May 7, 2019 Joint Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

Video

Transcript

[00:00:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And the 1st item is a roll call by our city clerk.

[00:00:15] City Clerk: Council member Clark.

[00:00:17] Councilmember Chris Clark: Here.

[00:00:18] City Clerk: Council member Hicks, Council member Kame. Council member McAllister.

[00:00:25] Councilmember John McAlister: Yep.

[00:00:25] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez. Vice Merabe Koga.

[00:00:29] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[00:00:29] City Clerk: Mayor Matachek.

[00:00:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Here, thank you. Thank you. The first item is a study session on the East Wisman Precise Plan Public Draft. And before we get going on this, our city attorney has an announcement.

[00:00:46] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: As you might notice, council member Alison Hicks is not here for this item, and that is because she is recusing herself this evening from the study session based on a financial interest in a source of income.

[00:00:57] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Tonight, our presenters are Eric, senior planner, Eric Anderson, and Advanced Planning Manager, Martin Alkire. We'll start with the staff presentation.

[00:01:14] Senior Planner Eric Anderson: Thank you very much, Mayor Matachek. Thank you, city council. This is the East Wisdom Precise Plan, Public Draft, Study Session. So this slide shows where we are in the process. We're having released the public draft. We are now discussing it with the EPC city council and BPEC. Adoption is expected in the fall. So early in April, we did release the public draft, this was the culmination of 2 years of outreach and analysis, policy deliberation with the EPC and city council. The precise plan's language is based on several strategies which have been reviewed with the EPC and city council throughout this process. They're summarized in chapter 2 of the precise plan. The character areas, shown on the left, set up the broad framework of land uses, urban design, development standards and growth targets. The height and floor area strategy, focuses intensity close to the light rail station, and major corridors, and away from the neighborhoods across Wisman. The job's housing linkage strategy and affordable housing strategy set targets and requirements to ensure mixed income neighborhoods, and a mixed income residential neighborhood is created. The neighborhood commercial strategy includes requirements and incentives to create walkable goods and services. The open space strategy includes improvements and policies to support up to 30 acres of publicly accessible open space. The streets, streetscapes, and frontages strategy addresses urban design, street character, and way finding. The multimodal circulation strategy provides direction for new walkable blocks and new complete streets. The TDM strategy provides requirements for office trip reductions to reduce congestion at nearby intersections. The first question for city council deliberation tonight, regards the projects that are being reviewed concurrently with the precise plan, these projects are receiving transfers of development rights from the Los Altos school district. This allows the property owner, the Los Alto school district in the future at the coal site on San Antonio, to maintain land value while limiting how their property is used, limiting it to a school in the future. The school district is using the proceeds from selling the allowed floor area at this site in San Antonio to other sites across the city. There are six projects in East Wismond that are using the TDR floor area. Two of them are residential. They're shown in red in the middle of the map there. Three of them are office. They're in the north and south areas of the plan. And there's a future project that will submit an application in the next few years at 291 to 339 North Bernardo Avenue, shown in pink. The Job's housing linkage strategy is a key part of the precise plan. It requires office to facilitate residential as it's developed over time. This provides additional affordable housing funding, or this could include options like providing additional affordable housing funding, building housing themselves, dedicating land, or proposing other options. The goals of the job's housing linkage strategy are to support the new neighborhood, improve the job's housing balance, and to help new employees to live nearby. This diagram shows the relationship between employment square footage, office square footage, and housing units as they result from the TDR projects. The 3 purple arrows on the left are the 3 office projects that are only adding office. The 2 red arrows are residential projects that are both demolishing office and industrial square footage, and building housing, and the pink arrow on the far right is the future Bernardo project. The goal of the job's housing linkage strategy is to end up in the bottom triangle below that blue diagonal line. So, as you can see, the three office projects and the two residential projects do end up below the blue line, but the last office project on Bernardo takes us back out of that area. So there are 3 options for how we can address these TDR projects that are to be consistent with the precise plan. The first would require all of the office projects to comply with the linkage requirements individually. This would be the most difficult for the office projects to comply with, but would give the residential projects the greatest leverage. The second option would use the city's gatekeeper authority and discretion over bonus FAR to limit the overall office floor area collectively within the TDR projects. This could have the greatest effect on the 291 to 339 North Bernardo Project, the last in, which may need to identify other residential partners or limit their floor area to comply. The last option would exempt all the TDR projects for the linkage requirements, which would provide the most certainty for the school district. But the least certainty that jobs in housing will grow in a balanced way in East Wisman. The EPC gave tentative support to option two, stressing that the draft precise plan process may result in additional edits to the precise plan that may need to be considered. And the Los Alto school district has a preference for option three. The next question is regarding the neighborhood commercial strategy. This was initially endorsed by the city council last year, but it involves a mix of both requiring floor area, commercial floor area, from specific sites, in the precise plant area, and targets for overall neighborhood commercial floor area across the precise plant area. These are shown in this slide as the required floor area and the 2nd column and the floor area target in the 3rd column. Some projects that may be ideally located for these neighborhood commercial uses may proceed without it. This would also, there's also a risk that many projects would get built without it, and then later projects would need to build more neighborhood commercial uses. The mixed use area and the North employment area are the greatest concern. So the question for council is, should additional required neighborhood commercial locations be added, and, or, should the required minimum neighborhood commercial floor areas be increased, and the EPC recommended, yes. The last question for city council deliberation is a general question about comments and concerns within the draft precise plan. This list is a summary of the major comments that we've received from letters and stakeholders so far. It's roughly in order of the number of letters and stakeholders that provided that comment and how high level the comment is. For example, whether it's a general character or requirement comment, or if it's a specific developer concern. These are the top 7 from that list. And these are the items that were identified in more than one letter. Desire for a higher residential base FAR, desire for more predictability in the school strategy. changes to make the job's housing linkage, timing, and mechanics more flexible for residential developments. More flexibility for heights. More flexibility in the character area targets, specifically the mixed use area, office allocation, and housing mix. Having parking not count to residential FAR, and concern about the required street width within projects and where they may be required. The yellow item, the school strategy, I wanted to highlight, because staff is working on a citywide school strategy framework, and we'll come back to the city council with more information on that at a later date. So, as I said, the general question for city council, does the city council have any comments on the standards or any other comments on the draft precise plan? The EPC recommended more certainty from the school strategy, that the EPC provide recommendations on bonus FAR projects. Currently, the precise plan says that the ZA provides those recommendations, the zoning administrator, to maintain or increase the housing linkage ratio requirements, and to provide the EPC in city council with more analysis regarding the residential base FAR. Also, attached to the staff report is the proposed General Plan Amendments. This would include a new general plan designation called the East Wisman Mixed Use Land Use Designation. The next steps for this project are the June study sessions, where the city council will have an opportunity to review the draft environmental impact report and traffic impacts resulting from the project. We will also discuss the alternative land use scenario, which was a reduced floor area ratio in the South employment character area, and this also results in a reduced floor area in the development reserve, an ongoing issue about whether there should be a new street crossing the light rail tracks, which VTA does not support, and revisions to the office trip cap based on further EIR analysis. In addition, we'll have the human rights analysis that council asked that the East Wisman conduct. So that concludes staff's presentation. Here's a summary of the questions for council deliberation tonight. I also have Eric Yerkovich with Ramy Associates, who's our lead consultant on the plan, and Sujata Shravostova with Strategic Economics, who's our economic consultant on the plan, who can help us answer any questions.

[00:12:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Since this is a study session, we will open it up for public comment now, and then we'll bring it back to council for discussion. So, um, can I see a show of hands of how many folks want to speak on this topic? Okay. Um, We'll give you 2 minutes apiece. And if you could be sure to fill out a blue card before or after you speak and leave it with our city clerk. And for those of you who weren't here last week, we have a new feature at the end of the time, you will hear a chime.

[00:12:42] Stephen Nelson: Oh, so I don't I don't get a countdown.

[00:12:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: You get a countdown as well.

[00:12:46] Stephen Nelson: Oh, good, because I...

[00:12:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: And if neither one of those are effective.

[00:12:50] Stephen Nelson: Oh, I know. You have a gavel.

[00:12:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Go ahead.

[00:12:59] Stephen Nelson: Okay, my name is Stephen Nelson. I was a former trustee of the elementary school district. I want to bring up the point that I certainly support option two, if you only have three options. One quarter million square feet, only 63 residences, that's the worst jobs howling in balance because of the TDR. In fact, there should be 633 units. So it's 10 times less, the Los Altos school district is proposing from their TDRs that makes job housing and balance worse. So I would think about option zero. No TDR, especially since the Los Altos school board is unwilling to vote to give a neighborhood school to North El Camino districts in there, constituency, your constituents council members. Those are your constituents. After the excellent, let me say, genius proposal of Margaret. To bring a new neighborhood middle school, the negotiated settlement was rejected. Let me raise my voice. I'm not going to bang on things like apparently happened at the school board meeting up in Los Altos, but let me raise my voice to my reupresentatives. Do not impose new development on other mountain view neighborhoods by granting TDRs at this time, wait one year. Our city planning by the Los Altos school district, vote to delay or table, any TDRs. That's option zero. You have more than 3 options. Thank you.

[00:14:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[00:14:41] Superintendent Rudolph: Alright. Good evening. I am Rudolph, Superintendent of Mountain View, Westman School District. So I am here, as always, to sort of urge you to think about the number of students that are going to be coming from this plan development. Based off of our numbers, we are expecting to have 728 elementary students, 349 middle school students, and 526 high school students. We do not have, at least I can speak on behalf of the elementary school district, but I'm sure if Jeff Harding was here, he would say the same thing for the high school district, we do not have the facilities that house the students. And so Fargas Elementary, which we're opening next year. will actually be at capacity, uh, the year afterwards, um, is opened up with 332. So we, that's clearly an issue for us, and really this is more about, as I spoke with Dan last week, this is really about making sure that we have the land so that we can build schools so that when students start appearing, we can address that. The other thing that I would just like to take into account is while I'm not opposed to the transfer development rights. I do need to point out that Los Altos was able to sell TDRs, which impact Mountain View Westman School District. And so while that was an unintended consequence, the number of students that will be generated, does have an impact on us. And so it's just something for us to take into account. The last thing is I do want to commend city staff. We are working true, and it is sort of a messy process at time on creating a strategy for all of the schools that is consistent for every single developer. I think both districts, as well as the city recognize that the uncertainty about what the fees are for schools is obviously an obstacle, but I think we all need to take that into consideration as we move forward and come up with a uniform approach so that developers feel comfortable and know what they're paying for upfront. So I want to thank staffer working on that. And then also thank you for your time and attention. time. Thank you.

[00:16:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next, please.

[00:16:50] Kat Wortham: Good evening, Mayor Madachek, Vice Mayor Abu Koga, and Council members, Kame and Ramirez. My name's Kat Wortham. I work for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and their Health and Housing Policy Associate. So from the leadership group, we commend the city of Mountain View staff for their diligence in preparing the draft East Wisman precise plan, as well as their planning efforts to create a complete community that promotes transit oriented development within the East Wisman planning area. We are excited by the draft plans vision for 5000 new homes in an appropriate area near both jobs and transit. We are also excited to see that the draft plan includes a significant portion of affordable homes. As we know that this is integral to providing housing at all income levels. Leadership group shares the bold goals of maximizing this opportunity for more housing. However, in order to meet these bold housing goals in the East Wisbon area, the draft plans policies must align with encouraging the housing production. We have heard from developers and landowners that specific adjustments, excuse me, to the housing jobs linkage program, density requirements around the allowable height in FAR, allocation of office square footage in the plan area, and the school strategy need to be further examined and refined. Leadership group encourages the continued dialogue with developers and landowners within the area of the precise plan to mitigate the aforementioned issues. In partnership, we believe the city will be able to plan and realize the vision for the east visiting area with the most housing possible near new and existing jobs. Thank you for your continued leadership in our region, and thank you for the consideration of our comments.

[00:18:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[00:18:27] Cliff Chambers: Hi, Cliff Chambers, resident of Mountain View. Well, Kat pretty much did my 1st part, complimenting staff, and really highlighted the vision elements that I think are really important that I also really support. So I'll spend my couple minutes just talking a little bit about my concerns. The 1st is, I understand the rationale, the planning rationale for having the office square footage caps, but I'm not sure what the planning rationale is for having the allocation caps in the different mixed juice in the office areas. I do think you're going to need to have some flexibility in terms of maximizing the amount of housing. So I'd really like to have you reconsider some of those and allow a little bit more flexibility with that. Um, The 2nd the 2nd area of concern is the jobs housing linkage was certainly related. I think in concept it really works, but, you know, I've heard from developers, et cetera, that some of the mechanisms really may not be working as well as the intention. So I think there's a need for a form or something to get the development community together with the city and really work out and make sure that the mechanisms are really what they're intended. Because I think none of us really want to have barriers to having the housing development, so I want to make sure that the linkage works. I really like the concept. I'm not sure the mechanisms are fully worked out yet. And, um, I really like to see increased heights and densities around the middle field, station is perfect area for transit oriented development. And I'm really glad to see that we're going to have a more citywide approach to the school strategy. That's really good planning, and that's the way it really should be handled and not on a precise plan or an individual developer basis. Thank you.

[00:20:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[00:20:36] Trustee Fiona Walter: Hi, everybody, Fiona Walter, trustee, Mount Bulos Alta's High School District, and just to echo very, very briefly, a bit of INDA's points. Thank you so much for keeping us in the conversation. I was, you know, the high school rep in your summary that said thank you at EPC. Appreciated those folks considering us as well. We are happy to be part of this partnership as we figure out what that strategy is going to look like and as we figure out certainty for every for all of the players involved. 526 kids out of East Whisman, plus the 600 out of North Bay Shore, where across 1100, That's a high school. So, um, we are we are definitely eager to be part of the conversation and thanks for keeping us in it.

[00:21:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[00:21:25] Perry Herreri: Mayor Medachek, members of council, I'm Perry Herreri, and with Miramar Capitol, we're one of the owners of 400 Logue in East Wisman, and one of 2 properties for which we submitted a gatekeeper for residential development in this area. We in the Summer Hill homes project. First, I want to commend Eric. He's done a great job of at least identifying and addressing all the issues. I think we need to circle up again with the stakeholders and the development community to get some of the more specific mechanisms defined. It's, um, it's really too generic right now and, um, And it's going to cause some issues with implementation. So I would definitely recommend having at least another meeting or 2 with the stakeholders in the area to talk about the implementation measures that we submitted a letter. I'm just going to identify some of the items for our particular TDR gatekeeper. We do need some flexibility and height and development standards. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to accomplish the density and use those TDRs. It's all predicated on getting the height. And in some relief on the setbacks. That area is really perfect for additional height. not going to interfere with other residents. Um, and um, If you're going to do height, that's the place to do it. I'd like to talk about that street C that's shown there. BTA is not going to permit that crossing a grade level. And we and Google propose some elevated pet bike paths that'll link the BTA station to that whole area and really activate it. Um, I like to talk about the character targets. I think I'm running out of time, but I like to keep that flexible as much as possible. And the job's housing linkage needs some very specific implementation measures, similar to what the TDRs are doing, a certain, uh, certain way to compensate the residential developer for taking commercial square footage off the market, which today's more lucrative. Thank you.

[00:23:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[00:23:49] John Hickey: Good evening, Mayor, Council members. I'm John Hickey, and I'm with Summer Hill Housing Group. Pleased to be here tonight to give you comments on the draft precise plan, and I would echo the comments that others have made about the excellent effort that staff has put into the project so far. I hope you received a copy of the letter that we submitted earlier today. It touched on a number of topics, but I just want to focus on, too, this evening, which I'm pleased to hear already there seems to be quite a bit of support for. One is the needing more clarity on the local school strategy. You know, we share the city's desire to support local schools, but as you know, based on the difficult experience that we all had, we saw in North Bay Shore, we ask the city, as it sounds like they are, going to do take the lead in establishing a clear uniform standard for voluntary contributions. Uh, I would also, um, ask that the, uh, the city, um, clarify that the voluntary contribution, uh, be credited towards the community benefit, uh, that is going to be part of, uh, bonus FAR, uh, project, uh, I think that will help address any potential issues that may arise associated with SB 50. I also want to talk about the base FAR, as others have said, I think that there's a need here to increase the base FAR for residential projects, we would recommend going up to 2.5. The draft plan, as you know, calls for 4900 new homes in the plan area, but a base FAR of one.0 would only allow for a maximum density of about 20 to 25 units per acre, which is far too low to achieve 4900 units. It's a transit oriented area. It's appropriate for a density of 5 to 100 units per acre, and to achieve that, the FAR should be at least 2.5. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[00:25:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Did you have a question?

[00:25:50] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I'm sorry. Actually, I said, could you... What was your comment about SV 50?

[00:25:55] John Hickey: Well, you're familiar, obviously, with the...

[00:25:58] Unknown Speaker: Yes, I know. Yeah, on school contributions.

[00:26:01] John Hickey: And the question is, really, whether in this situation, requiring the local school district strategy is essentially, and I'm not pining on it this evening, but it has, we know it has been raised as a potential issue. And so...

[00:26:18] Unknown Speaker: Not an SV 50. Okay. Yeah, thanks.

[00:26:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Next, please.

[00:26:29] Mitch Mankin: Thank you, Mary Madachek, and Council members, the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mitch Mankin. from Silicon Valley at home, the voice of Affordable Housing in Silicon Valley.

[00:26:37] Unknown Speaker: What was that?

[00:26:39] Mitch Mankin: Dave today. No, no, David today. Maybe next time. Actually, I'll be here next week, too. Anyway, so we're excited to see this wisdom plan, go forward. Really want to commend counsel and staff for all the work that you've done on this so far. 5000 homes with 1000 Affordable is great goal. I really want to see that implemented. Um, But it sounds like there are some issues in terms of implementation. You've heard from a few concerns tonight that might be hard to make the current plan work. Um, in particular to get to the shared goals, density, affordability and adding new jobs to housing, maybe some tweaks and flexibility that are necessary. In particular, I want to highlight the 4 points from our letter yesterday, that being that, one, making the mechanics, the job housing language, more flexible, to structuring those proposed character areas, to allow developers to partner across areas, instead of having rigid caps in each. 3 year revising heights and FAR upward to better target high density development near transit, and also to maximize the land available for affordable housing and housing production. And then forth centralizing the streamline, the community benefit structure, which will allow the school district and developers to plan better. We've had some initial conversations with developers, but we're still doing a deeper analysis situation, but, of course, getting more granular with our recommendations, but for now, we would just recommend council that you direct staff to work on these issues with a keen item, making sure that the affordable units get built. Thank you very much.

[00:28:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[00:28:17] Steve Gazera: Good evening, Mayor Matachek and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. My name's Steve Gazera. I am the owner, along with my partner, Frank Albert, of the Wagon Wheel property, at 248 to 282 East Middlefield Road. I sent you a letter yesterday outlining some of our concerns, and thank you for your consideration to our issues and concerns set forth. As you may recall. At your city council meeting of June 5th, 2018, the council directed staff to modify the East Wisman precise plan to include specific language permitting 100% residential on the on the wagon wheel property doing due to the site geometrics. But nowhere in the plan does it specifically state your direction while the plan loosely addresses this matter and figures, charts, and graphs. There are other places in the planned text that are vague and contrary, that may cause a reader in the future to potentially reach a different conclusion. about counsel's direction. Therefore, in order to achieve clarity, we're requesting that some clarifying language be set forth in the precise plan, that states that the wagon wheel property shall be allowed to develop exclusively residential as a permitted use. We too have concerns about the low base FAR. And of course, we want to be sensitive to our neighbor's concerns, but it seems to be the low base FAR seems to be a challenging target. And my, um, My consultant, Don Lapidus, will further address this issue. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for listening to our concerns.

[00:30:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next place.

[00:30:23] Consultant Don Lapidus: Madam Mayor, members of the council. My name's Don Lapitis. I didn't think I'd be introduced by the way. In any event. I am going to talk about FIR. The FAR currently in the plan is .9. Well, it's it's, uh, it's very low. If you recognize the setbacks and the height restrictions also in the plan. We have a nice envelope that respects the neighbor's property and is consistent with and compatible with the area of Middlefield Road. And so what we're asking for is .6 And reason why we picked that number. We've done some studies, and we found that we can get the type of units that you want. 2 bedrooms and 3 bedroom units and maybe a couple of one bedroom units on that property. And as I've said, still not as for height, height. Or height and not ask for any more. setback requirements. So the project will sit between within the confines of the standards, with the exception that we would like a larger 4 error ratio from .9 to one. 6. And you have to recognize that the project will also go through the planning staff process, and they will be watching out for the neighborhood as well, as we will, in designing the project because we'd like to go very smoothly. If we can get that, that Florida ratio. I think the project would be a success and an attractive addition to the neighborhood. Oh, by the way, the properties that are against Flynn Avenue. We have no objection to just putting the 4 townhouses along there, that would be 2 story in heights. And a nice, nice size for a residential development, for a home. Thank you.

[00:32:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So anyone else who wishes to address the council that's here in the chambers? Council member McAllister and Council member Clark, is there anyone in your locations who wishes to provide public input?

[00:32:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: Nope, all alone.

[00:32:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: John? Are you a mute, John? Okay, I guess we'll assume that there's no one there. So now we will have, um, council questions, and maybe we should do questions 1st and then we'll get into the questions that were asked of us. So, um, council member Clark. Did you have any questions of staff? Or, yeah.

[00:33:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't have any questions at this time. I think most of mine were answered earlier in the day. so I don't have any right now.

[00:33:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Vice Mayor Abbe Koga?

[00:33:41] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, thank you. I had a question regarding the housing residential TDR projects, I believe it's there's 825 units proposed currently. How do those fall? How do those fall? I don't know if that's the right word, relate to the 5000 housing unit cap. Are they included in there or are they above that?

[00:34:15] City Staff: So yeah, the last page in the council questions shows how much of the how many of the units are related to the 5000 unit precise plan cap and the how many of them are basically TDR units. I believe it's also one of the attachments to the council report. Or the same data as in one of the attachments to the council report.

[00:34:44] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so some of them are under the 5,000, and then, I guess, my question is, we met the other day. We talked about, you know, what happens if we were to go over these numbers, and at some point, we would potentially trigger a new EIR, if that, right, or potential new studies. So I guess that's my question is, are we looking at these extra units as above the 5,000, or are they all supposed to be under the 5,000?

[00:35:22] City Staff: So the way from a sequel perspective, the way we're tentatively approaching these TDR projects is that the proportion of the project that's under the precise plan is being evaluated by the EIR for the precise plan. The project itself would be responsible for any impact analysis that results in the difference. We are also studying under a cumulative analysis scenario. The impacts from the precise plan plus the TDR projects. So we're covering all of our bases, but the projects themselves may be responsible for additional impacts stemming from that TDR floor area.

[00:36:13] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. And then, um, going to the commercial side, is it 2.3 million total, but there was a range, is that right? And so in light of the 450,000 square feet in the TDRs, like, could we potentially include that in the cap in the 2.3 cap. If our lower end is, what was it, one.8? Is that right?

[00:36:44] City Staff: So the alternative that council authorized a couple of years ago was one. 7 total million? square feet? And so the council could eventually adopt anything up to 2.3 million. So if you decide to do less, you can even do less. But the, um, So the question is, can we include the TDR square footage within one of those caps? That's not consistent with the direction given at the time of the TDR authorization action, which was that the floor area would be in addition to whatever would be allowed otherwise on the property.

[00:37:32] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, since we have that range, I guess what I'm getting at is, could we pick a number, the cap being lower at like one. 7, for instance, and then we have the 450,000 on top of that from TDRs. So that would actually get us still under 2.3, but like we could we do it that way, where we cap it at a lower number and then include the TDR numbers. And we know that they're there, I guess I'm just, and we're studying it. Um, so I guess I'm trying to, yeah, find out, find a way, can we capture it all without having to do extra studies and so forth.

[00:38:15] City Staff: Yeah, so like I said, council could adopt a lower number. And that could be one policy reason to adopt a lower number and set that lower number at a particular point.

[00:38:25] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you.

[00:38:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions from council members? Council member Ramirez?

[00:38:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Um... Well, I have, uh... for my benefit, I guess. I just want to make sure I understand the job's housing linkage and how commercial and residential developers would partner with each other. So, um, there was a suggestion of if a residential developer demolishes office space, rather than that office space sort of going into the ether where other folks could take advantage of it, the residential developer would have the ability to sell that development capacity to a commercial developer elsewhere. Is that what's being proposed in the precise plan? Is that different from what you're proposing? Is that, you know, where does that idea sort of sit with the draft?

[00:39:28] City Staff: That's exactly what the precise plan proposes. There are, the most of the, the comment has been focused on some specifics about how that program would be implemented and limitations on how that program might be implemented. So a lot of the letters focused on the time limits, on how long that residential developer could hold onto that value without it going back into the development reserve. But what you said was exactly the intent of the program.

[00:40:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. I appreciate the clarification. So I asked a question about, in retrospect, I didn't word it very well, but so if an applicant is granted bonus FER from the development reserve, which I think requires council authorization, right? It's kind of like a quasi gatekeeper. And then they sell that property that they want to develop to another developer. Do they need to seek reauthorization from the council?

[00:40:32] City Staff: No, if that, if the develop, if the purchasing developer builds the project and complies with all the conditions of approval of the project, they don't have to go back to council.

[00:40:44] City Staff: So, uh, any, it happens fairly often that a project gets approval by one applicant or company, and then they sell that approval to another, uh, um, owner who usually builds it. We've seen this with gatekeepers, where the council will authorize a gatekeeper, then sell the land, and then somebody else will sort of use that authorization to proceed with a slightly different or sometimes very different project.

[00:41:11] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So if that's the case, if there are modifications to the project, would they need counsel reauthorization?

[00:41:18] City Staff: Yeah, if there are major modifications, like if they're adding floor area or changing buildings or, you know, things like that, absolutely, it wouldn't be.

[00:41:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. And then is that how is major modifications defined?

[00:41:33] City Staff: It's not exactly defined. Um, I think, um, you know, anytime you have a building permit, there are always slight tweaks to things like window locations or, you know, where a fire exit has to be or something like that. And those don't, those would not come back to council. Um, In general, if it's, um, if, if there's a potential for impact, either aesthetic or other community impacts, we may take it to the zoning administrator for changes. Uh, and if there's a potential for, you know, major changes, like it's really not the same project anymore, changes to density or intensity, then we would, we would say this isn't the same project, you don't have this entitlement, you have to go back through the process for council.

[00:42:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So, my understanding is that the LinkedIn Gatekeeper is required to comply with the provisions of the precise plan. So my, if memory serves their, their housing component was the contribution to the housing trust tech fund, right? Does that sort of satisfy the housing requirement that they would need to comply with if they had proposed the project under the precise plan? Or is there some additional burden that falls to other development that would occur?

[00:43:07] City Staff: So, LinkedIn did not end up complying exactly with the precise plan, as it is written today. I mean, it wasn't written at the point at that point. The number of units that they ended up facilitating, 1st off, they weren't in East Wisman. So that's a, that's inconsistent with the precise plan. But the number of units that they ended up facilitating were less than the current requirement, but they were 100% affordable units. So we haven't done the math to see where it lines up with the precise plan requirement, but it would have been less.

[00:43:47] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I appreciate that. Thank you. And then I'm curious to there wasn't an economic analysis of the impact of this local school strategy included among any of the attachments from what I recall. But in the answers to the written questions, you indicate that the analysis reveals that residential development is only marginally feasible. Can you provide some more detail on that?

[00:44:18] City Staff: Well, I can. Our analysis is still in the draft form, and we can provide more explicit data at a future date. Suffice to say that construction costs, land costs, city fees do compound to lower the developer return below the point that we target for what we would consider a feasible project.

[00:44:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. I think that's all I've got for now. Thank you.

[00:44:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister, are you there?

[00:44:59] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'm here.

[00:45:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Did you have any questions?

[00:45:02] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes, I have a few. Thank you. As we go through this precise plan, I hear a lot about third party concerns. And are we, and our job is to do what's right for the city. So are we still keeping the general plan goals? in part of our focus. Because it, and trying to keep the high density, do all these very other items that we're trying to accomplish. Or are we getting diverted a little bit by, 3rd party, not able to accomplish their goals without us changing some of ours.

[00:45:55] City Staff: So the general plan amendments are really limited to those that are necessary to adopt the precise plan, the general plan, goals, and policies are still very much intact, and we continue to review, uh, everything we do, both with respect to the precise plan and development projects relative to those general plan goals and policies. I'm not sure if I answered your question. Did that cover what you were asking?

[00:46:29] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Uh, Yeah, well, maybe it would go a little bit. Okay, but another question. There's been quite a bit of talk about the school's strategy. And at earlier meeting, council said, well, it's not up to the developer's residential commercial to bear the full cost of a project. When you sit and are developing this strategy, citywide strategy with the school district, is the premise that the school district has the ability to raise funds through bonds to help purchase land and develop buildings? Is that part of the discussion?

[00:47:11] City Staff: Uh, that will be part of our analysis that we hope to bring forward to council in the fall. Um, Big picture, we're not going to get into the details of how the school district might finance their side of the costs for additional school construction. What we have heard from council is that it is a shared responsibility between developers in the school districts. And so there may be opportunities that the school districts can leverage. But the focus of our analysis will be on kind of providing more certainty on the developer side.

[00:48:01] Councilmember John McAlister: Is that certainty, okay, so if a developer comes in and proposes a project just based on the basic bar, they do not need to contribute any dollars to school. Correct?

[00:48:15] City Staff: That's correct.

[00:48:18] Councilmember John McAlister: So only when they start going for the bonus, the kick in amount. And, and it was that you're saying, you haven't determined that amount, or that will be determined in the future.

[00:48:34] City Staff: So we have not determined that amount, and it's, the, the output of what we are working on now, it may not necessarily result in a discrete value. The intent to the project is to provide more predictability, to the process, but the result may not end up in a discrete value.

[00:49:00] City Staff: Just to add to that. Remember, both the North Bay Shore precise plan and the current wording of East Westman talk about a school strategy. So it's not necessarily a hard number. It could be land, there could be other components to it. But we are looking at coming up with a methodology and a strategy for citywide implementation.

[00:49:20] Councilmember John McAlister: Would the one last question on school strategy, would, are there more than, in some, uh, items you can have a different bonus FAR, do we only have base and then one other tier, or there are more tiers?

[00:49:35] City Staff: This precise plan only has one tier for each development type.

[00:49:41] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Uh, another question. I noticed that we had, uh, various groups like the leadership group in Silicon Valley at home. Have they participated in discussions or have we reached to them in discussions to have their members be part of the solution by building, mixed use, office and housing in one building?

[00:50:12] City Staff: Uh, so I'm, um, there are certainly quite a few development applicants out there that may be interested in that kind of uh, development type. It's certainly allowed by the precise plan. Um, there are, um, you know, there may be future developments that are coming in that are more kind of physically mixed use within a single building, uh, although there may be complications to programming and constructing that. And it may be easier to build side by side buildings, for example. Either way, the precise plan allows either one and we are open to reviewing, you know, the, it would be approvable under the precise plan, either vertical mixed use or horizontal.

[00:51:02] Councilmember John McAlister: Have we heard from any, if a company wanted to do that mixed use? Have they approached the developer to do that yet or are we doing any kind of outreach to get companies to do that?

[00:51:19] City Staff: We're not doing any outreach to get companies to do that specifically. The policy goal of the precise plan is a mixed use neighborhood, not necessarily vertical mixed use, although, like I said, that would be allowed. If it is a policy goal of the council, We can add that language. And then we would probably start to see more applicants coming in with it.

[00:51:46] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Going to small business. I noticed that we have a community benefit for small business retention. Why is it a community benefit versus required?

[00:52:03] City Staff: Uh... So the... Hold on one second. I don't believe we've done required small business tenant relocation for development before. It's something that we can look into if it's something that city council wants us to study.

[00:52:53] Councilmember John McAlister: Speaking of public park. Do we have, uh, is that part of a public, uh, community benefit or required either a freestanding or could go through design of outdoor furniture, proceeding, or murals, or so forth like that?

[00:53:20] City Staff: The precise plan doesn't have any specific language about public art, but if that's something that the city council will wants to add for, absolutely we could, uh, we could include that in the final draft. Yeah, but currently there's no specific language regarding public art.

[00:53:39] Councilmember John McAlister: And Um... There's also concern about, when I wrote, I asked the question about character, that, and I don't, I think it related to maybe the setback, but, are we were asking for this particular area, asking for bigger sidewalk and setback, versus, let's say, North Bay Shore. Because there was some comment about smaller streets that we're going to have some small setback. So, where were you thinking of reducing the setback, compared to making them a little wider?

[00:54:21] City Staff: So the, the, precise plan sets uh setbacks both for external streets, you know, public streets, uh, as well as internal streets. So if you have any kind of vehicle, roadway, or public, publicly accessible, Paseo, Greenway, multi-path, multi-use path, it does set those internal setbacks in order to provide that character for the internal circulation and from the publicly facing building. The building setbacks to the street are similar to that, those for North Bay Shore. The internal setbacks are more explicit than the North Bay Shore precise plan provides. So there may not be maybe a direct comparison there. But the, um, the, the staff used similar projects in the, in the city, like the Merlon Guyer Phase 2 project, and the Park Place project next to downtown, uh, as kind of a model for um, the way these internal Paseos and streets might be designed and the sidewalk widths and character.

[00:55:38] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. And my lap question refers to light rail being the center of the development, um, why based on VTA owned number that ridership is going down, uh, it's not well used. How is that affecting your numbers or development, for allowing far or exceptions?

[00:56:12] City Staff: So the, um, the light rail is an infrastructure asset, whether it's being used to its fullest extent today or not, it is still an asset to the community, um, providing non-automobile, you know, an additional non-automobile transportation mode to other destinations in the region. Um. So given that it is a transportation asset to the community, it makes sense to orient higher intensities there. That's also, it's also centrally located in the precise plan, and that allows for lower intensities closer to adjacent neighborhoods with North Wisman Road and the golf course. But the, you know, throughout all of the outreach and council input and policy direction on this, the kind of focusing higher intensity development towards that middle field light rail station has been a priority for the community and for the council.

[00:57:24] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Thank you.

[00:57:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor of Abe Koga?

[00:57:30] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, um, I thought of a few more questions while I was listening to the others. Um, I was hoping you could, um, explain, again, the, the reserve in regards to the residential reserve. So when, if a residential developer demolishes commercial square footage, they are, are they allowed to hold on to that for a certain time and trying to sell it off? Um, and then is there a time limit before it comes to back to the city?

[00:58:11] City Staff: Yes, exactly. So they, the process would be that a residential developer would propose a project, and they would identify whether they want to take part in this floor area transfer program.

[00:58:27] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay.

[00:58:28] City Staff: And then, if the city approves the project, they would have until occupancy of 50% of their units.

[00:58:36] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, got it.

[00:58:37] City Staff: to find a partnered office development and sell their floor area to that partnered office development. The intent of that time limit is first off procedural, because it would be a challenge to track ongoing ownership of floor area, and when does it expire, and does it go back into the development reserve, and if it goes back into the development reserve, who get, you know, does the city have an opportunity to award it to another project? And so that kind of ongoing tracking is very difficult. It's much, much easier to do when you have an active project going on. The other purpose behind it is to really make clear the connection between the purpose of the program, which is to support feasibility. And once a project is more than 50% occupied, it's harder to make the argument that they need those funds for feasibility. So, um, if they build the project, and then going on into the future, they still have this asset, then it, you know, it doesn't look as much like it was the purpose of completing the project and making the project feasible.

[00:59:53] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. Regarding the school strategy, when we're talking now about citywide, so does that include the entire city? Are we just looking at the precise plan areas?

[01:00:08] City Staff: So the school strategy itself is in North Bay Shore in East Wisman, that's just the requirement that developers create an agreement with the school districts before they get their bonus FAR. Now, our goal with the framework that we're developing for these school strategies is that it could be applied to gatekeepers elsewhere or other precise new precise plans or other actions that the city or ideally make it flexible enough that it could be applied in a number of other locations. The other part of the goal is, um, as I think one of the public commenters said is, you know, what are the, what are the land opportunities out there and really trying to figure out some of those options and strategies. to support that. And so I think there's a kind of a citywide approach that we can take to that in addition to just what's happening with the development.

[01:01:05] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, yes. I was curious because, for instance, in Terabella, we identified a potential site. So perhaps looking citywide would be beneficial. Um, and I get my other question to that was, um, I guess specifically for East Wisman, um, if land were to be needed for acquisition for a site, um, could we look at our park fees? And, and I know we have open space plan, but, um, he's like, how much have we just talked with the school districts about what they need, and the joint use part is what I'm, you know, mostly interested in, and seeing if there's a way of combining the school's needs with some of our park needs, if we were to look at, like, you know, one site, um, and that might help us in terms of, like, you know, the developer's concerns about feasibility. So, um, perhaps we would need to revisit our open space plan if we included the school strategy in that.

[01:02:24] City Staff: Certainly, we could cross reference it with other documents that we have, the open space plan, and other documents. It's certainly on the table to continue to coordinate with the school districts, on park fees, and using that to get shared use facilities.

[01:02:41] Unknown Speaker: Okay, great.

[01:02:42] City Staff: Yeah, just to add to that. I mean, we've always talked with all the school districts about the opportunity and the willingness of the city to contribute park fees for publicly accessible open space, similar to what we did with LASD, where we paid 50% of the cost, because we would have access to it 50% of the time. And that could even be expanded to other joint uses, whether it's a community room or a library or things like that. So those are the kinds of things we'll be looking at in the strategy.

[01:03:11] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I guess specifically, you know, we have certain parks or green dots on the map, and I, you know, my question, or it's probably more of a comment now, is, um, or have we thought about maybe those green dots might have to be moved or combined to help create a school that would then be used, you know, as a joint facility. So, yeah, have we looked at that possibility yet? And if not, can we?

[01:03:42] City Staff: Yeah, so the precise plan does call those dots conceptual.

[01:03:45] Unknown Speaker: Okay.

[01:03:46] City Staff: And so there certainly is the opportunity in the precise plan to to move those around and apply the parkland obligations that would come from any residential development and apply those in a way that facilitates a school.

[01:04:07] Unknown Speaker: Okay, great. Great. And then, um, I wanted to just touch on La Saltas school district. Um, I, one of my questions was whether there was a time limit and I, the answer, it says 2021. Um, What happens if these, um, TDR projects start moving and, and I mean, I guess I can ask the school district where they are in terms of the actual purchase of the land, but if that were to, the agreement were to no longer be or no longer be there, um, what happens to these projects? Or have we thought that through yet? If the purchase were to not.

[01:04:57] City Staff: I believe there was a council question related to that in the city attorney will probably give a better legal answer than I will, but I'll fake it. Do you wanna go ahead and try?

[01:05:07] City Attorney: So, we've created in the memorandum of understanding a process, and in reality, for the transfer development rights to actually occur, the school district would actually have to own the land so that they would record with each project that is coming forward for entitlement, that they would be required to record against their land, a restriction for the equal amount of develop rights that they're transferring.

[01:05:39] Unknown Speaker: So my question is, if they were to no longer purchase the land, then what happens? And some of these, so these projects, are they not allowed to move forward until the purchase actually is executed? Is that the timing? Is that how it works?

[01:05:59] City Attorney: The original intent and the hope was that the projects would move forward at the same time, um, that they were acquiring the project, they're acquiring the land, they would acquire the land 1st so that they would receive the money from the transfer development rights at the time of entitlement and be able to pay to purchase the land. I still think that that's feasible, and planning might have a better sense of how the existing TDR gatekeepers are proceeding through the process, and we're hoping that there's going to be an update about the actual acquisition of the land in the next 3 or 4 months. So I think the timings on track. But the school district would have to actually have title to the land to be able to restrict the land. So, in reality, the project can't move forward if they can't restrict it.

[01:06:50] Unknown Speaker: Right. Okay, great. Thank you.

[01:06:54] Unknown Speaker: I have a couple questions. Following on the LASD, TDRs. Do you know what sort of expectations or how the TDRs were positioned with buyers of TDRs? Did they? They potentially had the expectation that they could have a lot of exceptions or variances. Do you have any idea how they were kind of positioned?

[01:07:23] Eric: We've been clear with all of the East Wisman TDR applicants that they would be subject to the precise plan as written with the addition of the TDR floor area. Any gatekeeper that goes concurrently with a planning process like this is told multiple times through the process that, you know, you're going to have to comply with the plan as written.

[01:07:49] Unknown Speaker: So they came and ask questions of city staff before purchasing, most of them, the TDRs, would you say?

[01:07:57] City Staff: I wasn't part of that conversation, but Oh. Oh. I'm sure, like any other development, if they had interest in a property, they would have checked with staff or checked in on what the development standards were, and, as Eric said, the expectation for, as to precise them move forward.

[01:08:13] Unknown Speaker: Okay. And would a purchaser of LASD, TDRs, also be able to purchase TDRs from a residential developers selling office space that they're going to demolish?

[01:08:31] City Staff: So similar to other questions, can you stack TDRs? So the floor area transfer program, we were reluctant to call it TDR, because it's not actually giving you any additional FAR. It's not giving you more than you would otherwise be allowed under the precise plan. It's just a way to divert the tracking of the development reserve. So instead of this floor area going back into the city's pot, you can hold onto it for a while and take the and sell it to an office developer. So, yes, you could stack it, but it would be, it would still be within the maximum FAR of the precise plan. So any floor area transferred from a residential developer to an office developer would still need to be within the maximum FAR of the precise plan.

[01:09:29] Unknown Speaker: Of the precise plan, but it could exceed the FAR of an individual project as defined in the precise plan, because you would have the LASD, TDRs that would increase the FAR, and then you would have potentially more FAR if you got some more from a residential developer.

[01:09:54] City Staff: So I think, I think the way to think about it is the, there's the base FAR, right, which is up to 0.4 for office. And so let's take, you know, you've got one of these hypothetical, or one of these TDR office TDR projects that's proposed. They have a bonus FAR increment that they need to show jobs housing linkage for. A portion of that bonus FAR increment could be transferred floor area from a residential project that's demolishing that floor area. Then on top of that bonus FAR, they would be applying the TDR square footage. So the maximum in the precise plan would be the base plus the bonus, and then the LASD TDR square footage would be on top of that.

[01:10:48] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um, let's see. Yeah, on page 31 of the draft precise plan, um, where you've got the employment area north and the employment area south. And in there, it's got targets for office space. And I was curious why... If the employment area north says a mix of moderate and higher intensity office uses, and employment area south is low to moderate intensity, but the target is more office space in the south than in the north. Is that because the North is already more intense? And so what you're adding still makes it more intense than the South?

[01:11:52] City Staff: It has to do with two things. First off, it includes the LinkedIn project, which was a known case at the time. And then the 2nd is that it's a larger area overall. So there would be, even at a lower density, there could be more overall square footage.

[01:12:07] Unknown Speaker: Okay.

[01:12:14] City Staff: It also, um, it also incorporates the .75 FAR alternative that the council authorized, as opposed to the .5 FAR and the south employment area, which was the alternative that, um, is gonna be the option studied in June.

[01:12:33] Unknown Speaker: Okay. So if council ends up adopting the .5, the lower alternative for the South employment area, that number would go down.

[01:12:39] City Staff: We'll go down.

[01:12:40] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um, when it comes to, um, traffic and trip cap. I have few questions there. So what is the purpose of the trip target gateways?

[01:12:59] City Staff: The purpose of the trip target gateways is our analysis of the nearby intersections that are most likely to be congestion impacted in the near future. So those are the intersections that are actively setting the trip caps for office uses. The other gateways, the monitoring gateways, are what we're just going to be monitoring over time. We don't expect them to have congestion impacts, but we will continue to monitor them over time for things like diverted trips and other concerns that could eventually cause a concern. And in that case, those could become trip cap gateways for the purpose of reviewing specific development projects.

[01:13:56] Unknown Speaker: So it's the traffic at those trip cap gateways that drives the .7.

[01:14:06] City Staff: That's right trips.

[01:14:07] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Let's see. Um, I had questions about the, um, wagon whale property that was brought up. So it's my understanding that you can do a residential only development there. Yes. And I think we talked about that last time at a study session. And I recall us asking that question, but I don't recall us saying, uh, or directing staff to specifically add that wording in the precise plan. Did we do that?

[01:14:45] City Staff: I don't think it was directed as such. Certainly, counsel asked that 100% residential be allowed at that site, unlike other sites in the village center. But no, it wasn't directed that that language that the city shall allow 100% residential, that would be pretty unorthodox.

[01:15:09] Unknown Speaker: Okay. And then if the development is above the base FAR on that parcel, if it goes above, is it 0.4?

[01:15:20] City Staff: It was .9 on that one.

[01:15:22] Unknown Speaker: 0.9 for residential. Um, that's the...

[01:15:26] City Staff: That's right. .9 and then one.35.

[01:15:29] Unknown Speaker: right. Okay. If it went between 0.9 to one.35, is it the same process other than asking for bonus FAR or the tier one FAR? Is it a different type of permit or anything?

[01:15:45] City Staff: It is a, um, so if they subdivide, it would go through a very similar process. It would go to city council. If they don't subdivide, then it could be reviewed below .9, it could be reviewed at the zoning administrator level, above .9, it would have to be reviewed by city council. The approval is a little bit different for the bonus FAR. The findings of what constitutes a community benefit are a little bit more within the council's discretion in that bonus FAR realm. But the process would be largely the same.

[01:16:28] Unknown Speaker: Okay.

[01:16:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, Council member Kame.

[01:16:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Great, thanks. Um... So, I have a question about the LASD TDRs. So, um, on page 8 of the staff report, it references that 4 of the projects have been kind of expected to comply with the precise plan, which leads me to believe that the other 2 um, might not be. And is the idea that by choosing either option one, 2, or 3, we can help kind of mitigate and help set everyone's expectations to the same level.

[01:17:15] City Staff: So let me, uh, if you're looking at this sentence, though the 4 office projects would have expected to comply with the precise plan. That refers to kind of putting ourselves in their shoes in terms of when they applied. They didn't know about the Jaw's housing linkage requirement. So technically, if counsel chooses option one, where they all have to comply with the job's housing linkage requirement individually, then as it stands, they don't comply with the precise plan because they're requesting bonus FAR, and they haven't identified residential partners or residential projects that they're facilitating. So that's not a tally of who's complying with the precise plan or not. It's just saying that these 4 office projects may have one perspective or another based on the job housing linkage.

[01:18:07] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Got it. Thank you. For the neighborhood commercial. So it sounds like from the EPC feedback, they were interested in increasing the neighborhood commercial uses, but one of the things I'm sensitive to is the term critical mass. So we're talking about critical mass. Is there a range or is there a number that kind of triggers that? Um, because they... I'm sorry, I didn't send this question in.

[01:18:38] City Staff: No, no, that's okay. That's all right. We do have our economic consultant who may be able to answer. Let me 1st start off that I don't think that there's a hard science to that. A lot of it could be very contextual. Right? But certainly part of it, too, is what's already there, right? So we already have a kind of a critical mass at the village center. We don't really have one anywhere else, and we'd be trying to build that from scratch in other low cases, in other locations, in the plan area. But let me see if she has any thoughts.

[01:19:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. And I guess to give context, you know, my question about that is thinking about the grocery store and just knowing how difficult it is to get any type of grocery store to area kind of period. And then the idea that construction may take time and so how do we have that critical mass so that, you know, there's an entry for the grocery to be successful?

[01:20:00] Economic Consultant: Good evening. So, on the grocery store question specifically, for a grocery store to be really successful, some of the criteria would be high visibility and being located at an intersection. So it's, um, we really think that the village center is a more appropriate location for something that is at that scale. on the kind of trying to think about the other nodes. We think that's more likely to be more daily kinds of convenience types of retail, small restaurants and cafes and maybe some service retail as well, which is why, you know, the requirement is relatively low so that you're not overburdening projects to try to create more retail than can be sustained.

[01:20:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: As we go forward with the East Asman precise plan, would we be able to kind of do some analysis on kind of a range or a number in terms of what the critical mass would be, um, for success in both the nodes and the village center? So kind of a minimum, uh, floor area that's bigger than the 1,500 square feet, but that the purpose is to try to create that that kind of focus, that that attracts more retail and more activity, right? So, for example, when we were looking at the North Bay Shore precise plan, one of the numbers that I remember hearing is that we needed at least 5000 residents in the North Bay Shore to have successful grocery store. So the East was in precise plan is talking about allowing up to 5000 new residential units. And so I'm just trying to take into account the existing residential there. Um, but also we're talking about creating more. So I'm I'm just wondering if we're going to be talking about a number that triggers the way we did in the North Bay Shore area. And that is my thought process behind the line of questioning.

[01:22:10] City Staff: So I think we can definitely look at

[01:22:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you.

[01:22:13] City Staff: It kind of sounds to me like you're also asking kind of a phasing question, like how many units should we have when we really start to push for a grocery store or when we really think a grocery store might be viable? I mean, I think you could probably do that.

[01:22:28] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I just, I ask, because I think one of the things that came up both in public comment and some reflections in the staff report are talking about kind of flexibility, and how do we kind of set it up, set up the precise pain area for success. So I was just thinking about that. And so one of the things that I noticed. is the improvements the cities trying to make in terms of infrastructure in East Wisman. So I saw the TOD improvements that's on the consent. Do we expect other TOD improvements in the East Wisman area as were preparing for or setting the stage for any changes that come with the precise plan?

[01:23:13] City Staff: So the chapter, the last chapter, the precise plan, includes a long list of improvements that are both mobility, related and open space related and otherwise. There are also a number of projects that are actually kind of more in the pipeline that don't need to be actually the precise plan to actually implement. And so, yeah, there are a range of transportation and mobility improvements that are planned for the area.

[01:23:41] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. So for the ones that are already in the pipeline and not included, um, in the precise plan, would it be possible to kind of share some of that with us?

[01:23:54] City Staff: Sure at a later time. Sure. I mean, the big ones that I'm thinking of right now are bike lanes under the LS 101 overpass. We're working with Sunnyvale on the underpass under Bernardo. And there are probably a few others, but those are the big ones I'm thinking of.

[01:24:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you.

[01:24:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Any other questions? Okay, so, um, in the five minutes before we're supposed to start the next meeting, um, let's go if we can fairly quickly through questions one and two, uh, for now. So um, Question one, which options do we prefer for how the jobs housing linkage strategy should be applied to the LASD, LASD, TDRs? And this is a study session, so we're not taking a formal vote here. We're just providing direction. Council member Clark, would you like to start us off?

[01:25:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I can try. I think, I think for question one. I think, uh, I'm, I'm leaning toward, um, agreeing with the EPC and, um, saying that option 2 makes the most sense, um, just because it allows us to, it'll allow us to review those on a, on a case by case basis, and, and I don't think a, a blanket exception is necessarily appropriate, especially given the, the amount of office that, especially those latter projects, um, would, would create in the, in the, The housing deficit that they might create. So, um, I I don't think, um, I'm not sure applying, um, uh, you know, applying the linkage to everything across the board at this stage makes sense, but, um, it might make sense. Um, uh, after the plan is a little bit more, more developed, but I, I think for now I'm, I'm leaning toward what the EPC said with option 2 and and reviewing them. Um, re- uh, reviewing them as a council.

[01:26:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Anyone else? Vice mayor, Abi Koga?

[01:26:18] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, I also support APC an option to, um, I think, you know, I think, I guess more and more, um, and I really appreciate staffs, um, hard work on this plan. The jobs linkage. concept. To be honest, I was skeptical at first, but the more and more I read this, how it works. And also in light of what's going on, statewide with state legislation and just the demands that we may be getting more of from the state and doing, you know, housing. And I think it's important to have that linkage. And so, you know, I understand that the TDRs were sold before we came up with this, but I think, you know, when, if I recall the discussions we were having with the TDRs, you know, we, there was already at that time explicit interest from the council that the TDRs go more to residential projects, we had about more office development and so forth. And so, um, knowing that and I think that was clearly, um, addressed and relayed to the school district, um, when they were going out to sell the TDRs. So in light of that, I feel very, I feel comfortable with us clustering the group. And, I mean, the ratio, whether it was happenstance or not, it actually works pretty well. I don't know what we're gonna do with that last project, but, you know, relatively, I think it works close to the ratio. So, um, it makes sense to me to move them forward as a cluster, um, with the linkage intact. Thanks.

[01:28:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Um... Can't remember Ramirez?

[01:28:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: One, two. Yeah. Oh, okay. So for question one, I agree with the planning commission. I think option 2 is a reasonable compromise for addressing that challenge. And then for question to... Sorry, I didn't realize you were asking. I thought you said one or two.

[01:28:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: We're just doing question one at the whole.

[01:28:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, just one. Oh, okay.

[01:28:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: There you go. Just question one. Thank you. Can some member come in?

[01:28:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Um, so I think, um, right now, option 2 is what, um, you know, I think the difficulty with, I guess I'll say, option 2, because the difficulty with option 3 is that the office growth would likely increase. And I think something that we as a council have talked about prioritizing is creating more opportunities for housing. So kind of as the vice mayor was mentioning, I think linking them is an important step towards bringing more housing on board in the city.

[01:29:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister.

[01:29:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Question for staff. One, these TDRs, these projects, one out. Were they, the developers, uh, reminded that everything could change as the precise came forward, and that nothing was guaranteed?

[01:29:49] City Staff: Yeah, we we've been communicating that to them throughout the process.

[01:29:55] Councilmember John McAlister: Were these, okay, so under, they, These were all gatekeeper projects. Or was there... Were they all gatekeeper projects?

[01:30:04] City Staff: Yeah, they they were given gatekeeper authorization through the through the TDR authorization process.

[01:30:12] Councilmember John McAlister: Am I? Okay, so since I've been on the council, the gatekeeper was moved forward, but buyer, beware that things could change. So with that said, um, We've been looking at this job housing imbalance for a long time, and even prior council was, well, let's let how, uh, offices go through and, and, you know, I'm saying, guys, if you want, your goal is to increase the housing stock, you got to be firm on where you stand, so. As I look at number one. I'm concerned about the limitations for option number 2 to move forward collectively. So, I would be curious to look at the limitations but, um, I'm sort of lean in. In between. So if I was to say 64 I'd say 6040 with option one and 40% option two. I wanna make sure that we get the housing, and that's where I stand on number one.

[01:31:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Well, actually, I'm not sure he does. So, for all of this, I'm definitely looking at all of these questions from what's in the best interest of Mountain View. And, you know, we do want to have housing in this area and have neighborhoods, and if we need to do something to incentivize, drive that housing, I think that's the way we need to go. So I also am leaning toward option two. So that means there's at least the majority of the council leading toward option two. Okay, on to question two, which is around neighborhood commercial, and should additional neighborhood commercial locations be added, and should we increase the minimum at the different locations? Anyone want to start us off? Vice mayor, Abbe Koga.

[01:32:41] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I'll start off with the question. Is it an either, or could it be both?

[01:32:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Oh, can be both.

[01:32:49] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I guess I'm looking at both, and but trying to allow as much flexibility as possible. So I appreciate the APC's comments, I do agree. I think clustering, critical mass is important and helpful to make it a more walkable, bikable, you know, location area. Um, and so, um, I wouldn't want to increase more locations of they're spread out. Um, I would like them more centralized or clustered, um, to be able to create, you know, like a retail zone or uh, center or whatnot. So, um, But I don't know, I guess I would ask you, does that decrease the feasibility or not of?

[01:33:43] City Staff: It's hard to predict, given the size of projects and their programming. Um, I will note that uh, Google's letter did propose increasing the amount of neighborhood commercial near the light rail station. And so, um, that may be an they may see that as an opportunity for them. that helps support their programming.

[01:34:12] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I think there is that, if you cluster them, there could be some synergy. And so that maybe that would help. Like, I notice, you know, the city sport and the Grant Road shopping center, and because of that, I see more activity, there can, you know, folks go work out and then they go get their assybol or whatever. So, um, yeah, maybe just being able to cluster them, I think is, to me, more important. But that may also mean we have to increase the number of parcels or square footage to do that.

[01:34:49] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, can I?

[01:34:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Um, so kind of, um, one of the overall things that I've been thinking about when, uh, trying to, uh, assess the neighborhood commercial locations is how can we create, um, both viability and vibrancy? Um, while reducing vehicle mile, like, uh, travel trips? Um, and so, you know, I, one of the things that appealed to me, uh, was on page 14 of the staff report where I talked about, um, you know, for concerned about this feasibility, um, that staff might look at, um, ways to accommodate future commercial uses, that may allow tenants, those spaces with officer residential for a limited period of time. I think kind of like that would be something that I'm interested in. So I don't know if I'm saying yes to this question, but I am interested in exploring more than just what the base is that staff's recommended. So, for example, with the letter that we received from Google looking at the middlefield station. You know, I would be interested if we could look at the economic viability of, um, creating, um, more neighborhood residential there, um, or at the, uh, node over at, um, Ellis, and I think, what is that, Fairchild? Um, you know, those are places that have a lot of activity Monday through Friday, um, but not a lot on Saturday and Sunday. And so, how do we make sure that we maintain that? So, that's kind of my general feedback. I don't know if I would say, you know, we should add that requirement, but I'd be interested in exploring more, um, neighborhood commercial.

[01:36:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark, did you want to weigh in on this one?

[01:36:50] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I think my, um, my thoughts here are, I'm fine with adding the required neighborhood commercial, um, near the middle field station, I think, just sort of seeing, um, what plans may flow, uh, in the, uh, what, what plans may be proposed and, and the, where the housing might be concentrated there. I think the, um, I think that could be, could be feasible and viable. So I don't have a problem adding um a neighborhood commercial component there. I'm a little more skeptical of increasing the, the required amount um, down LS near 101. I um, there is some there today. Um, and I think if we were going to increase it there, I think what we, I think, as come from ever to May said, I would be, um, I'd allow some flexibility in terms of how that's built out. So it's built out so that it can, it can support neighborhood commercial. It's so it's a market is there. But in the meantime, it could, um, it could serve as, uh either. You know, additional, uh, it could serve a residential, um, use to your common area where it could support many nonprofit office space or, or something like that. Um, but I, I think, I think it, I think, in my mind, it makes more sense, um, to, to have a, have a requirement at the middle field station versus increasing it down, down LS.

[01:38:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you Council member McAllister, did you want to weigh in on this one now?

[01:38:26] Councilmember John McAlister: Yep. Um, yes, it's a good idea to look at commercial space, and as everybody mentioned before, the idea of critical maps is important. Uh, I know that Lincoln was posing, putting in some kind of retail over at their site. And I was wondering if that might be another area to concentrated versus along the TOD, along the light rail, but uh, as I mentioned earlier, small business retention is important to me. And if we can increase the opportunities for small business. Um, all for it, so, yes, as long as it's clustered. I hate to see individual spots allowed. I just think that would be a, a formula to tell you.

[01:39:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you, council member Ramirez.

[01:39:20] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. So I, I agree with, I think we're, most of the, the council is on this. So, uh, I agree with council member, Kamee. I'm comfortable with increasing the required minimum if we could allow for flexibility, at least in the interim. So maybe as the number of units increases, then we put in harder requirements for neighborhood serving commercial as opposed to office use or nonprofit space. Just, you know, so we don't have vacant storefronts in the area. And then, you know, I, this may already be a component of the, a component of the precise plan, but maybe, um, greater comfort with increasing the required minimum, uh, proportionately with the magnitude of a given development proposal. So if it's, you know, a smaller office complex, 1500 square feet, you know, maybe appropriate, but if it's a much larger proposal, then I would feel comfortable having a higher requirement. And I don't have a sense of what that scale should be, but, um, you know, with greater density, I think you increase the viability of the commercial. So that it felt like a reasonable way of ensuring or maintaining viability, but also getting more commercial opportunities.

[01:40:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I'm interested in increasing the amount at the corner of Middlefield and Ellis, because it is in the residential area. I think would be hard to increase the amount at Fairchild and Ellis, because that is primarily an office area, and while the current retail there does very well during the work week. There's not a whole lot of people around in that area on the weekend. Although obviously, there will be more here, but I'd rather have a critical mass at Middlefield and Ellis, then something further away. And I agree with the comments about flexibility, you know, it's always good to have flexibility, um, because we can't predict, really, how this is gonna evolve. So, I would say, um, the majority supports increasing the amount of, um, neighborhood commercial in the Ellis Middlefield area, and to have flexibility. And we want to make sure everything's clustered because, as we've heard many, many times, retail loves retail. So, um, I think that's it for number two, the question number two. So I would be sensitive to time here, and every time I think we can go through a question pretty quick. We don't. So, um, what I'm thinking of doing since council member McAllister has to leave us early. Um, maybe, John, if you could just share, but hang on a minute, um, your, uh, input on question number three, and then I'd like to continue this conversation to after the end of the regular meeting, and what, is that okay with everybody? Except for maybe staff. I kind of wanted to go home. Do you guys not have a lot?

[01:42:55] Unknown Speaker: We do it in good times, yet. We're never brief. I know.

[01:43:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Can we do this in 15 minutes? You guys go first, then. Okay, let's have council member and Callister go first.

[01:43:16] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, thank you mayor. My comments, I'll try to keep them brief, but that's never happened before. So, actually, I had sent out the email saying, what I'd like to do is, if we have things, we can quickly decide on if we all, you know, have a perspective on it. We could do that here, but then there might be a lot of things that we want to talk about that maybe we don't have enough information on or we want to think about. So I'd kind of like to get to the list at this point. And if there's anything we think we can quickly decide here. We'll just do that. But I'm guessing most of this will go to discussion at the June 25th, I think it is meeting when we talk about this precise plan again.

[01:43:58] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, sorry. Now, John.

[01:44:01] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, uh, the job linkage. I find it, I think that's important, but we need to talk about workforce housing, and that we seem to be, uh, concerned about people, uh, uh, penciling it out. If you look at El Camino. We have quite a few projects being developed along there, and so, I'm concerned about that we are very, uh, sure of how we're going to price these things out. The other thing I was talking about that.

[01:44:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So John, hang on a minute. You want to talk about the jobs linkage?

[01:44:38] Councilmember John McAlister: No, no, I just commenting that I don't want to talk about it. I just say that's the concern that talked about, but we haven't talked about workforce housing.

[01:44:44] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay.

[01:44:45] Councilmember John McAlister: Um, and I'd like to use the term workforce housing versus regular housing and bring corporate America into the discussion. Versus developers. Um, and then I would also like to talk about art, that, uh, we say public art, or private art, that should be part of a requirement of development. That should go on there. The. Um. Of Yeah, that's about, and, you know, school we already talked about. So I already mentioned some of my concerns, school strategy, make sure we have all the components in there. So my list is somewhat short. I'll let it, you know, again, we need to do what's best for the city of Mountain View. I'm going along with what the mayor said, and we don't need to, and another concern to me is, we want to build good projects, and I'm not concerned about numbers. Somebody, you know, we've seen many projects come in and they said, you gotta maximize it. Yet the developer will come in and say, no, I can make you a better project that will stand the test of time, but we do it with different numbers. So that's the component of uh that I'm really looking forward to. What's best for the city? Bringing in great projects and not necessarily worrying about maximums or certain goals. So those are my concerns. Thank you.

[01:46:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Council member Clark?

[01:46:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: Oh, do you want me to, do you want me to address question 3 now, or do you want me to wait till the end of the meeting?

[01:46:27] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Sorry, if you could just, um, provide the list of topics you would like to discuss next time.

[01:46:33] Councilmember Chris Clark: Oh, that would be great.

[01:46:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That's kind of question three, but we're not going to go in detail on them today unless they're cool.

[01:46:40] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Yeah, so I think, I think... Okay, so I think the biggest topics for me will be, it sounds like staff is on the, the, the, the citywide school strategy, but uh, um, so I won't, um, hammer away at that. It sounds like we're, we're, we're moving in the direction of having specificity and something to be wide there. So I think I'll cross that off my list for now. Um, I would be, uh, I think the 2 things that I would definitely want to address in June would be, um, I think the, the, the base level residential FAR, um, I, I would just want to confirm that, um, You know, John had mentioned El Camino, and and I, I think what I want to, where I would like to land is that the, there's a base level FAR that allows the development of the unit type, that makes the most sense for that area. So, um, you know, I wouldn't want a base level FAR that would only allow, for example, 2 or 3 story townhomes, um, because I think the, the product that we're going to look at there are, you know, um, or, or, or apartments that are, you know, probably 4 plus, um, 4 plus stories, maybe not, um, some mates, which steel construction, some may not, but I think one of the things that's been successful on El Camino is that we've had. Um, there's a base level FAR that's allowed that allows, you know, the product type that we originally wanted without them having to, you know, come to council every single time. And so I, I just think, um, I wouldn't want to set a base level FAR that is such that basically everyone ends up having to come to council. And so maybe, and and maybe, maybe the one. is the right thing, I understand staff. Um, staff thinking behind that. I'm just not convinced that that's the right, the right base level, um but I, I could be convinced. Uh, and then the, the other thing that, um, I think we, um, we need to address is, is the mechanics of the, the, the jobs having linkage, and I think, um, now that we're starting to have a sense for some of the gatekeeper applications or other, um, residential projects that may come forward and who might be teaming up with whom in terms of property owners. I think it would be helpful to sort of get their, get their perspectives and, and listen to their concerns about the mechanics of it and maybe change some of the, some of the timing around that, um, to ensure that, um, you know, we, we're meeting our needs. Um, we're not just totally, um, giving in to to what they're asking us to do, but then we also make it, um, something that's feasible to, to implement over, over a long period of time. So, um, I think those are the, those are the 3 things for me, um, that I'd like to talk about in June if we, if we get a chance.

[01:49:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Uh, anyone else? I don't see anybody in the queue. Council member Ramirez?

[01:49:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, I'll try and be quick. Um, so, uh, I'm interested in looking at, um, potentially uh, lowering the jobs housing linkage ratio, uh, to encourage, um, uh, commercial developers to have an affordable housing component. So analogous to what LinkedIn did, you know, maybe a different mechanism, but, you know, I think, you know, it makes sense as a way to maybe get a little more affordable in the area. I'm willing to explore some flexibility for heightened development standards for the TDR projects, and maybe one way to think of it would be, you know, if you can demonstrate that additional height or some relaxed standards are necessary to make the project feasible, that may be one way of looking at it. You know, I wasn't expecting a TDR project to have a whole slew of different exemptions and waivers to make it work. But sort of a narrowly scoped discussion of, you know, what kinds of flexibility makes sense. Um, in the community benefits, I'd really like to call out support for a community center or a library branch, where we're adding so many, you know, new residents in the area. And, um, we, you know, we're, I think, we've been quite strong on park space, but I would like more community facilities. You have to go a pretty long way to get to the nearest community center. So if there's a way we could encourage those kinds of public facilities. I'd be interested in that. And then it wasn't, it wasn't clear to me if these were already addressed, but Vice Mayor Abiko had said a couple of things that I was interested in. So, um, having maybe a lower office cap and then including the TDR development capacity within within the studied scope, so we don't have to do additional environmental review that may be already part of this. I wasn't quite sure, but I agree, I think it's a good idea. And then, you know, again, my apologies if I misunderstood, but if the LESD land purchase does not occur, you know, I wouldn't be opposed to the TDR projects moving forward, if there were a condition of approval that said that you have to, because this was ostensibly the community benefit to get a new school, you could have some other kind of community benefit to continue the project, and maybe what kinds of benefits would make sense. But that way the projects don't just die in the event. The, the, the new school doesn't proceed, but there's some other expectation in place that's, that makes sense. So those were the things I was interested in. Thank you.

[01:52:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Kumay.

[01:52:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So I'm gonna change my screen so I can see things that are on here. So I think I'm just gonna bullet them out. The residential base FAR. The school strategy, obviously, that's in yellow. Um, the character area. And I think what council member Ramirez is getting at is kind of city services, which I take that as what you're trying to say. I'm interested in that as well. Um, and whether that be kind of a sharing of facility, um, to include that or potential, when we were talking about the neighborhood commercial uses, if maybe it can be a convertible space, if we start out with something that's neighborhood retail, and if that doesn't work, we could convert it to city service. I think that would be interesting. Um, and then I'm not sure how to capture this, but I would I feel like there are quite a few gatekeepers. Um, that are in the East Wizman precise plant area, you know, whether that be the TDRs that are being discussed or other folks. And I think that it would be I find it important to be able to have some sort of discussion on how we'd like to approach the gatekeepers in the, in the East Swissman precise plant area. So, thanks.

[01:53:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, I'll be coca.

[01:53:58] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, my list includes, um, actually, we didn't really talk about it, and I would like to, at the next meeting, maybe better understand, um, the issue of parking, not being included, or not being included in commercial versus residential developments. I didn't really quite understand that clearly. So, um, if we can.

[01:54:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah. next time is fine but we can talk more about that.

[01:54:28] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, I agree with, um, what was mentioned already, um, in terms, I'm open to discussing more the base level FAR on residential, um, in allowing maybe more flexibility. Perhaps it's based on the areas, but we could discuss that further. That'd be great. Also, I wanted to explore, um, I know we have the, you know, the character areas, but, um, I guess, uh, I don't, and there are targets, but how do we, I mean, do we need to add more language to be more flexible, for instance, if, you know, there's housing that could go into the employment areas in certain areas? Or more housing, um, like could we, you know, allow for some move moving around of, um, types in the different areas and not be so, um, restrictive, I guess. The other items. So a school strategy, yes, I think we just need to flesh that out further. My suggestion is if it hasn't been done already, that we and the school districts maybe work together, and maybe we convene with developers and, you know, off companies and just have a focus group come or discussion. I know that letter that came in from Summer Hill. I actually sent it to the school district members this afternoon when I got it, and they were not aware of that, you know, dollar amount that was being suggested, and that could be the start of a conversation. But I think there's this conversation that needs to happen and it doesn't sound like it's happening. So if we need to facilitate it, you know, I'm happy. I think we should, but we just need to have a conversation there. And I think we should look at citywide and see, you know, what are the opportunities citywide to satisfy the needs of the school district? As I mentioned earlier, I think we could include our, you know, park requirements. As council member Ramirez mentioned, yes, I think, you know, my hope is that with the Los Altos school district site in the San Antonio area that will offer new amenities. And I've seen, looking at the city, you know, citywide, the Wisman area is the next area that I think is in need of more facilities and amenities. So maybe it becomes a joint school with the community center, you know, joint use with the track and the gym and whatnot. I think, you know, there's some opportunity here, and we can be creative if we work together, and maybe that would also contain costs. So I hope that we can kind of expand our scope and our vision when we look at these issues with schools and parks and facilities. Um, And then finally, this guy. Oh, actually, 2 more things. Um, so there's been some conversation going on. My intention. When we did these precise plans, is that once they're adopted, we should not have gatekeepers after that. And I know there's some legal issues about us having to accept them, but the whole point of doing a precise plan when we did this was so that we would not have to have gatekeepers. So I'm already hearing about gatekeepers in this East Wisman area. And I just want to, like, maybe we have to have that conversation. But I personally don't see that we, that's not the point, the point of gatekeepers. It's not to, like, the next day after we, you know, pass the plan, start taking more gatekeepers in that area. So I would like to have that discussion and just, you know, put some kind of limit or hard line there. It's an issue of resources for me, and we've spent all these years on these precise plans, and to then hear that we've got gatekeepers coming, you know, just sort of makes me, you know, it just makes me question, why are we spending all this time if people want to come in with gatekeepers? And the final issue. Jobs linkage. Yeah, so I think I'd like to explore it more. How can we strengthen it? I think, including the TDR projects, will help in that. It looks like based on what we decide in terms of that, um, reserve, that might change the actual ratio, if I'm correct. So we probably have to have further discussion on that. And just commentary, I know we're running late, but, um, you know, I appreciate the concerns that we've received, especially from the development community, but I have to say that, um, you know, I've been doing a lot, going to a lot of meetings about the state, um, housing legislation that's been the hundreds of bills that are being introduced, and, um, it is very clear to me that we, um, you know, are really... feeling, we are getting expected to do more in housing, in housing, production. But I will say that what I, you know, what I've learned in this, some of these conversations that, you know, we can only permit and approve projects, and it's up to the developers to build. And there is a huge drop. There's been a huge drop in the actual production of units being built. And so if this linkage is what we need to do to get those units built, then I think we might, you know, we really have to stick to this and be as strong as we can on this. You know, I was at my last meeting. You know, I, when you're, we're with other counties, and when I have counties, like, or cities, like Livermore, telling us that it's all of our fault, Mountain View and Sunnyvale's fault, because we're the ones who could create the jobs. So we need to build the housing, and I tell them, yeah, we're building the housing, but, you know, if that continues to be there, then we do need to take the next step to make sure that those housing, because we're permitting a lot, right? And we're planning for a lot. But they're just not being built. And when I see 6,500 units in our pipeline, I question what's going on. So, if we need to do this to make that housing happen, then I, you know, support it 100%. So that's my commentary, thanks.

[02:01:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So on my list is, I would like you to have a discussion about community benefits, the decision making body for projects. Um, the active front inch setbacks, we've talked about that quite a bit in the North Bay Shore area, and I think I have the same comments about East Wisman. I also would like to talk about art. School strategy, the jobs housing language, and gatekeepers. So, if I had to summarize this list, it seems like there's a clear desire to talk about the school strategy and community benefits, and included in that, I would say, it would be things like city services and additional facilities might be part of that. And then also the job's housing linkage. Um, and then, let's see, if I wanted to do a, uh, show of hands or straw vote here. Do we have to do them all by roll call? Okay. Go ahead, Jenny.

[02:02:24] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: It's the only way that you're gonna know what the 2 on the phone, how they're voting.

[02:02:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Yeah, I was so hoping I could do a show of hands here and then just ask them. So other things that were mentioned that I want to make sure we have clear direction for staff on. So council member McAllister wanted to talk about workforce housing in terms of bringing corporate America into the discussion. Could I get a roll call vote on that one? And folks want to talk about that or not. To me, it was I interpreted it as different, but John, is that part of linkage? Is that what you were thinking?

[02:03:05] Councilmember John McAlister: Yep. Yes.

[02:03:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Next on the list was public art. I'm interested in talking about that. For commercial, private development, public garden. Sure. Do I do a roll call vote if I see 4 notting heads here?

[02:03:34] Unknown Speaker: I won't feel lucked out. If you have four, you don't need my input. I can't see the hand, but I'll trust you.

[02:03:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, then, um... Let's see. A couple that council member Romero's brought up. The lower office cap without more environmental review, more environmental review. Oh, and I believe actually the vice mayor brought that up originally. I'm under the pressure that we'd be talking about that anyway when we talk about the... Okay. And then there was an interest potentially in revisiting the base FAR for residential. A couple people mentioned that. Um... I had that for Vice Mayor Abe Koga, and Council member Kamei. Are others interested in that?

[02:04:40] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I had mentioned that too.

[02:04:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, sorry. Sorry, you did. So would that be, I think, uh, council member committ also brought up the character areas, so would that be a component of that discussion, too?

[02:04:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I'm interested in sort of a broader discussion of targets. you.

[02:05:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So what specifically, you know, there was one that you mentioned that I did not capture, and that was it. So could you say that one again? Yeah, what specifically you wanted to talk about there?

[02:05:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh, well, I think... I just haven't had an opportunity to talk about it yet. Um, and it was just something that I've been thinking about as we've been mapping it. And I think my viewpoint was talking about character areas with the idea we just had the neighborhood commercial, uses discussion, and how those might fit into the character area targets.

[02:05:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So I kind of see those as a little bit different. Um, but Did you have a comment?

[02:05:52] Unknown Speaker: I mean, I think there's sort of three different issues that are floating around right now. One is the base FAR for residential. One is character areas, which may or may not be linked to neighborhood commercial, which I think, based on the earlier question, will come back with some discussion of the neighborhood commercial. So I would leave it at base FAR and character areas as 2 separate issues to be brought back if there's majority support.

[02:06:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, um, it looks like there were, I think, one, two, three folks talking about wanting to revisit the residential base FAR. Are others interested in that? Council member McAllister? Yes or no on that one?

[02:06:35] Councilmember John McAlister: Restate the question, please.

[02:06:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Are you interested in discussing any potential changes to the base FAR for residential development?

[02:06:48] Councilmember John McAlister: If it's in the context of how we're going to fund or get to our initial goal, because with that base FAR comes minimum community benefits, and if they exceed it, then we get our community benefits. So in that context, yes.

[02:07:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Yeah, that would be part of the conversation. And then I heard a few people talk about gatekeepers, um, in terms of uh, where we're not really interested in more gatekeepers once we pass the precise plan, but also in terms of uh, council member commit, when you talked about the approach to gatekeepers, is that what you meant?

[02:07:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I was trying to be quick because I wanted it to be in our 15 minutes. And just having, again, having the opportunity to discuss it, right? So it's not particularly that I had a certain direction that I'm trying to go in, but just having the discussion since there are so many and some of the issues that the vice mayor brought up, but maybe there are other things to discuss there.

[02:08:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. So it looks like there's enough support to talk about those.

[02:08:06] Unknown Speaker: Generally, gatekeepers are outside of the precise plan process, right? They would be asking for changes to zoning or the precise plan. So talking about the gatekeepers, might not be the best use of our time, if we're talking about what complies with the precise plan. I think the vice mayor's issue is really sort of a separate conversation of once we adopt a precise plan, what if anything, we will do with gatekeepers, and frankly, I think we could address that sort of the time of adoption. But Council member Kameh, I'm not sure if your question was more focused on how to address those gatekeepers that are in the process now and whether or not they comply with the precise point. Is that what you're getting at?

[02:08:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That would be a relevant conversation if the council is interested in it. Are there nodding heads on that one?

[02:09:06] Unknown Speaker: The other opportunity is to review those projects on, you know, when they come before the city council, with study sessions or project approval. Um, you know, we, there may be specific topics in the precise plan, which those specific projects may have more or less concern about. We've heard some letters from Summerhill and Miramar and other folks about the concerns that they have. And so, uh, that may help us target what in the precise plan to talk about with respect to consistency or not with the gatekeepers that are under review now.

[02:09:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: John Okris, is that of interest to you?

[02:10:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think the, I mean, the way that I would address those is, if we're talking about the gatekeepers that have been authorized for seats, then I would, I would review those at the time they, those applications come before us. Um, uh, I think they, I think they do inform sort of some of the things that we talked about in terms of based FAR and, and, you know, we, we don't want to be making a bunch of, you know, exceptions to a precise plan right after we adopt it. So, but I think, I think some of those gatekeeper applications that have already sort of started through the process and help inform maybe some of the places where we need to tweet the precise plan.

[02:10:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, so it doesn't sound like there's. And John, did you have any comments on that?

[02:10:49] Councilmember John McAlister: No.

[02:10:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay, then the other ones that were brought up, um, the decision making body is it the zoning administrator or the council? APC or EPC? And at least 2 of us brought that up. Lucas, Lucas said, okay, Ellen? John Chris?

[02:11:22] Unknown Speaker: Repeat the question, please.

[02:11:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: In terms of the body that, um, reviews and approves projects in the draft precise plan. It says that some are approved by the zoning administrator and some come to the council and things like master plans go also to the EPC. But did we want to have a discussion about, is the right body reviewing the appropriate projects. And should any of the...

[02:11:54] Unknown Speaker: Yes, I'd like to have... Yes, I'd like to have a discussion on that to make sure that the council has the opportunity to weigh in on those.

[02:12:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. And then one that, um, Council member McAllister, you brought up a number of times when we talk about North Bay Shore, um, that I brought up this time, which was the active frontage setbacks, looks like it's, uh, 5 feet in the current precise plan, although sometimes it's 10 feet. Looks like if it's planned to be a restaurant. Is that correct? They active frontage setbacks. Is that?

[02:12:38] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so the... You asking me?

[02:12:40] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No, I'm sorry. Eric is looking it up.

[02:12:42] Eric: The active frontage, the facts are based on the character of the facade and not necessarily the use that's in it. So it's not different if it's a restaurant or retail or whatever. It's based on the whether it's got a storefront style of facade. So in those cases, it would have, it's always got a minimum 5 foot setback on the street, and that's in order to accommodate things like bike racks, and other kind of public needs outside of the walking path. But then, in some areas, it can be 10 feet. You could have a 10 foot, right? The minimum, it is... dependent on the character of the sub area. So if it's the employment sub area, which has more landscaping and open area, has larger setbacks, the Wisman, transition area, has a higher expectation of kind of tree frontage, and other buffers between those buildings and the existing neighborhood, so that has a larger setback. So it's all location sensitive.

[02:13:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I guess I'm interested in making sure that for areas where there might be the opportunity to have, say, sidewalk dining, that the sidewalk is wide enough, so that it's not in a parking space on the street, or it's not blocking the sidewalk, and pedestrians have a difficult time getting by.

[02:14:16] Eric: Yeah, so that 5 foot area is intended for that kind of range of outdoor uses. We could also design into a project, you know, variation into that front facade, to accommodate future sidewalk dining, larger areas, and open areas on the site to accommodate sidewalk dining, in plazas and so on. So there are lots of opportunities to take advantage of that. And we would certainly review sidewalk dining when it's proposed to make sure that it's clearly demarcated and not within the public sidewalk pathway. Not within the 5 feet. Not within the sidewalks can be 5 to 8 feet.

[02:15:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So maybe we need to have a discussion about this. Are others interested in that? Chris and John. Yep. Chris?

[02:15:14] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think the, I mean, I think we'd previously discuss, I think we previously discussed the setbacks. I think we can address it on each county's use by use paper, so for, I mean, I'm happy to talk about it for like the, the commercial, um, retail spaces, but I think setbacks generally I don't think we need to rehash that.

[02:15:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Other than. The room here. I'd be interested in at least clarifying that last question. Okay. Okay, so setbacks. Okay, did I miss anything that anyone brought up?

[02:15:57] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, um, I think I couldn't see, um, I don't have the video, so I, did we, um, did we decide that we chat about, um, character areas in June or was that sort of melded into a separate, a separate topic? Um, I wasn't quite sure where that went.

[02:16:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Oh, sorry, we did break that out as a separate, and I talked about the one that it was broken out from, and not that one. So are folks interested in talking about the character areas. And it looks like there's not enough nodding heads. John?

[02:16:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, some of the voices are garbled for me, so I have a tough time hearing, but the concern about the character area.

[02:16:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Did you want to have a discussion about some of the aspects of the character areas? In what way, what aspects are you concerned?

[02:16:53] Councilmember John McAlister: Specifically, I think, about the targets. So, like, the office targets, or the housing, size, targets, the unit bedroom, unit bedroom size targets, things like that. That's not going to be addressed for that.

[02:17:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Sorry, what was that, John?

[02:17:10] Unknown Speaker: And that's not going to be addressed through the normal process?

[02:17:18] Unknown Speaker: Well, I guess when we have the discussion about the 1.6 versus 2.3. I can imagine we would revisit the targets.

[02:17:28] Unknown Speaker: In a very narrow conversation, specifically about the south employment area, yes. The The targets would be... Yeah, if the council wants to update the targets in a more general way, then we can, we could have that conversation.

[02:17:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, it looks like there were enough nodding heads and... fol on the phone.

[02:17:57] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Yeah, it would, you can count me as one. I don't know where you where you stand.

[02:18:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yep. Okay, anything else? That's my brother Ramirez.

[02:18:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: There was a question about the parking being included.

[02:18:13] Unknown Speaker: Oh, yeah. That's the one I'm always asking about. I'm not even gonna go there.

[02:18:22] Unknown Speaker: To clarify, is this the issue of whether accounts towards the FAR, correct? Which is different for residential in an office. There is by area of the city. If it's wrapped, it's not wrapped.

[02:18:37] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Is it, um, a discussion, or is it just, here's what the city does? Can we actually discuss it and make potential changes? Modification?

[02:18:56] Staff Member Eric: It would be a one off, right? So it's something where we have an established policy and a lot of other plans and zoning and the zoning ordinance generally. So if council wanted to make that decision on the precise plan, it would be a one off for the precise plan.

[02:19:12] Unknown Speaker: Eric, just to follow up on that, I think all of our analysis was based on right assumptions, and if counsel certainly has the authority to change that, if they want, but would that require new analysis and assumptions and whatnot?

[02:19:26] Staff Member Eric: Yeah, it would roll throughout the precise plan in terms of maximum FARs, in terms of the feasibility analyses and everything. So it would, and heights, and character, and so there would be, there could be a lot of other ramifications to the plan, if we change that assumption.

[02:19:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I guess my concern is, I wasn't aware of it with North Bay Shore. So when we were, you know, we were proposed with this parking standalone parking structure that's not counted in any of our numbers. That was a surprise to me. So that was my why I was interested in discussing this. That's up to the others.

[02:20:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Are there others that are interested in talking about that? John?

[02:20:17] Councilmember John McAlister: What question?

[02:20:19] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, was the question, should we parking be part of the, FAR or part of the mapping question?

[02:20:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes. Yep, I'd be interested in talking. I would be interested in talking about that.

[02:20:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, how about you, Chris?

[02:20:40] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think, um, Staff addressed this for me earlier today. I think since the, since the parking structures are a separate parking structure for residential would be counted towards the FAR. Um, and it sounds like all the analysis has been done based on that. I don't, I don't think changing that at this stage would be the right thing to do. Um, I think, if you wanted to address that, it might be in an increase in the base of AR, um, rather than having to make staff go back and redo all the analyses, but by excluding the, the parking structures. So, um, I think, I think since they're counted in the FAR, um, today and that masking is accounted for. I think that's probably where we want to stay and then if we want to address it in some other way we can. I don't, I don't think, um, I don't think maybe staff can provide an overview with the meeting of everything, but I, I would be hesitant to, to change that at this juncture.

[02:21:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, I also would be hesitant to change it at this point, but it sounds like there were at least three people who wanted to talk about this. Okay, anything else? John or Chris, anything else?

[02:21:57] Unknown Speaker: No, thank you.

[02:21:59] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Mahalo.

[02:22:03] Unknown Speaker: So, if I can just summarize the topics that I heard, certainly more information about jobs, housing linkage, public art, base residential, FAR, um, character area targets, just maybe more background and analysis of the parking, FAR relationship, um, community benefits, decision making bodies for projects, and active frontage and other setbacks.

[02:22:35] Unknown Speaker: Did you say school strategy?

[02:22:37] Unknown Speaker: School strategy, yeah, well, we will continue to work on that, although probably off disconnected offline from the precise plan. Okay. I do want to remind counsel that we already have a full list of topics for the June meeting. And so we can discuss offline whether maybe how to structure that meeting to make it effective and get everything we need out of it. But thank you very much.

[02:23:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. We will close this item, and, uh, I think we're gonna take a real quick break. So can we come back at, um, we can do a real quick break. 7.30? Since that's an hour behind when we're supposed to start. We'll close the study session. And we will start with a roll call. Oh, sorry, start with the pledge of all agents. You'll stand to join?

[02:23:49] Unknown Speaker: Ice of the United States and One nation and ind this little Liity and Justice for.

[02:24:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I forgot that. Okay, now we'll do the roll call.

[02:24:09] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[02:24:11] Councilmember Chris Clark: Here?

[02:24:12] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[02:24:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[02:24:15] City Clerk: Council member Kime, Council member McAllister. Council member Ramirez.

[02:24:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[02:24:21] City Clerk: Vice Mirabi Koga? Miramatachek.

[02:24:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Here. Kelsmer McAllister, are you on the line? Okay. Thank you. So we have heard that it's very difficult for council members, McAllister and Clark, to hear us. So folks could be sure to speak close into the mic and enunciate really well, maybe we can, um, be heard more by our colleagues. Okay, so we will start with a proclamation in recognition of bike month, and I would like to invite the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee chair, Mark Rawden, to the podium, to accept the proclamation. here. There he is. Whereas, for more than a century, the bicycle has been an important part of the lives of most Americans, and whereas today, millions of Americans engage in bicycling, as an environmentally sound form of transportation, an excellent form of fitness, and a healthy family recreational activity, and whereas the education of cyclists and motorists, as to the proper and safe operation of bicycles, is important to ensure the safety and comfort of all users.ers And whereas the League of American bicyclists, and independent cyclists throughout our state, are promoting greater public awareness of bicycle operation, and safety education, and effort to reduce accidents, injuries, and fatalities, and whereas Mountain View has been named a silver level bicycle friendly community, by the League of American bicyclists. Now, therefore, I, Lisa Matachek, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of May as bike month in the city of Mountain View, California.

[02:26:45] Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee Chair Mark Rawden: Sure. Yes. Bike month actually started back in 1956. Quite a while ago. And at that time, and ever since then, it includes things like bike to school day, and bike mentors, and commuter convoys, and smart cycling classes. But bike to work day is kind of the centerpiece, what really draws together, the bike month. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, where I worked for 20 years, has been sponsoring bike to work today for 25 years for the last 25 years. And the one here in our Bay Area, the 9 counties, is actually the biggest bike to work day in the whole country with over 100,000 people. participating. And on Thursday, that's just a couple days away, 100s of energizer stations all over the 9 counties are going to be staffed by volunteers, some of whom I think are in this room, who provide commuters with snacks, refreshments, and encouragement. And I may get this slightly wrong, because I tried to read it off a map, but I think we're going to have stations at the YMCA, Sleeper Avenue at the Stevens Creek Trail, Fenwick and West, the Caltrain Station, Semantic, Nokia, Samsung, Lockheed, Ames Research Center, and Google. So, what I say is, Be there or B Square. Thank you.

[02:28:32] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Next item is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council or audience wishes to remove the item for discussion. The reading of the full text of ordinances and resolutions will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. Does any member of the council wish to pull an item? Council members, Clark, and McAllister, do you wish to pull an item?

[02:29:04] Unknown Speaker: No, ma'am. Don't list your pollen item,

[02:29:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: and we don't have anyone, or at least I don't have anyone here to speak on the consent calendar. Thank you. Council member McAllister, is anyone there?

[02:29:22] Councilmember John McAlister: No.

[02:29:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Is there any member of the public that's here wish to pull an item from the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none? A motion is in order. Vice Mayor Abbe Koga.

[02:29:39] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I would like to make a motion, to approve the consent calendar, including item 4.3, to adopt a resolution of request to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, for the allocation of fiscal year 201920 Transportation Development Act, Article 3, pedestrian, bicycle project funding, to be read entitled only for the reading waived.

[02:30:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have a motion by the vice mayor, and a 2nd by council member Hicks. And we will do a roll call vote.

[02:30:11] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[02:30:13] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[02:30:14] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[02:30:15] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:30:16] City Clerk: Council member Kime?

[02:30:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes,

[02:30:17] City Clerk: Council member McAllister.

[02:30:20] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes?

[02:30:20] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[02:30:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:30:22] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Abby Koga? I married Mattachek.

[02:30:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. That passes unanimously. Next item is oral communications, and this portion of the mating is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter, not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section, and state law prohibits the council from acting on nonagenda items. So anyone who wishes to speak to us on an item not on the agenda. You can make sure to fill out a blue card and leave it with the city clerk either before or after you speak. And in case you weren't here, last week, we have a new procedure. So in addition to the clocks that show the time, we also, at the end of the time, have a chime.

[02:31:19] Public Speaker: Okay, so the chime would indicate time's up.

[02:31:22] Mayor Lisa Matichak: That it will.

[02:31:23] Public Speaker: You should chime right now on the matter of SV 50 because your time's up to oppose that. It's going to sail through the state senate before long. There was actually an article just posted online in the voice about how there is some authority in the state assembly for the chair of certain committees to hold up legislation. So maybe there's some hope that there's a chair in the assembly that will get in the way of SP 50. But otherwise it looks like it's going to go through to me. Yesterday, there was a meeting at the Palo Alto City Council Chambers of the city councils of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and EPA, concerning SB 50. They're actually council members in EPA that are sympathetic, 2 SB 50, and don't see their community as responsible for this massive imbalance of jobs as you are here in Mountain View to housing. and don't want to get stuck with all the housing. They were saying in the newspaper. The LA City Council voted a couple of weeks ago, 12 to nothing against SB 50. But that's unless it's amended to exclude Los Angeles. So that was the wrong message to send. because the bill came before a committee in the state senate last week. And a state senator from up north wanted to exclude his area, and so got it excluded, and in fact, got 43 counties excluded. But that leaves 15 counties with a population over 600,000 as to the main provisions of the proposed law. And that includes the 5 major counties here in the Bay Area, certainly including this one. So as you consider projects, like the next one on your agenda, you better hurry up and do them, because very soon, even that developer might want to switch, and build much higher rises here in Mountain View without any parking or very little. And if you can fill up all the spots fast enough, then maybe it'll be harder for people to rebuild with all those residential high rises with no parking that are coming our way. I have a letter in the voice about what can be done. You can find them, you can referendum, you can initiative, but you got to get on it. And I think it isn't my time that's about to be up here. It's going to be yours. It'll be the end of zoning for you. Thanks so much.

[02:34:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:34:29] Cliff Chambers: Hi, Cliff Chambers, Resident of Mountain View. I'm normally up here talking about wonky public policy issues. But tonight, right now, I want to talk about pickleball. And we just implemented. I went to a ceremony at Ringstone Park, the mayor and city manager were able to, I think play their very 1st game of pickleball. Attempt to play.

[02:34:55] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No, you did really well. You gotta come back.

[02:34:59] Cliff Chambers: And I just wanted to thank the city. This is a great community, these great services. I started playing pickleball about a year ago at Mitchell Park. Now I can play here, and I think, you know, there's only 3 courts. We have 11 courts over at Mitchell Park. Only a few of those are designated dedicated courts and they're building more. So but I want to, the 1st step has been achieved. I really enjoy the game. There's a whole, according to some, it's the fastest growing sport in America, it's great for people like me or an aging population. used to play racquetball. It's light on the body. So if you don't know anything about pickleball, Google it. It's really fun, and I would be happy to show anybody here how to play if you'd like to do so. Thank you.

[02:35:45] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[02:35:59] Julesine: I'm Julesine. I am a resident of the Shadows Apartments at Shoreline and Middlefield, and a retired analyst with the New York State Department of Transportation. Last week's EPC meeting on the Village Lake Redevelopment. There was a lot of confusion over the methods used to perform the traffic analysis. in the EIR. The EIR says, quote, traffic conditions that the study intersections were evaluated losing, using level of service. LOS. Little of service is a qualitative description of operating conditions, ranging from LOSA, or free flow conditions, with a little or no delay. to LOSF, or jammed conditions with excessive delays. Level of service for various intersections are... Shoreline Boulevard, you given in this chart, at 101, and 85 northbound, it's level of service, F, which everybody knows all about. Shoreline and Middlefield, it's his level of service, D. which is barely passing. In between there, the intersections at Terrabella and 101 South, under given B grades, which means they're operating will with minimal delays of 10 to 20 seconds. This is a video taken on the same morning. At Shoreland in Terabilla. Shoreline has a green light. You can't move. This goes on for well over 20 seconds. That's not level of service, B. The light changes, Terabella has a green light. They can't go, either. This goes on for about 40 seconds. That's not the level of serious B. I think it cuts into D. Almost done. Discussion of Terabella would be complete without looking at its iconic feature, which is U turns. Oh, there we go. Thank you.

[02:39:26] Public Speaker: Hello, Mayor Matachek, Council members. Good evening. Albertine's Esterial Estates. What I want to talk to you about today is a basic fallacy and how traffic impact analyses have been done. I discovered this while examining the environmental impact report for 77 West Middlefield, but I think it applies to many, many traffic analyses that have been done for many, many EIRs for the past several years. As Joel just mentioned, the interchanges are great on a base of the level of service, which describes the average delay experienced by all cars approaching the intersection. And as you show, this is how the intersections were graded in the EIR for 77 West middle field. What jumped out at me was, of course, the North Shoreline Terabelle Avenue intersection, which is very close to my house, and what I've seen many times. And having it rated B just went completely contrary to my experience, where it's mostly gridlocked for about an hour every morning during rush hour. So how is level of service determined? Level of service is basically the average delay in S seconds. So you could measure that directly if you could track every car coming in the interchange and measure how long they had to wait to cross interchange, but of course that would be very time consuming. So traffic conditioners and researchers have come up with other ways to calculate that. So who did the level of service for the AIR? That was contracted out to hexagon transportation consultants in San Jose. And what they do is they use the methodology, which specified in a highly capacity manual, which is a federal document put out by transportation research board. The one they're going with is the 2000 versions, the more recent version out, but they haven't gotten that yet. So what Hexagon does is, they utilize traffic software, which is, again, sort of a standard software package, to essentially implement all the rules and formulas given in that HCM 2000 document. And VTA actually sanctions the store, the official way to do analyses. So when is the peak hour? You know, I was wondering, you know, how do they determine that? So I dug into the data, and this is a little complicated. This is actually a diagram of the interchange, a terrible, and shoreline shows all the number of cars going through and everything. And it's summarized in this chart, where they designate the peak hour to be this block right here. And it's based, and it makes sense. Okay, this is the hour during which the most cars went through the interchange. These are in 15 minute increments. So why is it that the worst traffic that I know of occurs much later from 9 to 10? The reason is, what they're doing is counting cars. And vehicle counts do not describe vehicle speed or density. These two situations can give you the exact same level of service. That is, you have lots of cars, not moving, so you have zero, you have no cars, zero. Okay. So why are we using this method when it doesn't actually describe the situation? Because we shouldn't be using this method? In the HCM manual, it specifically says, this methodology does not take into account the potential impact of downstream congestion on intersection operation. In other, in order to do this, you have to have a green light and people have to go. So the basic conclusion is, the conclusions that are given in the environmental impact reports are completely nonsense. They mean nothing. We have no idea what the trafficking impact will be of these projects. There are ways to do it, but it hasn't been done. Thank you.

[02:43:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you So anyone else who wishes to talk to us on items that are not on the agenda. Okay, seeing none. I do want to circle back to the first comment that was made about SB 50. So, different councils have different policies, and, um, we did send a letter expressing our concerns about SB 50. And we have been working through the city's association, which maybe the vice mayor wants to speak to, um, regarding SB 50. So other cities have to have a discussion among their council members, we have a policy that we can, if it's in line with previous council direction, um, we can just, you know, provide our input, and that's what we did. So we sent a letter expressing our concern. And then do you want to add anything about what's happened at the city's association?

[02:44:03] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, yes. So the Cities Association is participated in the ABEG, MTC, joint legislative housing committee that, and I'm one of the reps, we actually discussed SB 50 and, which is now combined with SB4, which was referenced, that's the one that reduces, or takes out, carvers out the counties that are under 600,000 people. And we've expressed, I've shared comments. Our other representative is Larry Klein, Mayor of Sunnyvale. shared many, many concerns and comments about the legislation. I did see an email from Senator Hill that asking for letters, if any cities have put out letters and comments from the cities. I think, I saw that it's going up for a committee hearing on the 13th, I believe. So, I think we're doing quite a bit. And the city association will, the legislative action committee will be meeting Thursday to take a position on SB 50. Sorry, I forgot. I also participated in a meeting that Senator Hill had to hear from all the cities in his district, our thoughts on SB 50, and we certainly expressed concern about a lot of things when it comes to SB 50.

[02:45:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um... Let's see, Council member, McAllister, or Clark, is there anyone there who wants to provide his input on items and automatic agenda?

[02:45:46] Councilmember John McAlister: No, there was no one here to speak on the agenda items.

[02:45:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark.

[02:45:54] Councilmember Chris Clark: No.

[02:45:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Okay, then we will move on to item 6.1, which is a residential development at 1411 to 1495 West El Camino Avenue, and our presenters tonight, our senior planner, Matt Van Osten, and planning manager, zoning administrators, Stephanie Williams.

[02:46:20] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: All right, good evening, vice mayor, mayor, and council. My name is Matt Van Osten, project planner. Oh, tonight we're discussing 1411 to 1495 El Camino Real, which is a residential condominium project. The project site is located just south of El Camino Real. It's adjacent to a 3 story Holiday Inn, as well as a 2 story presidential multifamily project. Uh, single family, uh, house, single-family houses to the south, and then also additional retail to the north and east of the project. So as for project information, it's a 1.25 acre site, it's 53 kind of condominium units, 3 stories with a max height of 45 feet, and that's 42 units to the acre, and the general plan allows up to around 60, 84 parking spaces, which is a little bit more than what's required of the site based on the standard parking requirements. And it's a 40% open space and includes a tentative map to create 53 lots in one common lot. There's 6 heritage trees to be removed, and those are to be replaced with 32 trees +4 street trees along El Camino Real. And in addition to that, a unique feature of the project is that it's providing a trail connecting across El Camino rail to Park Drive, HB Park Drive Avenue to the south. And so here's the site plan here. You can see El Camino is on this side of the site plan for reference. The 1st floor of the project includes residential units facing El Camino Real, with porches, and then the rest is a podium parking. And then you see the street trees here along with a number of, a number of trees planted along the, along the single family house, adjacent side of the property. And right here, you have the path connecting El Camino Real, cutting through the site, and it connects here to Park Drive, to the south there. And along with that, you have Permanente Creek running adjacent to the site, providing some buffer towards the multifamily units on the other side there. As for project design. You can see the porches along El Camino Real, facing that with the entrances to those 1st floor units on El Camino Real. And we worked a lot with the applicant to create a more residential character through cabled roofs and wood siding. And here's just one rear side of the property. Again, you can see the gabled roofs and residential features, along with a green green wall screening of the parking lot adjacent to the trail, going through the site. And then on the far right, you can also see how the project is stepped back with porches on the 2nd floor, and that's facing the single family units to the south. And so with that, staff recommends that council conditionally approves the project and conditionally approves the vesting tentative Mac. And I would also like to call, to counsel attention, a memo that was provided to counsel just prior to the hearing, which calls out a change to the conditions of approval. There's one condition in particular, condition number 88, in the conditions of approval, that states that the project would need to be required to have red curbs, just along the, or just near to the driveway entrance, but staff would actually like to amend that to include red curbing along the entire project frontage. of why with that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

[02:50:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Are there any questions from council members?

[02:50:36] Councilmember Chris Clark: I have one mayor.

[02:50:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: It's okay. Yes. Council member, Clark?

[02:50:40] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I just wanted to, I just wanted to confirm that the, um, the, the, the trail connecting El Camino and Park and then the, the potential, um, connection in the rear, um, to a, Permanente retrail that's ever, uh, has expanded that far, that those are public access, these meant in perpetuity, so they, the, the HOA couldn't decide to close those off at some point. We would, we would have these at easement forever.

[02:51:09] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: Correct, that is the case. We would have that in perpetuity.

[02:51:13] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Great. Council member Ramirez?

[02:51:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, a couple of quick questions. So first, if we wanted to require on-site affordable units, do we have language for that? Or would it be the same language with emotion?

[02:51:32] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: Yeah, that would be something that council could ask for. The project currently requests that those BMR units be in Luffy, but council can request that to be on site.

[02:51:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. And then if we choose to do that. Could we do we have the discretion to specify rental versus ownership BMR?

[02:52:00] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: That I'm not sure of exactly the project as an ownership project, so I imagine the BMR units would be ownership as well.

[02:52:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. But we can specify if we want rental units for the BMR units. I asked that question at the last meeting, and the answer was, yes. Thank you. That for ownership projects, we could have the units as rental units, and they just maintain ownership of them. Maybe my question is...

[02:52:30] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: I think you might have been asking if it's an ownership unit, can they rent it out, and the owner can rent it out, but it cannot be designated a rental unit as part of the BMR.

[02:52:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No, I was specifically asking if it was a BMR unit. Could the developer keep those units, and they own them, and then they rent them out as rental units. And the answer was yes. But maybe I wasn't clear. I think staff might have misunderstood.

[02:52:57] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: That is a possibility, but whether or not that, but as to whether or not the city could require it. No. If it's in ownership, we can't require them to rent them out. So maybe we misunderstood your question.

[02:53:08] Unknown Speaker: Okay, okay. I have a clarifying question, then. Yeah. So I... If somebody owns a below market rate ownership unit, they're allowed to rent it out, so they could presumably rent it out, how does that work?

[02:53:35] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: Yeah, so I didn't think if somebody is in a owns a BMR unit, they could then rent it out, like in a couple or an individual. To be honest with you, we haven't had that situation in quite some time or encountered that. So I know that we require the owners of BMR units to enter into agreements, and there are certain covenants and restrictions, but it's been quite some time since I reviewed such an agreement. I'd be happy to do so and update you on that.

[02:54:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: I think, um, if I can just jump in briefly. I'm pretty sure that I think San Francisco and um, a few other communities have in the covenant that the city attorney just mentioned, they, they have the restrictions on, you know, you're, you're not allowed to rent that unit out at a, at a market rate, basically, make a profit off of it. Um, but, but anyway, I, I'm pretty sure some other cities have that, and we may too, but we, we could look into that, I guess.

[02:54:34] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think as part of the agreements, they do income verification annually. of the residents of the units. So that would include people who are renting out a below market rate ownership unit.

[02:54:49] Unknown Speaker: Uh, that would be correct, but as Ms. Quinn was saying, we haven't really encountered that as being an issue, nor have we had a developer, um, keep, um, ownership of the BMR units, and then rent them out. All their ownership, BMR units as part of the ownership projects, have been sold consistent with the income limitations associated with them.

[02:55:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Council member Hicks.

[02:55:21] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I'll ask my question after I comment on that. I actually have, I'm certainly not an expert on this, but I think that this is something we should look into because I actually have been told by developers that we tend to lose. affordable ownership units, because people, you know, work their way up in their careers, and buy a place at not necessarily an affordable rate. So it seems like that's something we should be on top of. But that was not my comment. I was gonna ask, and this may be difficult to answer, but I'll ask it anyway. Do you know if we were to do, um, if we were to, whether you do inloof fees or, um, our units located in the project, whether you get more units out of either one? I know that depends on how many bedrooms, and probably a slew of other things, but I wondered if you generally knew the answer to that question.

[02:56:22] Unknown Speaker: We don't have a ready answer for that. As it pertains, you know, using this project as an example, but you're right, it does depend on a lot of factors that are pertinent to the exact project.

[02:56:37] Unknown Speaker: Just one context, in this proposal, you'll notice, if they pay the in loo fee, it's approximately $1.5 million. So if you look at what the city subsidy has been for affordable units lately. I mean, we've seen a wide range, obviously. The most recent one was over $300,000 a unit. Some of them have been under $200,000, but, say, hypothetically, it's $300,000 a unit. That's sort of the equivalent of five units. And this project, if it were required to be units, would be five units and a fraction, I believe. So just to give you some context.

[02:57:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor, Abbe Kuga.

[02:57:21] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, I just wanted to clarify, there's different words being used, but require versus asking. I guess I was always under the assumption that we give a choice, have given a choice. So the developer gets to choose the in Luffy or the building, the units, is that not correct? Are we really able to, at this time, require the units?

[02:57:47] Unknown Speaker: For ownership units, and I'm sure planning, and even the community development director, will correct me. For ownership units, it's been a longstanding policy based on the sales price of the unit, and the difference between the below market rate and the sales price, that the council has a policy that's, I don't believe it's a written policy. that you accept the inloof fees. And one of the issues that we're addressing in the below market rate, phase 2 modifications is to change that to a requirement that they actually provide the units. So, as of tonight, it's my understanding that we don't have a requirement that they provide the units, but rather, that they can pay the in lo fee. And I'm looking over at planning to confirm what I'm saying. Can we require them to provide the units? tonight or not, based on our current policy, and that this seems to be conforming project and all the other ways.

[02:58:52] Unknown Speaker: Yes, so it's council's discretion as to how they want to do that, but past practice has been to accept the fees for the ownership units.

[02:59:03] Unknown Speaker: Just to summarize, you have the right, under the current rules, to require the units, or to accept the inlu. Our practice has been for ownership, with a price over a certain number, you have taken the in loop, but it is your choice.

[02:59:18] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great.

[02:59:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Any other questions? Council member, McAllister, did you have any questions?

[02:59:29] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes. One, why are we requiring the red curve the entire length?

[02:59:39] Senior Planner Matt Van Osten: The El Camino Real precise plan calls for a number of improvements to El Camino Real, including the removal of parking for future transportation improvements along that corridor. And so I think in public works might be able to speak to this more, if I don't answer this all, but they've been requiring projects along El Camino Real to Red Curb, when possible, to allow for those future improvements to take place.

[03:00:11] Councilmember John McAlister: So are you saying, so projects on either side may not redevelop for ever or 20, 30 years? And so this particular project will have a red, no parking zone for, unknown, time limit.

[03:00:30] Assistant Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Don Cameron Assistant Public Works director. As stated, since the precise plan was adopted, staff has been working towards no parking on El Camino Real, specifically towards adding bike lanes. On May 13th, we will be making a presentation to the council transportation committee talking about the implementation strategy for these bike lanes.

[03:00:57] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, but what about the properties next to it? So we're going to have a piecemeal approach? And we, for how long?

[03:01:07] Assistant Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: It may only be for a few years. Part of what we're presenting is a parking utilization study that shows that when you see it, it go public, I think tomorrow night, that most of the on street parking on El Camino Real is not needed. So we may be able to implement quicker than we think.

[03:01:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Thank you. For my next question. Going back to small business retention. I know you, the precise plan says this is not an area, of concern for small businesses, but, you know, that whole area heading east is one big area gonna get redeveloped, and we're losing small business, and I thought that was one of the goals, or proposed goals of councils to try to protect small businesses. So, how is that being considered in this project here, other than it wasn't considered. Or was it considered?

[03:02:13] Planning Staff: So this this project is located in a portion of the El Camino real precise plan that does not have a retail commercial requirement for the ground floor. So it was never considered to retain those small businesses or add space to this project to include those, given the precise plan development standards.

[03:02:36] Councilmember John McAlister: But I know it's in the precise plan, but was it ever a concern to see one, two, 3 businesses, leave without possible replacement?

[03:02:49] Planning Staff: That's a precise plan. Or relocating? that directs how we look at these things.

[03:02:56] Councilmember John McAlister: So if we, uh, council never wants to bring up relocation consideration like it was done for other businesses, uh, when would that opportunity come about?

[03:03:08] Planning Staff: I believe in other cases, it's usually been a community benefit. I don't believe this project is required to provide community benefits, so it would probably require, correct me if I'm wrong, a change to the precise plan standards if you want that to be a new standard.

[03:03:30] Councilmember John McAlister: Business relocation part, did they, what are the community benefits on this project? There are none required on this project right?

[03:03:39] Planning Staff: Yeah, what Dan just said. There's no specific community benefit being offered or required under the precise plan standards. Can you hear that, John?

[03:03:49] Councilmember John McAlister: So, okay, so I did hear that this area is not required to have businesses and under community benefits not required to help businesses relocate.

[03:04:00] Planning Staff: That's correct. The community benefit requirement would come in if it was a tier one project, and this is not a tier one project.

[03:04:11] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Hicks, did you have more questions?

[03:04:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I do. Because, uh, I share council member McAllister's concern about the disappearing small businesses and businesses in general on El Camino Real. I think one of, you know, one of the goals is to make it more walkable. And I actually really like what looks like, I don't know if half of them are bushes, but looks like a double row of trees. It looks, from the pictures, the project looks very walkable, but my fear is, we do upon, and the project, I think the architecture looks pretty nice. It's the direction many people I've heard want architecture to go in and that it's, you know, not an imitation of a historic style, and it's not, um, something that some people found too modern, I think that, um, that the neighbors will probably appreciate it. The thing that I think, and that I heard when I was campaigning, that neighbors don't appreciate, is that all that were making these walkable streets, and there's nowhere to walk to, because the commercial is disappearing. So my question is, um, when I counsel had, possibly we voted to make a small business strategy, one of our projects, and I'm wondering, if looking at spaces like this on El Camino real, could, could this work into the way we talk about that in any way? Because I share that concern.

[03:05:39] Planning Staff: I don't recall exactly. I thought the small business strategy might have been targeted to downtown. I couldn't remember if it was citywide, honestly. But, again, I think if you want to change the standards here, you're talking about reopening the precise plan. We spent a lot of time talking about this. There was a lot of discussion on retail, I believe, can go anywhere on El Camino, but is only required to go in certain places, and that's, some of that's just the reality of our world and the market of economics, but, you know, that would be relooking at the precise plan standards.

[03:06:12] Planning Staff: And just for some context, as part of the precise plan process, it was considered, you know, how much commercial is really viable, long term, along El Camino, and it was found that, um, you know, a certain amount of changeover to have residential on the ground floor, along El Camino, would be economically viable, that, um, it wasn't realistic to think that there would be commercial uses up and down all of El Camino.

[03:06:44] Planning Staff: And add to that as well, in the El Camino precise plan, where there are pockets of commercial being required, they are all located along along the corridor in such a way that would still be walkable to any given development.

[03:07:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Voicemail, by coca?

[03:07:02] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, um, I just wanted to add my ¢2 too, when we did the El Camino precise plan. That was exactly the conversations we had that, um, there's a question of viability, of retail on El Camino, um, but we did make, um, space. And, you know, an example I would give is the verb apartment complex that bottom, uh, level is supposed to be retail and it was empty. I just saw some dogs on the windows. So I'm wondering if it's like a pet shop or something that's opening, but it took a couple years for something to go in there, but we did make space for retail, just not all along El Camino. And there's also the village centers, like the current shopping centers that are supposed to be intensified in time with more retail.

[03:07:53] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, um... Any other questions? I have a couple before I ask mine. So have we had any other projects in Mountain View done by this, um, applicant?

[03:08:09] Planning Staff: Not that I'm aware of. Steve, have you?

[03:08:13] Planning Staff: No.

[03:08:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um... Johnny Chris, are there any members of the public there wishing to do public comment on this? Because I'm gonna open it up here.

[03:08:28] City Clerk: No, there's no one here.

[03:08:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: I did have one other quick question with the red curving of El Camino. Is there a is there enough space? I assume there is, but in the sort of the, the drive that goes into the garage, is there enough space there for a loading zone for, you know, large moving trucks or things like that?

[03:08:48] Planning Staff: Um, There are, yes, we did leave enough space, and the driveway is small enough to allow for truck access onto the site.

[03:09:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay, great. Okay, if there's no questions from council members, we'll open it to public comment here. So if you have any input, you'd like to provide us on this project, please come up to the microphone. Be sure to fill out a blue card. Oh, did the applicant have a presentation? Oh. Okay. Sure. How would I know?

[03:09:42] Applicant Steve Surrey: Okay. Good evening, council members, mayor, city staff, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Steve Surrey. I'm with the development team, Lux Largo. Before you this evening, we are presenting our project at 1411, 1495 El Camino Real. The site consists of 1.25 acres with a proposed 53 unit condominium. These are for sale housing units. For over 3.5 years, our development team and design consultants, along with city staff, from planning engineering, building and fire department, have worked together tirelessly to achieve this wonderfully designed and exceptionally well planned community. And I like to thank Matt and his team. It's been a really wonderful experience, and they've been really great in assisting us with this journey. Luxorable aims to serve as a model of sustainable, appropriate skill development, and to create an active, and vibrant, residential community. Our project is designed with a culmination of careful analysis. and our desire to create a distinctive environment that will be compatible in harmony and sensitive to the surrounding use. This combination, along with the ACR corridor guidelines, valuable feedback from several DRC meetings, and our outreach community meeting has utilized an exceptional project with the following designed principles. Implement the city's ECR precise plan integrates the community with the ECR corridor by incorporating a user friendly bike pedestrian trail through the site. as shown on the slide. This is a huge public benefit, providing a critical link to the city's master trail plan. We have sacrificed a lot of, we have sacrificed a lot of land and design opportunity in order to achieve the city's objective. Conserve natural resources. We save trees, preservation of 5 heritage oak trees. We protect the creek. We use green walls around the garage, as mentioned by Matt. We use wood siding on the buildings as well. Enhance open space in both the perimeter of the project and within the project itself. Along the perimeter, we offer public the bike path which meanders through the beautiful sceneries of the creek. And within the project, we offer the residents a central courtyard with lush landscaping, outdoor kitchen, seating area, and exercise fitness equipment. offer ample guest parking. Maximize density and increase city housing stock by designing compact and spatially efficient units. provide architecture that brings back the traditional residential appeal. We've heard from the city council, as you mentioned tonight, that there are currently too many residential buildings that look like offices, particularly along El Camino. Therefore, we work diligently with staff to bring back the gable roof forms, the cozy front porches, porches. The traditional wood siding, the more human scale window patterns, and the refined deck railings, so that we can restore the once lost residential appeal within an urban living environment. Foster social interaction by providing a century located multifunction courtyard. which almost all the unit entries will face into. We totally avoid the typical double loaded corridor design because we want to bring the people together. We hope there are proposed new exceptionally designed community meets your approval. Finally, thank you for your time and consideration. I'll be more than happy to address any questions you may have. Thank you.

[03:14:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Kame.

[03:14:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry, I had a question that I was reminded up during the presentation, and either can answer. So one of the questions I sent in was the timeline of the installation for the, um, CIP project that's noted in the staff report, which says it'll be fiscal year 2022, 23. Should the project be approved, when do you expect completion? Is there a time that you think?

[03:14:50] Assistant Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Is it completion? Are we talking about construction council member? We anticipate about 8 months for the construction documents about 15 months to build. So about 2 years from tonight.

[03:15:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. if it was approved. Thank you.

[03:15:02] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yeah. Okay. Any questions? Okay, we'll open it up for public input now. So if you have any comments on this project, please come up to the microphone, be sure to fill out a blue card and leave it with our city clerk. Is there anyone who wants to provide us with input on this? Okay, seeing none. We'll close the public input portion and bring it back to council for deliberation and action. Any comments by council members? Well, I'll start. Then, I think Council member McAllister had a very valid comment about the red curb. You know, if it's gonna be a couple years before we implement the bike lanes on El Camino. It seems like we should be able to provide parking for those years. On Moffatt Boulevard. We started to, um, change the parking and have red curbs, and, you know, it kind of, you know, hurt some businesses and not others, and it just made for a tough situation. And so I would be open to just, uh, leaving the parking there until we're to the point where we remove, if we remove all parking on El Camino. And also in terms of the, um, BMR units, I have mixed fillings about if you're thinking of requiring these on site. I think it's really hard for the city to manage ownership BMR units. And that's why, um, I apparently was mistakenly excited when I learned that we could, I thought we could rent out ownership, BMR units, but I guess we can't. So, um, I would prefer to have the in lieu fees on this project and put them to use on the other projects that we have in the pipeline. Vice Mayor Abi Koga.

[03:17:16] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, overall, I'm excited about this ownership project, and it looks great. It's met all our standards. The ship out parking, I believe there's more parking than required in this project. And, um, I guess my question is, if it's a housing project, there shouldn't be a need for parking in the front if it's all being included in the project. So, um, I think it's fine to red curve it.

[03:17:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Kermit.

[03:17:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: You know, I've been a proponent of bike lanes on El Camino for quite a long time, and even though it's still a few years away. I guess I feel like we need to start to change the mindset a bit, and the more we can start to eliminate parking on El Camino, you know, the one, all these projects should be, including that parking in their developments, and two, you know, just getting folks used to not parking on El Camino, I think is the right way to go if we want to really do the bike lane or the improvements down the road. So, I'm fine with the red curving. Um, the VMRs, yeah, I'm sort of torn right now, just because I'm looking at, um, the potential, uh, sale price, and, um, it's... Maybe, yeah, it's close to, I guess it would be helpful to know what a one bedroom unit that's a BMR unit would go for. Do you know? Was that, did I miss that or...? How much would that be?

[03:19:10] Unknown Speaker: I don't off the top of my head, I'm sorry.

[03:19:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, because I'm trying to do it, like a cost comparison, it would be helpful to have a cost comparison. I agree with the vice mayor that, um, you know, that they're taking the fees could help us, and it sounds like we could build, like, 5 units in an affordable project. So then it's a question of do we want more rentals or do we want to provide some BMR ownership, but it would be helpful to know what a sale price on a BMR ownership unit is? So, yeah, I'm not really, right now, I'm not sure which way I want to go on that. I'll be interested in hearing from others. But other than that, yeah, I appreciate the, the, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about, you know, we do have to go smaller to me, more affordable, and these are smaller one bedroom, 2 bedroom units, and the prices, you know, when you're hit under a million dollars, that's a good sign. So for all of those reasons, I'm happy to support this. And I guess we need to resolve the BMR issues. So I'll wait for others to speak on that. Thanks.

[03:20:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark or McAllister, did you have any comments on this one?

[03:20:33] Councilmember Chris Clark: Oh, I'd like to hear from, uh, what a problem.. Okay, I'll go. I think, um, All right, overall, I support the project. I think that we should, um, I think that we should stick to the plan that we, um, that we put in place with the precise plan, which is that in, in areas that we, we were going to require everything along El Camino, to have sufficient parking off of El Camino, and we were going to red, red car red curbing, um, sections of it where we could, as things redeveloped, and I think, um, I, it, it, it, I think we should just get the folks living there used to not parking on El Camino, um, and then if you look at the sur Like, the deep bistro has a surface lot there. I've never seen that completely full, um, and I walk by there fairly frequently and then the holiday and next door has, has, um, I've never seen their lot completely full either. Um, so, I don't think there's any harm in, in, in Ray Carina section of it. The only thing that I would, um, you know, I am, um, that I live in a similar complex and I've seen the on site, is this is the, this is the one type of product where I think on site, um, ownership BMR units actually work, um, they usually don't work anymore in, in townhome or more expensive projects, but, these, uh, these are sort of, uh, entry level ownership units, which is hard to believe at that price point, but that, that's where the market is, and I think. In, in, in, in my complex. For example, we've had, um, we've got a teacher, um, Uh, we've got uh, a downtown, um, uh, a few folks who work downtown and, you know, this was a, a really great entry point for them into the ownership market and it works really well. So, um, I would normally take the P on something like this, if it were a higher price point, but I, um, I am tempted to, just have the units there on flight, because it is uh, an entry level product, and these are mostly studio one, uh, or just a couple studio, but primarily, um, one and 2 bedrooms.

[03:22:42] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you, council member of Ramirez.

[03:22:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, I'll go back to him. Thank you. So I agree with the vice mayor and council member, Clark, on I'm comfortable with writing curbing. just because there's sort of an inevitability based on the direction provided in the precise plan. I'm so I agree with council member Clark on the BMR unit. I think looking at the threshold, it looks like the anticipated prices are close enough where it could work. I looked up the council questions for the Fayette project, and there's a question there. Could the BMR units be rental incentive ownership? ownership project. And the response was yes, but the applicant wasn't currently proposing them as rentals. So I would like some clarity based on the information we were provided then, because I agree. I'm more interested in BMR rental generally. But I would be interested in exploring on site affordable units in this project if there's support from the rest of the council.

[03:23:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[03:23:57] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I agree with the previous two council members on red curbing, in terms of the inloof fees versus the required on-site requirements, I was leaning towards the inloof fee because of the stories I've heard of people re renting them and losing renting them out, moving on. and renting them out and then losing the affordable unit, I would like to have some sort of policy in place to control that before that. But if you think we can get a policy in place, I don't feel very strongly if we did have a policy.

[03:24:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, come in.

[03:24:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So, one of the things the vice mayor said struck me, which is kind of shifting of mindset. Um, and I think when I was looking at this project, um, so one thing that I noticed is that the city is moving. As was mentioned, we're going to be reviewing the BMR ordinance soon. And I think we're shifting to ways to get units included. And, um, I think that that is the direction that we should be going and that we are going in. And so, you know, I do have an interest, um, in that, I think, in terms of ownership, I'm encouraged by what council member Clark said about how those BMR ownership, um, opportunities where he lives has been a really great entryway point, where it sounds like, um, people who are, you know, middle, um, to moderate income. Um, and that's another interest, um, in terms of the red curb. I also see that as aligning with trying to be more bicycle and pedestrian friendly on a corridor that isn't really right now. You know, one of the things council member McAllister mentioned was small business displacement. And while this might not be the project, um, where we can, you know, have consideration of that. I'd be interested in in maybe touching on that when things come back as an art council goal setting, talking when we talk about small business. I like the city manager, cannot remember if it was site specific area specific or if it was citywide, but I think this is an instance where we can see that maybe looking at it citywide would be appropriate.

[03:26:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister, did you have any comments?

[03:26:28] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes. Um, You know, going with, we're so concerned about naturally affordable housing, we should also be concerned about natural affordable reach outfit, and if we keep closing it down and packing in at the other areas, we are just basically out pricing small businesses because once you get into a new development, the price is very high. So, it's a consideration that we should take very seriously. As it is parallel, the housing uh displacement. Concerning, you know, um, 1st of all, overall I'm supportive of the project. I've always liked ownership. I think it's great, and uh we should continue to do it. It's interesting how this project is able to go forward with a smaller developer, and yet when we see bigger companies come along, say, oh no, we can't do ownership because of legal requirements or we can't get funding. Um, just makes me lose credibility with those companies and I appreciate this developer coming forward and building a product that we desperately need, the entry level housing. The BMR units on site. I would go along with the fellow council members. It appears to be working with uh Christmas project, but I do remember talking with the uh, project manager with Regis, that it was hard to find people that qualified and it took a long time. So that's a consideration we need to take a look at. Concerning the red striping, you know. Yes, in Ferry, or we're going down that, but it could be years, years, and you're gonna have a piecemeal effect. It doesn't make sense to say. Oh, well, we're going to start having people think about a curb here. But yet, right next door, there is no curb. I think we're just making confusion. I don't think we're clarifying for people. And it's a penalty for being someone that's developing a property earlier than later. Um, and I think we should be considerate, and maybe think about, yes, the red curve will be required somewhere down the line, but to do it so prematurely. does not make uh a lot of economic sense for the businesses and I don't think it's justified. Thanks.

[03:28:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments? Vice mayor, Hubby Coca?

[03:28:56] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, question going back to council member Hicks's um, question about a policy regarding renting out BMR units.

[03:29:06] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you. Or t-shirt of us, community development director, some of what I'm saying is based on my pastor understanding, and I did take a quick look at the ordinance, and I'm sure when we come to phase 2 BMR, You will get a lot more detail. So the way it works when you have ownership units is that they are ownership. you don't have a program to have somebody hold them and rent them. We usually, if there's an ownership project. We require ownership units as BMR as opposed to rental. The 2nd part is if they're supposed to be income qualified when they get into the unit, but they don't have an annual qualification as if you were a renter because you'd have to sell the unit every time. We understand that somebody would stay in that unit, but they have to stay in it. They can't rent it out. There's an income restriction in terms of their being able to sell it. When they're ready to sell it, the city has the 1st ride of refusal. So if we have a waiting list, The city has the ability to buy it and turn it over. Otherwise, it goes to, um, I think we have, I'm not sure if Palo Alto housing helps with our program, but we have a program that allows people to get in. It might be that the developer has to qualify people and we have a list. So usually there's a waiting list. And then they're income qualified. They apply to get on that list. And then they, it's a fairly complicated process and we can walk you through it. I know how it was done in the other city that I worked in. You show interest, your income qualified, and then you get into the unit. The price of the unit actually depends on your income, how big your family is. And it also depends on, you get a one bedroom, if you have 2 people, you qualify for a 2 bedroom, if you've got more people. So it's a very intricate system as to who qualifies for a 2 bedroom versus who qualifies for one bedroom. So, um, it, we do have a requirement that you can't sell or rent your unit, if you are in an ownership BMR unit. unless you work with the city. So there should not be an instance, they're probably not keeping to the terms of their de-restrictions if they're renting them out. I hope that answers a few questions. It might bring some more and we can probably answer it in the context of the BMR phase 2 a little bit better.

[03:31:50] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Yeah, I do have one question and it can wait until we talk about BMRs, but, um, you know, there was a time during the recession when we had one BMR ownership unit and the, um, the owner wanted to sell it. But the market was so low that the market rate units were lower than the BMR unit was priced. So the city had to buy it. How do we prevent that scenario?

[03:32:23] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: I don't know. So it does allow the city, the 1st rider refusal, which means that you'll probably have to buy it at that. I'm not sure it'll ever get there, the market, but you never know. Also, if I got there once. The only time you can actually sell it at market rate is at the end of the term, like a 55 year or 99 year term. And at that point, the city gets the proceeds of the extra money. So at no point is, does any owner get the windfall? at the end of the term. I'm not sure about the circumstance that you, it might have been a one off. Um, but I can't foresee too many of those and, well, we're going to have to take it on a case by case, please.

[03:33:12] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Great. Thank you very much. Council member Hicks.

[03:33:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, this isn't really the time to solve this, but actually what I should clarify what the developer had told me was that it was very hard to monitor whether people were renting them out and that there was such a kind of an opportunity to do that, that they felt that a lot of them were, and that if they didn't have a system for overseeing that, that that's that happened a good deal at the time. Thanks. So I had also heard that, um, it was difficult to find people who qualified to buy the BMR units at the, um, Harv's car wash project. And that also makes me feel like I, you know, I prefer to have the in Luffy's because of that. But one of the challenges they said was based upon the larger units, especially. So I was looking through here, I could have sworn I read the mix of units, but now I can't find it in terms of one bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom. Here it is. 2 studio, 311 bedrooms, and 22 bedrooms. So they don't have anything 3 bedrooms. And they said that was the most difficult one.

[03:34:28] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments? Okay. Vice mayor, I'll be go there.

[03:34:41] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: If there are no other comments, I'd like to make a motion, then, to one, adopt a resolution conditionally approving a planned community permit and development review permit. Do I read the whole thing here? I just realize I'm reading off the stuff. Report, not the human too. I mean, the whole thing. Okay. A planned community permit and development review permit to construct a 53 unit residential project and heritage tree removal permit to remove 6 heritage trees located at 1411 through 1495 West El Camino Real, to be read entitled only for the reading waived, and to adopt a resolution conditionally approving a vesting tentative map to create 53 condominium units, and one common lot located at 1411 to 1495 West El Camino Briel. to be read entitled Further, to be read entitled, only for the reading waived. And then I would add the 3rd condition that we accept the on-site units at, is it the 10% rate?

[03:35:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have a motion by the vice mayor in a 2nd by council member Ramirez. Is there any other comment?

[03:36:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: Can I just ask if, um, Jenny, do we do we need to reference that modified condition for the red curves if it was, he was slightly different from what it was in the report? Um, so we, do we need to reference that? Is it already baked in?

[03:36:20] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, oh, yes, you're right. The condition of approval should include red curve along project frontage.

[03:36:31] Unknown Speaker: Do you want to change the condition approval 88 to what you just said?

[03:36:37] Unknown Speaker: Yes. So, what's that? Can you clarify, is the red curb already a condition or we're adding it as a condition?

[03:36:49] Unknown Speaker: So, that condition of approval idea was accidentally put to the red curb just along the driveway, but it is supposed to be red curb along the whole frontage. per public works direction. So to amend approval 88 to include red curb along project frontage.

[03:37:10] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Right, okay. Okay, any other more discussions? Okay, we'll take a roll call vote.

[03:37:20] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[03:37:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah.

[03:37:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks?

[03:37:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes?

[03:37:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Kameh?

[03:37:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:37:26] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister?

[03:37:29] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah.

[03:37:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Ramirez.

[03:37:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[03:37:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice Mayor Abbe Koga?

[03:37:32] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi,

[03:37:33] City Clerk: Mayor Matachek.

[03:37:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. Thank you. So that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Moving on to item seven. 7.one, actually, the gateway master plan, scope of work. Give staff a minute here. So our presenters tonight. are... Actually, I'm not sure this is correct. Because... Martin's title is advanced planning manager. Martin Alkire. And Assistant City Manager, Community Development Director, RD Shravestava. Should we stop? Is that close? Shavastava. Is that better?

[03:38:44] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: Okay, good evening, mayor and council members. My presentation tonight is on the proposed scope of work for the Gateway Master Plan, which is part of the North Bay Shore precise plan. The gateway area is located in the precise plans, Joaquin, complete neighborhood, shown on the screen there in hatched graphics at Shoreline Boulevard and Highway 101. A little bit of just very brief, high-level background 1st on this area. The gateway site had been previously allocated about 1500000 square feet of bonus office FAR back in 2015. Um, uh, uh, last late uh, earlier on February 26th, I'm sorry, uh, the council considered a new bonus FAR requalification request from Google and SiWest for this gateway uh, area, uh, and other North Bay Shore areas uh, to reallocate. Again, that bonus FAR that was allocated in 2015. Council denied both of them at that council meeting and gave them 14 days to agree to mediation to hopefully come up with a master plan for that area. They couldn't agree within that time frame. So council directed that the city initiate a master plan for the gateway area. So just briefly, a master plan is a high level land use and development plan, over typically a larger geographic area that can include multiple parcels. It spells out how the land uses in circulation within that area will be integrated, and importantly, lays out a phasing strategy for how the land uses or parts of the plan will be developed, including how the infrastructure will be implemented. For North Bayshore master plans are required in each of the three complete neighborhoods, and they typically include some maps and strategies, again, in phasing an implementation plan. The North Bay Shore precise plan does require that master plans be approved by the EPC as well as who afford a recommendation to the city council. So here's a map showing the gateway boundaries. In red is the gateway area boundary. Again, bordered by Shoreline, 101 in Plymouth Street, the area in gray in the middle, is the approximate 16 acre site owned by Si West, and then the 8 acre Google parcel along shoreline there, including about 2 acres at the Shoreline Plymouth intersection. Google also owns the parcel to the west on the screen, 3 acres at 1555 Plymouth Street, which is not in the gateway boundaries, but Google has discussed with staff, over the past several years, their desire to include this in the gateway area. of the precise plan. So the question we have in the staff report tonight is if council supports adding that parcel at 1555 Plymouth to the Gateway Master Plan study area, just a couple high-level pros and cons. Again, if this parcel, shown in the yellow star on the screen, were studied and included in the gateway master plan, it could potentially offer up some beneficial redevelopment opportunities, a larger gateway area, perhaps with some additional frontage on Plymouth, or the frontage road, you know, potential disadvantages, again, it's owned by Google, and a separate property owner than the adjacent, larger Si West property. So, uh, how those two would be integrated would remain, uh, we would still need to study that. So, again, the question before you tonight is, if you support adding this partial to the study area, and staff would come back with some additional analysis, on the technical analysis, on the advantages and disadvantages of including this. So on the screen, are some kind of policy direction topics that you might have remember from the February Council report, we are including this in the gateway staff report, as a reminder of what we believe, are the key policy directions for the gateway master plan. Again, the gateway master plan, the policy direction, it's in the general plan designates this as mixed use center, allowing a wide range of land uses, residential office, personal services, entertainment, hotels, It's also, as I mentioned before, in the precise plan area. And it allows mixed use buildings up to eight stories for nonresidential and 15 stories for residential. Again, this was part of the bonus that they are a process. The master plan process will come up with some options for how much office FAR the gateway site could potentially accommodate. Again, there is 1.55 million square feet of bonus FAR that remains unallocated from that February decision. And then in terms of transportation, we will be coordinating the land use and transportation work for this site with the larger circulation study that public works is undertaking now. In terms of outcomes and mechanisms, the staff report lays out these in detail, but I'll just touch on a couple high levels. Again, at the end of this process, we would hope to have a list of land uses and building heights for the gateway area, recommended amount of bonus FAR office for the gateway area, some proportionality of office to residential. Again, we expect both office and residential at the gateway site. Of course, transportation connections will be studied. How does the site connect to the 101 bike pet bridge, as well as the transit service on shoreline? Placemaking will be a key element. The precise plan calls for signature open space in the area. And we'll consider that as well as the retail and commercial business environment there. In addition, the gateway and the master plan. We're looking at the relationship between both those, in terms of priorities, implementation, and again, how we allocate the bonus FAR between those two areas. The mechanisms, again, ideally, it could be a joint development for the entire approximate 30 acres, but we're also realistic that it may need to move forward with separate parcels that together integrate, in some way, into a cohesive master plan, but allow each to move forward, that could be an option, each property owner. Again, we could potentially shift some of the bonus FAR from the gateway to outside of the gateway. Again, we'll have to study that in some options there. And we consider other mechanisms like land swaps or other agreements. So the scope of work, here are the main elements, we propose to include some preliminary considerations regarding financial transportation and implementation options. Then we'll move into conceptual design, where we'll have a number of test fits for the site, to understand how the different land uses, at different maximum billing intensities, would all fit together at the site. We'd also include some financial trade offs to evaluate all the costs and revenues, potentially, with each of these site test fits. And then we would move into the alternatives phase where we would be looking at how the different land uses and blocks, and the site plan all work together with circulation, and parking, and open space, and other retail strategies. Then, of course, the actual master plan. Again, will include series of maps and land uses, building locations, a whole list of development program, in terms of land uses, amount of square footage, and again, different strategies for parking, urban design, and, of course, phasing, and implementation. So our recommendation tonight is that council approved the scope of work for the city initiated master plan, as detailed in the staff report, along with the requested actions on the screen, and in your staff report. And that concludes staff's presentation.

[03:47:33] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Any questions from council members? Counselor Clark, did you have any questions?

[03:47:45] Councilmember Chris Clark: No.

[03:47:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister, did you have any?

[03:47:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Yep. Not a mayor. Um... Could the council also decide not to reallocate all of the 101.5 million... of square... development?

[03:48:07] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: I'm sorry, is your question? Could the council decide not to allocate the 1550000 square feet of office through this process?

[03:48:14] Councilmember John McAlister: All of it. Yeah, could we decide not to out? Yeah, could we allocate? left of them out?

[03:48:23] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: Yes. This analysis will go through some options and provide, again, options for counsel to consider an amount that could be less than that, and most likely will be for this site because of the constraints with transportation.

[03:48:41] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, also, isn't the one, there's a 100,000 that's that what you said from the Reese property, which is northwest of this property. So, would that, 100000s be allocated to a different area and not included in the gatekeeper area? I mean, into the gateway.

[03:48:59] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: That could be considered for any location in North Bay Shore at this time. It remains unallocated, like the rest of the 1.45 million.

[03:49:10] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. And being that this, this potential of the new, uh, 3 acres at 155 Plymouth, we, potential, um, delay of projects because of, uh, negotiations back and forth. Is that where you're talking about doing a land swap where sidewap would potentially take over that portion and move their land around?

[03:49:42] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: Um, the parcel or the question before council is just if you would like that parcel to be studied as part of this process and the actual mechanism of land swap or anything else, that hasn't been discussed at this point, but we would look into those different mechanisms during the master plan development.

[03:50:02] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Okay, those are my questions. Thank you.

[03:50:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Council member, Ramirez.

[03:50:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, just a couple of quick questions. So, uh, the fiscal impact analysis, um, as I understand it, would basically, uh, help, uh, would discern the relative impact of each of the alternatives, uh, for the city side, right? So what the anticipated sales tax or property tax would be, that kind of thing?

[03:50:37] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: That is one option, or that is a potential scope of work option that council could direct, but also the financial evaluation will also be looking at the actual cost and regulatory requirements and fees for the private development to move forward, and the feasibility of the different options of land uses and feasibility of residential and that kind of thing.

[03:51:04] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Is there a reason that staff did not recommend, including a fiscal impact analysis, as part of the scope of work?

[03:51:13] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: We included a project contingency budget to do that, and I believe we will be doing some level of financial analysis. We did a lot of recent financial analysis as part of the North Bay Shore precise plan, but in talks with our finance director, I think we do want to have some type of financial analysis on the city side of things. So that will be included within our project contingency. We have that ability.

[03:51:41] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So that's, if we were to approve the staff recommendation. That already includes this kind of analysis.

[03:51:47] Advanced Planning Manager Martin Alkire: Correct.

[03:51:47] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you.

[03:51:50] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions from council members? Okay, saying none. We will open this up for public comment. So if you have anything you would like to share on this topic, please come up to the microphone. Be sure to fill out a blue card and leave it with our city clerk. You can fill it out before or after you speak. And you can have three minutes.

[03:52:29] Arose Sylvester: Good news is I'll only take about 90 seconds. I might arose, Sylvester, representing tonight balanced Mountain View. We ask a city to fund the scope of work tonight and create a North Bay Shore Gateway master plan that meets the best interest of the public good. This is the perfect project to show that we can under our own local control. Well, the housing that we need, and that we can make the best choices for our own communities in our own community. To this end, Balanced Mountain View seeks, enough housing in the gateway to ensure the Ford to one housing jobs ratio can be maintained across the entire North Bay Shore. with the ultimate edition of 9,850 housing units. Reallocation of some are all of the remaining bonus far, not allocated to the gateway area to Google for inclusion into their master framework plan. We want to see a complete neighborhood with a school, parks, open space, useful, needed retail, housing, and jobs, and a gateway plan that enables all of these uses. A gateway plan that integrates uses among the 2 property owners in a one neighborhood looking feel, avoiding the San Antonio shopping center problem. Likability, and walkability across the gateway properties, and safe convenient connections across both 101 and Shoreline. A comprehensive TDM Plan. Seamless integration with the adjacent Joaquin neighborhood, and inclusion of the 1555 Plymouth area to the gateway area per staffs report. A final report that includes different land uses, sizes, building heights for each of the site tests and alternatives, and conceptual map options so people can really see the differences between the options. And lastly, we hope the project is fast tracked and that the plan is concluded in 6 months, if at all possible, for further information on our recommendations, we submitted a letter over the weekend. Thank you.

[03:54:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next please.

[03:54:29] Alec Brown: Alec Brown, Santacavilla, North Bay Shore, Mountain View. Right over there. I'm excited that this came back council so quickly, and I really hope that we actually have something to work with soon. I'm excited to see development begin. And I appreciate the inclusion of community input and neighborhood considerations when planning the gateway going forward. I like that we're being included. I appreciate that. Thank you.

[03:54:52] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Next, please.

[03:55:01] Cliff Chambers: Hi, Cliff Chambers, and I'm representing the Mountain View coalition for sustainable planning. Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning is disappointed that SiWest and Google could not come together to agree to the mediation process. And ultimately, we want a win, win, win situation for both the property owners. And the Mountain View community at large. So we hope during this process, they're really able to collaborate and work together because it's really going to need that kind of collaboration for us to have a successful outcome of the plan. Um, We urge the city council. We certainly want to include the 1555 Plymouth is part of the study process, but I don't think you certainly need to make a decision in terms of whether to absolutely include it in the gateway or not. You do the test fist analysis, do the homework, included as at least one or 2 of the master plan alternatives, and then you can really make an intelligent choice on whether which way to go. I think there's overall insufficient detail in the TJAKM scope of work and budget, and we'd really like to see a TDM expert lead the evaluation of the TDM transit and parking strategies. As we've heard earlier, and we observe every day, Shoreline is really at gridlock. So if we're going to ever achieve the vision of the gateway plan, something really needs to be done that's, um, an extremely innovative plan that's actually going to work for this site. And I think we really need the best and the brightest to do this work. We really need a cohesive TDM plan. We need a lot of infrastructure improvements. We really need to have public partnership, partnerships, to really have a public transportation system that will really work from this site. And as I understand it, there's $170,000 allocated for modeling work, which is certainly necessary, but 25,000 of that is for the TDM plan. That's just woefully insufficient. We really need to up our game and really think about how are we going to provide incentives to increase the internalization rate compared to what was in the EIR. And that's just only one of the strategies and really have, you know, a plan. And I understand that ought to planning is going to be doing that work. They're excellent firm. But they're really known for active transportation, bicycle and pedestrian work. I think, you know, Nelson Nigard did an exemplary job. Somebody like Jeffrey Lee Tomlin, who led that work, would be the kind of person that would really need to lead this comprehensive effort that is really required. Thank you.

[03:58:03] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the council on this item? Council member, Clark, is there anyone at your location?

[03:58:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: No.

[03:58:20] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister? Is there anyone at your location?

[03:58:23] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I don't.

[03:58:24] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No, is there anyone at your location wishing to provide us with public input on this topic?

[03:58:30] Unknown Speaker: No.

[03:58:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: No one else. Thank you. Okay, so we'll close the public input portion and we'll bring it back to council for discussion and action. So council member McAllister, it sounded like you started to provide a comment.

[03:58:47] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I, uh, being in, on the council since this project came up with multiple owners, with LinkedIn, a sidewest, um, president, to include 1555 Plymouth, unless there was an immediate land swap, because when Lincoln and Google were both at it, there was impediments to moving forward. We definitely know that Si West and Google have uh difficulty coming to conclusions, so, if we want this to move forward. That, uh, in a quick fashion, then my inclination is to say no to 155, unless again, Google will do an immediate land swap, or make it at school.

[03:59:36] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Council member Hicks.

[03:59:41] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I was leaning towards including that site, as long in at least one of the options that we, that, that we, or you tested, and in particular, if a land swap were possible, I thought that, that, that, that,

[04:00:00] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any others have comments?

[04:00:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: Can I jump in?

[04:00:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes, Council member Clark, thank you.

[04:00:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: So I agree. I think, including 1555 Plymouth as one of the options, uh, I think, is okay. The, I may, I might be the only one, but one of the things I'm interested in is, um, I'm interested in the, the data and conclusions from various scenarios. So one scenario would be, you know, including 1555 Plymouth in the, in the study area. Um, another scenario might be, that I would personally would be interrupted in, um, in terms of decision making, moving forward, would be, what, um, given the, given the current ownership, what could Si West, what would be feasible for Si West to do at the gateway on their own? So, um, what level of office or commercial would be needed to support a mixed use project or what sort of office allocation would be needed to support a mixed use project just on their parcels loan? Um, and so that would help me sort of know, you know, in the future if we wanted to make an allocation of them in the port of a project that, um, just include the land that they control. Um, what, what that, what that feasibility or what would be required to make that feasible. So that would be one scenario. I'd be interested in. Another scenario would be, the, the, um, in the staff report, or in the presentation, the area, outlanding red, and then the other would be, if we were to include the, the 1550 Plymouth Street Parcel. Um, and I don't know if that, if we can sort of melt that into the current scope of work, but those, those are the 3 different scenarios that I think would be most helpful for me.

[04:02:01] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member. Is that it? Council member clerk, sorry. Excel. Council member Ramirez.

[04:02:10] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. And just to clarify, are we only answering question one or if we have other?

[04:02:14] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Well, we were sort of discussing things, so... Yep, all your comments.

[04:02:19] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. So for question one, I'm interested. I agree with council member, council members Hicks and Clark, I'm interested in exploring adding 1555 Plymouth. And I thought the suggestion that Cliff provided was sort of an elegant solution. If there's some disagreement about whether to include it, that maybe some alternatives have it, and others don't, and that way we can make a decision about whether it makes sense, whether it does enhance or result in a superior outcome, if it is included, or if it doesn't make sense, then we have alternatives that don't have it. So I like that idea. Just in the way of general comments, I support the scope of work proposed by staff. The only thing I would be interested in exploring in greater depth would be community benefits. So as I understand it, North Bay Shore.

[04:03:15] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Can you get closer to your mic?

[04:03:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sorry, I'm sorry. I'll do a better job. So I'd be interested in some more work on community benefits, specifically because, you know, as I understand, the precise plan. One of the key concepts is, you know, what is often referred to as the beauty pageant, where there are applicants competing for a finite amount of office space, and that would be, you know, that they have an incentive to offer a superior application, to make it more attractive to the council. And if, um, in the end, the master plan allocates office space to, you know, to specific properties. There isn't that competition. And so I, that there needs to be some mechanism that ensures that we get, you know, whatever, you know, maximum amount of community benefits we could realistically expect to get. from development in the gateway. whatever that could be. Or if, you know, we could still retain a competitive element if instead of allocating office space to a specific parcel. We just, we reserve some sort of subdistrict wide. So the property owners can compete for it. And then there's at least an incentive to provide more community benefits that way. But either way, I think we need to be very clear in sort of what the how we get to a value for community benefits, since we no longer really have a beauty pageant component in that, you know, just very broadly, you know, 800,000 square feet of office space in the gateway has a roughly comparable impact to 800,000 square feet of office space outside of the gateway. And either way, I want to make sure that we have, you know, as much in the way of community benefits that we can get. I don't want to have a process that results in a reduced amount because of the lack of competition. That's all. Thank you.

[04:05:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member command.

[04:05:19] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So I think my kind of general comments about the scope of work is how can we set up options or scenarios that lead to development of the gateway? I think that's the lens that I'm viewing it from. And one thing that I'm encouraged about is the discussion about the flexibility of those options, of the different scenarios. So, you know, one might be including the 1555 Plymouth, um, maybe another doesn't. And I think part of it is, um, you know, as was noted in the staff report that, um, I wouldn't want it to lead to further complication. I'd rather lead to greater and a superior gateway site design. Um, and so I think, um, we can be creative in how we do that. Um, is kind of what my greatest focus is. Um, I thought the comment from council member Clark was interested in terms of, you know, um, making sure that we can think of how we can get both, uh, both applicants, um, to be to be enabled to develop. And if there is um, an option of square footage, um, that can help do that. Um, I think that would help us as a council as well. Because I know that that's been discussed a lot.

[04:06:56] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor Abbe Koga.

[04:06:58] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, thank you. So I concur with the comments that have already made. I think they're very insightful comments. I support the, um, I support that, um, if it's not going to be too much larger of scope of work, but having the 2 scenarios of with and without 1555. Um, and, um, community benefits. As council member Ramirez mentioned, are key. We didn't really define them when, or actually, wasn't us, but they weren't defined originally, I think we need to define them. In particular, I'm interested in transportation circulation. You know, frankly, I don't want the city to have to buy land to fix a road that should be fixed because of the added square footage or added development in the area, like we did with Plymouth. So that should be an expectation that we have the right of ways that we need to create the circulation patterns that we need to make this all work. Um, and just one last comment too. You know, we do not have to allocate all of the bonus FAR. That was meant for the entirety, the life of the general or the precise plan update. So we should just, you know, do the studies and see what's feasible, what's necessary, and then we can decide from there what we want to do with the rest of it. Thanks.

[04:08:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Also, I was gonna make a couple of comments. I was interested in having a scenario where 1555 is included. And I certainly appreciate council member Clark's suggestion for a scenario that is, um, if these projects are done separately. How does that work? And so I think I agree with his 3 scenarios. Those good suggestions. I would like to take a look at community benefits and get a better understanding of that. And I agree with the comment about what's really important to me is how do you get around this location, whether it be by pedestrian, riding a bike or in a vehicle. And what's required in terms of added infrastructure, and therefore, um, what do we need to have the projects, um, do, uh, because I agree, I think that projects should be responsible for the infrastructure that's needed to support the development. And I think that's it. I was wondering, actually, I did have one question. With this master plan, will it reduce in any way the time frame of evaluation of applications? Applications for development applications for then implementing the precise plan because so much work has been done to create the master plan. I guess what I'm trying to look at is if this part of development can't be shortened. about 9 months. Would there be any benefit to the development applications in terms of they would have a shorter time period because all this work had been done.

[04:10:47] Planner: Yeah, I mean, that's the idea that they would shorten, shorten it. They would still need to do some additional technical studies probably when they came in, just to confirm that it met all the master plan studies that we did, but in a big picture, it would hopefully speed it up, yeah.

[04:11:04] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Okay. Council member Hicks?

[04:11:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I agree with the direction other council members are going in, and I won't list all the bullet points, because all of you have done that so well already. The one thing, we had two members of the public speaking tonight about concerns regarding transportation, both in the gateway area and leading up to it. So I'm wondering if there's any way of beefing up that part of, if anybody, staff had any recommendations of beefing up that part of the, um, of the study or, or, uh, using a variety of consultants.

[04:11:45] Planner: I mean, we could look at that. I mean, one of the things that was in the staff report attached was the one page transportation scope of work. What that doesn't show is how that's connected to the larger circulation feasibility study that public works is leading. And that study is quite comprehensive, and there'll be a whole number of model runs that will be done through that circulation study, and it'll be looking at different factors, like different levels of TDM, and how would that affect the gateway side development and the roadway network. It's going to also be looking at different levels of internalization within the North Bay Shore of how many residents would be expected to live there that would not need to drive. So it's going to be quite robust and comprehensive. So I'm confident in the work that that is being done for the TGAKM modeling work. Also, we have done quite a bit of TDM work previously with the precise plan EAR, and also have very recent North Bay Shore, both commercial and residential TDM guidelines. So we could leverage those to help inform the TDM work that Alta will be doing. In addition, we have quite a bit of TDM recent programs approved with different development projects out in North Bay Shore, the Microsoft Project, Charleston East, Cerrado. So I'm fairly confident that all those other sources, with the strong foundation of the modeling work being done by the public works department, that we'd be able to come up with some good outputs for transportation.

[04:13:29] Unknown Speaker: If I could come back for a 2nd to what I'm calling the Clark Suggestion, for the 3 alternatives, I just want to clarify, maybe get staff or the consultants to weigh in as well, on the option of only looking at the SiWest property, while Martin said, certainly, our hope is that ultimately the property owners work together, we would do a master plan that they could build separately, but that is different than doing a master plan that only looks at the SiWest property, which, in my mind, defeats the purpose of the master plan, which is to see how the totality of the site works together. So, I don't know if Chris can clarify what he means by that, or his staff has thoughts on whether or not that's realistic.

[04:14:15] Councilmember Chris Clark: I can elaborate a little bit. So, I, I, I completely get that it sort of defeats the purpose of having a master plan area, but I think, my thought process behind this was, if we're going to be doing this study and studying the area and perhaps the addition of other parcels, we might as well, it would be helpful, um, At least for me, uh, to know, let's say we go down this path and we create a master plan and ultimately, you know, the parties still don't want to work together. Um, and we get a project proposal from a single property owner, um, who says that, you know, we need this amount of bonus FAR office allocation to make this pencil, and I would like to be able to check that against, you know, an independent 3rd party, um, sort of study of one. You know, is that, is that a valid? uh, you know, is that a, is that really truly what needed to make a pencil and 2 What does that do to, traffic in the gateway and things if, if, for example, it's a different office tenant, then, um, one of our more significant, um, landholders in the area, uh, and they're just part of the TDM as a separate, you know, maybe it's a, a different, uh, different company who's there and just part of the TDM and what does the impact of that on the gateway? So, I don't know if this is the right avenue to go down, um, here or not, but I just figure that if we're studying this area generally, we might as well have a sub area that is just, um, just a single landholder, and I'm not saying that I would support a master plan that only includes that, but it would give us that background and that information to, to know if we end up in a scenario where people aren't willing to work together on a master plan, and we're back to square one. where people are saying we need X amount of office to make all this pencil and we don't have an independent analysis to know whether that's chocolate or not.

[04:16:23] Unknown Speaker: So I'll ask the planners to chime in.

[04:16:25] Planner: I would just say that technically, under our precise plan, no individual property enter can submit a proposal, unless there's a master plan. And so the whole point of this process is, again, not to dictate what each property owner does, but what the ultimate vision we, the city, want for the gateway, whether that can be built in 2 phases by 2 property owners or integrated, I think the intent of this study is to look at what's the total office square footage that is appropriate and reasonable and supportable on the totality of that site. We can then decide if we want to choose which side of the property line it goes on or how to divide that. But I think, again, we want to look at the aggregate, the total housing, we want there, the total office that we want there, the total open space that we want there, the total open space that we want there. And then we can either say, where we think it should be, or we could present those totals, and once again, try to get the property owners to allocate them in a fairer proportionate way. Okay. Martin, I don't know if you had any thoughts, or you're welcome to contradict everything I just said.

[04:17:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments? So I took Chris's comment to mean we would still have his original comment that we would still have a master plan for the entire area. But that potentially it would be developed sort of independently. And if it did, what would that look like? Vice mayor, Abi Coca?

[04:18:14] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, yeah, I agree, and yes, maybe another way of looking at it would be how to phase this project, similar to San Antonio Shopping Center, right? We have different owners and we don't know when things are going to get redeveloped, but we've tried. I know not everybody's happy with it, but we tried to phase it in a way that it made sense in the meantime. So perhaps that's the way we could look at that. I don't know if that's different from what I think that's...

[04:18:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I think that's a good comment. I think that's a better interpretation. Thank you, Mike Mayor, for that. I think, it, I, I was probably being too prescriptive. I think what I'm trying to get at it. You know, if, if we aren't able to come to, uh, if folks aren't able to come to an agreement immediately, but there's some sort of phasing process. I think we just want to be able to, to think about how that all might work within the context of a broader master plan, sort of like we have in, in San Antonio, but maybe, maybe that will be one of the work products that comes out of this, but that's really what I was getting at is, if, if we aren't able to get folks to come to some agreement, you know, in the very near future. Is there some way that we can still proceed with the vision of the master plan, but in a, in a phased approach where we don't end up sort of regretting the actions that we, that we took early on in, in implementing that, in a big approach.

[04:19:47] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Hicks.

[04:19:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I'm certainly not against some kind of phased approach, but as at least one member of the public said earlier tonight, I would hate to get into the situation that many people don't appreciate about the San Antonio Center, where the many of the uses seem kind of disconnected, and that the, you know, the, I think some of the, a lot of the potential for walkability is not there. So I would hate that we make a decision that kind of gets us going down that road in this area as well. I would like the uses to be more integrated, frankly, than they are. in the San Antonio Center. So that's my comment.

[04:20:30] Unknown Speaker: I don't disagree with that. And so if you had one master plan, but, um, I guess I'm thinking, is it possible to have one master plan that's phased in, but still very connected, very integrated. Um, is kind of what I'm saying.

[04:20:46] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I think, again, the intent of the master plan is to give the overall vision and land use is and capacities and whatnot, and how the circulation works together. We cannot mandate that one property owner or the other build either side, you know, on our timeline or whatever. They're going to do that if they don't come to an agreement whenever they want. So by definition, there's a potential for phasing, but we would want to make sure that the circulation, the pedestrian friendliness, all those sorts of things work together. So, you know, there is the possibility that half of it got built, and the other half sat empty or vacant, and so there would be a challenge, but at least we would know ultimately the pieces would fit together the way we want it to fit together.

[04:21:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member, come.

[04:21:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I think we're all in agreement on the direction that we are trying to head in, and so we're just trying to figure out the mechanisms and tools to be able to do that. So I think we're all on the same page to your to your comment.

[04:21:48] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member McAllister or council member Clark, do you have any other comments?

[04:21:54] Councilmember Chris Clark: No, that's okay. I think, I think, I think just by providing our comments, we have a sense here. I just wanted to make sure that we were getting all the work products out of, out of the specific engagement, um, that we, that we think we might need down the road, so, uh, it sounds like everyone's comfortable that we, we probably are based on the comments that are made, so I'm okay.

[04:22:17] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Any other comments? The vice mayor is ready to make a motion?

[04:22:23] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, if everyone's ready, I'd like to make a motion. Do I need to read the whole thing or just, my motion is to approve stuff. Recommendation, and do I need to list the 3 scenarios we discussed and the other comments or...

[04:22:41] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Would you mind clarifying the 3 scenarios just so that staff and the consultants know what we're studying?

[04:22:47] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, if I understood correctly. One is including the 1555 Plymouth property, one is without it, and one is, um, well, I guess it would be a, maybe not a 3rd scenario, but more of a phasing approach to the master plan.

[04:23:08] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, just to clarify, Martin, if you could chime in. I mean, I think, as we envision scenarios, we were actually talking about, you know, different looks and feels for it.

[04:23:18] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. Yes, I understand that. So I'm not sure that the phasing in necessarily is a separate scenario, much it just has to be integrated into how any scenario would work. There'd be two scenarios plus a phasing process or concept.

[04:23:38] Planner Martin: I think to reiterate what Dan was saying, it would be whatever scenarios we look at, we might want to look at how they might get phased. So for every scenario we look at how my kids get phased. To the extent that they can. And so when they can't, we'll let you know what the challenges might be. So, typically you try to, you try to look at that, um, either way to make sure that even when one part is built, the other part doesn't look disjointed, or there is some kind of method to that. So that would be the general goal. of creating those at least those 2 scenarios.

[04:24:20] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. So the scenarios, including phasing. And then do you have the common sun community benefits? Is that clear? Okay, great. And just one comment, El Camino shopping center, as it's getting, I walked from the movie theater to Safeway, and as it's getting built, it's getting, it's starting to connect. So a big part of this is just timing. And when these properties decide to redevelop, But I think, you know, we have a plan there and as it's getting built, it's starting to make sense.

[04:24:54] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second pie council member, Kamei. Any other comments on that? Okay, we'll do a roll call vote.

[04:25:05] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[04:25:07] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[04:25:08] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[04:25:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[04:25:10] City Clerk: Council member Kameh?

[04:25:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[04:25:11] City Clerk: Council member McAllister?

[04:25:14] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes, and good night.

[04:25:16] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez?

[04:25:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[04:25:19] City Clerk: Vice mayor Abi Koga?

[04:25:20] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[04:25:20] City Clerk: Mayor Matachek.

[04:25:21] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes. That passes unanimously. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is item 7.2, approval of an appropriation of funds for a long term list with option to purchase of real property located at the southwest corner of East Evelyn Avenue and Pioneer Way. That's APN 160 65 dash 008. And I believe, let's see, council member, um, already, McAllister already hung up. So does the city attorney want to say anything on his behalf?

[04:26:07] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: Um, Council member McAllister is not participating in the agenda item, not because of a conflict of interest under the political reform act, but because of his membership on the VTA board and the fact that he participated, um, from the VTA side on this matter, so he's not gonna wear 2 hats and participate on the city side.

[04:26:25] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Our presenters tonight are project manager, Affordable Housing, Vera Gill, and Dennis Drennan, Real Property Program Administrator.

[04:26:41] Affordable Housing Project Manager Vera Gill: Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. Wanted to go over with you, the VTA Evelyn long-term lease that we've been working on. And so wanted to start off with a little background information on location as well as some background on the project itself. It's located at the southwest corner of East Evelyn and Pioneer Away. It's a little over 2 acres in size. The zoning for the site. That should be is general industrial. And the GP land use designation is high intensity office. So with our intention to use this as residential, we would have to go through a rezoning as well as a land use change. A little background on the project when it originally began. In March of 2015, the VTA closed the Evelyn Light Rail Station so that they could make some improvements to the light rail line between Moffatt and the downtown train station. And shortly thereafter in 2017, they approached the city to work jointly on a development of the site. The original proposal was for VTA to own the site and develop it with some funding from the city as well as the county of Santa Clara. In late 2017, VTA offered to sell the site to the city, and subsequently, they came back and offered the site to the city in the form of a long term lease with an option to purchase. We've gone to closed session with the city council. I believe, about two times to discuss what the proposed terms are, and we will go into further discussion of those proposed terms this evening, in open session. The proposed terms are a 65 year ground lease with both an option to purchase, as well as an option to extend the lease for an additional 34 years, if we choose not to follow through with the option to purchase. The city pays 11000000 to VTA at the execution of the lease. And an additional 2000000 at the exercising of the option to purchase. But we would also pay $2000000 to VTA if we chose not to exercise the option. So it would be 2 million plus the 11000000 either way. We're looking at some affordability terms on the development of a weighted average of 80% AMI for the entire site. So if we break it up into several parcels, we would have to have the weighted average on the entire parcel, but it does give us flexibility. It allows us a range up to 120% AMI, which would allow for missing middle as well as, as well as some permanent supportive units, if we chose to do so. Safe parking would be allowed on the site for a short-term use for up to 24 months. And that would be from the execution of the lease during our RFQ RFP process. So that, uh, it would be a shorter term, so it would not impede development of the site. VTA also asked for an employee preference, and we did work with them so that the proposal is now to allow, to the extent permitted by law, to use the cities live work preference. So if any VTA employees live or work in Mountain View, they could be eligible for those units, just like anyone else that lives or works in Mountain View. We're looking at a minimum density of 75 dwelling units to the acre. VTA also is interested in participating in the RFQ RFP process, but only as a technical advisor. They feel that it would be too much of a conflict of interest if they actually participated as a voting member. So they do want to guarantee, this was a big ticket item for them. They do want to guarantee that we follow through and develop affordable housing on the site. And we've expressed that we're very serious about developing affordable housing on the site. they did want some assurances. So they would like, um, to make sure that certain pre-development activities are are taken care of by the city, and it's primarily having to do with the funding, the subsidy, for any affordable development on the entire site. They would like that in construction to be moving along prior to our exercising the option. So the exercising of the option could come as quickly as your year 2 or the 1st anniversary of the signing of that lease. So if we move quickly, we could exercise that option within a year and a half . If for some reason, we are delayed for 10 years, VTA does want an automatic option to lease the site back so that they could construct affordable housing on the site. So that's just a backup there. So the recommendations, I'm not going to read these in full. I'm just going to go over them pretty quickly. We are recommending that you take the following actions this evening to appropriate funds and approve a long term lease on the site, with an option to purchase. And number one is to approve the terms of a long term lease with an option to purchase. Number two, approve a mid-year capital improvement project. Number three, appropriate 11,715,000 from the Housing Fund Housing Impact Fund, for the new capital project. 715,000 would go towards administrative costs for the city. Number four, appropriate $2,130,000 from the housing impact fund for the new capital project for the purchase option. And 130,000 would go to incidental cost and administrative, appropriate, an additional 120,000, and that would be for the marketing of the site, and that also comes from the Housing Impact Fund. authorized the city manager or his designee to execute all documents and take all necessary actions. And number seven, authorize the city manager to execute any minor amendments for the lease or the option to purchase as long as it does not exceed 100,000. And if you have any questions this evening, Dentist Renan is here with me and I can answer some questions as well.

[04:33:16] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Are there any questions from council members? Council member Clark, did you have any questions?

[04:33:25] Councilmember Chris Clark: No, I don't, thank.

[04:33:30] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So, I don't see anybody in, uh, council member commit.

[04:33:34] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, sorry, I was trying to reach for my button. Um, so when we're talking about the um, range of 80% AMI, um, and then 30 to 120%. Do we have like a rough estimation of the salary ranges? I was looking, um, at the county's numbers and they seem to kind of shift a little.

[04:33:56] City Staff: I don't know if we can share in terms of numbers to the percents that we're talking about.

[04:34:02] Affordable Housing Project Manager Vera Gill: I didn't bring my income guidelines with me. And so it does get a little confusing because the state has a certain set of income guidelines, but if you use tax credits on the project, it has an entirely different set of income guidelines.

[04:34:16] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Got it. Okay. That clarification is helpful. Thank you. That explains why I was looking at so many different ranges and numbers. Thank you.

[04:34:23] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions from council members? Council member Hicks.

[04:34:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: This is kind of a vague, it's a question and a comment bundled together. Um, I agree with the additional terms that the VTA requested. I was most disappointed to read in the staff report that it's been difficult to come to terms on an interim lease for safe parking on the site. And I was wondering whether there was anything in negotiation for, for this in general, whether there's any way to encourage seeing that as a mutual responsibility, not just something that the city wants, to enable really being able to get to the, um, safe parking or get the, the entire thing done quickly so that we can do that. I just wanna make sure that we, you know, that we really get that done and get it done quickly. So if there's any interaction between the 2 that can facilitate that.

[04:35:19] City Staff: I can go ahead and address that. We attempted to reach an agreement with the VTA on abridging interim lease, something that would carry us over until the long term arrangement went into effect. But VTA, they're in the business of generating revenue. And so they quoted a rent figure to us. We attempted to negotiate. We got the rent down, but it was still pretty high rent, a monthly rent. And we believe that we can reach agreement fairly quickly on the long term arrangement, which would then allow us to proceed with a safe parking program as well. So we're going to put our efforts there.

[04:36:04] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I mean, on the safe parking in general, our plan all along is to try to get that operational by early fall, and we still hope that that's doable, whether it's through a short term lease, frankly, I think our energy is best spent on getting the long term lease done, and not waste our time negotiating a short term lease and haggling over price, and just focus on the long term, which would I'm confident we'll be able to get done.

[04:36:34] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Vice mayor Abbe Koga.

[04:36:36] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I just remembered something. So, um, what is, do you have a sense of what our timeline is and actually building or having a project built on this site? I'm assuming it's going to be before 10 years.

[04:36:54] City Staff: Yes, we are moving quickly to enter into the lease. We are hoping that we can take, take, um, an opportunity to exercise that option as soon as possible. So we'll be working on the RFQ, RFP, and it'll follow Lot 12 very quickly.

[04:37:15] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you.

[04:37:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other questions? Okay, we will open it up then for public comment. So if you wanted to provide us with input on this topic, please come up to the microphone. Be sure to fill out a blue card with your information and leave it with our city clerk, either before or after you speak.

[04:37:40] Gil Aiken: Yes, I'm Gil Aiken.

[04:37:42] Councilmember John McAlister: There is no one here, mayor.

[04:37:43] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

[04:37:44] Gil Aiken: Pardon?

[04:37:46] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Sorry, our council member who's on the phone was just saying there's no public comment where he is, so we'll... we'll go on to you.

[04:37:52] Gil Aiken: I'm Gil Aikens. My family owns the immediately adjacent property. to this plot. Primarily two concerns. One is that this is proceeding without a precise plan for this area, and it's hard to understand how this, uh, fits in the precise plan, how it's going to affect the precise plan. But I understand the affordability housing issue and what you're driving towards. Secondly, this safe parking. As neighbors, we have no, I have no understanding what safe, is there documentation on what safe parking is? We're very concerned about how it impacts the neighbors. What do you do about the utilities there? Do you have to provide uh, electricity? Do you have to provide sewage? Do you have to provide water? Are you going to do any of that? You're going to put in anything for trash disposal? What is the definition of safe parking? Perhaps I think something has gone before on what this is, but is there documentation for it, and are there examples of safe parking that exists already? That's my question.

[04:39:09] City Manager Dan Rich: Madam, mayor, I can respond if you'd like. And if you leave your information, be happy to have our staff person contact you and explain it. We have, at the council, discussed it numerous times, and there is sort of a definition and a program that goes around, and we'd be happy to share with you, and the council will also be talking about a little bit more, I believe, on June 11th. But if the clerk has your contact information, we'll follow up and give you a little bit more information.

[04:39:37] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Is there anyone else who wanted to?

[04:39:45] Public Speaker: I own the adjoining a building at 82 pioneer way. So he has it on one side, I am on the other side. And I understand the plan as to what is to be built is not yet in place and will be worked on. What are your thoughts or how tall that structure might be? Okay? And what the parking arrangement would be so has to minimize the impact on pioneer way. And if you go there, the whole street is occupied, even though in my building, I have adequate parking, but apparently it is in full use. So certain clarification would be very helpful. And overall, I mean, we have all three neighbors are here, and as you develop plan, we'll appreciate, if you include us, and if you have, you know, good input, we'll be very happy to cooperate and provide, because we have been there for each one at least 20 years or more. So we are very familiar with the surroundings over there.

[04:41:06] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Thank you. Anyone, did you want to comment on the process?

[04:41:13] City Manager Dan Rich: Yeah, I just want to be real clear to the members of the public and the neighbors. This is the very first step of many, many, many steps in public meetings and community input and outreach. This is really, tonight, just about acquiring the property, you know, a staff indicated we will do a request for proposals. We will have community meetings, we will get input from neighbors on the size, the uses, all those sorts of things. And anyone in the neighborhood, within 750 feet, certainly will be notified and invited to all of those things. So just to, you know, be clear, there's no decisions that may been made on, you know, what will happen there, how big it will be in those sorts of issues, and there'll be lots of opportunities for input.

[04:41:55] Dennis Drennan: If I may add to that, Dan. As Vera mentioned, if the city didn't lease this property, acquire it for affordable housing, VTA was determined to proceed with affordable housing on this site. So by acquiring this property through a lease option to purchase, we control the destiny of this property and can control the public input as well.

[04:42:24] City Manager Dan Rich: Thanks, Dennis.

[04:42:25] Matthew Pataki: Matthew Pataki, apologize for my voice. I own 15 Pioneer Way, and I've been in that area for 20 years, but own that property for 5 years, and I'm generally concerned about the safe parking concept, because to me, this sounds like, kind of, anybody can just sleep in their car, and, I mean, for me, it's just, you know, I have a lot of, you know, higher end clients that drop off expensive cars right there, and it's like people are gonna be going to the bathroom, and the bushes, and the trees, and everything. It's a concern for me. So, um, I also understand greatly this need for affordable housing, so I have no argument with that, that, um, I definitely think this needs to be thought out, you know, a lot more clearly. And I realize that there will be more conversations on this, but we are addressing our concern. And I know that the Yarnells who own the building next to me, and then the Edelmans also are also very concerned they couldn't make it tonight, but the neighbors are very, you know, parking there is already difficult, because of all the construction that's been happening with the VTA, using it as a construction site, and just all the other stuff over the years, but there's barely any parking now. So, I doubt that you could be able to have with, um, 150 units, there's gonna be enough parking on site. And then, you know, that's all going to overflow into the streets, and then there's no parking already. So, I don't know, I have some generally large concerns. Thank you.

[04:43:51] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Anyone else wanting to provide us with public oven?

[04:43:58] Public Speaker: I also don't want anyone to have to go to the Bath and the Bushes, which is why I would love to see proper utilities and porta potties and support services being provided for the safe parking to make the most of this and help people as best we can and not just abandon them because that's not nice. Thank you.

[04:44:18] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other comments? Okay, well, close public input. And, um, looks like we've got council member May, who is ready to make a motion.

[04:44:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Um, so before I make the motion, I just want to thank the members of the public who came to speak and engage with us, I'm actually really, you know, excited that you're here to begin the dialogue in the process, and, um, I think you'll find that the, the lines are open for communication, um, from all of us. So, do I have to read all 7 items?

[04:44:58] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: Nope, there's no resolution or ordinance, so you can just move the staff recommendation.

[04:45:02] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Wow. A good one. I picked a good one. Okay. So I moved the staff recommendation.

[04:45:07] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we have a motion by council member commit, and a 2nd by Vice Mayor Abbe Koga. Are there any other comments before we vote? Okay, we can do a roll call vote.

[04:45:21] City Clerk: Council member Clark?

[04:45:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[04:45:24] City Clerk: Council member Hicks?

[04:45:25] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[04:45:25] City Clerk: Council member Kamei?

[04:45:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[04:45:27] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez?

[04:45:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[04:45:28] City Clerk: Vice mayor Abi Koga?

[04:45:30] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi,

[04:45:30] City Clerk: Mayor Matachek?

[04:45:31] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[04:45:32] City Clerk: Thank you. I'm Counsel member McAllisters.

[04:45:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Thank you. Recused.

[04:45:35] Mayor Lisa Matichak: So that motion passes 6... to 0 to one. With council member, McAllister recused. Okay, so we will close that item and, let's see, we're going to item eight, which is council staff committee reports. Vice Mayer Abi Koga?

[04:46:03] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I already gave part of my report after public comment. Um, but I attended, um, the ABEG MTC Housing Committee meeting last Wednesday, and we actually completed a review of all of the bills that we had on our docket. Um, and I can again send this in writing, but, um, we, uh, made comment this AB 1279. I'll just read off the numbers and then maybe 1279 is about high resource areas, AB, 1483, is about data collection, AB, 1485, is increasing BMR requirements, or options for the missing middle, AB, 1486, is about local agencies providing 1st right of refusal for 2 affordable housing developers on any vacant land, and AB 11 is an alternative to, um, or trying to bring back something similar to a redevelopment agency. So most of these bills still have some high concerns to them. Um, AB 11s had some good, uh, points to it and that, we really miss the redevelopment agencies that we used to have. And so finding ways to provide funding mechanisms for more housing is greatly appreciated. But so now all of our comments are going to be relayed to the A-Bag and MTC both have legislative committees, so they will get all of our input, the transcripts. And we were told that all of the transcripts to our meetings are being sent to all the state legislators, so they should have our comments. And we'll see where it goes from here. But the next meeting was supposed to be or is on May 23rd, but as we've completed all of our review, it'll just be an update on what MTC and A bag has, they're going to take positions on. So, um, I actually will be here for our special council meeting instead of this committee meeting. And then, again, yes, on Thursday. We will have a cities association legislative action committee, and we'll go through most of these bills and probably take positions. Thanks.

[04:48:29] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Council member Clark, too. Do you have anything?

[04:48:33] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, I had a question for the vice mayor. Do you know, so they annoyingly haven't released the full agenda for the A-Bag executive board meeting later this month. Is your understanding that the, so your, your recommendation will go to their, their legislative committee, but uh, is the expectation that that will then end up in front of the ABA executive board this month? I assume it would, but is that your understanding?

[04:48:58] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, yes, yes. So we didn't take positions. We just made comments, so that's all being sent to the 2 ledge committees, and then they will actually take positions on the votes on the bills. I'm sorry. And those recommendations are supposed to go to the exec boards. Or the boards.

[04:49:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, great. Yeah, I assume, yeah, hopefully that will happen this month because otherwise it'll be way too late. Not because of, not because of all the work, um, any lack of effort. It's just, uh, it's such a compressed timeline that I'm hoping they get that all to the executive board by end of the month. But thank you for all the work you put into that.

[04:49:46] Vice Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: It sounded like the schedule for the meetings will be through May. So by the end of May. You should have the input to make your decisions.

[04:50:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, thank you.

[04:50:08] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Any other council members? I don't have anything either. So move on to item 9 and see if there was a closed session report.

[04:50:17] City Attorney Jannie Quinn: I do not have a closed session report this evening.

[04:50:19] Mayor Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So we will adjourn this meeting to the next city council meeting to be held on Tuesday, May 14th, 2019 at 5.30 p.m. in the council chambers, 500 Casto Street.

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