the daycare homes would only be in the residential, which would not be on the front. It's a 5
street, ground floor street frontage. Is that the intent? 6
7
Jean Eisberg: I'm not sure that daycare centers – I guess it depends if it's a home-based daycare, 8
then it would not be, no, it would not be on the retail frontage. If it's a commercial type of 9
daycare, then it could be, it could be on the frontage, but that's consistent with how [inaudible 10
337:59]… 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: Yes, the code did [inaudible 338:00]. Yes. 13
14
Jean Eisberg: …today. Yes, daycares are currently allowed. 15
16
Vice Chair Chang: And then for the family daycare homes, because that's in a home, it would 17
either be on the upper floor or in the back. Is that correct? 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Jean Eisberg: I believe so, yes. But again, currently, residential uses are not permitted in 1
Charleston and Midtown, so [inaudible 338:23]. 2
3
Vice Chair Chang: No, I understood that, but I imagine that if we've added a retail-like use that 4
we would want the same restrictions on that retail-like use as we already have on our existing 5
retail retail uses, that kind of a thing. So now I have a little bit more clarity on understanding, 6
oh, that's why you're allowing the homes, so maybe it's okay. If staff thinks you have direction, 7
then we could maybe forward it on to Council, but I'm not sure of where the rest of the 8
Commission stands on this. 9
10
Chair Akin: Comments from Commissioner Ji. 11
12
Commissioner Ji: I'm going to channel my inner Commissioner Hechtman and go through a 13
bunch of wording and other miscellaneous comments. So on Packet Page 176 in Section 121.1., 14
I noticed that in Subsection I you added the word “and” and that the word “and” is also in 15
Subsection H, but it's not in all of them. So does that have any implication? 16
17
Jean Eisberg: No, I think it probably should be deleted from both of those places and be added 18
after Subsection J. 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. Just wanted to clarify that I'm not missing anything there. And then next 1
I wanted to ask about – I'm not as organized as Commissioner Hechtman, so bear with me while 2
I flip through. On Packet Page 183, Commissioner Hechtman had mentioned at the top here 3
about "not well suited to other uses." I was actually more curious about the first part of the 4
section where it says in midtown shopping district for properties ABC, whatever, do we know 5
what is special about these properties? Because if we're thinking about cleaning up the code, I 6
feel like citing 4 specific parcels may not be of interest, so I was wondering if, Ms. Eisberg, you 7
had any commentary about this? 8
9
Jean Eisberg: Sure. This is verbatim from the page before. It struck out in a different section, so 10
this is really a reorganization. And basically, those buildings are located within the shopping 11
center, the midtown shopping center, but they're clearly office uses. They look like office uses. 12
There's currently, I think, an architecture office and a couple other office uses. So my thinking is 13
that they were carved out previously and we basically kept that carveout. I understand that the 14
language is a little odd, and I think we could clean it up, but it's not a change. It just kind of 15
appears as a red line strikeout because we moved it. 16
17
Commissioner Ji: Yes, so I did see that on Packet Page 182 towards the middle Section 3. It 18
looks like it's a copy-and-paste job, but I was more curious if you just knew the background, and 19
so having it – telling me that it's about office was helpful there. I think that there could be some 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
potential cleanup there; I don't know what the will of the Commission is, but those are just my 1
thoughts on that section. 2
3
On Packet Page 185 in the middle towards create commercial recreation, you've removed item 4
– footnote 3, so I was wondering if that – you could explain that a little bit? 5
6
Jean Eisberg: Okay, let me catch up. So are you talking the end of the… 7
8
Commissioner Ji: No, the 185 in the middle where it says recreate commercial recreation. So I 9
feel like, in general, maybe I'm wrong, but we have conditional use permits for over 5,000 10
square feet in general, but it looks like you're removing that here? 11
12
Jean Eisberg: So a conditional use permit is already required for commercial recreation 13
regardless of size. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Oh, I see. Okay. So that's just the cleanup. 16
17
Jean Eisberg: So yes, it just didn't need the extra footnote, and we moved some of the sub 18
footnotes about medical office and elsewhere, but in particular, this table, the footnote 3 on 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.
Packet Page 186 that's crossed out says commercial recreation uses fronting on University 1
Avenue, but University Avenue is generally regulated by the GF overlay… 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Overlay. Yes. 4
5
Jean Eisberg: …combining district, and so we've just moved that to the GF. 6
7
Commissioner Ji: Okay, that's helpful. And then I was curious about Packet Page 187 where we 8
have the table for the NVCAP area, and I'm wondering, in general, why we are including the 9
usages of NV-R1, R2 because in my mind, those are mostly similar to the real R1 and R2, and I 10
don't know what retail uses we generally support on those and why these are considered 11
different here. 12
13
Jean Eisberg: I don't believe we've made any changes to the R1 R2 districts, it's just the way that 14
the NV zoning district is written; it's one use table so… 15
16
Commissioner Ji: I see. So let me ask a question differently. Would our normal code support the 17
uses for NV-R1 and NV-R2 in real R1 and R2, not NV? 18
19
Jean Eisberg: Do you mean the residential uses or…? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So for example, I don't know, a large adult daycare or a small adult 2
daycare home, is that currently allowed in a normal R1 that's not an NV-R1? 3
4
Jean Eisberg: Oh, I would have to look that up. So it is allowed in NV. It's not underlined. But… 5
6
Commissioner Ji: I was – just happened to be curious. That's okay. 7
8
Jean Eisberg: I don't know off the top of my head. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: And then, on Packet Page 192, I also was curious about if – so Vice Chair 11
Chang had asked about the 30-foot depth of Cal Ave versus University. I wasn't sure if I caught 12
the answer if there actually is a different use for University and Cal Ave or that's just – yes, 13
what's the explanation for the difference here? I don't know if I missed that. 14
15
Jean Eisberg: Yes, the different depth. And I do – we do still have Christine Firstenberg on, and 16
so she can talk a little bit more about retail depths in general. But when we look at the parcel 17
sizes and the depths on University versus California Avenue, University tends to be about 100-18
foot depths, and the buildings, many of the buildings extend that deep. California Avenue is 19
more varied. There's some longer building depths, some shorter ones, narrower lots. 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.
buildings tend not to extend so deep into the lot. If I'm channeling Christine, she'll usually say 1
retail depths tend to be – want to be more like 40-foot minimum; 30-foot minimum is certainly 2
– is on the smaller side. But these depths of 60, 80, 100 feet are quite deep; we heard the 3
public commenter saying that. And so the idea, as we know, is to allow offices beyond that 4
depth, but that's really the difference. It's a combination of wanting to ensure we have enough 5
retail depth but also acknowledge the differences in the parcel sizes. Christine, anything to add 6
on the retail depth issue. 7
8
Christine Firstenberg: No, thank you so much. Good evening, Commissioners. Thank you, 9
Jeannie. Typically, the reason that – the difference in standard here was because the buildings 10
are deeper on University Avenue, and I think that's how we came to set this up. In California 11
Avenue, the retail sections of the building seem to be more standard at 60 feet deep, and so it 12
just made a little more sense, whereas on University Avenue, almost all of the buildings seem to 13
have a depth of about a hundred feet deep, so that was pretty simple. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: So this is less about the use that we want here and more about the current 16
status – size of the building. Is that a different way to reframe this? 17
18
Jean Eisberg: I would say it's both. It's about trying to improve vacancies, reduce vacancies so 19
allowing different uses that aren't sitting on the frontage. And these are still small offices. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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're not talking about large office spaces, but it's about adding the flexibility but also 1
recognizing the physical conditions out there. 2
3
Jennifer Armer: And if I can step in and add as well, part of the reason that the recommended 4
depth is in relationship to the existing buildings and the existing lots is part of this is working to 5
try and allow reuse of the existing buildings to keep – being a little bit creative for some of 6
these that are clearly too deep and giving enough flexibility, with a recognition of those existing 7
facilities so that they could be reused, whether they're historic structures or just existing 8
structures, wanting to allow that reuse. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. Do you want to jump in? 11
12
Vice Chair Chang: So what is a good retail depth? So you said 30 to 40 or 40 to 50? Because I'm 13
trying to figure out why – the issue I think we wanted to address are these giant lots, either way 14
too deep for a retail use or it's just over 4,000 square feet like Ms. Firstenberg said before. So 15
what I want to make sure, what's the ideal retail depth or what's the average retail depth for a 16
retail thoroughfare like Cal Ave or University? 17
18
Christine Firstenberg: So how we – the industry, the shopping center industry is what we go by, 19
and we go by some general retailer criteria. And it's really was built up based on how shopping 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
centers got built. So you have a traditional depth in a shopping center. And again, I know it's 1
not a street retail, but typically building shopping centers in the '60s, when the growth all 2
happened, '60s and '70s, they built them with 60-foot depths. And so national brands of 3
retailers set their criteria to what was most prevalent in the United States at that time are these 4
50 and 60-foot depths for buildings. On street retail, it really is so varied that the national 5
retailers do have a hard time in merchandising something that is different and unique. Now, 6
again, there's not as many independent, non-national retailers as we used to have, so we have 7
less to choose from when we're trying to lease buildings out of those independents that don't 8
have the criteria that they have to adhere to. Nationals do have to adhere to more of a criteria. 9
So again, that's to answer that question. What we were trying to do here was just really give 10
more flexibility to the tenants that are already there and new tenants that come in to figure out 11
how to utilize some of the space on the University Avenue buildings that really are too deep for 12
most retailers to function in. And if they have to pay that additional square footage that they 13
can't use, they oftentimes can't use the space at all because it doesn't make economic sense. So 14
if there's an ability for the owner to lease out the remainder of that space, then again, the 15
retailer can occupy the front and the building owner can have an entire floor leased out and not 16
have to – one or the other, the tenant or the landlord, have to make special arrangements that 17
are economically difficult for them because a building's too deep. 18
19
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice Chair Chang: So that makes perfect sense for the 50 feet because that makes sense. We're 1
aiming for a 50, 60 thing. What I'm wondering, very specifically, is if something gets converted 2
to only 30 feet in the front, does that make it hard to rent later on? On Cal Ave. Is that the right 3
number? Are you comfortable with that number from a retail because we want to – we know 4
that the front has to be retail, so… 5
6
Christine Firstenberg: We – you could move it 10 feet, but again, I think what we did is we 7
looked at Cal Avenue, and there's such a wonderful conglomeration of food and food-oriented 8
tenants. They can use, in some cases, the smaller frontages, so we could push it to 40 feet. That 9
could be a maybe a little bit less of a problem in the future if there was a demising wall that 10
separated them. But again, if there's a demising wall that's separating one use, that demising 11
wall is normally easily able to be brought down at some future leasing situation. 12
13
Commissioner Ji: Okay. So just to summarize, your recommend – your commentary is that 50 to 14
60 feet seems to be the standard based on what you were describing, but we want to allow 15
some flexibility in Cal Ave. So you – are you still sticking with 30 feet as your recommendation 16
for Cal Ave with this discussion? 17
18
Christine Firstenberg: I think it – I would like – I can talk to Jeannie about it, but we agreed that 19
30 feet might be a good way to define it, but it could go to 40 also. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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
Jean Eisberg: Yes, I think it's – as you as you're hearing, it's 30 may be too conservative. It is a 2
minimum, but you put a minimum out there and some – you take advantage of that. So I think 3
pushing it to 40 feet is still reasonable and still allows for – it may be less than half of the space 4
in some cases on Cal Ave, but maybe that space is less conducive to being split anyway. 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. I think – yes, that's great. I also had a question about the language 7
in this section that's not about the actual distance. It says here that it's 30 feet as measured 8
from the ground floor street frontage. If you are on a corner lot, for example, how would that 9
work? Are we – is the goal here is, I presumed, to be against Cal Ave, but I don't know if that's 10
explicitly as written for Section 18.30(A), Section B. Section – Subsection 1. 11
12
Jean Eisberg: Yes, I think right now it would apply to the corner. So if we want to just apply it to 13
– I need to flip to it – but if we just want to apply it to Cal Ave, then we want to be more explicit 14
about that that it's just the California Avenue frontage. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: Okay. So right now, hypothetically, as written, I could use the 30 feet from 17
either the corner…? 18
19
Jean Eisberg: No. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Ji: I'm sorry. Go ahead. 2
3
Jean Eisberg: Sorry. I'm going to take it back. I think, based on how Subsection B starts on 4
California Avenue, it's the California Avenue building frontage. But point taken, we can make 5
that more clear if that's the interpretation the Commission wants to go with, that it wouldn't 6
apply on side streets. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Yes. I don't know what the rest of the commission says, I just think cleaning up 9
the language I think could be helpful, and I presume there's an equivalent for University Avenue 10
as well. So – and then my next question is about Packet Page 196, 18.48.090 Alcoholic 11
Beverages. You've listed a bunch of information here. I was wondering if there's any – are there 12
any conditions that are in the conditional use permit that are not captured here? What's the 13
discrepancy between the existing situation and what we have here? 14
15
Jean Eisberg: Off the top of my head, one of the key ones is hours of operation. So in particular, 16
for bars, that's probably going to be one of the items in the CUP for a bar. 17
18
Jennifer Armer: And we do require a CUP for businesses that go past 10 p.m., so that would also 19
trigger even if it was a restaurant. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: That was just helpful to know and I think just helpful to point out for the code. 2
And then, on Packet Page 200 where we have this table with minimum off-street parking 3
requirements. I was just wondering if you could provide me an explanation for the changing in 4
some of the numbers here. So for example, in Section B the eating and drinking full service that 5
changed from 60 to 150 and also the listing for 250 and 150 there. I was just wondering if you 6
could provide an explanation for how you came up with these numbers. 7
8
Jean Eisberg: Sure, and I may invite Christine Firstenberg to come back. So one thing we did was 9
actually take some of these existing ratios through scenarios. So looking at a larger restaurant 10
size a 4,000-square-foot restaurant size, which I understand is typical for some fast food in 11
particular and generating what that parking requirement would be. And in the case of the – 12
with drive-throughs, it was coming out to 120 spaces, which is really unrealistic for sites even 13
on El Camino. So some of it was just that it didn't make sense based on potential use 14
classifications. And Christine can talk a little bit more about what she sees in terms of what 15
tenants actually are looking for. One other point I want to make is that right now there's one 16
parking standard, as you can see, for eating and drinking. I mentioned earlier that things like 17
coffee shops and delis are interpreted as intensive retail service, and part of that happened 18
because they have a lower parking standard, and so those smaller tenants could never have 19
met these – the sort of quick-service tenant could never have met the existing eating 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.
drinking parking standard and instead had a – that internal, excuse me, intensive retail service 1
parking standard. So the new classification eating and drinking service, limited service is based 2
on that existing intensive retail service standard. Christine, anything else on…? 3
4
Christine Firstenberg: The limited service that we're mentioning here is what we see in today's 5
world is so active, and the 4 per thousand is the one for one stall for every 250 square feet. We 6
use verbiage a little different, but that's very, very normal, and that's about what the retailers 7
would like to see. We are seeing some cities even reduce it from there, reduce parking 8
requirements. And then for the full sit-down restaurants, again, having a few more stalls 9
required here is not abnormal because you have people staying for longer, although we don't 10
see a lot of sit-down restaurants active right now. Economically in the Bay Area, it seems to be, 11
at the moment, a time that's hard. We are not seeing a lot of full sit-down restaurants active at 12
the moment. We hope that they will return soon, but there are some economics that make it 13
rather difficult at the moment. 14
15
Commissioner Ji: Thank you. All right, last question or comment really. On Packet Page 204, 16
Section 14, there's a reference to this section being deleted. Can we just pull up the original 17
code for this section? It's 18.76.015. 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.
Jean Eisberg: Yes, I'm going to have to pull up the actual code; bear with me. Okay. So this 1
section of code, yes, applies to the R combining district, which is the California Avenue 2
designation. 3
4
Commissioner Ji: Yes. So my understanding is that this section of code was created because in 5
the R combining district, aka Cal Ave, there were too many beauty shop, nail salon, barbership, 6
or financial services usage. Yes. So code cleanup potentially necessary if we want to preserve 7
this section. And one thing that's – what I like about this section is some of the benefits that we 8
get from the section. So for example, Subsection 2: The type of retail or personal service will 9
enhance the balance and diversity of businesses in the district in the city as a whole. And 10
Subsection 3 about enhancing economic vitality. I feel like these are generally comments that 11
I've heard from my fellow commissioners that are good to have in a commercial district, which 12
is a variety of different businesses, a balance and diversity of businesses that will enhance the 13
economic vitality. I think that there's not necessarily a reason to get rid of this just because I 14
like some of the benefits. It's not that these types of businesses are prevented but that they're 15
allowed to be there if they do bring balance and economic vitality and that's up to the 16
conditional use permit. So I feel like there's not necessarily a reason to remove the section. So 17
with that, I will end my – I think what is 22 minutes of commentary. So I apologize for 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.
Jean Eisberg: And maybe I can just clarify for this section. So I think previously the personal 1
services like barbershops, nail salons, required a conditional use permit; they no longer do. And 2
so this section is findings for conditional use permits. So the only place that still applies is 3
formula retail businesses, which still do require a conditional use permit. And so these findings 4
tend to be very subjective, that they're meeting underserved needs, enhancing the balance of 5
districts. So it's really about formula retail. So if you wanted to keep this section, we would 6
obviously delete the typo, but also just delete a beauty shop, nail salon, barbershop, financial 7
services completely. 8
9
Commissioner Ji: Okay. That was actually really helpful context, and I actually don't know if I 10
support my original statement anymore. 11
12
Jean Eisberg: Okay. Thanks. 13
14
Chair Akin: All right, how do we drive to a conclusion here? We could choose to recommend to 15
Council if we feel that enough of our feedback has been captured, so how do we determine 16
that? 17
18
Jean Eisberg: I can say from my end, I've been scribbling in the document and taking lots of 19
notes. I will point out one – and I – so I believe I can integrate if there's sort of general 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
consensus that what you heard from others makes sense, correcting typos but also clarifying 1
language where we can be more clear, I will do that. There's one issue I have about the office 2
parking. I believe the recommendation was to make the parking more restrictive for the RP 3
zone, and if that's correct, that's the only item that gives me pause. When we make parking 4
more restrictive, we're potentially creating non-conforming district – non-conforming 5
conditions in that RP zone. And so I would just suggest maybe we leave it alone. If there's not 6
interest in touching that office parking, we just leave it alone and just stick to the parking ratios 7
for the new use classification, eating and drinking. 8
9
Chair Akin: I believe I was the first to propose that, so from my point of view, I am perfectly 10
okay with leaving it alone. The only reason to change it was to improve consistency across 11
districts, but if that doesn't make sense functionally, then let's not do it. 12
13
Jean Eisberg: Okay. I think we can just not touch the office parking and maybe just leave it and 14
just stick with addressing the new use classifications. 15
16
Chair Akin: Fellow commissioners, is that an acceptable compromise? 17
18
Vice Chair Chang: 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.
Chair Akin: All right. I think we can agree to that. And I had also suggested the starting date for 1
the 1,500 square feet of addition. So I guess I should poll the remainder of the Commission to 2
see whether there is sufficient support for that. 3
4
Jennifer Armer: And I think the, through the Chair, the direction could be that you want to 5
address the concern that that exception could be used multiple times to not be subject to that 6
fee. And so we could put language in to address that concern. That would be sufficient direction 7
at this point. 8
9
Chair Akin: I would accept that approach. It seems like there's general agreement. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: Agreed. 12
13
Chair Akin: So thank you, that's a good suggestion. And let's see, you resolved the open 14
container sales on Cal Ave issue by revisiting some of that language? 15
16
Jennifer Armer: Correct. 17
18
Chair Akin: 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.
Jennifer Armer: And I would invite those commissioners who have their lists that they've 1
brought up today, please feel free to email those in to us so that we can do a little double 2
checking. I think we've done a good job of making note. We can go back to the recording, but 3
please feel free to send those in via email as well. 4
5
Chair Akin: All right. With that, I think perhaps we're ready for a motion. 6
7
Vice Chair Chang: Can we do a group motion? I'll start and then please help if I've forgotten 8
things. So I would like to move that we forward this ordinance on to Council for approval with 9
clarifications that have been outlined by all the commissioners tonight. 10
11
Jennifer Armer: Yes, clarifications outlined in the discussion of the Commission tonight. 12
13
Vice Chair Chang: That – yes. 14
15
Chair Akin: That's good. Do I hear a second or any need for a modification? 16
17
Commissioner Hechtman: I'll second. 18
19
Chair Akin: All right, Mr. Tavera, could we call a vote, please? 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Samuel Tavera: Yes. Commissioner Ji. 2
3
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 4
5
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James. 6
7
Commissioner James: Yes. 8
9
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson. 10
11
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 12
13
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 16
17
Samuel Tavera: Vice Chair Chang. 18
19
Vice Chair Chang: Yes. 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes 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: Chair Akin. 2
3
Chair Akin: Yes. 4
5
Samuel Tavera: Motion carries 6-0. 6
7
Chair Akin: Thank you all. That turned out to be more challenging than I expected. 8
9
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 10
4. Approval of Planning & Transportation Commission Draft Summary & Verbatim 11
Minutes of February 11, 2026 12
13
Chair Akin: The next item is approval of the minutes for February 11, 2026. Mr. Tavera, do we 14
have any public comments on this? 15
16
Samuel Tavera: Through the Chair, I have not received any public comment cards for agenda 17
item. 18
19
Chair Akin: Very good. May I have a motion? 20
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.
Commissioner Ji: I move the… 1
2
Samuel Tavera: And… 3
4
Chair Akin: Oh, go ahead. 5
6
Samuel Tavera: And just a clarifying point, I want to make a note that per my record, I have 7
Commissioner James was absent for that meeting. So when I make a – yes, I would just need 8
you to abstain. Yes. Thank you. 9
10
Commissioner Ji: I move the recommendation of minutes as revised. 11
12
Chair Akin: Second. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Peterson? 15
16
Commissioner Peterson: Yes. 17
18
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner James? 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 James: Abstain. Is that what I say? 1
2
Samuel Tavera: Yes. 3
4
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Ji? 5
6
Commissioner Ji: Yes. 7
8
Samuel Tavera: Commissioner Hechtman? 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 11
12
Samuel Tavera: Vice Chair Chang? 13
14
Vice Chair Chang: Yes. 15
16
Samuel Tavera: Chair Aiken? 17
18
Chair Akin: Yes. 19
20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Samuel Tavera: Motion carries, 5-0-1. 1
2
Oral Communications 3
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 4
5
Chair Akin: Now, a point of order. Should we do our public comments for items that are not on 6
the agenda next or after Commissioner comments? 7
8
Jennifer Armer: I think we could. We could also limit the amount of time for each of them given 9
the late hour, do it now. 10
11
Chair Akin: Certainly. Recommend a 1-minute limit, and Mr. Tavera, do we have any public 12
comments for items that are not on the agenda? 13
14
Samuel Tavera: At the moment, I have not received any public comment cards for general 15
public comment. If there's any members on Zoom that would like to speak for general public 16
comment – I do see 2 raised hands on Zoom. One moment. All right. Our first speaker is Jim B. 17
Jim B., you may now speak. 18
19
Jim Bridger: You guys got me? 20
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.
Samuel Tavera: Yep. 1
2
Jim Bridger: All right. So you guys talk about economic volatility while you guys make us sit 3
through a bunch of bureaucratic stuff here. I think it would be a lot more beneficial to 4
understand the fact that if Leif Erickson did not discover this country 500 years before 5
Columbus, then we wouldn't have to deal with this type of stuff. We have people coming in 6
here like these Jews that have occupied our government as a 2 percent minority, yet they own 7
96 percent of the media, and they literally molest children in their synagogues. They have the 8
protocols of the learned elders' eye on it. 9
10
Chair Akin: I believe we need to cut this one short. It's clearly classified as hate speech. 11
12
Jim Bridger: Hitler was right. You guys want to silence free speech and cut off… 13
14
Chair Akin: Mr. Tavera, could you please… 15
16
Jim Bridger: …there's no such thing as hate speech. The Supreme Court has ruled time and time 17
again there is no such thing. And we have the Brown Act in California, so you cannot do that. 18
Hitler was right, white power, and you need to… 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: We have a… 1
2
Jim Bridger: [Inaudible 370:39] . 3
4
Chair Akin: We have a statement that I've been asked to read in events of this type. The city of 5
Palo Alto is committed to a culture of belonging where all members of our diverse community 6
feel included, safe, and respected. We strongly denounce the speaker's message of 7
discrimination and hate. We have allowed the speech, such as it was, only because the First 8
Amendment of the Constitution requires us to give everyone an equal chance to express their 9
views. If there are additional speakers who use hate speech, city staff may leave the meeting 10
until regular business resumes. Members of the public may wish to do so as well. If board 11
members – if commissioners want to make brief comments, please do that following the public 12
comment period. Next speaker if there is one. 13
14
Samuel Tavera: Yes, through the Chair. Our next speaker is Sathiyasangaree. You may now 15
speak. 16
17
Sathiyasangaree Anandasangaree: Sir, you just destroyed my name, and that's very racist. 18
Merci. Ladies and gentlemen, white people are being genocided, and you're talking about 19
retarded stuff that benefits no one. You spoke for 2 hours of regulation of bars, which is 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
completely retarded. Children are being raped, and you fund them with your tax dollar. You're 1
paying taxes to pedophiles, like Jeffrey Epstein the friend in your government, you're paying 2
taxes to pedophiles while that fat whale sits there, his computer, whole regulation about bars. 3
Congratulations, Chairman Ching Ching Ching. You're paying taxes to pedophiles. 4
5
Chair Akin: Well, with luck, that is the last of public comment for non-agenda items for tonight. 6
7
Samuel Tavera: Yes, and through the Chair, I have no other requests to speak. 8
COMMISSIONER QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 9
AGENDAS 10
11
Chair Akin: Thank you, Mr. Tavera. Moving on to a more rewarding item, Commissioner 12
Questions, Comments, and Announcements. We have Commissioner Hechtman followed by 13
Commissioner Ji. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So as the Commission knows, the Chair and I often review 16
and revise the minutes, and I have noticed that there are times when commissioners speak 17
over each other. And one of the most interesting things to me is it's almost never our newer 18
commissioners; it's almost always the 4 of us who have been on the Commission longer, and 19
maybe we've gotten too comfortable. But it makes it very challenging. Our transcriber does a 20
great job, I guess because they have a tape and they can go through, but when you try to read 21
it, it's like you say a word and I say a word. You say a word and I say a word. And so it's of no 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.
use to the Council should they want to read the verbatim minutes. So I just want to remind 1
those of us who are guilty, try to wait, try to follow the lead of our newer members. And let's 2
wait until somebody finishes what they have to say and then we say what we have to say. And 3
I'm at least as guilty as anyone else on the Commission, but I think we'd do the Council a service 4
by cleaning that up. 5
6
Chair Akin: Thank you. And we will do ourselves a service as well. Commissioner Ji. 7
8
Commissioner Ji: Wait, so I had actually a question. How do the minutes – is there literally a 9
person who types out every single word that we say? 10
11
Samuel Tavera: I can jump in on that. We have a contract with the transcription service called 12
Transcription Plus – so shout out to them – and so they have a staff that does transcribe our 13
summary minutes and our verbatim minutes. I want to give them the credit and say that maybe 14
they do everything – but maybe they use some sort of software as well, but yes. 15
16
Commissioner Ji: All right because anyway, that's crazy. That's not my original comment but I 17
just want to say shout out to the transcription team. So my original comment was more about 18
the fact that Commissioner James and I went to the Planning Commissioners Academy this past 19
meeting 2 weeks ago, so we're sorry we missed the giant PTC/ARB joint meeting. And we will 20
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to ten (10) minutes at the discretion of the Chair, provided that
the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
be sending a list of the information that we learned at some point in the near future once we 1
have the time – chance to coalesce it. But I want to share with the commission 2 main things 2
that I think are pretty interesting that are actionable in the short term. So one is that we 3
learned that many of the other cities' – actually, most other cities' Planning Commissions have a 4
city email regardless of whether or not they're paid. So for the sake of public records requests, 5
this is primarily a useful feature, and that's something that I think we should potentially look 6
into and I've talked to Ms. Armer about this. And the other item is having questions that we 7
send the staff ahead of time bcc'd back to us for all answers. That way it's not Brown Act 8
violating but we also get more information that is shared across ahead of time. So those are 9
just some of the recommendations that we learned from other commissions, but Commissioner 10
James and I will be file – compiling some kind of additional information that we will send 11
shortly. And I would highly recommend if you get a chance to go to the Planning Commissioners 12
Academy, it is very, very, very helpful. 13
14
Chair Akin: I'm glad your experience was the same as as mine. I thought it was well worthwhile. 15
Thank you. Any other commissioner comments? Then we are adjourned. 16
17
18
/elk 19