April 21, 2020 Joint Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

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[00:05:38] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: They do so at Mountain View dot Legendstar dot com on YouTube at Mountain View dot gov slash YouTube and on Comcast Channel 26. As noted on the meeting agenda, members of the public may provide all public comments during the public comment period for an item by signing up at mountain view.gov. Dog slash CC underscore speakers. Any emails and voicemail messages received by 5 PM today were forwarded to the city council. Email is received after 5 PM and prior to the close of the public comment period for the agenda item will be read into the record by the city clerk. And any basemail messages received will be played by the city clerk. Now I will ask the city clerk to proceed with low call.

[00:06:26] City Clerk: Council member Clark. Council member Hicks?

[00:06:31] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here,

[00:06:32] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[00:06:34] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: There,

[00:06:35] City Clerk: council member, McAllister.

[00:06:37] Councilmember John McAlister: Finally, I got there.

[00:06:39] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez. Vice Mayor Camay?

[00:06:44] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here,

[00:06:45] City Clerk: Mayor Abby Koga.

[00:06:46] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Here, thank you. Thank you. So, we will go on to the study session item, uh, 33.1 propose Cisco year 2020 and 21 capital improvement program, and we have a staff presentation. Is it as Cameron, you know, start a thought?

[00:07:11] Assistant City Manager Mike Fuller: So um, I've heard the presentation. I am planning to give the presentation, but I see that the host has disabled my screen sharing. Apologies. There we go. Okay. Good evening, Honorable Mayor. Do we have the screen, the presentation? Okay. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, members of the council, Mike Fuller, assistant city manager. We'll be presenting this evening, and Don Cameron, public works director, and I will be answering questions. Um, We are here this evening to discuss next year's capital improvement program. Now, we have 3 topics this evening. The middle bullet is, um, the normal topic, which is the projects for next year, and then the 1st bullet is related to a topic that came up during discussion of the sustainability action plan, but is related to the CIP, and finally, um, the final bullet is related to business license, tax revenue, which is also relevant to the CIP, and I will go through each topic briefly. Um, the sustainability action plan for was approved by council on October 2019 and included a recommendation to add 3 limited period positions funded from the capital improvement program. to add capacity to accelerate delivery of key pedestrian and bicycle projects. Now, after careful consideration, staff recommends against adding these positions, and 2 of the key reasons include, um, with the current unprecedented workload related to capital projects, management support for such positions is already stretched beyond what is needed to maintain quality and timeliness of projects. And also with the financial or certain uncertainty related to the impact of COVID-19 staff recommends against adding additional positions. at this time. Now, there are 33 nondiscretionary and 23 discretionary projects in the proposed CIP for next year. Staff recommended modifications to some of the projects scheduled to roll forward from year 2 of last year's 5 year plan. A few new projects, and deferral of several others. I'm not planning to go through all of the projects, but 2 of the modifications are related to street resurfacing, which I will discuss in just a moment. Now, I know there's been some discussion of pairing back the CIP to free up funding for activities related to COVID-19, so I wanted to add some context for that discussion. The vast majority of the funding sources in the CIP are dedicated to capital improvements and cannot be used for other purposes. The major exception is the CIP reserve fund, which is from carryover funding from the general operating fund. Now, there is no general fund carryover from the current fiscal year program in the recommendations for next year's CIP. There is, however, some CIP reserve funding that was carried over from the 2018, 19 fiscal year in some of the projects for next year. Next year will also be council's opportunity to consider the full 5 year plan, which may be a better time to consider funding changes. Now, we'd be certainly happy to answer additional questions about this topic, discount for wishes. There's one change since publication of the staff report. Um, staff is recommending a modification to the community development department office improvements and permit center study. So while improvements are still needed, the actions needed to deal with COVID-19 have caused staff to reconsider some of the improvements, both in community development and other locations in city hall. Get some added flexibility. Staff recommends the same funding, but broadening the scope of the project to city hall in general. Go back to street maintenance. Major B and FB1 have provided substantial additional funding for annual street maintenance. This graph shows the funding in the annual street maintenance capital projects. It does not include overlays and other improvements included as part of other capital projects and private development. As you can see, annual funding has increased from approximately $2000000 per year to what is projected to be nearly 6 million. The economic effects of COVID-19 will likely affect these projections, but annual funding will still be well above its historic level. So it's come with a good time because the city's pavement condition index has dropped substantially the past few years. The process for determining the PCI is pretty subjective. So changes in the number from one year to the next are not a precise indication of pavement condition. The trend is definitely downward in the last few years, though. The good news is that we have additional measure B and FD1 funding, and we also have quite a bit of investment from other capital projects and private development. Significant examples include the Shoreline Boulevard transit lane, which will overlay Shoreline Boulevard from middle field to pair, and Google's Charleston East development, which has pavement treatment on all pre-existing frontages. Now, the five-year projection shows that we are on track to resume an upward trend in our pavement condition index. So the final major topic is transportation funding from the business license tax in 2018, council directed that 80% of the revenue be for transportation. Through the recent shuttle study, staff identified the anticipated needs of operating the shuttle system, which is approximately two thirds of the funding allocated to transportation. Staff recommends for the remaining 13rd be allocated to transportation capital funding and seek council direction on that allocation. So we have a question for counsel for each of the 3 major topics. And then with council, Direction this evening, staff will prepare a proposed capital improvement program for consideration with the operating budget in June, and that concludes staff, presentation. Don Cameron and I would be happy to answer your questions.

[00:14:04] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Since this is a study session, we will I should start off with public comments, um, and I'll start with our attendees. In, uh, are there any, um, members participating who would like to talk? There's a raised hand button at the bottom of your ring, in the box. If you see that, and you'd like to speak, please, go ahead and click that. I see, uh, the chambers, so I will, um, you, you should be able to speak.

[00:14:44] Cliff Chambers: Okay, thank you very much. This is uh, Cliff Chambers, resident of uh, Mountain View and um, Happy Earth Day Eve. Um, So, the Mountain View Coalisted for Sustainable Planning submitted a letter and I won't really repeat the points that we made in the letter. I'd just like to make a few very brief personal points. Um, In the staff reports, there were 75,000 for the MV workforce telecommuting, and, um, we've all been telecommuting, and really has been an overall effective TDM strategy. And while most people are going to be more than happy to get back to work face to face. This COVID-19 crisis has really shown. I think the tele community can really be a huge traffic mitigation benefit and I think in terms of reallocating some funds. I would like to see potentially looking at how we can, for those who can, uh, telecommute. I think if we can improve some of the telecommuting infrastructure, encourage more companies to continue the, some level of telecommuting, uh, be a huge benefit, only 10% reduction in traffic that can solve some of the peak, uh, period problems. Uh, given increased uh, bicycle, pedestrian used to COVID-19, um, really would like to see more of an expansion of the bicycle, pedestrian improvements in the capital budgets. I I do apply staff. There's a long list, very good list for that, but in terms of looking at the use of the business license tack over the next 2 years since Google is currently financially supporting the community shuttle, perhaps we could put uh some more effort into that. And but I particularly would like, in the general plan, we had the village centers, and I would really like to see improve bicycle, pedestrian excess to the pedestrian center, because I really noticed a tremendous amount of black manion, and I think there's some different improvements that need to be made. Finally, I don't really like to see some additional, uh, street escape improvements with lighter, uh, sidewalks, and more tree canopies. Thank you very much.

[00:17:02] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. And we'll go on. I have, uh, Luis Pat. I will unmute you. Welcome. Please go ahead and I forgot to mention Um, your uh, time is 3 minutes.

[00:17:19] Luis Pat: Thank you very much. Um, on behalf of Liverpool Mountain View, we have submitted a letter to the city council, explaining that regarding item 4.5 on the consent calendar. Um, what we feel is extremely important deficiencies in the proposal to augment the, um, existing plan for what the engineers will be doing for our transit center. As you know, transit center is the most important, uh, project that we have ongoing, in addition to the issues of, uh, Castro Street and downtown preservation. And we, again, I will not repeat what's in the letter, but I would like to point out that, um, having the changes too, that they proposed done by engineers, and not the architects and designers, that we understood, would be part of the process. At a later date. Um, brings to the question exactly how much, and then why would we even want to do it that way? Why would we change? Would these people uh would be spending time and money doing now? The staff responses that I read shows that the problems um are very important to be considered. They explain that modification to Castro Street, should just be pursued as a separate project, and that there will be public input as to the malt feasibility, but yet no public in- input as to how it's going to interface with the plaza, particularly the changes, and the decisions that will be made by the engineers if this proposal goes through. This, again, makes simply no sense. You can't just step off the curb from downtown and then be in a completely different world that has been, has no coordination and no connection. I'd like to remind the council that the 2017 transit center plan actually says that there is supposed to be coordination between Castro Street and the public class and the transit center for it to be a vibrant public space. The example being the portals, which I understand to be separate stairs and entrances to the tunnel. Why would we have an engineer decide where to put this important piece of the plaza when we don't yet have a plan or a vision as to how the plaza will be used? We could end up with a stairway in the middle of where there should be the farmer's market or performance space or festival space. Again, we're doing it backwards. Same thing with the tunnel walls and decorations. We have no concepts, no design choices, and instead they intend to choose materials. So basically, again, we're doing this backwards. And finally, the construction and staging. focuses solely on bikes and pedestrians, which, of course, is important, but completely ignores the impact on downtown businesses, and seems to purposely preclude input from the public and the business stakeholders. So we would very much appreciate if the council will take action, to ensure that we have coordination, that there is public input, and that these items by the engineers, that should not be part of the engineering plan, are in fact within the purview of architects and designers, as has been represented to us.

[00:20:29] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you. Um, are there any members of other members of the public wishing to speak? I don't have anyone in my attendee boss, uh, City Click, and another member for the puppet?

[00:20:45] City Clerk: Uh, no voicemails, no emails, and, um, no additional, um, let me just confirm. Um, I am not seeing an attendee, um, who signed up earlier, so no, that that's all we have.

[00:20:58] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Great, thank you. Then I will close public comment and bring it back to the council. Or, uh, when we go ahead with questions 1st and then we'll answer the big questions and stuff. So I have Counselor McAllister. Please unmute yourself.

[00:21:19] Councilmember John McAlister: I mute myself. Thank you. So, I was looking at the thing, and I was looking at the, um, volleyball court, the sand volleyball court. What exactly is uh, get you $430,000. $35,000.

[00:21:41] Assistant City Manager Mike Fuller: I think I'm gonna see if John Marchand is on the line to talk about the scope of that project. I do not believe that, um, Mr. Marchant's on the line right now.

[00:22:07] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Then, my other question is on, um... The capital, so we're gonna use part of the money, the, uh, business license tax, for transportation purposes. Could we cons-, would, um, considering upgrading our infrastructure, like fiber, or, uh, improving the, um, control box is considered a project that we could say is a transportation project. especially fiber, because in the long term, it will allow vehicles to connect, and if we start the projects now, early, that when the, the technology gets there, we'll be able to utilize it, so is that a potential use of, the tax revenue, when you're talking about transportation projects?

[00:22:55] Assistant City Manager Mike Fuller: Yeah, I believe, I believe, I believe it is, that it's related to our, um, transportation and uh, traffic control systems. I can invite uh Don Cameron to see if she has any additional thoughts on the previous discussions on what transportation projects would be included with that funding, though. At this time, one of the reasons we're putting this question to counsel is to prepare us for next year's 5 year plan, uh, as we start to allocate that funding over the next 5 years. So if the council wants to um include fiber as an eligible project, for the business test, it is something we could let us know and we could work it uh into consideration for the 5 year plan.

[00:23:45] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Mike is correct, um, in order to implement our traffic operations center. One of the key things that we are going to need is to improve our communication from our signals to the new traffic operation center which still needs to be funded and built, and the key way that you create that communication is through fiber.

[00:24:06] Councilmember John McAlister: So, following up on our communications, uh, traffic communication center. What's the status of that right now?

[00:24:13] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Well, currently, uh, working on the traffic operation center feasibility study, which will outline what the key needs would be, for setting up a center, and what submit its key functions would include. And it will help us to find the next step, including how much funding would be needed to proceed into design and eventually construction.

[00:24:37] Councilmember John McAlister: So, if we're looking forward, some of that money be, you know, the, the tax money be available or should be allocated towards getting that up and running?

[00:24:48] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: It could be, and something to be considered in next year's 5 year plan.

[00:24:53] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, what you're looking for next year for this discretionary 13rd then, for now.

[00:24:59] Assistant City Manager Mike Fuller: The discretionary 13rd is really a feature, uh, need, is, as you may be called, the business license tax is being faced in over 3 years, and it will be 2022 before we receive the full estimated annual revenue from that, and that's one of the reasons that we're asking this question now, because the next 5 years, CIP covers fiscal year, 2022, +5 years. So, um, again, if that's an area of interest. Uh for using the business license tax, we'll certainly uh explore that and bring it forward for discussions part of next year's 5 year CIP.

[00:25:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: On the PCI, there was a chart that it said, we would have to spend $30000000 to get us up to the 70 percent, PCI or score of 70? Did I see that correctly?

[00:26:00] Unknown Speaker: Go ahead, Mike.

[00:26:02] Mike: Yeah, that was in the council, Q and A. Okay, so... Actually, sorry, it's a 30000000 mic with a 5%, 5 point increase. It wouldn't quite get you to 70. It would allow a steady increase over the next 5 years. um, I believe that's what it was shown. There's a possible, you can put the screen up. That's why.

[00:26:37] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, my question is, is, because there is um, there, okay. So at that $30,000, $3000000 over 5 years.

[00:26:49] Mike: Yeah. That's a 5 year number.

[00:26:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so isn't there an advantage to the city, if we get to that number, to the PCI number of uh 70 or above, gives us more discretionary use of the dollars that we get for roads? Is that criteria still true?

[00:27:12] Unknown Speaker: That is true for the measure B sales tax funds that we get each year for local streets and local purposes. Um, if you have, if the city has a PCI of 70 or older, it's or over, excuse me, the city may choose to use it for other types of transportation projects.

[00:27:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So right now we're, so is there any incentive for us to try to get to that, so that we can use those funds, other places, then wait 5 years.

[00:27:43] Unknown Speaker: I don't know if there's an incentive in order to try to use those funds for another purpose. I do know that there's incentive for us to um apply those funds to improving our payment conditions because we really need to improve our payment conditions. And once we hit 70 PCI, which it will take more than 5 years, even with a good investment, it takes a while. Uh, and it might take 6 or 7 years if we have a really steady good investment. Um, at that time, there would be a policy question with the city council. Do you want to use the measure B funds for something other than pavement? And it's, and it could be that just maintaining that level of BCI requires all of that funding, and I suspect that would likely be the case, even if we were there, it would probably take that kind of continued investment to keep us there.

[00:28:35] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so thank you. Because what I met instead of was incentive to get our PCI up to 70 quicker than sooner than later. That's what I meant so that we could use the money for other purposes. But this is, um, so will we, um, so is this an aggressive timeline or, what's predictable or what we could expect or, how do you find that?

[00:29:03] Unknown Speaker: I think it's a realistic timeline. Honestly, um, applying those dollars to the street system is is complicated, especially when there's a lot of development going on. There are utility projects going on, there are private developments and and often we have to, we have to wait to do a street we want to do because there are other things planned for that street and we don't want to be cutting pavements shortly thereafter. Um, so, realistically, there's only a certain amount we can do any given year, even if the funding's available. And so I think this is a realistic pace. Um, you know, funding aside, I think just the reality of getting that money on the ground, um, does take some time and I think this is realistic.

[00:29:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So isn't there other money other than measure B, wasn't there SB one money also available?

[00:29:55] Unknown Speaker: There's SB one, there's measure B, and then we have some of our own city funding um in these projects as well.

[00:30:02] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, with those 3 funds, would it be, is this funding achievable?

[00:30:09] Unknown Speaker: This funding is achievable, yeah.

[00:30:11] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Thank you. And I did see Mr. Mashant is back online with us.

[00:30:18] John Mashant: I am, here I am.

[00:30:19] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. John, could you give us a, what, what's happening with the sand volleyball court at Sylvan for $435,000? What's entailed?

[00:30:28] John Mashant: So the construction cost is actually just for the sand volleyball court. Um, the overall cost, the project has increased over the, the last year and a half that we started this looking at this program. And, um, everything from the construction costs themselves to, um, the administrative costs, um, have led to the, the increased costs and to this project.

[00:30:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So to put it in my own words, it's just for the sand volleyball court, no other improvements will be done to the park.

[00:31:02] John Mashant: We were looking at adding some benches as part of that project, but that, that is pretty much it. yes

[00:31:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Thank you. Moving on to council member Medicheck.

[00:31:18] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Just a couple of questions. Um, in attachment to, I forgot to send this one in, sorry, on page, I guess it would be page 2 project 20 dash 38. Uh, which is the shoreline at 101 pet bike overcrossing construction. And that's listed as being active in this fiscal year. So 20 million. Should that be pushed out? Or is that just a resolution of funding for that?

[00:31:58] Unknown Speaker: We're still in the design process on that. And I think uh design has taken a little longer than we initially anticipated. So we don't need that funding in the current fiscal year. I'm hopeful we'll need it next year. Um, but we did fund it for last year thinking that we would, um, possibly be, um, at the end of design by, by this time.

[00:32:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Is that still a good number? 20 million, you think?

[00:32:26] Unknown Speaker: I believe that it is. Um, we're not done with design. We will have more accurate estimate, but I don't believe I've heard anything, but that is a bad number. We haven't yet, but you do have a study session on primary, uh, design concepts for the bridge next Tuesday. Oh, that design is further developed. We'll be able to, um, you know, refine deconstruction cost numbers.

[00:32:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, and then the other question, um, I took the 2 maps. We were given. Um, and, uh, took the streets where there are improvements being made and combined that with the streets, uh, um, PCI. And there's a lot of improvements happening to streets. where the PCI is actually pretty good. So, um, Am I, I guess I'm wondering, am I reading that correctly or not?

[00:33:39] Mike: We don't always do all of the worst streets every year. There's a certain level of funding. We do a lot of what we call flurry field, um, which is not a full inch and a half pavement overlay. Um, but when uh, when a street gets to a certain condition, a slurry seal is a really cost effective way to extend the life of that spree. So we don't wait for, say, like the Fairchild condition. I mean, once it gets to that condition, it needs to be rebuilt and often you just let a street go for a while longer. But a lot of times we'll do slurry steel over streets that are not too bad yet. But it's a really cost effective way to not have them completely fail. And so there's a combination of better and worse streets that will do, um, any given year.

[00:34:28] Unknown Speaker: There's also this very, uh, well-known chart that we can provide that shows what happens with the street in terms of this pavement life. And at some point, if you wanted to curate too far, in order to repair, rehab it, will cost you $5 for every, instead of a single dollar, that you would have to spit a serial or do preventive maintenance before it deteriorated to that level. So it's always advisable to do what you can to do preventive maintenance on your roads that are in good condition and not let them to cholate too far because it's a cost to escalate tremendously to try to bring them back into good condition. And that's what Mike meant by. You want to do a balance and making sure you're putting money to preventive maintenance, as well as um working on reconstruction and the pro- and the streets that need major rehabilitation.

[00:35:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so these streets that are categorized as having improvements in general are getting flurry sealed. Is that what you're saying?

[00:35:37] Unknown Speaker: Not all of them. Um, some of them are getting a full overlay. I believe middle field is an example of that, and that's an inch and a half of asphalt. So we'll grind at the edges so that you don't have a lip at the gutter, and then do an inch and a half overlay. Um, and then a furry seal is just, it's almost like an asphalt paint job. It's really thin, but it helps, it helps keep the moisture out and keeps the pavement from oxidizing. And then some like Fairchild, or actually a full reconstruction. Um, we dig out the asphalt, we dig out the base rock underneath, um, and it's more than an overlay. It's actually more of a replacement. So there are 3 bits of levels of those.

[00:36:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um. That's it, the questions, thanks.

[00:36:37] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I'll get it, Council member Hicks. Hicks, did you have questions?

[00:36:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I'm just unmuting myself. Um, so I have 2 small questions and then one larger one. The small question. One of the small questions is the, um, Langster perk maintenance and tennis building replacement. Um, I'm wondering whether, whether there's a way of putting either the, uh, when you go out to, uh, get the, uh, selection for the, the architect or designer, whether there's a way to get either the, to coordinate it with the current building there, either the full building or the community center. Is there a way to either put that in the RFP or to um put those architects on the RFP list? Um, without, I imagine that would not change the budget. So is that something that would be doable, some sort of coordination? design coordination without raising the cost of the project.

[00:37:49] Unknown Speaker: Um, yeah, you can certainly coordinate the design. I mean, they both share the park, so in terms of architecture and, and, you know, the user experience in the park, in terms of both buildings, we certainly coordinate that no matter who the designer is, and often if we have another project close by that somebody is working on, they will propose on another project, and I'm, I think that, that's probably likely here. Um, the designer for the aquatic center could certainly propose on the building.

[00:38:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, great. So, and you can also, like, put them on the web to contact.

[00:38:28] Unknown Speaker: Sure, then they can turn you down if they want to, but sure.

[00:38:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So that's one question. The 2nd small question is, um, the CVD improvements, uh, community development department. I, just because the, um, I'm wondering if it would raise the, the price of this project to look at both on and off site locations. Is that something that's doable?

[00:39:02] Unknown Speaker: Don, I think you've had some conversations about that.

[00:39:05] Don: Uh, yeah. We're initially would look at what we can do in city hall, but if we do find that either for our short term needs to do more special, social distancing, um, for COVID-19 and for the longer term, to meet our, um, space requirements for our staffing needs in city hall, if we find that we are going to need additional space. Uh as part of this study or just in general um as part of our own process. We will look at options for additional space near city hall, and that critically the Wells Fargo site next to us, but also other sites, and this would be something to bring back to council for discussion at the appropriate time.

[00:39:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, because I'm, I'm interested in both on and offsite exploration. Um, and then my, my bigger question, and my main question is that, um, as you all have probably noticed, we've gone, undergone, um, massive changes in the way, um, people are getting around or not getting around lately, um, impacting a lot of, um, you know, because of the pandemic. impacting the way a lot of um, A lot of the items on this list will be used, so our streets are being used differently, our map transit, et cetera. And I'm imagining that that's going to go on, um, some of that would continue to go on over, you know, the coming, the coming months, a year or 2 and some of it, such as, um, the, uh, telecommunication, which, uh, member of the public raise, um, may, uh, working from home, that may go on for, for, um, decades. Um, which, in many ways, would be a good thing because one of the aims of, of many of the things on our agenda tonight is to cut our carbon footprints. And really, I mean, of all the things we can spend 1000000s and 1000000000s of dollars trying to do that, that really this pandemic has done, probably more than all the, you know, for better or for worse, better than, um, many of the projects that we spend a lot of money on. So, my question, given that, given what's going on with the pandemic is, oh, and there, there are other that, that, um, are, many of the items in our capital improvement project, uh, projects have been affected too. So for instance, are sidewalks and streets are being used as, in many ways, as public parks. As, uh, linear parks or greenwise. And, you know, many cities are closing, uh, slowing, uh, traffic on streets are closing them down temporarily. I'm wondering in both the short and long term, what ideas you might have for modifying our, um, our capital improvements from projects to better address some of the changes we're facing. Um, and in particular, I'm looking at the, the business license tax. I'm feeling like the, sending it on the shuttle may not be the optimal use, but, but I'm, I'm interested in your comments altogether on uses that respond to the, you know, the changing way that we use our streets and, and other uh, facilities in, in this list of projects.

[00:42:45] Unknown Speaker: Well, you're right. It's a big topic. These are also early days. to see how much, um, unless we're learning from COVID-19, and how that the 2nd things will stick with us in terms of future travel behavior. And, you know, we won't know that till we come out of shelter and place and they start to return back to normal. How much employers, if someone will start, is it embracing telecommute for their employees and how that might affect travel behavior? But one of the things, also, we do need to remember, is that it's a professional that can telecommute. Our service workers, are uh people that are manufacturing things, people that, you know, they, they need to come to a place that actually do their work, are still going to have travel needs. And many times it's our service workers, for instance, that are most dependent upon transit and something like the shuttle. Um, we can certainly look through our CIP, uh, especially for the 5 year one. I'd recommend focusing on this month of 5 year one in terms of where we'll recommend including the funding related transportation purposes. Um but I do know that most of our money is going to things like bicycle improvements, pedestrian improvements, uh and they really are designed to provide alternatives to the automobile. Which are still going to be needed. Um. But again, it is definitely something that, um, we can explore as part of preparing the 5 year CIP, by which time I think we'll also have a, have a better idea of, what's sticking in terms of new travel behaviors based upon all of it.

[00:44:33] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so thank you. I would really encourage that, and not only what's sticking, but um, I, I very much appreciate your comment on the, um, on, on, uh, you know, the difference between professionals and people who can work from home and people who cannot. At the same time, I hopefully can uh, look at encouraging some of those things that we're seeing people become, you know, more capable of, such as working from home.

[00:45:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, is there anyone else who'd like questions, council members? I don't see any other hands. Um, I had a couple questions, but I also wanted to respond to Council number Hicks. Um, I've also been, um, seeing the, the, you know, everyone seems to change in traffic and traffic congestion and, um, we actually looked at it from a air quality perspective last week at our air district meeting and we spent at 30% about a 30% reduction in carbon emissions in the Bay Area as a result. And so, um, there was a conversation about, yeah, how do we keep this going? And I think it's, it's actually a bigger discussion, um, not, not, not just about capital improvement projects, but, um, like I was looking. I've been thinking about how do we incentivize or, you know, at some point maybe um. We, we need to have a conversation, um, with some of our major employers, and you know, how do we, you know, incentivize them or in other ways, um, promote, maybe not having to build so many office buildings too, and, um, encouraging telecommuting, uh, so that, uh, that we can also cut down on traffic congestion, and therefore carbon emissions and improve our air quality. So, I think it's a big conversation and we're trying to figure out, you know, how we can have that conversation. So, um, yeah, hopefully, there should be more coming on that topic. Um, my, my 2 questions. Um, oh, and then the other thing about the shuttle, like, I actually think it's more important to have the shuttle, because I'm not sure, but the state of transit will be when we come out of this. I'm hearing a 98% drop in usage and um so, you know, VTA is already hurting. I don't know how or how things are going to be, I think here's the same with um, like uni even in San Francisco, so, Francisco's gonna probably be sparse, and so, whatever we can do to encourage it here, and that would be more important. But my questions, um, just a couple of things I saw, um, on the list of, like, Ted projects, the Bonnie Beatrice landscaping project. I know that's been on since 2011 going on to year 10. Um, there was no schedule and I was just wondering uh, uh, we've gotten approval from the, um, SFUC. I, I believe, like, uh, it can move forward on that project.

[00:47:35] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I believe we can and John is, is community services staff going to do that improvement?

[00:47:44] John Marchant: I think we need to work with Dawn and her group as a collaborative to look at that project, but yes, between the public works and CSD, we're working on that.

[00:47:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you Um, yeah, if I'd like to see that, um, completed. Please sooner than later since it's been going on your 10. Um, I know the PUC was the big issue there. Um, and then with this, um, Stevens Creek Trail. I had a conversation with um, the mayor of Sunnyvale and um, he had expressed, we were talking about the joint funding for the next days, um, and he had expressed that there were some concerns, um, from Sunnyvale folks about, um, what's the next? I don't know if it's next, like what the next phase is, it says here, it's the phase from Jail, Heatherstone to Remington, but they also saw that there's an, you know, eventual return back to. I think it's the high school, Mountain View High School, and they, um, I guess they had, shared with me that, they had reservations about, or questions about why we have that peace coming, if they're gonna allow it to continue through spending now, which, in the very original, um, version of the trail was that it would continue on, but we had created that last peace back to the high school because at that time, study there was not allowing the trail to continue. So, they're questioning why we need that any longer, which would be my question too, because I remember the original project. So, um, could you clarify that or I don't know if we need to have a conversation with Sunnyvale folks about that? Um, and then bring it back to us too, to decide what to do with that last piece. And um,

[00:49:36] Unknown Speaker: yes, we can, we can pull it forward with Sunnyvale on that, you know, the status right now is, we will, we jointly, the Sunnyvale apply for the, the iPad competitive grant earlier this week submitted, and it's gonna be a key conversation if we are successful in getting the grant front. If we are not. You know, we 1st have to find money to go forward, but yes, we could certainly discuss, right now, the plans are to construct the bridge, to connect into the high school.

[00:50:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, yes. So they're, they expect reservations and helping me to fund the project if it's not connected, that's not happening. They want it to continue through Sunnyvale. So, um, I guess if we could have that discussion at some point. Um, and then finally, the, um, I know we are having us on our, Pal, the, um, our long-term agenda, um, list, but, the police and fire, admin building, where would that be scheduled?

[00:50:43] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: You mean in terms of the next day? Now, we do have the study funded and underway. Um, So, I don't think we have it yet in the 5 year. I think it's unscheduled because of the amount of money that might be needed. Is that right, Mike?

[00:51:02] Mike: Yeah, but currently, I believe we have the design funded. Um, and there's, there's a lot of uncertainty about the cost, uh, the final project, because we're looking at several different alternatives for design. And so I don't believe we have construction um budgeted yet. But we're, we're proceeding with the preliminary design and we'll be bringing alternatives to council for consideration. Then we'll have to work on a funding plan for instance, but it's a brand new building. It's going to be more costly than a remodel and so we haven't plugged in at a construction number yet, but we are actively working on the project.

[00:51:39] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Um, I have come from Ramirez.

[00:51:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, I don't have any questions. I was, um, gonna provide input at that. Um, so I, uh, I agree with, with all of the staff recommendation, um, question one. My impression is, uh, you've been a great deal of time thinking about, um, sort of a, and written this, all of these projects and influential. modifications that we might have on the road, uh, depending on, uh, of, uh, dynamically, uh, and we need to be revisited, but, um, we'll see you with everything that you recommend here. Um, and then the only, and then I, also, I, I appreciate, um, I, I asked a handful of questions for limited. maintenance, I appreciate the responses that, um, you had provided, and, and also, a council member, Matt a check, question of, um, sort of how we go about prioritizing this. I'm going to ask the question about whether it might make sense, prioritize high volume, and it may be something that we might have revisited them, depending on how severe the economic impact. Um, and then, I don't know if that would be, that would be a longer council conversation, but, um, because, as, um, because I think you had explained, um, seedings associated with sort of maintaining briefs rather than waiting until, uh, condition, um, you know, if it comes back with, major arterial streets would be where we move the books for resources. Um, so, I'm glad we don't have to make that decision today. And then, uh, finally, I'm, um, I'm, I'm okay with allocating, um, of the business license tax revenues, the transportation project. I do wonder how much revenue, um, you will realistically be able to camp on. And again, I think that's, that's something that we might, that's the one that, continuously assess, because the high priority things that come up, um, where we, revenue that we could use for other things, you know, general fund revenue and we may want to. need that. Um, just high level direction right now. I'm, I'm comfortable with, with, who's serving revenue for. Goodbye, thank you.

[00:54:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. I was actually just gonna ask if we could go through the 3 questions one at a time. I'm sorry.

[00:55:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No worries, no worries.

[00:55:05] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, and then if you have comments, please, um. Question one um the city council support not adding limited period resources um and focusing on the bite head project completion. Um, I don't know, do I need to do a roll call on me pretty quick or can I just get a show with him?

[00:55:29] Unknown Speaker: Yes

[00:55:29] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: okay. So, um, although the support staff recommendation on question one, could you please go? For that, uh, uh. Does she have like comments or? You're just raising your hand. Okay, um, great, the question too, uh, the council support, uh, rollover, projects on attachment 3 and 4 um, any comments on this 1st? um, from the Meta check?

[00:56:12] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, um I appreciate all the thought that went into this. And I know we're juggling a lot of projects here. I am concerned that, um, I guess I, I'd like to see more focus on maintaining the infrastructure that we have, then building new infrastructure. I have certainly received a lot of input from the public. Um, our residents, visitors to Mountain View, and um, they're mostly around the condition of the roads. And so I would like to see um more investment in improving our PCI. Not just by raising at 5 points in 5 years. I'd like to see it get to at least 70 in 5 years, if that's possible. And I recognize that that is, could potentially have an impact on, um, other projects we have and it's a heroic effort. Um, but I, I feel like we have maybe, um, we've had so much going on in terms of, I think, use of our roads, that perhaps it's had an impact on the quality, and I, I also, you know, want folks to recognize it, not all roads in that view are, the city's responsibility. The one I get the most comments about is certainly El Camino. Yeah, and I appreciate when staff sends a letter to Caltrans to say, a survey El Camino, here's all the potholes that need to be fixed, and every once in a while, I know we sell some of those because they're so bad, and they have a negative impact on the vehicles going over them, so I appreciate that. Um, but I would like to see um, more emphasis in, uh, on the roads, uh, to improve the condition. Um. I also, let's see, that's probably question number three. So, I did see some candidates for things that I think I would push to another year to try to find more funding in this year for improving the condition of the roads. Um, and I want to also acknowledge that the roads are used by not just vehicles, but, um, it's even more challenging if you're on a bicycle and you hit a pothole, then if you're in a car in a hitting a pothole. Um, and as we build out more bike infrastructure, we often need to improve the roads for the bicycles. Um but I would say new projects. Um, I, I would, also remember Calister was asking about the sand volleyball court. I think that could be pushed a couple years, um, I also think updates to plans, a pedestrian master plan, um, I don't see any urgency if that was pushed a year or 2 I don't think that would be a huge problem. I would like to kind of go back and focus on the resources we already have in place in our city and make sure we're maintaining those.

[00:59:29] Mike: I could provide a comment. Um, the Sam volleyball court, I believe, is uh, Parkland funding. And so that's one of those projects that, that funding is dedicated for that purpose and can't really be used for roads. The pedestrian master plan. I believe the CIPA reserve and it can. So that's the kind of, um, fine grain analysis we have to do. Um, Generally speaking, the water, the wastewater, and the parkland funded, and parkland projects are funded with dedicated resources that couldn't be used for roads, um, but others can, so.

[01:00:04] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. We have to run it through that filter. Yep, got it. Thank you. Um, that was it for my comments. Thank you.

[01:00:14] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Mr. McAllister?

[01:00:16] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, thanks. Oh, uh, going back to the uh, PCI, and my theme of, construction or putting infrastructure in there. Have there been any thought of quadrant? Coordinating, paving with, putting in the fiber or whatever technology, and that'd be done at the same time. I know when we projects came along and there's a stretch of road, we asked the developer to put in an extra onto it to run things, but we got to the point where we're saying, hey, we're going to do all this PCI. Now is the time to also put infrastructure in there, take a trench, put the conduit in there.

[01:00:57] Unknown Speaker: Honestly, we do that for the utilities that we know, like the water and the sewer. We don't have really a fiber master plan where we could say, okay, we're planning on fiber on this street and so let's do it in advance of the bathing project. Um. I think our, um, Our traffic technology center may inform some, um, fiber that we want to do from certain points, um, to other points, and I think we will use that going forward, um, and we're pretty close to adding that, and we would definitely do that. Um, the other option we have. Sometimes you can do communication wirelessly more and more now. Um, and I think we would try and maximize that to the extent we can, but unfortunately, we don't have a good fiber master plan, but I think in terms of transportation, we're working on that with the, with the traffic operations center.

[01:01:55] Councilmember John McAlister: Now that you brought up the master plan for fiber, is that something uh staff has ever thought about or? I hadn't thought about that before, but is that something that would be in our comprehensive mobile? or how would that come about?

[01:02:11] Unknown Speaker: I think in terms of our own transportation infrastructure, it would be the traffic operations center, and we are working on that. Um, You know, we've thought about this over the years and the, the, the, the fiber world is so dynamic and there are so many different firms out there putting it in. Um, and changing the way they do things and changing their infrastructure needs. We've never We've never really put such a thing together. We've kind of let the, the, the fiber providers go out and and populate the city, um, with conduit. But again, for our own infrastructure, um, we are working on that um, for transportation.

[01:02:51] Unknown Speaker: And the next question for Mr. Mashan. Sir. Uh, for the Stan volleyball court, and, and Mike said that we have a dedicated party. Are there other projects that could use $435,000 that would be more broadly throughout the community.

[01:03:10] Mr. Mashan: We have a number of park projects going on currently and you can see that in the list. So it's not a matter of needing those funds immediately, but those funds could be used for future projects. Um, in the community. So all of our projects currently are funded, and so this would be available funding, uh, to assist future projects, if it's not used toward, uh, a sand volleyball court.

[01:03:38] Unknown Speaker: Okay, um, yeah, if I, as we go through, look at, I prefer reallocating the, or the volleyball court and using that money for other, particular items that would be more fully utilized throughout the city or particular location, but I think it's, um, if there's a group that wants to work towards it or in a new park, when it's initially put in. But, uh, I think, uh, it would be wiser to use that money also.

[01:04:17] Unknown Speaker: Sorry, it takes me a moment to unmute. So, I, um, I would like, uh, as the pedestrian master plan has been mentioned, I would, I have a vague idea of what that is, but I'd like a little more detail because I think I'm probably not wanting to postpone that, but give me a little more detail on what it involves and let me think about it.

[01:04:45] Unknown Speaker: So we currently have a pedestrian master plan. I think um like 2014 or something like that. And it, it's, somewhat out of date, and it doesn't really list projects and improvement that we would like to see the city in a, in a very useful way as we look at our future CIP as well as, what we may be able to condition developers to do. That is, it's strictly along their frontage and how we look at this. Um, although the comprehensive model plan is looking at all low. It's not sitting down to the fine grade level of identifying where we would like 3 pedestrian improvements. Uh, except the stage for that. For instance, it's uh conducting what's called a pedestrian quality of service. I think I've got that term right. For areas around transit centers and keep pedestrian exam and areas, you can hard to see what some of those future needs are. The pedestrian master plan then would take it to the next level and more finely defined key pedestrian pro- uh projects that we feel we need and and how we want to approach pedestrian lead. Now, having said that, which we do believe it needs to be done and could be very useful in some grant funds and finding our CIP and so on. Um, if it gets deferred a year, uh, that could work out fine for us. Uh we are still short staff and transportation planning. We still have some vacancies, but if it's funded in next fiscal year, we try to get it started before the end of the fiscal year, but we know we wouldn't be able to get it started, um, much before that, so is this the 3rd a year or so, it probably won't affect our timing of completing the plan that much.

[01:06:36] Unknown Speaker: So, interesting because what I'm weighing in my mind is that, I, I feel, um, we put, uh, it feels to me like we put more work into bike paths than into really, uh, enhancing our pedestrian environment. It seems like we like to do that. I often feel like they're missed opportunities with development, you know, to require a little more of developers, and I feel like it would be particularly useful as our small businesses, often the pedestrian environment really affects the use of small businesses. So, I'm, I'm feeling like updating that would be, um, particularly advantageous as we try to help our small businesses. Um, that's back, uh, after this children's place, and also as a, uh, previous member, the public has mentioned uh, village centers, you know, really making those work. On the other hand, I could see postponing it for a little while might allow us to see the effects of the pandemic and maybe make those pedestrian improvements even more effective. So I'm, I'm actually interested in, you know, what staff and other council members might think about that because I'm, kind of on the fence, I could go either way. Thank you.

[01:07:58] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. We'll go on to Counselor Clark.

[01:08:03] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, so I, I'm generally okay with the staff recommendation here in terms of what they're recommending and and the role forward. Um, I, I like nice pavement as much as anyone, but looking at the, at the current plans. Um, I mean, most of the active street improvements and the proposed FYI 2021 street improvements are include a lot of major roadways that include the bike head improvements there. And so, I just don't think join another $10000000 with pavement is, is a good investment, um, right now. Um, I think staff has been very strategic over the years about picking and choosing um, which streets to do, which time, balancing a whole bunch of different things based on the current payment condition, um, planned projects, for that area, uh, like pet improvement. Um, And, you know, whether it makes sense to, you know, let something like Fairchild go for a while or, or make an early investment in a, you know, key artery, um, so that it doesn't deteriorate a certain, not one, not year a lot of complaints too, but, um, honestly, most of them are on roadways that we either don't control or that are on the schedule at some point or another, and no one's ever going to be 100% happy, and If you, if you, had to make me choose between making bicycles and pedestrians happy, um, about, you know, spending more on CIP on a, on an overpass or a tunnel or something like that, um, or, or on the transit center, I'd much rather put the funding there, than, you know, on, um, on just pavement, um, and or accelerating, um, um, you know, street research. So, um, and then that was one of our original goals, or the, or the council was to focus on, the bikes in industry experience. So, overall, I'm, I'm fine with the, with that recommendation here. I don't think we really need to, to tweak anything, and I wouldn't push off the master plan, um, unless that really feels like they're, they're overtaxed, and, and because those, those master plans are what, um, ultimately inform the, the things that we ask for when redevelop when new development projects come in. So when we have those master plans in place, we know sort of exactly what our long-term vision is for a specific area and what our community benefit desk can be of a, ever particular development.

[01:10:30] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Any other comments? Um, number, actually, oh, is the vice mayor to May?

[01:10:40] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sure, um, I wasn't sure if we were, still do the John Mercer and that, but it seems like people are giving comments about questions to you, so I'll just say in. Um, I feel really similarly to complement of Clark. Um, then couple never were there. was trying to go in this direction very early on. Um, I'm comfortable with this staff recommendation. Um, and I also actually feel like this coincides with what we'll be discussed later on in the agenda when we talk about SP 743 moving away from, um, the city planning, um, related to putting cars 1st and instead, putting pedestrians 1st and people 1st and so I feel like the recommendations that stock had made, um, related to the CIP coincides with corruption. We're trying to go in, um, with as a jurisdiction, and I think as a state, um, you know, mayor, you mentioned trying to, um, reduce our carbon footprints, and I think, um, you know, investing in projects and infrastructure, that move away from being so car centric is part of how, how we help do that. So I'm I'm comfortable with the recommendation or questions too.

[01:11:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you and I'm gonna jump in before we go 2nd round. I also support staff recommendation. I appreciate the conversation, the discussion we've had, um, I know over the years, but the PCI has, um, been an issue, um, and I remember it. We were working on in in making it a higher number. I didn't realize how much it had dropped in the last few years. Um, but I also remember, I think I remember correctly, before the 2000, that the chart. We had. I think we had some ribs that were like in the 15s or 16s, like pretty low, and so over time as we got funding, the, um, actually it was the Obama recovery act, our, uh, I think they spent all that money, and then we had the, um, the vehicle registration fee money that came in, we've been able to slowly bring up our PCI over time, so I think that because we have those funding sources and comfortable continuing it with that schedule. And um, I do agree that I, you know, in light of what, what we're going through. My hope is that thing, folks, we consider transportation modes and we will go to a more bike and um, uh, pet friendly or uh, other, non, the single occupancy vehicle travel. Um, so I think where we are focusing with our projects, um, makes a lot of sense. Um, in regards to the sand volleyball, for, um, the reason why that came up was that, um, is there, is, I'll probably know there is a court at Custer Park, um, but it's, uh, gravel or asphalt. It's not a surface that is safe, um, or plane, um, and so we had members of the public asking us if we can convert that to sand. Um, but as you know, or you probably know um, the location has changed and so forth. Um, I think, you know, we've, we've uh, we have facilities for tennis players, golfers, um, basketball players, pickleball now, so I think, um, you know, I personally know, because my daughter plays, but there is quite a large volleyball community out there, and so, um, you know, it's really a safety issue 1st, um, but I think that it does warrant us continuing with that project, so, I'd like. Uh Counselor McAllister.

[01:14:27] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment about the PCI, the road, um, and it's just, I know it's in the background, but if you talk to our community, that one of the constant areas of concerns are roads. So, you know, when you, they say housing and roads are always, and those are things that we can control. So when we're looking at, spending the money, it, uh, we would be addressing a lot of the concerns, I would say, the majority of the city, uh, residents of Mountain, you bring up roads quite a bit. And the vice mayor is concerned that if the smooth ruins are smooth, it's going to be much more bicycle friendly. Uh, we have a lot more. I mean, I look out my window here and I see children, young kids. Training wheels, all kinds are using the roads a lot more, so it would be nice to have safe. I mean, they're using, uh, booster boards, scooters, uh, inline skating, in the mode and they're using them. So we are getting a lot of people using the road, and it would be nice to make it safe for them to go out there. So, uh, if we can move it up in future discussions, that uh, roads are improved. I think it's, uh, would be great, uh, benefit for us. Um, if the roads are improved, then we'll do, you know. I mean, you can go down a list, it's gonna make cars, um, maintenance less more, uh, less maintenance on a car, better gas mileage for cars, if you're talking about reducing carbon cars that have better, the roads, just carbon. You can quiet roads down now. So there's a whole slew of things that as we go forward with it. Our community settles on the road. I mean, so, there are the TDMs around there, so, again, I'm just advocating that maybe on this budget, but, instead of 5 years, if we could try to push it and accelerate a little bit, that would be great. Appreciate. Thank you.

[01:16:17] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Right, so, um, I'm going to, I, I saw at least 4 um, who supported staff recommendations, as is, um, I, I could, it sounds like, uh, there's interest in PCI projects, and maybe, if we can, um, look at that in a 5 year, CIP, um, uh, would that, uh, would that be? sufficient for those who. mentioned PCI projects. You know, the Cal- the California accounts jury counselor, I'm not a check. Are you supporters of the rollover and then looking at PCI project for the 5 year project, uh. It's for, um, even some former, not a check. So cancel our letter check. You want to respond to that?

[01:17:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I would like to see if we could find a little bit more in the current year. Um, yeah, we are trying to, we're trying to reduce the amount of single passenger vehicle. Um vehicles out there. We are using our roads for, hopefully, more transit, the community shuttles. We expand that, um, so I don't want this to be a focus on, um, you know, cars versus everything else because lots of things use our roads. And so I would like to see if we could find more, um, resources in the current or the next fiscal year, um, not just over the next, like. In the last year with 5 year plan. I think it'd be nice to increase every year in the 5 year plan. How about a 4 day plan? Can that come back with some options when we go through this again?

[01:18:12] Unknown Speaker: Are, uh, we have one more, we are due to come back in June for you to approve the 2 year 2021 CIP.

[01:18:23] Unknown Speaker: Okay, um, again, in order to put more money next year in the projects, if we, like there's some projects, not the funds at this stage. And if council wants us to identify possible ones and again, it has to be a funding source, it can be used on road projects. Um, we can certainly do that. We do, feel that we have actually a very large investment in our lives that shares the highest dollar amount that we put in it any single year, because we have a, uh, extra measure B and SB one funding that's already been collected, that's into us. So, one of the issues of life mitchell is, we can only do so much food work in a single year in any case. And stuff really see, we really see the opportunities. Look at it for the next 5 years, 6 weeks. Again, a huge investment already going in next year. And if council wants us to shuffle around, year one, 2, and 3 to put more pavement money and that is something we can do through the 5 year process.

[01:19:34] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, um, they did have 4 who were supportive of staff recommendations, so I'll go ahead and move that forward then. I just wanted, um, also supported that, but we did have a majority, so why don't we move on to question number 3, um, regarding the trans- uh, the business license tax, and the 13rd of the budget going to transportation projects, um. I'll see if I can get a draw mode on this. Those who are in favor of staff recommendation. Can you please raise your hand? 123456 everyone supports that. Is there anything else on this item? Any other comments? Then that will conclude our study session. Thank you very much, and we will move into a regular. Sorry about that. So we'll call the regular meeting to order at 646 and um, we have an announcement to read 1st this meeting will be conducted in accordance with state of California, executive order, N dash 29 dash 20 dated March 17, 2020. All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference with no physical meeting locations. Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so at mountain view.register.com on YouTube at mountain view.gov slash YouTube and on Comcast channel 26. As noted on the meeting agenda, members of the public may provide oral public comment during the public comment period for an item by signing up at mountainview.gov slash CC underscore speakers. Any emails and voicemail messages received by 5 PM today with forwarded to the city council, emails received after 5 PM and prior to the close of the public comment period for the agenda item will be read into the record by the city clerk. And any voicemail messages received will be placed by this week, but, although it will be taken by roll call vote. Now I'd like us this week.

[01:22:20] City Clerk: Thank you, Mayor, Council member Clark. Council member Hicks? Council member Mattachek.

[01:22:30] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here,

[01:22:31] City Clerk: Council member McAllister. Council member Ramirez. Vice Mayor Kamei? Mayor Abi Koga.

[01:22:42] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Here, I'll present.

[01:22:43] City Clerk: Thank you.

[01:22:44] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. We move on to item three. 3.1 is our COVID-19 update by our city manager, Kim McCarthy.

[01:22:56] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Hey, good evening, mayor and council members. I'm going to share my screen with you. This is the 1st time I've done it, so let's, this work. Okay. Can you all see it? Okay, great. Um, so today, Marks, week 5 of shelter in place, and so what I would like to do this evening is give an update from um, last week's update and provide you with some new information and also give some updated information that I intend to provide every week. So the 1st thing that I want to do is provide an update on our together MV donation portal. So as of yesterday, we have received almost $92,000 in donations, and you can see that that number of folks who have contributed has risen considerably. Um, so there's approximately 270 people who donated to the rent relief fund, and about 239 people who've donated to the business relief fund, and really quickly, um, receiving information from the community services agency today on the rent relief program. They have received about 1500 inquiries thus far, and so far they have 180 clients that have received rent relief checks so far for April, and they're moving through as fast as they can, and the average check is $2085. And I also wanted to provide council with an update on our operations right now and what we are working on, at a staff level to really prepare and think forward, um, and try and be proactive about our recovery efforts, um, when those do happen. And the 1st thing is that we are continually prioritizing our resources to address any community needs that are arising. And I think you see this now, in the sense of, um, staff really adapting on a daily basis to things that are coming up, um, that our community needs, or any urgent, um, projects or priorities that arise. And so we are continuing to address that and think through what that might look like in the future also, um, when recovery does happen. The other thing that we're thinking about right now, and trying to be very strategic about is what safety measures we might need to have in our city facilities. So this would include public counters, city facilities, so not only city hall, but um, also our library and community services, and um, also within our own employee workspaces within our own departments. And so we're working through that right now and trying to, um, think through what those sort of safety measures might look like, which could include, um, flexi glass, which I know most of us have seen, um, for example, at grocery stores, where there's some sort of, um, social distancing there, when you do have to interact, um, with the public, so we are looking at that. We're also identifying supplies that are needed, not only for staff, but also for any members of the public that may have to physically come in, um, should that be an option once the shelter in place is listed. So we're looking at things like gloves and masks and making sure that all of our departments and staff have, um, hand sanitizer and we have it provided everywhere, which we do already now. But we're really trying to identify, um, what those efforts might look like for a longer time period. Um, the other piece of this is, uh, one of the things we talked about is this process, and we're not unlike all cities, and and all other agencies, frankly, is that we are really refining our current processes and features, um, and this is something that really has been required in light of the, um, rapid changes that take place on a daily basis. And so, um, at a department level, we're really looking at, um, how things are now, and how they might be able to look in the future, especially as we move through recovery. And that is going to take a large focus on using technology and innovation. So look at how we are doing business. And a large piece of that is looking at how we are serving our customers or our public. So, um, not just looking at, um, the services that are necessarily in place now or before, but if they're being delivered in the best way, that's best serving, um, our residents. So that's going to be a key focus for us in our recovery efforts and also in the year and a couple of years beyond. And then just as I mentioned, we are still constantly adapting, um, every single day is the changing information. So, not only, um, the information changed to the public, but you can imagine it also changes at a staff level in terms of different, um, rules or regulatory considerations, um, that we have to adapt to or enact at a staff level. So this is something over the past 5 weeks, every day, um, that we are getting different information and new information and are changing as needed for that reason. So, um, just really wanted to provide a preliminary overview from that operations perspective of, of how we are trying to think strategically and really plan for what the future might look like, not only for our staff, but also for um, our residents and then customers. And the other thing that I wanted to talk about was our, um, efforts for our, um, communities that speak other languages besides English, and I'm not sure if everyone realizes in the community that we have a very robust, multilingual community outreach program, where we have staff who are working with, um, not only community-based organizations that are residents. Um, from the Chinese, Russian, and Spanish speaking communities. And so this involves providing referral services, um, helping with the rent relief program, any questions on what's happening with any state or federal, um, efforts or legislation, unemployment assistance, food resources, um, just really anything and everything you can think of that any um, over residents might need. And I just have a few items um on the slide to mention the 1st is that we do have around 90 folks who are in our Spanish language um ambassador program. And so these folks are communicating weekly on Zoom meetings and making sure that they're interacting with residents and helping provide some of the resources that I just talked about. We're also working with um volunteers and community groups in our Chinese community, as well as in our Russian community, and making sure that we are providing resources in all 3 languages, um, towards those residents who may be speaking those languages. Um, another big thing that this, uh, multi, or multilingual, um, team is working on is translating a lot of the very important COVID-19 information for these communities. So not only, um, the information on our website and social media, but also we are designing specific flyers, for homeless and, um, family health residents who might speak Spanish, um, and those. and information have been provided directly to, um, those residents and also 2 community-based organizations. Uh, we're also working with parent groups, um, at the Mountain View, also a school district, and, um, a variety of other community based organizations that I have here. So, I think, um, really the bottom line is, is this team led by Nancy Dupos, um, is working like all of the other staff we have day and night to make sure that we are providing information to our community members who don't speak English as their 1st language. And we will continue to make sure that we're translating that information and getting that information out where people are. Um, I also wanted to just show and this is a little bit, um, fuzzy, but I think all of you, um, have received by now, debut newsletter in your, um, mailbox, so it did go to, I believe, over 40,000 households. And at the, um, corner of one of the pages we do have information in Spanish, Chinese, and Russian, um, where folks can reach out, um, on our, Um, to our multilingual um coordinators. to get information. So we made sure that this was also put in our newsletter. Then I also wanted to provide an update on what's happened with our state parking lot program. So right now, the shoreline and Evelyn lot for both currently open 247 and the terra bone lot is expected to open very soon. Uh, right now, as far as some data points, there are 38 vehicles or units, um, RVs participating as of yesterday, I believe, yes, April 20th, yesterday. Um, right now there are 15 families that have children in local school districts. There are 19 seniors. Um, 10 of these uh, residents worked in Mountain View. There are 4 people with disabilities, and then the other thing that we're looking at putting into our parking lots that I think is a really innovative solution that our public works team is working hard on is to provide basic water services where we would actually be tapping into our pipes. And providing fresh water at these lots, much like you might see at um a state park. Where if you if you go to a state park and you see a tap that just provides fresh water for you to fill up. Um, you know, a bucket or a cup. We are looking at doing that in the lots as well. The other thing I wanted to do was provide uh visual and some information on our capacity at our safe parking lot. So, um, essentially what the city is doing and what the county is doing. So, the city bars are in the, um, heel on the left side and Santa Clara County bars are in the darker blue color on the right side. So, right now, the city currently has capacity for 28 cars or passengers vehicles. And, um, the county has 167. However, when you look at the oversized vehicle capacity, The city has 67 spaces and county wide there are 80 spaces. So really what this is showing is that Mountain View contributes over 80% of the total oversized vehicle capacity and the county. And we contribute about 15% of the total cars and passenger vehicle capacity countywide. So I thought that was a data point um to show to the council. And then the other piece of this is just providing an update from last week on some of the support efforts, um, that have been made just in the past few days towards, um, efforts to help our homeless and unstable health population. So as of today, um, our park staff has opened 9 restrooms, um, with daily cleaning. Um, our police department has provided even more, um, dry food packs, so 250 um, packs of food to homeless and unsafely health residents. We have also provided a handout for food services um to folks and this has also been translated in Spanish. Um, one of the things that we know, that's the question that has come up often is what is happening with any shower service. And, um, I'm happy to say that right now we will be able to help, um, open Hope's corner and provide, um, assistant or shower service to be provided there 3 days a week. And right now, Dignity on Wheel is currently operating one day week, so there will be 4 days out of the week that shower service will be available um for those folks who need it in Mountain View. And then lastly, uh, we have provided a grant of $5000 to Hope's corner to provide solar electrical outlets, um, with a priority going to students who need it, um, to continue their studies and also to any families in need. So moving on, I wanted to provide an overview of some of the services that our community services department is providing. If you remember last week, I talked about, um, our library and this week I want to highlight community services because there are a lot of resources on our website that our residents, um, can go to to just, um, have something else to do, um, while they're at home. So there is a virtual recreation center on the website and it has a lot of resources about how to motivate yourself and um move and and boost your mood while you're sheltering in place and that involves interactive content for Mountain View rec break videos. There's also trivia and community wide scavenger hunt and demos of projects that folks can do at home. The other thing is that our community services staff have been working with the senior nutrition and brown bag program to do a to go drive through program at the senior center so that people can have access to food services every day at this time. Um, we're also working with sewing clubs at the area to sew masks to donate to seniors um, at the senior nutrition program. Um, kind of along the lines with what I was talking about with the restroom. So, we are continuing to monitor our parks and our facilities every day, and we are adapting. Um, as I mentioned before, the information and the news um, change. Um constantly. So this is something that staff is continually monitoring and working on as information changes. Um we have put social distancing signs and all parks. I'm sure a lot of people have seen that, um, to remind the public about appropriate distancing and we do have additional rangers that are working on weekends to make sure that, um, people are following a social distancing protocol because we know that there is much more increased use on the weekends. Um, the other couple things, um, that I think are, are great for everyone to know is that, our staff have worked very collaboratively with local agencies to find a childcare option for essential city staff and also essential medical staff, through the YMCA, for those folks that need help, um, with childcare. And then lastly, our staff are working on contingency plans right now. So this is part of the recovery effort. Um, and they're developing contingency plans for summer camp programs to be positioned to offer a minimum service level with certain um, social distancing protocols um, that the county has required. So, um, this is really preliminary right now and, um, we have more information about that as, um, things progress. And I also wanted to mention that the town hall that we're having this Thursday. Um, I'm pleased to say that Congresswoman and the issue, um, was expected to join us. Now, I think we all know that the stimulus bill. I'm not sure if it passed it. I think I heard that it may have. Um, so she was expected to join us, barring any votes, that she may be required to take on Thursday. So at this point, um, we invite all members of the community to sign up and uh, join the conversation, you can go to the website and sign up for this um, and register so you can be part of the Zoom um, call, much like how the meeting is evening. And I also wanted to announce a new um, program that our communications team is working on called neighbors helping neighbors. And what we really want to do is highlight some of the great stories that we know are out there, where we have neighbors in our community helping other neighbors. And I have heard um accounts from council members, and also from staff, and from people writing in, and we really would love to highlight those stories. Um, I think at this point in time, we all like to hear business. And we like to know about how our community is helping each other. So, um, those stories will be highlighting and highlighted in the briefing, and you can send those stories to Katie. K A T I E, O Katie dot Nelson, at mountain view dot gov, and we will make sure to include those stories in our briefing. And lastly, I just wanted to remind everyone that the census has been extended to October 31st and it's very important for you all to fill out the census. So I plan on doing this reminder every week so that our residents and community members know that it's very important that they're accounted. And also, um, at the very left side is, again, to remind everyone that they can sign up to receive our briefing, um, that right to their email, they can text him the COVID to 22828 to receive the 3 times per week briefing about everything that is happening. So, um, that concludes my presentation and update for this week and I am happy to answer any questions.

[01:41:54] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Lisa has some questions, Council member McAllister.

[01:41:58] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, you know, I, uh, I saw that neighbor helping neighbor and I go, wow, that's, uh, that is a great concept and I have a particular, um, internet or a neighbor in our community. that lives in my neighborhood. name's Toby. I'll just leave it at that, and my wife and I walk our dog past this house almost every day, and he puts out a little mini farmer's market out in front of his house, where he has fresh market items, fruit, veggies, eggs, and it's amazing how he puts it out on weekends. He does some barbecuing, so I miss the barbecue yet, so I'll get over there. And other neighbors put in if you got fresh oranges or any fruit or whatever you put on the table and everybody shares it. And it's really interesting all the time that he puts the stuff. He goes down to a restaurant, wholesaler, buy some stuff, brings it down and lets everybody try it. And this is one of the best of things. But also, in these circumstances, we always get the worst of things. And the best is what Toby does. The worst is, somebody recently came up to his farmer's little farmer's market table, and a £50 bag of onions, and a £50 bag of potatoes, and 15 dozen eggs, and so it's, um, it's hard to fathom why somebody would do something like that, but, Toby is, uh, dedicated to the community, he's been doing this on his own. He feels it's necessary, and so I like to highlight Toby for the great mini farmer's market that he's putting out there. He's sort of, uh, very upset about the person taking so much food, so he hasn't decided if he's going to continue yet, but I, I have a feeling he probably will because he's that kind of guy, so, that's my neighbor helping neighbor, um, selfishly doing this on his own, spending the time to bring the product down, and, uh, it's a great asset to our community, and I like to thank Toby for what he's done.

[01:43:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, and please be sure to send that to Katie, Katie Nelson.

[01:44:00] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, I will.

[01:44:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Maybe Ellen knows the guy because she smiles pretty. Okay, moving on to Comf...

[01:44:08] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: And thanks so much for the update. I appreciate all of the great information in there and all of the work that city staff is doing. It's incredible to hear how much is going on. Um, when I talk to the council members in other cities, um, it's so nice to be able to talk about everything we're doing, um, and to see how much it is. I think other cities are, other cities are struggling a bit too, uh, find the resources, but we're very fortunate we have the resources to be able to do this. Um and I appreciate everything that is doing. Um, I just want to mention that um, there is an organization called Neighbors helping papers. We want to make sure we uh, either differentiate ourselves or maybe uh, find a slightly different name. Um they're very focused on helping folks find housing. They're pretty active, um, on next door, and in some other groups. And so we just might want to either sync up with them or maybe tweak our name a little bit, but just so there's no confusion about the 2 different programs. But I think this idea that you have is a great one. It's nice to have some good news and see the good things that are happening in our community.

[01:45:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Hey, thank you and thank you. Thank you for the, um, the, uh, heads up on the, the name, but, um, anyone else? Um, I just do also want to, again, as always, think, uh, uh, our city manager and our entire organization for all the hard work that, um, you've all been putting in, and, um, yes, we, we, we do sharing time at some of our cities, um, meetings with other cities, and actually lately, I've been getting phone calls from council members in other cities asking, you know, how are we doing all the things we're doing? Um, so I've been able to share, um, some of the, the projects that we've been working on, but, um, I'm really mostly grateful for the fact that, um, staff has been so responsive, um, and willing to, you know, just blow up your sleeves and get stuff done, and, um, that's not always the case, and that's what I'm also hearing from other cities. Um, um, so I just really appreciate the can do attitude and the innovation and a lot of these, um, uh, services and activities that we're engaging in, um, as well as the, as the pandemic. So, um, thank you, uh, sitting measure, and thank you to all staff for, um, everything that you're doing for our community. So, with that, we'll move on then, uh, to the consent calendar, and these items will be approved by one notion unless any member of the council, which is to remove an item for discussion. The reading of the full text of the evolutions will be waived unless the council member request otherwise. Uh, with any member of the council like to pull an item? Council member hit.

[01:47:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so this is, I think this may be the 1st time I've pulled an item, so tell me if I'm doing it all wrong. If you can't, because you're all muted. So, the 1st one is the uh, carbon neutrality resolution, which I just want to pull the recognize, not to, um, get rid of it. Um, and then the 2nd one is, so that's 4.3 and then the 2nd one is, uh, 4.5 the Mountain View Transit Center, grade separation, et cetera.

[01:47:56] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Councilman McAllister, do you have some?

[01:48:06] Councilmember John McAlister: 4.3. I had a question on 4.3.

[01:48:11] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: 4.3 and 4.5, um, do you have a, uh, an access?

[01:48:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: I do, um, and I am, I need the text. Um, I'm accusing myself from item 4.4 of the multifamily housing revenue bonds, um, not at 950, um, El Camino reality due to a real property interest, um, within, like, something like 497 feet of the project, if I recall correctly. But anyway, I'll be refusing myself when that comes up or on that particular.

[01:48:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Any other items? My council members? Is item 4.3 and 4.5. Um, I'm gonna, oh, dump down Ramirez. Oh, um, oh, I'm gonna take it public comment. Um, yes, thank you. I need to take public comments, so I'll do that now. Any other of the public machine to speak on the list? And then going to our attendees list? I don't see any hands up. Um, if anyone like to speak, remember, there's a button at the bottom that says raise hand, so please check that, but, no hands are up, so, uh, city quick. Do we have any other public comments?

[01:49:40] City Clerk: No other comment, um, after 5 PM by email and no voicemails today. Thank you.

[01:49:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So then, um, council number Ramirez, did I call apply new to make a motion?

[01:49:55] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure, um, and just, uh, make sure I got all of the room items here, so I'd like move the balance of the consent calendar. Um, and that includes 4.4 adopt a resolution proving the issuance of revenue bonds. by California municipal finance authority, and an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $28000000 to finance the development of a 71 apartment project for persons and households of low income for the benefit of 1958 communal reality, or another entity created by Palo Alto Housing Corporation, and other certain, and certain other matters relating there to the benefit notice of public hearing. We're entitled only for the reading way.

[01:50:43] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Vice mayor.

[01:50:47] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: I just wanted to 2nd the motion.

[01:50:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. So we have a motion by Counselor Ramirez 2nded by council number. May to move the balance of the consent calendar. Is there any other discussions? If not, could we have a roll call vote please?

[01:51:04] City Clerk: Council member Clark.

[01:51:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes, but repeat is down 4.4.4. Thank you.

[01:51:09] City Clerk: Council member Hicks.

[01:51:11] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah.

[01:51:11] City Clerk: Council member Mattachek.

[01:51:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes,

[01:51:15] City Clerk: council member McAllister.

[01:51:16] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah.

[01:51:17] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez. Council member Ramirez. Vice Mayor Kameh.

[01:51:28] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: That's

[01:51:29] City Clerk: Mayor Abi Koga. Thank you. So Russian carries seven, zero, no extension.

[01:51:40] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So we'll go on to item 4.3. uh, we had number six, did you want to speak to this item? And meet yourself.

[01:52:00] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, I'm unmuted now. Um, I don't know what the we should hear council member McAllister's question. First, I just wanted to, um, put this out to command staff. I just wanted to condemn staff to bringing this up and kind of recognize it. I think that, um, as my birthday, I kind of wanted to celebrate the fact that we, um, hopefully we'll be voting for this. Um, this public mutuality resolution and hope we can use it for, um, double purposes, for some of the things that are, will be coming up, uh, over the rest of this meeting and, um, um, things like, uh, for um, sequestration, for trees, with our bike and walk appeal, um, throughout the city. That's the major of my state.

[01:52:59] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Counselor McAllister?

[01:53:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, um, I, my question was that I saw there was a map estimate for a consultant for up to $150,000 to develop a carbon neutrality planning. I was thinking that our staff is pretty good. And why do we need to go outside? And also to the mayors, does Silicon Valley clean energy also have any kind of develop any plans? So, um, that's something up our alley. I remember when I was the chair of the Silicon Valley clean energy. I would help make Mountain Dew one of the 1st cities to buy 100% clean energy, carbon free. They have quite a staff. So, can somebody answer the, what that $150,000 would entail to develop a plan and why couldn't we do that in-house or use Silicon Valley energy to help develop that?

[01:54:01] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Hi, Audrey Seymour, Ramberg, this is the city manager. Thank you for your question, Counselor McAllister. Um, we have been fortunate in the past, so you consult with assistance where there are projects that's looking to like clean engine can take the lead on. You're always open to the possibilities, but the work needed for the carbon neutrality plan really has to do with how the city of Mountain View is going to update its climate, um, action plan, which it's been several years since we've done that, and as you will recall, itself in December, adopted new targets for our greenhouse gas reduction. And we need to, um, we find the strategies that are going to be necessary to do this to that, which is an important 1st component in order to have a carbon neutrality plan because 75%, um, at least, um, uh, getting up to carbon neutrality is about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, not, um, about sequestration or carbon offset, and, um, and so there's a fair amount of effort that's required. And also expertise that's required to do that update of the climate action plan and also to qualify the benefits of the sequestration efforts like the tree canopy, faster plan, um, like the watershed plan, and then to use the, the best practices in the marketplace, um, to identify what the strategies, in addition, um, that would be needed to meet the gap, between what those sequestration projects will um provide in the way of of um. taking carbon out of the system and also, you know, the gaps between what we're doing to our own greenhouse gas production. So, that was a long way to say that it is a fair amount of effort and also expertise, but even with our quite excellent staff, we would not be.

[01:56:06] Councilmember John McAlister: So if that comes back to us, would we be able to give direction that we may not want to do carbon offsets? So that we would take, uh, ownership of our own instead of sort of, uh, you know, spending it on the side.

[01:56:24] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Well, I think that's the whole point of the carbon you traveling plan is to lay out what the different strategies are, that would get to um, neutrality by 2045, what's the vast majority of those being things that we do here locally to reduce emissions, things that we do here locally to remove um, uh, carbon from the system, and um, and then we would see what's the remaining gap. If any, that wouldn't be met by the actions that we can do locally by 2045 and um, whether the council wants to purchase off that to, um, reach the, the neutrality goal.

[01:57:07] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, thank you. And I'm, um, I'd be happy to check with Silicon Valley Clean Energy as to whether there's any grant funding available for, because it's not there. And the air, air district. I know the air district sun's climate action plan, so we can use that with them as well.

[01:57:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, any other comments? Um, so like three? No, um. And attain a motion to prove.

[01:57:45] City Clerk: Thank you. We will need um, sorry, we will need the uh, title of the resolution uh, read in the motion.

[01:57:52] Councilmember Chris Clark: Uh, yes. All right, so, yeah, so I'll move, uh, I am 4.3, which is to adopt a resolution, adopting a community wide carbon net neutral- or carbon net neutral-, adopt a resolution, adopting a community wide carbon neutrality target of 2045 to be read entitled only for the reading made attachment once accounts before.

[01:58:18] Councilmember John McAlister: Second if you need it. Mayor, you mute.

[01:58:27] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, counselor and McAllister's 2nd and it's a motion that counts number Clark. Any other discussion? All those in statement, I, uh, I'm sorry, I will probably, please.

[01:58:37] City Clerk: Council number Clark? Council member Hicks? Council member Mattachek. Council member McAllister?

[01:58:48] Councilmember John McAlister: I

[01:58:48] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez? Vice Mayor Ka May?

[01:58:53] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah,

[01:58:53] City Clerk: Mayor Abi Koga.

[01:58:55] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I, thank you.

[01:58:57] City Clerk: Ocean, Carrie, seven, zero, with no.

[01:59:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Then we go on to item 4.5 and was it mountain number Hicks?

[01:59:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, yes, I did. So, um, so, as I'm sure you know, there's a, a great amount of public interest in, um, this and associated projects. Um, and I guess the, the input I've been getting from the public is that it's difficult for people to see where the engineering stocks and the design they're really interested in starts. Um, so I wanted to pursue a little questioning around that. Um, in particular, uh, people have contacted me about some of the, um, Some of the things that were in the, the scope, uh, presented for this project, things like, um, uh, signage and striping for bike and pedestrian, um, bikes and pedestrians, um, and, let's see, uh, and, staging, construction staging, and some of the fears that people had. So, let me give one example, lighting, people have a concern about how safety within the tunnel and comfort using the tunnel. They're concerned about having input into that. And, uh, people have told me their various ways that, that they would feel more comfortable while walking or biking under the tunnel, um, things like, there's been talk of commercial kiosk or a little police substation or what the lighting would be. Um, So people have been confirmed that maybe the engineering would, the engineering within this contract would make decisions that would disallow some of that, that input. Another example that people raised to me was the state construction staging, um, since the construction will be going on for some time. People were very concerned that it be staged properly in order for the restaurants to still be appealing in the evening, and they wanted to have some, I've seen it done very differently in different cities, and people had concerns that they would not have input into that and keeping our downtown inviting. So my question is for things like that. And they also looked and saw within the scope that there was, uh, the public was not listed as one of the stakeholders that would get any input on this as far as they could see. So those are my questions. Are those some of the things that would be, is there a safe for community input? How could we make this, you know, how could we make this run most efficiently so that people would feel like so that people would have input and not, you know, maybe have the plans go too far and then have make things less efficient by having to, um, kind of backpedal to get people's input on, um, on some of those issues? Thank you.

[02:02:18] Unknown Speaker: Um, so the, the process with you today did start with, um, developing, 1st with the transit center, of course, master plan that developed the basic concept for the great separation, which had a lot of community review and input, and many council meetings around it. That was followed by us starting design on the great separation and access project, and during early design, conceptual development. We had community meetings. We visited the council in March 2019 and presented the basic design parameters and concepts we're working with, doing that out outreach that we did during that period of time. Comments were raised about them, you know, feeling safe and secure in the underpass and how the lighting would be handled. Uh, we did hear comments on science and strikes with a biped, uh, and even even discuss the possibility that could be a kiosk, possibly in there. So all of those comments will be saved. We're kind of integrated into the overall layout and preliminary design. And preliminary design just kind of simply lay things out and create space for things. And the level of engineering that we're doing as far as augmentation is to further develop some clan sheet that lay out where things would look like and go that in final design, they could start filling that in. So, um, you know, there's an understanding that we need good lighting in the underpass. There's understanding that, yeah, we will have signage and striping related to the bicycles, uh, use as compared to the pedestrians use. Oh, we shared some of that with the council on March 2019 and it's just going to be further developed now in final design. The final design process will include community outreach in community input. So once we're ready to start talking about those wall treatments, the urban design elements, the public art, and and some of that piece of it, there will be, uh, additional community outreach, and go to start showing the different concepts and ideas behind that, working with our urban designer that is on the team. It has been, and as we work with Caltrain as we go forward. So those will come into place now as we get further in to decide that that's really part of final design. Right now, what we're doing is we're trying to finish up our plan sets for the 35% design that will be the basis for them to go in and start doing the final design. Um, discussion with construction staging. We have presented that, discussed that at community meetings as well as the council meeting in the past. Um, and it's been carefully looked out to minimize the impact on businesses. For instance, the 1st 9 to 12 months of construction is on the ramp to uh shoreline, so it's completely outside of Castle Street area. The goal is to provide the place for the car traffic that's going to be diverted to go and be able to continue through. And then we close the road crossing of Castro. And then we start constructing the underpass. And all of that construction work is actually happening outside of the one other block of Castro. So will there be sometimes a little detours or other pieces that might affect that area? Yes. And we'll work closely with the community and business community as we develop the plans of how to handle that as well as the communication during construction. So that will be further developed during final design and shared. The public is definitely a stakeholder. Who's um, been very um, you know, I've had quite a bit of community outreach to date, and we plan to have quite a bit more.

[02:06:11] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, what I'm hearing from you is that there will be communi- communication with the business community and possibly others on some of those finer points, not the shoreline lamp, maybe, but just the finer points of, uh, how the, the, um, how, some of the near, uh, construction nearer to the businesses, how that will interface. But there's, we could add a stakeholders, and that some of the things that people had brought up to me, um, possible kiosks underneath. They want to make sure they're doing more than just picking the paint chip, paint color on the inside of the tunnel. You know, that, um, that it's something that they really feel like is a welcoming place and a welcoming, uh, entrance to downtown Mountain View. So, it sounds like you're saying that, and if that, So, it sounds like you're saying these will be preliminary writing, but if, if need be, it could be changed a little, depending on community input, am I hearing you right?

[02:07:17] Unknown Speaker: The, the, the plans we're developing right now is more about, um, creating the space for it, about, you know, ensuring that, we've got work set out for them, but they start filling in during final design. So at that point, when they're looking at the options of what kind of lighting, that'll happen during final design, and there can be community outreach and input into that, as they're starting to put that into place. In terms of the entrance treatment. In the world surface treatment, that real final decisions, all of that and options will come up during final design.

[02:08:02] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, and then there were things about uh pedestrian and bike, the way pedestrians and bike bikes moved within the space. Is that also open uh for some flexibility during final design?

[02:08:17] Unknown Speaker: Um, if they, uh, during fun design, they start to finalize the construction and traffic control plan, and that can, will definitely be shared. Um, you know, a lot of what will be put in there related to how you move bikes and pets safely through a construction zone. is gonna be using best practices, because that's, that's what we're talking about now, it's, how we move bikes, and pets, and vehicles safely through the various phases of the construction. I believe.

[02:08:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: What about true? The final design is more what they were, I think, concerned about.

[02:08:56] Unknown Speaker: So, in terms of how the project itself, once it's built, is handling bicycle pedestrial circulation, uh, a lot of that is already laid out in the basic concept. You know, and what we visited with the council on and in March 2019, where we talked about on each access point to the other crossing, what type of ramp and how do we want it located? uh versus the staircases, and the council request that elevators be considered in certain areas, so that has now been integrated into the concept plan, the primary engineering plan that will go forward the final design. So, a lot of that discussion happened in 2019.

[02:09:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I think they're aware of that. I think that they just wanted to make sure there weren't decisions made between now and what you're calling, you know, the final design that they would be cut out of.

[02:09:51] Unknown Speaker: They wouldn't be right now, the instructions are for the augmented 35% to 9. The project doesn't change. You're just, we're just providing uh a deeper level of the actual engineering design, the right away needs confirmation where the utilities are, that type of thing before we pass it off to final design. But it's gonna be clearly, it's gonna be very clearly laid out, that um, the final design in terms of aesthetic treatment, how it interfaces with the community, is gonna involve community outreach, and and no changes made to the design concept that the council has seen already approved will be made, without the city concurring.

[02:10:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you.

[02:10:38] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other comments on this item? If not, entertain emotions. Does anyone like to lose this item? I don't think we need to read anything at this point.

[02:10:58] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: No, you didn't, you do not, Madam Mayor.

[02:11:01] Unknown Speaker: I'll move item 4.5.

[02:11:03] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you.

[02:11:04] Councilmember John McAlister: Very 2nd.

[02:11:08] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Counselor. Permission back, Counselor McAllister. Any other discussion on this item? If not, can we take a low call, please?

[02:11:19] City Clerk: Council number Clark? Council member Hicks?

[02:11:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah,

[02:11:24] City Clerk: council member Mattachek?

[02:11:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah,

[02:11:26] City Clerk: council member McAllister.

[02:11:29] Councilmember John McAlister: Hi.

[02:11:29] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez. Counselor Ramirez. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kamei?

[02:11:40] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah.

[02:11:41] City Clerk: Mirapi Koga.

[02:11:44] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I,

[02:11:44] City Clerk: thank you. And thank you. Motion carry 7 0 with no extension.

[02:11:52] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, it is on a regular challenger, so if, don't mind, we, I'd like to move forward and she, she did item 51st, all communications from the public, and. Um, this question of the meeting is, this is the person wishing to address the council on any matter, not on agenda, speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for us to 3 minutes during the system. State law prohibits the council from acting on nonagenda items. With any member of the public on the line, like to provide comment on non-agenda items. So please pick the raise hand button, if you're one of our attendees, um, in Zoom or press star 9 on your phone. And the city crystal display the timer on the screen. Um, I don't see anyone in our list of attendees. Wishing to speak pretty quick, do you have any public comments?

[02:12:58] City Clerk: I do not, thank you.

[02:13:01] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. So, in that case, I will go ahead and close all communications and move on to item 6 public hearings, we have none, item 7 items initiated by council 7.one, adopt resolution denouncing venophobia and anti-Asian sentiment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And, um, I had asked that this item be placed on the agenda, so, um, I'll go ahead and speak to it, um, since, uh, COVID-19, uh, 1st started and report or reported in Wuhan, China, um, there has been a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, and, um, uh, support of, um, various, uh, um, Actions, um, against, uh, Asian Americans, in the community, and um, there has, uh, there's a group of, uh, San Francisco State University, and a couple of, um, nonprofits put together an online reporting centers, to collect and track, incidents of anti-Asian American, uh, Pacific Islander, hate violence, harassment, discrimination, shiny, and childbuilding in California and nationwide. And so far, um, and this was, uh, from a few weeks ago, there's been over 1100 incidents reported, um, I've seen personally on next door, uh, uh, reports of incidents that have happened in, um, our area, uh, fortunately in Mountain View. There are no reported cases, um, but I will say that my, my husband over the weekend as he was out jogging, um, so um, I'm driving in a car, made some, uh, comments that had some racial, uh, anti-Asian undertones. So it's definitely something that does happen, um, in our community, unfortunately, and so, um, the county of Santa Clara has the resolution, uh, very similar to this resolution, basically, we pretty much use most of the language, um, from that resolution. And so, um, I would like to ask that the council support, uh, this uh, resolution, pronouncing such anti uh, Asian sentiment and actions, um, and as a, um, as a symbol of solidarity with our community, um, especially given that one of our goals is to be uh, community for all, and um, protecting vulnerable populations, and. I I think in light of the pandemic. Um, we've seen, and we've seen that um, the Asian, the American community, um, is undergoing, uh, are experiencing these types of, um, anti-Asian settlement, um, it, it, it, it, it, it would be important for us to take this position. So um with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. I don't see anyone. Uh, so I will open this up to the public. Are there any members of the public wishing to speak on this item? I don't have anyone in my attendee box? Do you have any public comments?

[02:16:28] City Clerk: I do not, thank you, Mayor.

[02:16:31] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mike. a little close public commerce and bring it back to council. I had vice mayor, your hand with us, I believe.

[02:16:40] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: It was, uh, I just wanna, thank you for bringing the resolution forward, mayor, and I know that Santa Clara County adopted the pistol pollution, um, unanimously, and, uh, I think that it's just, uh, another way that, um, Mountain View and the Bay Area are leading, um, against the pandemic, and so look forward to being able to support this tonight. Thank you.

[02:17:15] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Any other comments? Any hands raised? Um, if not, I will entertain emotion.

[02:17:24] Unknown Speaker: I'll make a motion.

[02:17:26] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Read it.

[02:17:28] Unknown Speaker: Oh, yeah. Actually, let's see. Thank you. Um. Okay, if I have it. Adopt, uh, adopt a resolution denouncing being a phobia and anti-Asian sentiment, arising due to fears of the COVID-19 pandemic, and affirming its commitment to the well-being and safety of Asian, Pacific American community, read entitle only further reading ways.

[02:18:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Uh, and just, uh, vice mayor? I didn't know if you wanted to 2nd,

[02:18:08] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: um, I'm happy to, if you'd like, mayor.

[02:18:10] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, that's great. Thank you. I'll take your 2nd so there's a motion by, uh, councilman was, like, expecting by vice mayor. Any further discussion? If not, we'll take a little call though.

[02:13:02] (archive recording) City Clerk: Council member Clark? Council member Hicks? Council member Mattachek?

[02:13:09] (archive recording) Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes,

[02:13:10] (archive recording) City Clerk: council member McAllister.

[02:13:12] (archive recording) Councilmember John McAlister: Yep.

[02:13:12] (archive recording) City Clerk: Council member Ramirez. Vice Mayor Kime?

[02:13:18] (archive recording) Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes,

[02:13:18] (archive recording) City Clerk: Mayor Abi Koga.

[02:13:20] (archive recording) Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I,

[02:13:21] (archive recording) City Clerk: thank you.

[02:13:22] (archive recording) Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So motion carries 7 0 with... Thank you to my account... Um, we are moving on to, actually, going to our study session number two. So why don't we go ahead and take a 10 minute break, and we'll be back at 7.5. Thank you.

[02:29:43] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, great. Let's uh, resume to our study session, item 8, 8.1, Senate Bill, 743 sequo transportation analysis and we have a staff presentation.

[02:29:57] Unknown Speaker: We do.

[02:29:58] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, welcome.

[02:30:11] Keisha Vastava: This is our Keisha Vastava. Good evening, mayor and council members. Um, we have uh, a team of staff here, um, 3 of whom will be focusing on the presentation. I will just start off with, um, just the context, uh, Salush, um, our, um, associate, uh, assistant planner, who has been working with VTA and, uh, a number of our neighboring cities, um, is going to, uh, going to the specifics, and then we have Rio Lo, from public works, um, who will, um, focus on, uh, one aspect of, um, of the evaluation tool that we will be using. Uh, so so if you could go to the next slide. Um, so we will give you the specifics, but um, some of you may be, um, may remember SB 743. I believe it was sometime in 2013 that it was passed. Um and it basically requires a change in the way we evaluate transportation impacts. And uh require cities to stop analyzing level of service as a metric, uh, uh, and and using vehicle miles travels. But the goal is really to look at connecting land use choices, to transportation effects, um, and and focusing on the states, um, as well as the cities, um, greenhouse, gas emissions schools. Um, uh, the state actually, um, designated the Office of Planning and Research, whom we were referred to as OPR, uh, to develop a guidebook, um, DTA, which is our, uh, congestion management agency has been leading the effort here in providing a lot of the data and the tools. And we, we, um, all the cities are using the guidebook that has been prepared by OPR in order to maintain a level of consistency, uh, which is also required as part of the evaluation. Uh to the next slide, please. Um, some key points that staff is used in considering our recommendations. Um, is, um, are that sequa is what we call a blunt instrument, um, and has been for years, um, it comes at the end of the process where, where it looks at the project once it's been defined and then evaluates impacts. Um, it doesn't help to build in improvements um, as we, as we do project review. Uh, mitigations that we would have required under sequel can no longer be required because we only have one metric to analyze and that is the BNT. Um, and so we are trying to, um, uh, sort of move our project, review more into the multimodal transportation analysis, or we refer this to this as MTA. That's kind of a draft name. I'm sure will come up with something more catchy. Um, um, by, by the time we um, developed tool. And finally, it is, is fairly cumbersome. Um, it requires a lot of, um, uh, analysis, but doesn't really lead to the results that we would like it to lead to, and I'll go into the multimodal transportation analysis as the tool that we want to start using. This is a tool that allows us to use some of the things that we've already been using in path secret documentation. But I think we can do a better job. One is, it's concurrent with project review, as you know, as soon as we get projects, we review applications, um, and we're able to sort of build in some of these into the project. Um uh the findings of our review. Secondly, um, it looks a multimodal. It's not just autocentric and it's not just the NT. It, um, is able to look at bike and pet impacts and then connect them finally, the improvements, uh, to our multimodal plans. The city, as you know, has a fairly impressive CIP program. It's got some future planning. And we are able to connect those effects, uh, and improvements to those CIP projects and potentially studies of future CIP projects. So we feel that, even if projects get screened out of sequa in our discussion, we are able to study the very things that we've always wanted to study and maybe do a better job of studying through our multimodal analysis. Um, so this is just to give you the key points that staff is considered as we walk through this. Um, finally, I think, uh, we do want to, um, uh, the reason we would recommend screening projects or certain screening criteria because it reduces the process that sequel creates. But still allows us to review it at a local level. Many of the guidelines that we are using are already in OPR documentation. So the city doesn't have a whole lot of discretion because if we were to veer away from it, we would have to have some data for some data points to think about why we were changing it. Um, a lot of them are connected to other laws. Um, and you know, if there are questions, we, we're happy to answer some of those. Um, so we are many of our recommendations of consistent with the state OPR, um, guidance, um, and BTA and our neighboring cities, they're using a similar approach. So that's kind of just the context and I'll have uh, go into the details of the, the presentation. Thank you.

[02:36:00] Assistant Planner Salush: Thank you, RT. So the city of Mountain View has been in the process of implementing SP 743 since 2016. Um, things have really been ramping up in the past 2 years. So, um, just this past October, um, staff took, um, staff had a study session with EPC where we provided background on SP 743. Uh, we returned to EPC last week on Wednesday with another study session, um, presenting the policy options that will be discussing tonight. And of course, this evening we're here with city council for our 1st study session with the council, where we'll be discussing policy options for consideration, of implementing SC 743. And then we hope to return for final adoption public hearings with EPC and council in May and June of this year, respectively. So, um, as our kid mentioned, um, the Office of Planning and Research, Governor's Office of Planning and Research, OPR has provided a technical advisory, um, that's really helped, um, jurisdictions get an idea of what we need to do. Um, so a lot of the recommendations and and information will be presenting tonight comes directly from that technical advisory. Um, and again, what is suggested in there, um, is that practice is based on the best available literature. Um, And although many cities are not yet complete with implementing SP 743. We are able to lean on cities like San Jose and Oakland, um, for their um, their adoptive policies as well. We've also had a lot of assistance from our consultants, Nelson Nager, consulting associates. Um, and all of this together has informed the best practice, um, for the suggestions that are in, um, this presentation tonight. So where are we right now and what are we on the hook for currently? So, um, the evening and um, over the past few months, we've been studying screening criteria for Sequa, um, which is because we need to, we need to adopt new screening criteria. Um, we've been studying new thresholds of significance options in terms of EMT. And we have been looking into using LOS outside of Sequa, continuing use of LOS, but just outside of Sequa, given that LOS can no longer be used as a basis for determination of transportation effect. So, um, I'll have real low speak to how we're specifically going to be addressing LOS outside of sequa, with the next season.

[02:38:38] Ria Hutabarat Lo: Great. So under um, SD 743, the state requires us to change the transportation analysis that happens under the sequence from one that analyzes project impacts on motor vehicle flow, to analyze the translation um related project impacts on the environment, um, in, uh, measured in terms of VMT. So going from LOMs to VMT. This means that we can no longer use the state defined secret process as our tool to assess and to mitigate local traffic impacts. And I think that's the really critical issue to be aware of. We can no longer use secret to assess and mitigate local traffic impacts. This gives us an opportunity to actually define the way that we do transportation analysis locally. And so what we're proposing is a multimodal analysis of local transportation impacts, if you can go on to the next flight's solution. Which would differ from the secret uh traffic impact analysis in a number of ways. 1st of all, it changes the control of the process from a state uh controlled process to run that we, as a local agency, you're in control of. In terms of the numbering of intersections, we would anticipate that it will go from, it would reduce the number of intersections that would need to be analyzed. And then in terms of the road users that are quantitatively analyzed, um it would go from being one that is focused on motorists to being a multimodal analysis, including pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and motorists. And the proposed approach includes the same um metrics for motorists that we were previously used, using in the traffic impact, uh transportation impact analysis, including level of service and cuing analysis. And then, uh, finally, the tools for um, imposing change go from secret medication to operational improvements based on the MTA. Or whatever we come up with the final acronym. In terms of process, we have an opportunity to allow for transportation analysis somewhat earlier in the planning process through this new mechanism. So what we're proposing is that there would be, uh, um, an MTA screening process, projects that are not screened out from that would need to then complete their multimodal transportation analysis, and from that we would get the multimodal operational improvement. After the MTA screening, there would be a secret screening, and the projects that are, that are not screened out through that would then go through the um, the sequence BMT analysis, and that would happen um, after or, uh, the MTA would either happen um, before or in conjunction with a secret analysis. Um, and I'm, I'll, in the back to Serish.

[02:41:37] Assistant Planner Salush: Thank you, Dr. Lo. So, um, So, VTA, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, um, has been, uh, has played a critical role, regionally, for implementing SP 743. Um, as the county congestion management agency, they offer technical assistance to cities, um, in implementing, um, this law and this mandate. What they've been most helpful with is they've provided tools that map baseline VMT conditions in all the cities in the county. Um, and they've also mapped it for um, the county wide geography as well as the 9 county bay area. So, the table that you see on this slide, um, is all data that we were, that we received from BTA, and, um, they, the data in the columns, um, to the right indicate reference average VMT per capita for residential. Um, that's the middle column here, which basically signifies household based trips that are not commute trips. And the column to the right is the, um, average daily DMT per worker, um, reference average. So these are commute trips. So, all of the data, um, all the maps and other thresholds and screening criteria we'll be discussing this evening is based on these reference averages right here. So you'll be hearing me, um, refer to them, um, throughout the presentation. So amongst the screening criteria that the OPR technical advisory um recommend cities adopt. Um, there's 4 mainlands that we'll be discussing today. The 1st one that we'll start with is map-based screening or low BMT screening. Um, what you see here in the slide is this is what we call a heat map, which is a map that shows a jurisdictional boundary, um, and the colors represent variation from one of those reference averages in the previous slide. So in this map in particular, This is a map of Mountain View's residential average DMT per capita, map relative to the 9 county Bay Area figure you saw in the last slide. So, basically, these maps are used so that one would be able to tell if a project could be presumed to have a less than significant impact on DMT based on its location. And if it's presumed to have a less than significant impact, then the project is thereby screened out from having to do further sequel VMT analysis. So if you look at any of the green areas on the map here, there's there's light green and there's dark green. Any area that's light or dark green would be considered a low BMT area and a residential project that goes in there, that is compatible with the area would be presumed to have a less than significant impact. And according to the legend, specifically, the light green areas, there areas in the city that have DMT per capita that is, That is 15% below, that mean regional reference average, to 25% below, that mean reference average. And the dark green areas signify areas in the city that exhibit BMT per capita that is beyond a 25% reduction from that 9 county regional reference average. The yellow areas on the map that you see here are also, are not going to be considered low BMT areas, but they are areas that still exhibit DMT below the mean, and that BMT is below the mean and 15% below that mean reference average. So again, if you take a point, if you take a proposed project and you put it somewhere on the map, you'd be able to presume its level of significance in terms of transportation based on its location. Hence the map based screen. This next slide is essentially the same is a, it's a map based screen demonstration, but this time using an employment reference average, so this would be the, um, the column to the right of that table that we saw earlier. Given that those reference average values are much higher than the residential reference average DNT values. There is much, there's virtually no green on this map. In other words, there are real no real low VMT areas when it comes to office and employment projects. The yellow area that you see around downtown Mountain Dew on the slide is that same indication where the, um, DMT per worker observed in that area is below the mean reference average, but not, but it does not exceed 15% below that. And the darker colors, the reds, and the oranges, and the pink. Those are all, um, not low BMT areas, and they are areas where their VMT per worker is actually higher than the reference average. So if you just pick the location on the map, that for an office project or employment project, it would not be screened out due to its low VMT. Another one of the um, recommended screens that the state is telling lead agencies to adopt is transit screening. So this is to say that projects that are located within a half mile of transit would be would be presumed to have a less than significant impact. So long on transportation, so long as those projects exhibit transit oriented development features. So the idea here is, um, if a project is located within one of these areas that's denoted by the black outline, If it's located in one of those areas, it would be presumed to have a less than significant impact. And this is true for residential or for office projects. The areas with the black outline here are, again, those areas within a half mile transit, and we're going to refer to them as GPAs, transit priority areas. That's what the state refers to them at. So, as you can see, a good, you know, a lot of the mountain view surface area is, um, is sort of screened by transit. Um, so any of the low BMT areas, if a project was located in an area without low BMT, um, it would, it would likely be screened by virtue of its proximity to transit. And just to define it a little bit more clearly, um, half mile of transit is defined by, um, a major transit stop, um, or stops along a high quality transit corridor, specifically what this means that these are transit locations, that have service headways of at least 15 or every 15 minutes, um, at AM and PMP. So high quality transit where folks can use it during those rush hour commute periods. Um, GPA screening is known to incentivize development of trans oriental development, um, which is known to be dent. Um, typically does not have um, the maximum parking, uh, required by a jurisdiction. And again, there are these transit oriented development design criteria that have to be followed in order for that development to qualify for this transit screen. Next screen, that is recommended by OPR is screening out small projects from having to do a detailed VMT analysis. So, OPR, give their recommendations that are shown in this table, and city of San Jose, um, already adopted their own, um, and we've given our suggestions here on the table for Mountain View. The idea here is that small projects, small info projects, specifically, um, shouldn't have an undue burden, um, of going to the secret transportation analysis given that they're so small. We see a lot of these types of developments in Mountain View. Um, and we presented our recommendations um, in this table for both residential and um, office and employment projects. The final screen that OPR recommends cities adopt is screening affordable housing projects and specifically screening projects that feature 100% affordable units. So, research suggests that project, housing project with 100% low income units, um, generally exhibits, um, shorter trips or fewer trips, um, than market rate developments, and staff is currently suggesting, um, consideration of this particular screen, where 100% affordable housing project, um, should be screened out from further sequin analysis. So, um, that does it for the discussion of screening. If a project is not screened out from further sequent analysis, then it is subject to thresholds of significance by which we use to make a finding of significant level of the transportation impact. So, this table kind of summarizes the best practices from OPR, um, as well as those adopted by San Jose in Oakland, who already have their BMP, SB7 forgery process adopted. Um, I want to note that staff is, um, suggesting adoption of the same threshold recommendation, the same thresholds recommended by OPR to the letter. We're not suggesting any modifications to them, um, but you'll see that there are a couple choices baked in here, um, that we're suggesting. So to summarize the residential projects. Um, a project that exhibits, 15% below existing regional VMT per capita and regional being defined as the 9 County Bay Area here. If a project exhibits, VMT that's 15% below that reference average or greater, and it would be presumed to have a less than significant impact on transportation. In other words, if a project has BMP that's less than that 15, that's 15% less than that reference average, then there is no significant impact and it complies with the threshold. So, for office projects, we're suggesting um, the same threshold. But this time relative to the Santa Clara County reference average, DMT pro worker. So, again, OPR says that you are, that lead agencies and cities are able to choose between, um, are able to choose which reference average they want to relate to their threshold, and Mountain View is, you know, staff is suggesting using, um, the 9 County Bay Area for residential projects, and a Santa Clara County wide reference average for office projects. We'll get into what that looks like shortly. Um, OPR recommends that retail projects. Um, are analyzed by determining if their construction um, an operation leads to any net increase in total VMP. So, um, an analysis will be done of with and without the project, and if the project goes in and increases total VMT and the jurisdiction, then it will be seen to have a significant impact. If VMT is seen to go down as a net result, there would be no significant impact on transportation. So I'd like to kind of specify what we mean by having the ability to choose between reference averages for the residential and the office projects. Um, these are heat maps that show residential DMT in Mountain View. The heat map for the far left that you see. That's utilizing the citywide reference average. So that's using the figure of 10.32. Meaning that, um, basically residents in Mountain View are driving an average of that distance to get to, um, different amenities from their home, uh, that don't include work. Using such a low number, like 10.32 feels very few areas, very few low VMT areas in the map. Which is why you don't see any green on that far left map. The map in the middle is the, is a heat map that is relative to the Santa Clara County, um, reference average, BMT per capita. Um, there is a lot of green on this map, and it looks pretty similar to the, um, to the map on the right, which is actually the one that we were recommending use of. You saw this in the low BMT prize earlier. The map on the right is a VMT, um, is a heat map that shows VMT and the city relatives that 9 county average. So although the middle map and the map on the right looks similar, um, the use of 9 county bear regional reference average, um, yields the most surface area, the most parcels, um, that would be considered low BMT. Um, thereby allowing more residential projects to comply with the threshold. Again, this is the same sort of demonstration but for the office projects. Um, the reference average values for the 9 county bay area and for the Santa Clara County, um, geographies are pretty similar. Um, the Santa Clara County reference averages, reference average is a little bit higher than that of the 9 county, and that is why, um, there are some areas on the map that are closer. Um, to that mean reference average, as you can see, particularly downtown Mountain. So, um, to summarize, staff is suggesting use of the 9 county barrier reference average for residential projects. And the Santa Clara County reference average for employment project. OPR also um recommend different approaches for analyzing mixed use projects or other projects like general plan amendments and boning ordinances that also have environmental review. Um, what Staffo suggesting is, is, is, is in step with what OPR is recommending, and that lead agencies can either evaluate the dominant land use in a mixed use project, and use that dominant land use, and by that threshold, make a finding of significant based on that single dominant land use. Or, cities can apply the threshold of significance to each individual part of the mixed use project, and find different independent findings of significance. Um, staff has found that it's, uh, using this more specific approach, um, leads to better outcomes for mixed use projects as well as these other project types like general plans and precise plans. So, we're suggesting. And again, I just want to underscore, um, kind of how, speak with screening and thresholds of thin and get involved into the entire process. Um, the MTA process screening will occur 1st and just because of project, it's screened out from further sequel analysis does not mean that they're off the hook from having to analyze transportation impact or effects. We're still going to be requiring the same level of review, um, just through a process, just through a process. The city has a little bit more flexibility, um, in its implementation. So that's kind of what we're going here. I just want to underscore that nobody's getting a free pass from any of these three. So with that, we have questions close to the council. Um, of those couple items that we were saying that we do have discretion on, um, particularly use of which reference average, um, we should do for Mountain View for the thresholds and for screening, um, and we'd like to hear council thoughts on the small project screening. Um and our mixed use approach. So specifically, that question is, does council support staff, suggested screening criteria, and BMT threshold of. And that concludes that presentation.

[02:57:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you very much. Since this is a study session, we'll go to public comment first, uh, let's see, any members of the public who are attending the meeting, I'd like to speak, uh, please raise your hand and I see, uh, Mr. Chambers. It should be armed.

[02:58:04] Chambers: Okay, thank you very much, Mayor. Chambers, and I'm representing the Mountain View Coalition for sustainable planning. We send in a letter and I'm just going to use a couple of minutes to summarize key points. Um, I think it's just important to emphasize what was emphasized earlier that the primary goal of this are really reduced greenhouse, gas emissions, to develop multimodal network, where we're putting people over cars, and the diversification of the brand use. And I really think that staff has done an excellent job in the proposed screen criteria and the thresholds of significance. Um, I understand there's a July 1st deadline, but I'd like to see a few changes at least considered, uh, that we've presented in our letter. Uh, when they have to be amended, uh, when we were talking about the transit priority areas. I had listened to the EPC presentation, read the staff report and I didn't see the reference in terms of transit oriented development criteria. And I think it's important if you're going to do that, you list the criteria as part of the, uh, when it comes back to council, in terms of which kind of projects would be automatically screened and which are not. So, if that's done, I'm, I'm fine with that. The, the 2nd point that I'd like to emphasize is that the Mountain View has really been a leader from promoting mixed use development. Um, I mean, done an excellent job, and those kind of projects tend to have lower BMT. My only thing, and the OPR guidelines do allow that you, if you have multiple projects, uh, you know, like a master plan project that you, you can incorporate an internal capture rate for mixed use development that would lower the DMC per capita if perhaps there's, you know, really a mixed use project. I'd like to see that included and it is something that can be done. And then 3rd, um, is that, uh, and the staff report, there's some discussion about the anomaly in the maps, and like in the downtown area. Um, that has a higher BMT level. I think there's also anomaly in several other areas of of the city. And quite honestly, I don't have a lot and a confidence in the data, but I can't go into it because there's the data source, the VTA is not available, so it's hard to see if it's validated, but all these models really do need to be a, a, a, evaluated. So I think that really has to be addressed when this comes back to council. And in the longer term, I think the transfer priority areas established in the OPR guidelines. You know, as a starting point, but I'd really like to see the city evolve to looking at this instead of just transit, we have a lot of private transit in the city. We're making significant investments and pedestrians and bicycling, and I'd really like to call these, and really have the screen areas, the multimodal priority, uh, corridor.

[03:01:13] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Mr. Chang, time is up. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Um, I don't see anyone else, then, uh, the, in the 10 bucks. Did he correct, do you have any other?

[03:01:27] Unknown Speaker: What comment? I know other comments. Thank you, mayor. Thank you.

[03:01:32] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: So, then I will, so, public comments and bring it back to counsel for any questions. Let's start with questions 1st Uh, let's see, let me move my. Um, any number, any account numbers with questions? Oh, yes, council member, okay.

[03:01:58] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so my, uh, a primary question is related to uh, Mr. Chambers question about the data. Um, I found they keep maps, um, kind of very, uh, counterintuitive would be the right term. Um, they seem to say that the people living near transit and who can, you know, walk to drugstores and grocery stores use their cars the most, and the people who, uh, live furthest away from many of those things, such as my friends who live near Mountain View High School, and use, have to use their cars for everything, are the ones who use their cars for we. So, I was, that could be, that, that is so counterint to me, but it kind of, um, gives me a lot less confidence in the data that we're basing all these policies on. So I'm wondering what explanations that might have for that. taking.

[03:03:04] Staff Presenter: Yeah, so if I'm hearing you properly. Um, council member, you are, you know, concerned about some of the anomalies, um, specifically in downtown Mountain View. Um, so, you know, the 1st thing is staff is aware of, though, that it does seem.

[03:03:19] Unknown Speaker: I just want to say it's not just downtown Mountain View. that the neighborhoods that are very car oriented say that they never rarely use their cars. So it's really all of it, it's the data as a whole that I'm confused by, not just the downtown.

[03:03:36] Staff Presenter: So, I think, you know, the 1st thing is that this, this is, the heat maps are produced from a model, um, and it's a regional model. So a lot of times it isn't able to provide the best, um, resolution, um, view of what's happening locally, especially in like a, you know, a street to street, um, network or at the parcel level. Um, land use information is given to VTA, um, based on, um, transportation analysis zones, which are very large, um, parts of the city that comprise several parcels. Um, so we get land use inputs for how many square feet of office are there or how many residential units are in those TAVs, and if they use that information to show what is on the ground at the parts of the level that you see. So, um, we are not, we are very confident with the data that was used to inform the maps. Um, but at the end of the day, that data was used, uh, was input into a model that is showing um, these outcomes. So it's not perfect, and I understand other areas and Mountain View are strange as well. But we've had extensive discussion with BTA, and they said that at this time, they're not able to change anything, um, after they've done significant validation and verification and independent analysis of the, um, of the accuracy. of their model.

[03:05:09] Unknown Speaker: If I may, if I may jump in and answer a part of it, so can you pull up the green map that we had, I'm trying to remember what flight, uh, showing the screening criteria. Um, we did discuss this based on a council question. And and one of the, one of the key issues is, uh, some of these neighborhoods look green because, uh, these trips don't reflect the trips to go to work. These trips actually reflect the trips that you would use to access a neighborhood, grocery store or a park or a school. And these are then compared to the region to say, how did, how did the trips in these neighborhoods compared to trips in the region? So very often when we see green, it's being compared with the regional average, which is why some of these neighborhoods end up looking different, even though we know that to go to work, people do drive. But to go to school, um, you know, they don't look at actual patterns. They look at the potential of being able to walk. Um, and many of our neighborhoods are different from neighborhoods that are newly created in the air, in the region, where we do have shopping centers that are within walking distance. We do have schools that are local and not far away, for example, when you compare them in some new neighborhoods in the San Jose Hillside. And so they do compare well when you look at that. Um, so what we might think of as, um, you know, not comparing well. It's when you compare it to a regional average, um, they they do look green. So I hope that explains a little bit of it. Uh, there might be a few anomalies and we can go into that and maybe give you some answers when we come back. Uh, but we, especially for the downtown, we're confident it'll get screened out because, it is within uh, trying to priority area. Um. So I hope that kind of goes a little bit of a way to respond to some of your, um, curiosity about why it shows up the screen.

[03:07:18] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, well, I mean, one of my other questions is why people who live in low income, and often my experiences don't even have cars, they, they are the same as, as people with cars. It's just, it's not just the downtown. It's multiple areas of stuff. The maps don't coincide with my experience, what people do. So that's, that's my question.

[03:07:44] Unknown Speaker: Yes, um, I I don't believe the map quite gets into income. Um, it looks a potential landing, uh, but when we do have a project that is low income. We're able to look at that. So, sometimes that income data is not, is, use land use and use transportation models, uh, and that, that could be the reason why you might have a little bit more of an anomaly.

[03:08:08] Consultant Megan: Um, this is Megan, we're from Nelson Negard, and um, I can provide a little bit of additional context about the model if you would like. And what they're illustrated on the map. Um, So the, what's illustrated on the map is the model outputs relative to the, um, regional average. And, um, we agree the, the area around downtown showing up as one of the higher, um, uh, VMT per capita areas and the city struck up as an anomaly right away. And that's the question that came up in our conversations, um, uh, early on, month ago before the official data was available from GTA. And there, there are some challenges when it comes to modeling and reflecting. Um, nuances, but, um, the, that particular area, and we can get into this in other, um, parts of this discussion, that particular area being close to transit means that it also falls within, um, the realm of, uh, transit priority, um, things. And so the fact that the model output around downtown is not what we would expect for, um, an area that's well served by transit, um, doesn't get in the way of implementing the screening process. And then the other parts of the map, um, that are green, what what the green indicates is not, um, that, these are the places where people drive their cars the least in the city of Mountain View. So I just want to provide that clarifying point. What the green indicates is that these locations have a lower DMT per capita than the regional average, but, um, compared to other parts of the region, people make fewer and or shorter trips by car in these locations. And so, the, um, the areas where there might normally, as you pointed out, people might have to drive to get to a grocery store, um, this doesn't intend to illustrate that they're not making those trips, but rather that when they drive to the grocery store, their drive is shorter than it is for somebody who lives up in the hills. And so the, the fact that the regional average includes, um, you know, model outputs for places all over the Bay Area that, um, many of which are much less urban even than the, the, the border neighborhoods in Mountain View, um, means that relative to that average, few areas are lower. And, um, likewise, like the differences, within Mountain View are not reflected because what we're emphasizing here are the areas that are below the, um, less than 15% below the main or, or under that threshold that we talked about earlier. And so that means that one neighborhood that's marked as green, um, that includes, um, lower income, um, households with, um, less car ownership. They may indeed be even, um, driving even less than their, their neighbor, you know, a few blocks away with higher car ownership rates. But the point of this map is to show that compared to the regional average, they're all lower than the regional average. So those additional differences within Mountain View are not emphasized because, um, the, the sequel screening process doesn't need to identify those additional uh, differences. So there's a few points about the map that I wanted to call out. Thank you.

[03:12:15] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: I cancel the request.

[03:12:18] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, we're just going to ask, it sort of relates to that. Is there, um, Would it be helpful for us? You know, I know we have a July one deadline, and and you know, we can iterate on this, um, and amend it later, we need to with the sort of more and learn by doing, but. Would it be helpful for us to utilize other sources of data, you know, um, um, you know, like Enric or others that would have, you know, the BTA data. Um, there's a little stale and and probably not ideal. And so I didn't know if, you know, utilizing data sets that are more recent, and maybe more robust from, from 3rd party providers would be helpful if we establish how, how to sort of tweak this and and customize it for our own use, or maybe that wouldn't be helpful. But I just thought I'd try to ask if that would be useful.

[03:13:16] Unknown Speaker: Maria, do you want to take a take a stab of this one? I know you've studied it.

[03:13:21] Ria Hutabarat Lo: Oh, so um. Yes, I think that that's something that we can, we can look into. I don't think that we can do that by July 1st. Um, we have worked with some of the other data sets, and there are, for example, the big data sets, um, and it was not very suitable actually for our purposes, as a city. There's a lot of problems and a lot of inaccuracies. That being said, I think, for example, in terms of the neighbourhood types, those sorts of things, we could probably update those things to tweak the data. But that would be something that I think would be After July, it would be more and then the next iteration.

[03:14:03] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. and I wasn't suggesting we do that by July. I was just curious that that was sort of a long term, um, helpful thing to look at as, you know, as a BTA data continues to get more and more stale. I don't know when that would be when they would provide new data.

[03:14:18] Ria Hutabarat Lo: And CTA also plans to do an update.

[03:14:21] Unknown Speaker: Okay, great.

[03:14:25] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, well, that's the council member, Meditric. Thank you.

[03:14:30] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So earlier, um, in this presentation, I think I heard RT say that, um, the LOS analysis focused on traffic, and the DMT analysis focused on the environment. And so I'm wondering, since we don't have the multimodal plan yet, what part of the multimodal plan is expected to focus on the environment? If we screen project's out of VMT.

[03:15:05] Unknown Speaker: Well, I, I'll have maybe we have, what the multimodal does, um, and, and I think we might have mentioned that, uh, the, the goal of sequel is to study a project's impact on the environment. Um, and and really, that is the goal of sequel, which is why VNP analysis is the metric. The goal of the multimodal analysis is to look at, not the projects impacts on the environment, but to look at the project's effect on our transportation network. So it's a slightly different goal, where we're looking at operational criteria that might be affected. Um, and so it's different from a sequel analysis that used to be typically done. Um, maybe Ria can walk through the elements as...

[03:15:52] Ria Hutabarat Lo: Sure, actually, so we should keep on pulling up, um, actually, maybe a table. Um. So, the, the proposed multimodal transportation analysis framework would um look at level of service or automobile level service, so, in addition to metrics for other modes of the one before that, actually, um, for pedestrians, um, That's the one up, next one. Next one. So pedestrians, probably some sort of a pedestrian quality of service, the bicyclist. Um, you know, possibly something like the bicycle level of traffic stress and something, you know, relating to transit, um, uh, effectiveness for transit riders. And so there would be more metrics than just the automobile level of the, level of service plus the peeing analysis that they're currently doing. Does that answer the question?

[03:16:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I guess I'm trying to understand, um, you know, to me, reducing VNT sounds pretty good. Um, that would reduce the, um, carbon emissions and improve the environment. And so I'm trying to understand if we don't do VMT. Or is VMP part of the multimodal analysis. You know, or if we don't do it, I guess I need to understand that, what kind of takes its place to understand. Are we really having a positive impact on the environment with a different analysis and the mitigations that would go along with it?

[03:17:33] Ria Hutabarat Lo: Oh, I said, yeah, so, we wouldn't mind on doing to the EMT analysis only for those that went through the secret process. Um, we do consider VMT at a macro scale in the city as part of our greenhouse gas infantry, that the city manager's office work.

[03:17:51] Unknown Speaker: So, if I could build on that, um, the, looking in the multimodal transportation analysis that how we improve, uh, pedestrian access, transit services, and, um, placing the conditions of approval for development when it's entitled to help make these improvements. will then encourage uh access to these sites by non-automobile modes. Once you do that, you have a positive effect on the MT. So, again, what the secret BMP analysis is doing is, if it's done, it tells you kind of the air quality impact that you get, uh, from, from the project, the BMT impact. But it's the multimodal transportation analysis and the operational movements that are identified to that. So I'll actually get you the result, to lower BNT.

[03:18:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: But you could still do the VMT analysis, and then the mitigations, that to reduce the VMT, that would also have a positive impact on the um environment, right?

[03:19:07] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. You need to be careful of is, um, the mitigations you do, uh, for BMT under Secra, can be a bit limiting. And our goal is the multimodal transportation analysis to be in the more inclusive in looking at the operational improvements that we need. And then we build those, like I said, into additions of approval. And we're not relying on sequel mitigation to get the operational improvements that we need for all the different votes.

[03:19:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: How are the mitigations limiting with sequence? So do they define what you can do?

[03:19:53] Unknown Speaker: Well, projects that will have a significant impact on VMT. The typical approaches are what we already do many times, which is mandate TDM program, trip and trip reduction strategy, uh for the development. And there is, you know, I'm thinking that maybe we could look at bike and pet improvement being made for there, but it seems to be tested, and we just feel overall, you know, it's always interesting trying to work with secret mitigations and the mitigation monitoring plans that you have to do and the legal um analysis that's around sequence. And we just feel we're going to have more flexibility and more to use the multimodal transportation analysis, it will determine nexus, and justification that we need to, um, again, make more conditions of approval related to development. And I saw Archie, you were trying to add something, but you're muted.

[03:21:02] Aarti Shrivastava: Oh, um, no, I was, um, well, I, I think what Catholic Romatic was trying to get at was, um, but don't we want to use Sequa to make the VNT, improve the VNT projects. Um, and I just wanted to say that, uh, the state has developed through OPR a series of criteria, that overall determines that certain project types will not have a significant impact on the environment. And that's what they recommend as a screen criteria. So, for example, if we have a housing project in the low BNT area, then it will not have a significant impact because it's balancing out the land use. If you have an office project, it is not going to do that. And so you will have to study it. If you have a project within a half mile of transit, if it exhibits the characteristics of transit oriented development. The state has determined that it would not have an impact. So, there are some best practice criteria, they're recommending you apply, because once you do the analysis, you will find that it will end up saying that it's less of significant anyway. So, that's why that additional work, they determine it is not required to be done. But there are some that will not need the screening criteria, that when you do the work, having done a lot of this research and this practices, They they have determined, you will find that there is an impact. And so they're recommending not screening those out. So that's what we mean by additional work. Even if we do the sequel analysis, we'll find most likely that a lot of these projects will not have a significant impact.

[03:22:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. So for an individual project. How big of an effort is it to do the VMT analysis? Does this take like months and millions of dollars or?

[03:23:06] Aarti Shrivastava: Uh no, no. We would, to say, we determined that a project of 10 units, since we're 30 is, is, um, we, we think of a significant impact. We would go through the VNT analysis and most likely find that it doesn't have an impact at all. Um, and we've sort of looked at, through 10 years of projects in mountain views, and looked at projects that are routinely screened out a sequel, because they are fewer than 5 acres, and end up with categorical exemptions. If we determine that those projects will now have to go through a sequel, VNP, we will have to do that additional analysis where we wouldn't have had to do. And so, it's kind of reduces the streamlining of many projects that, could have been used, and you would not find that it has impact anyway.

[03:24:00] Unknown Speaker: So, um, does the city do the VMT analysis or does the applicant do the VMT analysis firing consultant?

[03:24:08] City Staff: It's a city, it's their sequel. So the city, um, kind of, uh, hires consultants to do right.

[03:24:14] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Right. So it's not city staff, but I guess that was my question. So, is that like a, um, a couple months subject was, uh, to do it as part of sequel or is it pretty easy to do?

[03:24:31] City Staff: See, I would say it takes about some months to do a net deck and more than, you know, to go through the entire process. Um, there are very, the state requirements from start to finish. Um, and as we noted, it comes at the end of the process after the project description has been established. Um, so yeah, it does add, um, the sequel might still have to be done, but if it didn't have to be done, it would add an element of time and process.

[03:24:59] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um. I think that's it for now Thank you. here.

[03:25:17] Unknown Speaker: Great, thank you. Um, I, I want to thank staff for, um, all the materials there, sort of staff presentation. I know it's a paradigm shift in terms of how we, um, and a lot of transportation, and so it's, and it has huge implications for the city, so I really appreciate all the information, and I just hopefully have a few brief questions. So, I know that it was mentioned at the beginning of the report about how, um, in certain cases, we still will be using LOS outside of. Um, and so I was just wondering if you could tell us when those instances might be that you would be measuring for LOS.

[03:26:01] City Staff: Yeah, I can probably start on that and I think Ray and Don can take it over. Um, LOS does still tell a good useful story of traffic impacts that arise from projects. Um, and actually, LOS can actually still be included in, um, an environmental document. You just can't base your finding of significance or transportation impact based on the LOS um effects. That's that's one part. Um, and essentially, what we're trying to, um, or what we're proposing is to handle anything that LOS findings would tell you would be done through the MTA. So, you take what has been happening historically where you would evaluate LOS and find, um, an impact based on that. But we're moving that to the MTA where those impacts will be known as effects and the mitigations will be known as improvement. So maybe donorrhea can elaborate.

[03:27:07] City Staff: Um, yeah, so I think that you would do the LOS, whenever you uh, need to understand conditions, like, in the, like, local neighborhood street, um, and the, it would be based on the screening criteria, um, which we would be developing as part of the, um, the MTA handbook. When we come back in June, uh, one of the things we'll be bringing forward is just recommendation for the threshold of a size of a development for which we'll be requiring an MPA be.

[03:27:47] Unknown Speaker: Great, thank you, thanks. Uh, that goes into, um, another one of my questions, so, um, when we, um, evaluating LLS, BMC for different project sites, obviously, can use that as a lever in terms of being able to ask them all 1st for resources and for the transportation improvements. And so, um, as this is coming forward, I'm just wondering, um, how we'll be able to make sure that we can still, as a city, be able to ask for those things, if maybe staff could, you know, if you want to answer that now, that'd be great, or I don't know if we should shift you into that comment, if you can't answer it now, but, um, I'd love to hear a little bit more about that as possible.

[03:28:33] City Staff: Sure. So when we're imposing conditions on a development, we need to know that there's a nexus that needs to be reasonable and it needs to be proportional to the effects that we found. And so the MTA is assessing what the effect is and then the operational improvement would be based on that. Just as an example, if you find that there are, um, uh, the projects, the facts require lengthening of the left turn lane to improve operational or some contribution towards a signal synchronization project that could be an improvement. Those are examples of things we can not study in sequel as part of the VNT, but we can continue to do as part of the MTA.

[03:29:24] Unknown Speaker: Thank you. Um, and then my last question is um, we've been talking about um, implementing things that are best practices and pulling from some of our visual neighbors. I don't know if we could talk about how we're making sure that what we're doing in Mountain View is kind of coordinating, maybe with other cities, other jurisdiction. Um.

[03:29:47] City Staff: Yeah, so, um, we've been sort of coordinating with all the member agencies and VTA since we've begun implementing SP 743, um, VTA has an ad hoc working group specifically for, um, city staff, who are cast with implementing SP 743, with pool resources, we share feedback on our processes. Um, and the purpose of the meetings is to, you know, maintain regional consistency and that we're all on the same page. Um, at the same time, we have checked with BTA multiple times in, um, determining if, if Mountain Dew chooses a certain approach or certain thresholds where we're selecting certain reference averages or certain screens, and um, all outs or Sunnyvale, their neighbors choose, you know, different, um, different reference average use or different screens. Does that inconsistency create any problems, um, given that there are neighbors in the share street network. Um, they said no, it's not an issue of Mountain View elects choose the 9 County Bay Area reference average and Sunnyvale use the Sunnyvale City reference average. They said that's an issue. Um, Again, our DMT is assessed, um, as an efficiency metric, so either per person or um, per worker. So um, we've seen that there's no cost for concern. Uh, if we use different threshold, different reference averages. The issue would arise, is if we all, if we all use different travel demand models, um, and we're getting our data from different places, but that's not happening because VTA has centralized all the data. And they're all used in the same model that they've developed.

[03:31:29] City Staff: Yeah, and I can add something in terms of the MTA. So the approach to the MTA is actually based on San Jose's work on their local transportation analysis um handbook, and so we're using that as the starting point um in this process. In addition, uh we work very closely with our colleagues in all the other cities. We have good relationships with all of our colleagues. And um, so we've had a lot of conversations with various colleagues from our neighbouring cities. For example, Los Gatos is also planning on doing a multimodal analysis and a neighbouring city of Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, um, are also doing a similar approach in terms of the, um, you know, transportation analysis outside of Sequa.

[03:32:19] Unknown Speaker: Great, thank you.

[03:32:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And, uh, thanks for staff for answering. The most important question. things that came out of the, and my, my, my, my, I'm gonna try speaking without video and see if that improves the quality of the audio. My apologies again. Um, but 1st, uh, The, the more facial precise plan, uh, has a programmatic EIR that studied LOS impacts and identified a number of medications, um, that are, that are important for, for transportation, uh, in, in that area. Um, so, how would, how would development in North Bay Shore, which, you know, is coming under that precise plan and that, that 3rd time, um, have to, would they have to do additional analysis for MP impacts or they kind of grandfathered in under that precise plan? How exactly would, with North Bay Shore, with them, work under this new model? Martin, do you think you could speak to that at all?

[03:33:43] City Staff: Um, Councilman Ramirez. Typically, what projects would do is they would use, um, hearing under Sequa? Um, but given that the North Bay Shore programmatic EIR was assessed under level of service for transportation, um, you know, DMP wouldn't be, it wouldn't be that same language. So hearing doesn't exactly apply, but Martin or Archie, do you have any, um, insight into that or? Go ahead, Martin.

[03:34:09] Martin: This is Martin. Yeah. I mean, Boosh is correct, um, and and the upshot of all this is that, uh, for the maps, uh, if you notice, the North Bay Shore area is a high VMT area, and so, uh, yeah, we can't necessarily just screen that out, uh, right, we can in other areas. So, um, yeah, uh, it has to be done separately. We cannot rely on the EAR that was done for...

[03:34:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Are we still, um, the moment then would have to, to, uh, mitigate impacts for, for both metrics, right?

[03:34:49] City Staff: We, we would still get the mitigations were identified in the precise plan, which, he said, this is a little less. And also, it would have to mitigate any EMT impacts, um, an American. They certainly have to go to an analysis. So if you look at the office map. The office map all shows up as tink, and the residential map shows up as yellow, most of the areas that are developable, so they will both have to go through the VMT analysis. We may find as a result of, let's say, the residential analysis that it actually does not have significant impacts. We don't know. It all depends on the characteristics of a project. And in that case, they will not have to mitigate, but if there are significant impact, they will. Um, all the screening criteria mean is that they will have to do the analysis.

[03:35:50] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Is there a scenario in which some of the mitigations in the north facial precise plan themselves increase VMT and then if there are BMT mitigations required from this transportation analysis, would those development proposals have to mitigate both the EMP impacts from the development and the VMT impacts from the LMS mitigations as well.

[03:36:21] City Staff: I don't think individual projects have characteristics that would, um, create additional VMT impacts, because those individual projects themselves, have to comply with a lot of the, um, TDM measures, which are much longer than anywhere else in the city, as well as many of the green building features and site features. Um, so I, I, I don't think off the bat that there will be any additional DNT impacts. Obviously, if you're in intensifying an office use, um, you will have traditional VMC impacts and we'll have to look at the mitigations for those similar to the way we look at all other mitigations. Uh, not the requirements of the, the site plan.

[03:37:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Those are my questions for, for, uh, quicker questions. Um, I asked, uh, about the, um, the VMT impacts of affordable housing and whether there's, um, some analysis that shows, if it's possible, you know, how much of a VMT reduction you would get. In the amount of affordable housing on site within it, within a special development. Um, and I, I was curious to know, if there's a point where, you know, a screening of an affordable, well, of a residential project that has less than 100%, but a full width of affordable housing would be narrative, right? So if you would have, for instance, um, you know, we, we require 15% or ordinance. Um, but if you're screened, uh, if, uh, sort of a housing, um, or a residential project with a 25% minimum conclusionary component would be screened out of the transportation, and the houses, whether that means, serve as an incentive for developer, go from 15% to 25%.

[03:38:34] City Staff: I think, um, so I'll just answer, if a project were not screened out by the basic measures, and it was a market rate project, um, that provided a certain percentage of trips as, uh, sorry, a certain percentage of uh, units as affordable. I think, um, there are VNT characteristics of the affordable units that might be lower than the market rate components, and so, it might reduce the overall VNT for project, not significantly, if it didn't, uh, include a significant amount of affordable units. And really whether a developer is incentivized to increase affordable housing. I think will depend on the cost of the VNT mitigations. When compared to the cost of providing that affordable housing, because most developers make decisions on an economic basis. And so I think it's hard to say that they would make the change. Uh, maybe it's a 5% change. They would, but um, you know, it's hard to say at this point.

[03:39:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Maybe, maybe when there is some kind of analysis, I would, um, help us make a decision about essentially having a lower percentage of affordable housing to, to be screened for the, the CMT analysis. Um, I'd be interested in that at least. And then just the last question, um, we talked a lot about the heat maps. Uh, and I'm, I'm curious to know if, um, if the, the BTA model that we're using, if you, you plug in the San Jose data, would produce a, a heat map that was equivalent to what San Jose was able to generate

[03:40:26] City Staff: academic, it was 2017. So our, I think I, I don't, I don't know for sure, but I would imagine Tennessee was using a different model than what we're using from PTA model.

[03:40:42] City Staff: Yeah, so, um, it is a different model, um, but the VT model is actually based on the San Jose model that was used. San Jose created a really complex and effective spreadsheet that evaluated project BMT. Um, The VTA isn't based on that. So if you did input that and to see what San Jose would look like, it would look similar to what the San Jose map looked like before the VTA tool came out.

[03:41:13] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: That's okay. Any other? Counselor McAllister.

[03:41:25] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'm gonna coach this with, I'm an old dog, it's hard for an old dog to learn new tricks. And um, I got a bunch of questions. And none of the, and my favorite box of you guys has really, he's my apprehension to what we're going down here with. So, we're taking a model that really hasn't been validated, and we're going to try to validate it through the process of as we go through and look at projects. Is that sort of, uh, I sort of saw that in one of our comments, uh, that question. So, is that sort of a truism?

[03:42:15] City Staff: That's not true. Uh, the model has been validated several times independently by member agency staff and by VTA themselves. Um, the, The data itself has also been validated. The data going into the model has also been validated several times. But several iterations. Um, just because it's been validated, doesn't mean it doesn't produce anomalies.

[03:42:42] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay? I noticed in a couple of the staff reports that mentioned. So some of the data was interesting. Okay, so, um, this criteria that we're going off was based with San Jose, San Oakland. Does it matter that our cities aren't comparable? That they're huge, large area, and so forth, or...?

[03:43:07] City Staff: How was something there, just to say that, um, the only reason they provided San Jose in Oakland was because there was a few barriers, cities that actually have adopted, uh, thresholds, um, and we did look at San Jose's. We really were, we're taking a look at OKR guidance. And our own city, and uh, past 10 years of projects that have routinely been screened out of sequel because of their size. Uh when we make a recommendation. Um, so the, we just provided those as a, um, a comparison. We did not use San Jose criteria to determine ours.

[03:43:50] Unknown Speaker: Oh, you're going to have to bear with me because I got a few questions and I'll try to keep it pretty tight. So when we go to the screen where it says, uh, proposed multimodal transportation analysis, our MTA, there's never intersection to analyze many. But now we're going to go with fewer. Um, Why is that a good thing?

[03:44:16] Unknown Speaker: Well, I, maybe Rhea, you can elaborate, but, um, it, it, it is, um, a change, because before, we looked at impacts, um, in sequa based on LLS analysis. And now we look at VMT instead. Um, and so as we move to, a local transportation analysis, the network that we look at is smaller than what we used to cap is wide a net for secret purposes. But what we will include is we go out as far as a project would have effects on the city network. We would also go as far as it would have an impact on the congestion, uh, uh, management agencies, intersections, those, uh, congestion management plan. We call them CNP intersections. Uh VTA would still require us to evaluate those. Uh so it's not a good or bad thing. It's, it is a shift in the way we are allowed to look at impact.

[03:45:21] City Staff: Yeah, so in the, in the current, um, LRS now, just frequently, uh, analyzing, uh, intersections that are even in neighboring cities. Um, and so the, the goal is the MTA is to look more at the local network, um, and to focus on where, uh, you know, where, where you have the biggest impact, uh, the biggest effects, rather, and um, and what sort of operational improvements can happen in those locations. We don't want to kind of credit too far. um and I think that in terms of it being a good thing or a bad thing. Uh, the current LOS analysis is quite cumbersome, um, and so it would, it would be a more, a simplified version of that in terms of the size of the network that you're looking at.

[03:46:08] Unknown Speaker: You made it. Okay, so I just, the more question on LOS, but you had a, on the EPC report, it says LOS analysis have been conducted by traffic experts, and are expensive, furthermore, expansive projects, have high capital costs and require costly maintenance monitoring and repair. So is that, is that just the statement of fact, or what were you trying to convey with that?

[03:46:36] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. So, um, yeah, I wrote that piece. What I meant by the 1st part is, is a fact. I mean, LOS analyses when they're taken on by traffic engineers. Um, they're expensive analyses, um, they're very, um, They have idiosyncrasies. They are not easily understood by um, an average person, um, even when it comes down to the A through F grade, um, for the capital cost part, um, That was LOS impacts are typically mitigated by roadway capacity expansion. And when you continue to expand roadways, um, those are costs that are borne by the city, and the city have to pay for the maintenance of those roads and, and all of the, um, striping and and maintenance of all that. So that's what I meant about that piece there.

[03:47:27] Unknown Speaker: I also would like to note that when level of service was the standard degrees for sequel transportation analysis of impact. The level of service analysis was much broader. It included liberal service of all the freeway segment. as well as intersections that went far broader than just the local area, which is why we were talking about, ends up getting into other cities and so on because, it's sequa, and the cities and Caltrans and others could come and say, you must mitigate your impact, the level of service, and all of our facilities, and that means contributing to adding um, range to a roadway in another city or something like that. That was something we had to do because it was part of the sequel. Uh, when we do the multimodal transportation now, we're, we're focused more on a local transportation analysis, because we're focused on operationally, how are things functioning? We're not interested in adding roadway fast food. That's been a council policy for a while, it's not general plan. Our goal is a transportation system that operates safely and efficiently. So when we do level service analysis, we are focused on, do we need a turning lane improvement because the cuing is backing up and blocking traffic. We need a new traffic signal, an upgraded traffic signal, and that's on the vehicle side what we're looking at. And then again, now we'll start really focusing on even more bike and pet and transit related improvement. So, this is part of what we're saying in terms of it, it's a more streamlined and a more focused level service analysis, and doesn't need to be as broad as we're required to do under sleep.

[03:49:19] Unknown Speaker: Or a lot of the background is uh provided as part of the state's rationale for moving to DNT. So, uh, a lot of this is not a personal opinion, but has been, uh, part of the state's narrative on moving more towards reducing greenhouse gases, and truly looking at a project's impact because as roadway projects are expanded, they actually have a bigger impact on the environment and a worse impact. Um, then if projects, um, uh, had had different characteristics. So, this is more of a narrative than a staff opinion, we just have, have provided the narrative for the rationale, as to why the state is moving to VNT.

[03:50:05] Unknown Speaker: Um, the excellent slider says meet MTA screening criteria. Are, is that gonna be, the criteria is gonna be refined over time, or are they pretty set right now?

[03:50:19] Unknown Speaker: Oh, your flow chart? It says project, meet MTA, screening criteria. Yeah, that would be developed as part of the in place. So that one is, that's out.

[03:50:34] Unknown Speaker: So, uh, you're, you're developing it as we go and as you go, and so, hopefully, it will probably, when you come back to us, we'll have a much better definition, or the, uh, criterias then.

[03:50:52] Unknown Speaker: And I'll just add that, you know, we already do some of the site specific analysis for projects in the North Bay Shore, and we have a lot of experience doing transportation impact analyses, as part of almost all the sequel and projects, so this isn't an entirely new exercise. Um, it's just gonna be a little more focused to the local, uh, so, we've done this sort of thing before.

[03:51:18] Unknown Speaker: We go to slide 13. So if I look at all the, the circles and so forth, that pretty much gives a, um, a large part of Mountain View. So with everything within the, the, the outline is not under review. Is that am I understanding that correctly? Because it meets certain characteristics.

[03:51:50] Unknown Speaker: If I could just delineate those real quick just so we're super clear. Um, so if development is in one of those areas in one of those TPAs. It would be presumed to have a less than significant transportation impact under sequa. So it just wouldn't have to do a BMT now under sequel. It doesn't exempt it from anything else. And that development has to have, has to meet all of these 4 criteria. And if it doesn't, it cannot be presumed less than significant. So these are all transit oriented development principles that have to apply to the project in order for it to qualify or own the screen. It has to have an FAR of at least 0.75. Um, the project cannot include more parking for use um, than what is required by the city. It has to be consistent with local plans in Plan Bay Area. And it cannot replace affordable units with a smaller number of moderate or high income.

[03:52:51] Unknown Speaker: So, if we just hypothetically took the area of long San Antonio. Where we know there's going to be more than a 1000 units going in. If we were to use your criteria, Then when these projects came forward, What kind of effect would that have?

[03:53:09] Unknown Speaker: So those projects will be presumed most likely be presumed to have a less than significant impact on DMT. As long as they meet those criteria that I had mentioned. Okay. And that's only from being required to do a detailed sequa VMT analysis. We would still look at other, you know, effects, like intersection operations and queuing and safety and multimodal effects through the MTA. They're not getting off by any means, easy. They're only not being required to the sequel BMT analysis.

[03:53:45] Unknown Speaker: Okay. So when I, Moving forward, so the next screen down, on screen 14. We're not gonna go through all those screens, everybody, so don't worry about it. Um, You, the staff has decided that, We figure that 30 units, Or, less, we don't need the screen. Yeah, the, and so that's more of the liberal side of looking at reading, whereas LPR is more conservative. And when I was talking met with staff online, I, I mean, earlier, I said, why are we going to something that we really haven't perfected yet, be more liberal. and not going and going with something more conservative, to get confident in what we're doing, to get a track record before we start being too, um, liberal with all the, uh, developments that we're going for.

[03:54:45] Unknown Speaker: If I may answer that, we actually did look at our track record for the last 10 years to come up with that average, we looked at all of what we considered small projects for the last 10 years. I think there was one project that was out outside, so we removed that, and these are projects that routinely get screened out the sequa anyway, because sequa has some, uh, a categorical exemption. So, we actually use Mountain View data to come up with that. At the state level. Um, you actually have a variety of city types. Many of which have very low densities. Um, and so, um, you know, the state actually, that's why the number is likely low. Mountain View is a little more compact and a little more dense. Um, and so the, what we consider a small project size that routinely gets screened out of sequel is about this size. Uh, which is why we're recommending that.

[03:55:44] Unknown Speaker: Okay. And then my last question was sort of, Martin, uh, you'll always, you'll remember these days from the UPC days and the cumulative effect of one project built on another project as we go along. And I mentioned, the on the table 6, which was showing the projects and the outcomes. And on Sarah Vista, There's uh one, two, three, four, five. Maybe. 67 projects on that one street. And individually, they would not be under review. But is there any consideration of taking those, all those projects at one time to say, that, basically, because they're gonna be in it, they'll have no impact on the neighborhood?

[03:56:42] Unknown Speaker: So, with respect to cumulative effects, I, if I'm understanding your question properly, council member, um, each of those projects would be required to have their own transportation analysis. They would all be analyzed individually. They wouldn't be analyzed as a group. And if they each have their own analysis done. We're able to arrive at a conclusion of significant based on each one. So, um, There is, I mean, given that we're not analyzing those projects together, they're not built in a group, um, there's no real, like, cumulative analysis, but taking each in turn, um, allows us to recognize what the impact would be, if any. Um

[03:57:29] Unknown Speaker: Okay, in the past, we looked at projects. Um, and we would say, okay, this was going to build and so if we have these surrounding areas that are built to their potential, we're going to have an effect. So, um, Right here, if you don't look at all the projects together. Because instead of 15 projects, you got 105 projects and you got all these other variables coming along. How can you accomplish your goal of VMT without looking at how they're all going to be interrelated and affect each other?

[03:58:04] Unknown Speaker: Maybe either via making could explain the difference between how LOS analysis is done versus VNT because I think the VNT model does build in landing.

[03:58:17] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so I think it's a, it's a completely different kettle of fish to LOS. So with LMS, you have 10 projects in an area and what that does is that it puts a whole lot of new trips on the street and that's where, you know, we're interested in what's happening on the street. In terms of DMT, having more density, tends to create more destinations within a walkable distance, and so if you look at the per capita VMT, for these developments, actually having more, more result in a lower VMT. At the same time, um, the multimortal transportation analysis will consider primitive effect, it will do the same thing we were doing the sequel where you would have, uh, analyze the project, uh, on top of the approved projects already, so you start to see the cumulative effect of adding one project from the other in terms of. How your roadway bike and pedestrian systems are operating so we can take into account there.

[03:59:23] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I'll I'll leave a the questions for now. Thank you.

[03:59:30] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Let me go to 2nd down. I had a couple of questions. Um, so, you're trying to understand the purpose of this, um, my, my, Conclusion is number one, we're trying to move away from LOS, it's about traffic on street, car traffic on street to multimobile, mobile, VMT. Um. So, I, I, one, I guess my 1st question is, um, if we're doing an MTA or at least the streaming and taste screening, um, like how different is that from the, BMT analysis? Why do we have to do too? It is part of, I guess the, the assumption is the 2nd part of, purpose of this is the same line, the process. So if we're doing an MTA anyway, like how different is that from the, BMT analysis or is it a way to just make it one screening or one screening or one analysis?

[04:00:40] Unknown Speaker: It's possible that people could do the 2 screening. both at the same time. Um, but I think that the MTA screening, uh, of the, well, maybe I should set it the other way around. So the VMT screening and VMT analysis will not tell you what's actually happening on the street. It will, it will give you an indication of the emissions from the city in general, but it doesn't help with, things that we get, a lot of complaints about, are conditions on the street conditions, the pedestrians, the bicycle weapons for motorists. Um, and so that's why the, that's why we want to have the MTA so that we can take a multimedal approach to looking at the conditions locally on the street. Uh, the VMT, um, is more looking at the emissions and how that contributes to the state's goal.

[04:01:29] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, okay. Um, and then from, uh, looking at the heat map, um, it's very clear that the residential is, um, all green is under the, mostly under the threshold, and then the commercial is the other way. So my conclusion was that this is trying to encourage more housing development, um, is that true or have you seen any naps from elsewhere that show the opposite coloring? Between the residential versus the place.

[04:02:03] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so um, that's all gonna depend on the reference average that's being used. Um, you know, for example, the city of Sunnyvale is going to have a different reference average. Um, than mountain view, so their maps are going to look different for residential and for office. Um, cities that. aren't as large of job centers as mountain view might not might have shorter commute trips. Um, Mountain View is a seems like to be an international uh, employment hub, so that's why we have long commute trips. So other cities that aren't regional job centers are going to have smaller commute distances and their employment maps might look green. Um, So it depends on, it's all relative to their reference average. Um, We're not being sort of penalized um, based on using any of them. We're suggesting use of the 9 county Bay Area regional reference average for residential because it allows most, the most areas in the city, um, to be great for it to be low VMT. Which is a main streamlining residential cell.

[04:03:14] Unknown Speaker: Okay, that's all the stuff here.

[04:03:17] Unknown Speaker: Sorry, Jen, just respond to your question. We jump in after me. It, uh, you're right. The reason housing shows up is green is because we're more job heavy. Um, and so, um, the reason job share up is green is because people, um, each employment, each worker has to travel longer distances than the regional average. Um and by adding housing, you help to reduce that. So, um, in essence, you're, you're, you're, um, you're right. Uh, Leah, you had something to add?

[04:03:51] Rhea: Yeah, so in terms of, um, other comparisons in San Jose, the map is red all through the hills and through the outlying areas and then the downtown is green. So it is, you know, quite a different map to what we're seeing here.

[04:04:07] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, um, I think you mentioned it earlier, the residential, um, average, I think you said it does not include traveling to your job, and I guess to me, that seems odd because we keep talking about jobs housing ratio and building housing near the job. But if you're not calculating in your residential trip, that trip to your job, which is probably the longest, the longest distance, you might be traveling. Um, aren't we missing a big piece? for VMT?

[04:04:45] Unknown Speaker: Maybe an expert can jump in here, but I think that trip is calculated in the employment number.

[04:04:52] Consultant: Okay. I can add to that. Um, I know this is definitely something that we've spent some time discussing at Nelson Nygard and, um, you know, with a variety of cities, um, because it, it takes a while to get, um, familiar with what's on the map and before it really starts to make a lot of sense. Um, the BMT per capita. that's shown on the residential map, is illustrating the total VMT divided by the total population in any given area. And that includes all of the trips that people need to make as part of their daily lives, and jobs are one category of those trips, and um, they are included, but the other things that are considered our trips to the grocery store, trips to school, errands, pick up, drop off, kids, stuff, like all that. And so, um, and and that map is showing, what, the per capita BMP is for trips that start and end at home. Um, Now, when we talk about the, um, employment, the VMT per employee on the map, this illustrating office threshold. That's illustrating the VMT per um employee for any point where the the trip to work ends at that location. So if you drop a pin on the map and you say, somebody works in a building at this location. What's the what's the typical VMT per employee in that building? Those trips tend to be, um, longer because we're looking at where everybody in that building traveled from, and for all of those people who had to travel by car to get there, that adds up to more BMT. Um, and so, um, there, there areas where, it's easier to get to work without driving. Um, and those are the places within Mountain View. We see that on the map closer to the transit stations. The VMP for employee is lower on the office. threshold map and within the Bay Area, we see that in, um, job centers that have, uh, significant transit access or where there are a lot of people who live within walking and biking distance, um, like, the middle of big cities where a lot of people live and work in the same city. And in Mountain View, a lot of people work in Mountain View who don't necessarily live in Mountain View. So that's what's being illustrated on the map, but, um, your point about the work being part of the household trip is correct, and those are counted, but, um, the difference is that we're looking at how far people travel. So if you live in Mountain View, you might not travel as far for work as somebody who happens to work in Mountain View that doesn't live there. Um, so, Different numbers, um, but, but the idea is that, if we can, streamline, development, and the places with the lowest BMT per user, whether that's BMT per capita, the residential development, or VMT per employee for office development, and we're incentivizing, the kind of development, that supports the low, the lower, below threshold, BMT. We do that in Mountain View. We do that throughout the rest of the region and throughout the rest of the state, and that overall brings the VMT per user down and the total helps to meet greenhouse gas, um, goals and so on.

[04:08:47] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you Oh, and my final question then is, oh, looking at which average to you, um. I noticed aspect and I did ask this at the briefing that I didn't. I don't think I, um, maybe I didn't ask, ask it, what will be said in, like, kept the flat answer, but, um, when we're using the averages between the Bay Area 9 County versus Santa Clara County. I noticed that we're choosing the average, that is a higher number, and if we're actually trying to reduce the NT, shouldn't we be taking the lower number, so that we, you know, don't clean out as many projects, um, and, and we can look at more mitigation measures for those projects. Am I reading?

[04:09:39] Unknown Speaker: I'll start by just saying, I think, um, um. That feels that, whether it is residential or office, we should be using a regional number, because, um, people work on a regional basis, but we're fairly, I think, agnostic as far as whether you use the 9 County Barrier region or the Santa Clara. I think our biases to towards the Santa Clara region, because I think uh, that probably most reflects, um, uh, certainly for office where uh, people come from, and uh, we were recommending the 9 county region to be able to screen more projects out, but, if the council wanted us to use similar to the EPC, the, uh, Santa Clara County, um, heat map, uh, were fine using that as well.

[04:10:35] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay great. Thank you. All right, um we'll move on to council number 6.

[04:10:44] Unknown Speaker: Oh, my, my question is actually related to that, um, and related to, I, I think both married, I brought it up as well. So, it's about, um, being able to impose conditions on developers. So, I understand wanting to screen things out of Sequa, because that's cumbersome and do I own more local analysis based on BMP. What I'm afraid of is as we, is what America is just said, but in divorce, I'm afraid that if we bring more things out. We have less ability to find the nest for those conditions. Because I want, I think those conditions have been extremely important, and I want to be able to continue to, uh, you know, have the ability to oppose those, and I think, uh, I think that Mountain View coalition for sustainable planning also brought this up, that not every office, for example, in the downtown, even though, well, I guess what they said is, larger offices, uh, even if they're near something like a train station or near El Camino rail, uh, people don't, the people who work there don't necessarily take the bus on El Camino rail or take the train, which is my experience, living, you know, living here, an office wind up down the street from me, and our streets got all parked up. So, a- and this is what I hear, you know, uh, this is what the Mount View, uh, college and sustainable planning folks said when I talk to them, is that, that kind of office with, you know, hiring some people working and them may, they're living probably in Cupertino or Los Altos or whatever, they're not going to be taking the bus or the train. So I, I want to be able to continue, given that fact. I want to be, to be able to continue that in Nexus, to impose, uh, to impose conditions. I want to make sure that, uh, screening uh, project out, I'm not giving that ability up. So can you provide some explanation on that?

[04:13:06] Unknown Speaker: I'll just say that most VNT impacts, um, you end up mitigating it to TDM or transportation demand management measures and maybe via, you can. help us, um, understand how, uh, the, MTA can help us get to those TDM measures.

[04:13:23] Ria: Yeah, so the NTA is what helps us to get the next, something that is, you know, we'll have a handbook. It will be spelled out, what you need to look at, and so that is, um, the equivalent of like a nexus study for a plan. Um, and I think that the other thing is that the VMT analysis is not likely. I mean, it, it's less likely to give us those sorts of operational improvements anyway.

[04:13:56] Unknown Speaker: Well, as, as we are saying, um, the VMT analysis won't give us the answer, and part of it will be, um, there is, uh, a significant queuing impact, or, or level surface, because there's too much automobile trips, on that development. So part of the um. operational improvements or strategies, let's say, aren't just capital improvements, just added turn rate and so on, it is back to, we will have a TDM program, you need to reduce your trips by this amount. In order to have an acceptable impact or effect. On our transportation system.

[04:14:42] Unknown Speaker: So you're saying there still was of making findings so that you can, uh, so that you impose those medication. Okay. And just one quick question, and that is, um, if we adopt a set of, uh, when we adopt a set of streaming criteria, um, and we have some experience with it. Um, are there any restrictions around changing the screening criteria, uh, over time?

[04:15:16] Unknown Speaker: I think you want to continue uh complying with OPR guidance, but within that guidance, I think we'll have the ability to make some adjustments.

[04:15:26] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, well, we will be able to update pursuing to best practice and new information.

[04:15:33] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, thank you. Any other questions? So um do we have questions to answer? Oh, sorry, Council Heather and McAllister. Do you have questions? Just wanted to make sure everybody had a shot.

[04:15:53] Councilmember John McAlister: So, okay. This is sort of gets the crunch of something for me. So on page 11 of the staff report. There was, the, the thing about residential, is the, the VMT per capitas lower than the average county wide or 9 county Bay Area residential VMT per capital value. Therefore, if the city wide average BMT is adopted, more projects would be subject to sequel BMT analysis, which would result in less streamlining of residential projects. In other words, if adopting a threshold based on a more permissible regional, average ETM per capital. In this case, Norby County, then the residential project would be required less BMT analysis. And the process would be more streamlined. What is, what goal are you trying to achieve, like, making everything more liberal, to build office or housing? What the residents of Mountain View sort of are concerned about is the controlled growth.

[04:17:01] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so adopting a, adopting a threshold based on, or one of the regional reference averages, we have, does manifest in more areas of the city being considered low BMP. So thereby streamlining development of those housing projects. Um, and, you know, one of the reasons we want to do that is not so that we don't analyze transportation. It's so that we can analyze the transportation effects from the housing development through our own process through the MTA.

[04:17:38] Unknown Speaker: I'll also add that, um, I, I think, um, I mentioned this to the, the mayor as well, um, uh, Mountain View works with the Bay Area, rather the county, um, more on a regional basis, and so our recommendation would be to use one of the regional averages, because whether it's residential, or whether it's employment, I think we work more as a region when we look at transportation. Uh, rather than just looking at a city, citywide, because maybe if we were the only city in the middle of nowhere, we would look at it that way, but we do work as a region, so, uh, whether it's 9 County, um, or whether it's just the area, uh, just the Santa Fe County, you would still recommend for both of those to use a regional average.

[04:18:30] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, is developing a lot, so I, I mean, I'm mixing development with VMT, because it sounds like, the way you're saying is, it's easier to develop, because there's less criteria. So, maybe that's where I'm having a problem separating more, uh, more permissible, meaning you can, easier to develop versus having more criteria. So is that going down the wrong path on that, or?

[04:18:56] Unknown Speaker: Well, I, I, I think the point is, uh, we're trying to assess a project, greenhouse gas emissions ultimately, and whether a project is ending up lengthening trips or reducing trips, by comparing it to some average. Uh, if you continue just comparing it to the city average and OPR actually recommend certainly for office, not just looking at the city wide, it, it, because they recognize that we work as a region, that's probably the better metric to be comparing this either way. Um, so, it's not the same thing as we used, we're so used to looking at LOS, which kind of layered development upon development. That is not the way the NT works. VMT basically looks at essentially looking at a balanced land use. Um, so it's a very different kind of analysis. Um, so even if we did screen projects into sequel and made them go through the DMT, we'll find that many of them will not show significant impact and you really can't require mitigation.

[04:20:00] Councilmember John McAlister: So on mitigation, a lot of the mitigation you were talking about was doing a TDM.

[04:20:07] Unknown Speaker: Uh, well, um, typically, if you do find that it has impact, then yes, you would do TDM. But we would be able to require that anyway to the local transportation or the MTA analysis, because we would find that there are operational impact on the streets, and in order to reduce it, they would still have to do TDM. So, we have a way to get there with or without sequel.

[04:20:33] Councilmember John McAlister: Um, TDMs are, you know, there's still an evolving art. where they go, how they operate. So, when do you expect TDMs to really be operational that we're satisfied that?

[04:20:50] Unknown Speaker: Uh, well, you know, if you, but TDMs have been in, in play for many, many years, and I, I'll say, um, some of our large employees are more successful than some of the smaller ones, because they're able to bust people, um, and put a lot of money into those programs, so, um, I think we've applied them in the city for many years. Um, we actually have many of our conditions of approval require TDM programs and monitoring, so it's not anything different than we would we would be doing anyway.

[04:21:21] Councilmember John McAlister: Well, I know, but right now, we haven't really got a, a robust PDM within the city. I mean, Google, they bring in people from outside the city into Mountain View, and they take them out. But when you're saying if we're adding more housing, making it streamlined, am, am I missing the dots somewhere along the line that says, okay, the TDM is moving people through, in and out of mountain view or around mountain view.

[04:21:50] Unknown Speaker: Um, so if, uh, maybe somebody with technical health can, I mean, it can jump in here, but say, if you're proposing, if you're proposing a housing project in Mountain View, Um, it's, it's entirely likely that you would be improving the BMT, because you're providing more opportunities for housing, where jobs are, most likely. So you really wouldn't be requiring TDMs to sequel. But, if you showed that it has some operational effect on the roads, and that it is causing some effects on the roads, you would still require TDM to reduce the effects on the road. For example, you just don't have enough space to lengthen that left turn lane beyond a certain point. The project would to the MTA be required to reduce strips. So there's a different way to get at reducing clips. Um, uh, for a housing project, in the case of an office project. Yes, it would increase the VNT most likely, and to sequel, it would have to reduce um TDM, and then we also have to do it through the MTA, and likely, a lot of those would be coinciding. So, uh, projects that balance the land uses are not required to provide TDMs to sequel, that they might have to because they're creating operational effects on the road. So, it's just a mind shift of the way sequel allows you to look at it versus the NTA. One of the examples I like to give is you put housing next to jobs, so that people don't have to travel as far to their jobs, so you automatically lower BMT, even if they all still drive for their jobs. But now they're all driving to their job, so they're still creating a roadway operational impact. Which is why we get that nexus for requiring CDM program.

[04:23:47] Unknown Speaker: I think Council member McAllister, part of what also is going on is, uh, it's not, it's not, TDM. that we're measuring when we look at effectiveness and are they doing what they're required to do? It's actually the trip reduction. requirement that we put into the project. We basically say, if everybody was driving alone, you'd be producing a 100 trips, 100 people or something. Uh, no, you need to only produce 60, you need 40 of those to be in a different mode. TDM is the strategy they use to get people into those other modes, as long as we provided the infrastructure to support it. And when you measure their reductions, their driveways, and so on, you know how, whether their TDM approach is being effective or they need to do more.

[04:24:40] Councilmember John McAlister: Would there be any project that would be denied?

[04:24:48] Unknown Speaker: What do you mean by denying?

[04:24:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes, tonight, too big.

[04:24:52] Unknown Speaker: Well, I think, I think that would all depend on the project, um, and the process wouldn't be any different than you were using now, um, because our findings, people finding stay the same, are permitting findings stay the same, so, um, I, I think you would use similar, uh, there's nothing different that you'll be doing. Um, through this change.

[04:25:19] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Right. I don't call for any other questions. It's not, so um, what would you like, our input on this evening? Are there any questions you want us to answer or do we just do general comments on all of your, uh there's quite a few items, so I guess I just want to try to see how we can, uh,

[04:25:43] Unknown Speaker: I think a last slide, um, uh, and the presentation asks for specific comments uh, on the criteria. Okay, and so we would like to know, um, your thoughts on, um, which reference average we should be using for residential and office. Um, Ideally, either the 9 county or the Santa Clara. Um, the small project screening, if you agree with the size of projects we recommend, and our approach to the mixed use.

[04:26:16] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: All right, uh, canceling my client.

[04:26:20] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, so I'll start, um, to answer the 1st question, I, um, I would go with, what you have on slide 16, which is the proposed approach, um, if you, if you want to use a unified, um, Sort of, um, Um, If you want to use a, uh, you know, something that's unified, so on the side, it's just 2 different. Um, ones. I would, just having worked on a bag, um, I would be, I think it would be tricky to do anything on residential other than the Mountain County Bay Area, um, just in terms of planning to comply with, um, Lambria 20 foot C, and I know that isn't like a direct line that you draw, but, um, I would be okay using, um, 9 County Bay Area for residential, and then if you want to use the Santa Clara County, um county wide for office, which I think would result in screening out less um office projects, which I'd be okay with, I think that's fine. If you, if you want to go with, you know, a single, either one or the other, then, I think, just based on, I think, my, um, what I think would make the most central resolution, my kind of barrier, then I do. That's the both, but I, I'm fine with what you propose, which is the 9 county area for residential in the county wide process, I think that'll screen out fewer, um, office project. On the, um, um, and then a few sides down. I guess on mixed use, I'm, I'm, I think for now maybe we just proceed with evaluating those each independently. Um, maybe we can develop a better framework over time, if we get used to it on, on site 24, you get some example um project analyses, but I didn't see any, unless I miss any, for an excuse project, that we threw this with the, it might be, and that's probably because you're proposing that we do those on a case by case basis, but I don't, I don't feel strongly about developing criteria for mixed use projects. Um, right now. So if you, if you think handling those on a case like case basis initially is, is the best approach, then I'm, I'm fine with that. And then, um, the last question was, um, oh, I missed, um, the small project screen. I think what you proposed makes sense from RT, what you said about how you came up with, um, the Mountain View numbers, especially in terms of the, um, the, the dwelling unit numbers and, and our, um, our, our density and what you've seen in the past, I think you said, in the last 10 years, you've seen one project that might have fallen out of this. Um, I think, I think makes sense, and I think staying with 10,000 squares, so.

[04:29:14] Unknown Speaker: Um, just as a reminder, like, for social watching or may not be paying attention. This is a, this is a state requirement like this isn't staff telling us that switched to VMT because it will be fun. It, um, the state has said, they're switching to VMP, um, you need to do it within these parameters, and they're trying to crap the mountain view specific, uh, passport that allows us to continue to do, all the things that comes from our, like, house, or and others talked about, which would implement our PDM strategies and ensure that we're getting, um, that, um, projects and residential projects are, are mitigating, um, local conditions. We just can't use, um, LOS alone and and and people alone, uh, LS alone anymore. Um, and so we're trying to be creative here and with the MTA and these initial, um, this initial set of criteria to try and ensure that we're complying with state law, but also maintaining our flexibility long term. I think this is the right path to start. I think. As I mentioned earlier, as long as we stay within the, uh, OPR guidelines, I think we can adjust these down the road and I think, um, I think this was a...

[04:30:24] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Counselor Ramirez.

[04:30:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I, uh, video to see if that improves the audio again. So I, um, I support the staff recommendations. I think I agree with, uh, council member, and um, the way you described it, Don, was, was helpful, that, um, this, VMT analysis, um, would ultimately, uh, conclude that the diversification of land use is itself a primary mitigation tool. Um, and, you know, that recommendation, I think does a good job helping us achieve the goals associated with BMT of mitigation, and then, um, related objectives. And then, the, the MTA, the local analysis is really where we can help. other goals related to, uh, operations and that kind of stuff. That's really the more powerful tool. I'm understanding it. Um, and I'm up to release that is pushing it and we'll sort of bring back to us in, in June with, with greater detail. That's really where we get a lot of the improvements that I think, um, that may be so bold, that, that I think you're talking about, really, the, the MTA, um, that, that tool, and not so much a sequel analysis that will get us kinds of targeted improvements to that, um, that we, we, we're all interested in seeing. Um, well, I'm comfortable with, with, um, with that recommendations here for screening and for the thresholds of significance. The only 2 things I would suggest are, um, if it is, it determines it's meaningful, um, looking at the, the data around, um, the relationship between affordability and reduction in VMT and justify it. The data really justify it having a, a lower percentage of affordable housing, be screened out. So, I don't know if that's 50% or 35% or whatever, but, um, that, that makes sort of 2 objectives and, and, um, you know, residential development, but in particular, perhaps, um, if, uh, if there's a financial incentive in doing so. encouraging to the courts to include more affordable units and a residential development. So, um, you know, with too much time on that, um, but that, I'm interested in, in seeing what that might like. And then the only other one is, uh, um, the, the downtown anomaly and maybe some of the challenges associated with, um, the model and the heat. That's, that's more, like, rubbing. process, if we, if, you know, hopefully staff can come back, maybe it's not in June, maybe you need more time. But just some, some, more cooperation or, or, you know, verification that, that models producing, you know, um, the results that, that we would expect and and maybe these heat maps are, right? That's, that's fine too. But, um, it's, it's, it's, really feels that the downtown area is an anomaly, and that's between from workness and the models. I think we need to continue to understand that. And um, whether it's in June or later. Just make sure that we really have confidence in the model. Um, I think we all we all want to see. Aside from those 2 things. Um, I'm, I'm comfortable with, with moving forward with, what's that is recommending here.

[04:34:50] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. All right, we'll go to Vice Mayor.

[04:34:57] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So, I'm gonna toggle between my different screens and hopefully I answer all the different questions, but that's for feedback on. Um, so I think my comments will be similar in terms of, you know, generally supporting the direction. Um, that staff is going in. Um, I prefer moving in the direction of the 9 county, Bay Area versus just the Santa Clara County. Um, I'm comfortable with, um, the chocolate shortly related to the small projects we need and the threshold of significance. I think when it comes to talking about the averages. I think when we're looking at that, I'd, I'd rather be a little bit more, more stringent now, um, so that we're kind of clear and there's quite a bit of discussion in terms of making sure that we're still able to, um, leverage resources when we're seeing things come forward to the city projects, our projects, and I think if we're kind of veering into a more constringent territory, um, that'll be helpful to achieve that. Um, and then the only kind of higher level comment I have is something that I brought up, um, to staff when I had a couple questions earlier. Um, was I think the regional, and then it was really critical. Um, you know, I, it sounds like that collaboration is already happening. But uh, you know, we do share. Uh, I'm trying to remember the phrase that, so she is at one of the street, street network or street landscape. I mean, I think just having, that's really important, um, kind of multimodal plans, and I think during the CIP, we were, we were discussing the Stevens Creek Trail extension, and just, um, I, I, I really like to figure out, and make sure we're taking into account the other kind of city projects, and overall kind of city transportation goals. Um, as we're looking at this and, you know, and purchasing when we're talking about downtown, recognizing an anomaly, but we'll also be looking at the downtown precise plan as well, the downtown uh, parking study, and um, you know, what are the points of synergy there when we are, um, you know, talking about, uh, things like uh, going forward with EMT. I think will be really important. So, um, I, I just want to kind of figure out as we're adopting different things. How we're making sure that, um, we're thinking about the overall roadmap of the city and, um, the different kind of, uh, schools council has and different projects, how they all kind of intersect together. Thank you.

[04:37:49] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. Counselor Medacheck?

[04:37:53] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So, um. I guess I'm having quite a bit of eggs over this. And I'm trying to figure out why and I think it is mostly because I don't really have the details on the multimodal analysis. So I'm struggling to say that's going to be better than doing a VMT analysis. Um, and so it makes me not want to screen projects out of that BMT analysis. Because I don't know what analysis is going to be done. Um, so I know you sent the link, um, we got the answer today to the San Jose, um, model, but, uh, I had other things I was working on this afternoon, and didn't have a chance to go through the San Jose model. So, um, I'm really struggling with saying, it's okay to screen so many projects out. And the area where I have the most trouble is one that, you know, I think there's other questions you might want to ask counsel, um, and that is, um, how do we feel about the TPAs? And that's why I have a lot of concern. Because as we just talked earlier this evening. The public transit that is available today, some of those, um, modes were really struggling even before the pandemic, and I wonder what's going to happen to them once we start getting the, um, economy up and running again. Um, and in particular, I would say right rail and buses. So we've already seen a huge contraction in VTA's bus network. We know ridership is going down. going up on the community shuttle, which is great, um, but that's not even in this. And when it comes to light rail, ridership has been steadily going down. And if the pandemic, Um, uh, deals the fate of the underperforming transit networks, and yet we based this on screening them out. I'm really struggling to say that's okay. So uh, I personally. don't want to screen out, light rail, or buses on El Camino. Um, I feel better about Caltrain. Um, because a lot of people do go back and forth to from the city, San Francisco, that is city, um, and Mountain View, um, but, um, I, I can't say the same for the buses or the light rail. Um, Also, you know, coming into this tonight was thinking that, um, I'm not sure I want to be more permissive, in terms of allowing all these projects to be screened out based upon the heat maps. I'm still struggling with that a little bit, but I'm coming around a little bit. Um, Well, I, I would say that I, I don't think I would automatically assume that based upon criteria that we have used maybe to say, you know, a mixed use, um, uh, neighborhood that has everything you need. um, should be low, BMT. I would rather look at it and say, The data's telling me that the EMT is not what I expected it to be. So why is that? Um, are all the goods and services that people need really available or are they still using their vehicles? So I don't want to assume that the data is wrong. I want to dig into the data to find out what else might be going on that's causing it to, as some have said, be an anomaly. So, um, I'm not sure where I met out yet on, uh, the ink maps, but I definitely know where I met out on the TPAs, and the only one I feel comfortable with is Caltrain. That's it for now.

[04:42:41] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, you're still muted?

[04:42:43] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, sorry. Um, Council member McAllister or Hicks? Yes, comma?

[04:42:53] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'll go. Um, as you can tell, I'm struggling with this whole thing. I'm on the congestion management program through VTA and so, DMT over there is a different deal. It's okay, we gotta, probably with efficiently, can we get, can we put, you know, VTAs taking a bus out of the thing, putting in 2 minivans, so all of a sudden now the new minivans, are they doing so? So, um, My, my thing across to do is be as conservative as possible, until we actually get a handle on how we're doing the projects. Staff has gone more permissible. Um, expecting whatever results, so I'm conservative. I, I could be interpreting this totally wrong, is that all I see is, the way to do VMT, the best way is to identify, identify, identify, and I plan use, and I have a concern, because a lot of the community is, if I'm off base, off line, tell me that I'm off base. I'll let you do that Um, but it just says, hey, we are gonna screen left. Therefore, it's gonna be potentially more. So, the vice mayor is concerned about, we used to be able to, um, coordinate community benefits, by doing some of the projects. Are we gonna lose that benefit? So that concerns, um, where they cut, everything was supposed to be a 15 minute earnable, that was the thing, but that wasn't working because it was based on BART, BART was, you know, 2 years behind. So what happens if you don't have those 15 minute intervals along El Camino, then your, your premise is, is gone. Um, when people are talking about the data. You know, from 2015. Mountain View has changed a lot. Already, you know that, because you moved to, you, you work somewhere else. Now you're back, and you go, Oh my gosh, look at all the new development. So something that's 5 years old? How appropriate is it? So, the data for me, and I, I know you said I was wrong. I still don't think the data is there to really give us what we're looking for, and that's why I'd rather see us go on the conservative, uh, approaching everything on the mixed use, another projects that seem fine. I don't have any concerns about it, but the other thing else, almost is more restrictive, more stringent requirements, and loosen them up over time, that we show that, yeah, we got a handle on it, and it's actually accomplishing the goal we're trying to do.

[04:45:41] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you Um, do you have any comments?

[04:45:51] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, I, I, um, share a lot of the concerns that other council members have brought up, um, I, I, I could go along with the, the staff recommendations as named on, uh, 516 and also the small project screening. I do think, uh, I'm, I do think that, um, oh, I, I would like to understand more or, or, uh, whether projects with less. I do think that affordability is key, and I would like projects that have because I think that because of our lack of affordability, the people are doing mega view. So I think that looking at, as some member of Ramirez said, um, projects with less than 100% affordability looking at that question and flushing that out more is is interesting to me. I think that uh could well be productive. Um, I also think that the MTA is key, and I agree with the council member Mata check that I haven't, you know, really been able to look at that, so I don't know, I'm a little worried that I don't know exactly what we're getting into. Um, uh, some members of the public have said, make sure to get input from the bike and pedestrian advisory committee on that, so that would be one thing I would recommend. And I also share complimentary, not a hesitancy to lean too heavily on the PPAs, particularly the modes of transit that she named, um, and particularly because of the pandemic. So that's another thing that I would like to be very of and, you know, bring back as we examine this over time.

[04:47:57] Unknown Speaker: Mayor, you're still muted.

[04:48:00] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Exhibit, but it doesn't do. Um, so question number one, um, I would like to keep the uniform, um, let's see, had a discussion earlier, and I support the 9 county average, um, because of, um, just another, Clark mentioned, and, uh, with A bag, and even NTC. I think for these issues are really becoming regional beyond even Santa Clara County, and I think we should be looking at, um, you know, where are people going and coming from? And, um, a lot of that travel is really now happening area wide, not just within our county. I noticed that, um, in like 2014 known as a, um, VTA, uh, data that said 95% of, um, uh, travel, commutes, uh, beginning and end in Santa Clara County, but I noticed that that number has dropped to. I think about 70 for 75% I think is what I saw. and so, um, you know, a lot of guys is in terms of where building is happening in affordability, but, um, in light of that, I think, um, the 9 county, uh, average might be more, um, more relevant to, to this conversation. Um, in regards to small projects. Um, when I'm not totally wedded to this, but I actually, um, was looking, looking at the 25 flowing units that San Jose had, um, my question was, why would we want to go higher than San Jose, um, you know, in, in light in, in light of density. Um, I, I, I understand you're looking at what projects come in, but I guess I would get San Jose as a place where there really should be much more intensification, um, and so for our size city to go beyond that to me, seems more than, more than we need to be doing. So, um, I was going to go with the 25 GU number, but, um. I don't think we actually have a little majority on that so we can come back to that. I guess when we do the tally and then in terms of mixed use. Um, I'm fine with uh, the recommendation, uh, except for, about this upgrade, the briefing, um, with retail, um, I guess I feel very strongly that retail is the type of use that we want to continue to encourage. It's becoming more and more challenging, and so to put that criteria that if it increases DMT, um, to me that seems, um, is more restrictive, and so, um, and it, and my offense is, retail would actually help local BMT as a whole, um, so, can we, um, You know, uh, make it uh, encourage more retail youth to come into the city by not being our. Restrictive or being able to clean out more projects. Um, and then I do agree with, uh, counseling matter check and fix those comments about TPAs and it's just in light of what's going on right now with transit, and I think, you know, as much as these, um, models and these requirements that are important, um, what else would have to, um, measure them against the reality of the situation, and you know, I, I mean, I, I know we've been focused on a lot on housing, but I think we really need to be focusing on transportation, uh, especially in light of, um, what happened since, filtering and place. And of course, I I also understand that, you know, uh, as we talked earlier, traffic may change. Hopefully, it will change, um, in a positive direction, but um, I don't think we can count on transportation, uh, even as is, it was, um, mediocre at best in terms of service levels, um, and I think for a while we may be seeing those service levels going down, not up, so, um, I wouldn't really get too much weight on the GPA. Um, and the heat naps too. I still don't really quite and maybe, and it's an iterative project, um, process and we can continue to refine those maps and, um, you know, and that's great, and I think we should keep pushing to do that. So, I have counseling required.

[04:52:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I just wanted to say, I, I'm fully supportive of, um, if there are ways that we develop these, um, you know, developer MTA longer term to, in front of our retail, um, in mixed use areas, and, and, and additional affordable housing, and like, I fully support that. I just, I just, I don't think we're at the point now where we can develop those, but if it's helpful for staff to hear that, if we're thinking through it, then, um, I'd support that. And then I was just gonna ask, um, RT, Can you maybe just prescribe one more time, why, um, on the residential, small projects for you, thresholds, um, 30 versus 25, which is it? You felt that the, The gap between 25 and 30 would have, would have fallen out anyway, and and just based on the history, you felt the 30 made more sense for, or maybe you can just explain one more time, for why you felt so 30 made the most sense.

[04:53:32] Aarti Shrivastava: So we looked at about 10 years with the projects, and looked at projects that were routinely being at a sequel, for a variety of reasons, and the 30 unit projects seem to be the average. Um, in the case of San Jose, actually, most of their areas where they want to see density are screened out anyway. I think the 25 project um criteria applies to areas like in the hillside, the areas that are outside, they tend to have lower density. Um, and so the characteristics of the San Jose size is different than ours, which tends to be more urban than some of those outlying areas in San Jose. So, for mountain view, um, these projects would routinely get cleaned out of sequel through categorical exemptions. And so we felt that that was a project size that did not need BMT. Um, so just kind of providing a comparison to why center, they might have used a different number.

[04:54:39] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so, um, I'm trying to summarize, although, I, I don't think we had responses on every box, so, in regards to the averages, um, in this kind, actually, I had 2 that said, that recommendation, and do that, that the 9 County averages, and I had one that said the more restrictive. A role on all of these um, and then, and some were hicks, do you have any exceptions?

[04:55:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I can say, so the, so you're talking about the, um, the, so, for the office, I was leaning towards the Santa Clara, because I thought the reason staff made that recommendation is that large offices, which are, would be less likely to be screened out. So it was kind of a more conservative and I do, I I think that would be unique, more housing and not so much offices. Tell me if I'm getting that wrong. But that's why I'm just going with the staff recommendation for Santa Clara County. I thought it was a little harder on offices and gave us a little more control. Am I getting it backwards?

[04:56:02] Aarti Shrivastava: I think so, the ninth county is a little bit harder on offices.

[04:56:08] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, sorry. I realized just to jump in. I realized that I went back and booked it by 10 and I actually, you're right. RT, I got it backwards. Actually, the 9 County is a little bit more harsh offices than I got it on when I said that. Um. Because 15% below 16 would be higher than 15% below 13 so, I, in, in, in light of that, I would, I would support doing the 9 county for, for everything instead of fricating it, sorry, if I confuse anyone.

[04:56:42] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So, um, customer fixed your, which for you, which? We can unmute.

[04:56:56] Vice Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Well, I thought of this, it was going along with that's the recommendation because I thought they were harder on offices and allowed more residential development. Because that's my intent. But it, I think, the opposite.

[04:57:16] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, so the opposite of what I... Okay. Um, and then, customer Amanda Strike, does she have any thoughts on this item?

[04:57:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, um, I would do, um, the most restrictive, um, I, I probably would do something different than where I see the majority going, but if I was going to weigh in on where the majority is going, I would do office at the Lyon County. And I was just trying to find the 2 maps. For residential. There's a difference of like 6 or so. It wasn't a huge, um, difference between the 2 county versus 9 county. So, let's see, I found residential. So, I don't, I have to relabel all of these. Sorry. Um. I would say, um, the, so I would say the Santa Clara County is more restrictive, right? On, um, residential, it is by like .6, so I would do Santa Clara County. But for office that, um, left. Sorry, I already talked about office. I was just talking about residential now.

[04:58:48] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Okay. Um, well, I think the majority now is, well, I don't think we actually have, it's like there's 3 accounts for the 9 county, now, and then we have various configurations. Staff recommendation, that Counselor Hicks is the other way, and I think Counselor Meta Check is that, the same for you, and then Counselor McAllister, the more restrictive, on each. So, I don't know how you want to, but you want to make, make out of this one. I think we're all, um, kind of, there's no real consensus here right now that maybe stuff could look at it again and, and analyze it further and maybe bring back some more. Um. For information or, yeah, or back up your, your recommendation, um.

[04:59:57] Staff Member: And we can, yeah, I think on each one we'll, we'll, we'll look at the, where the council is and answer any questions that we think need to be answered, if when you come back.

[05:00:09] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: And I'd say the same with the, um, the small projects that, I don't have a consensus here of, the 30, going unit number. So, um, and then, I think mixed use was overall fine. Um. And then there's just the other comments would be to look at affordability versus anti, and then the TPAs, um, the concerns about using TPAs, and the heat map, and then my one comments about retail.

[05:00:50] Unknown Speaker: Um, if I could say something about GPAs, um, you know, OPR has, has indicated that without use of that screening, it would be hard to meet the state's, like greenhouse gas reduction targets. Um, like use of, of transportation is part of the calculus that can lead us there. Um, through the development of, you know, through TOD and and other options there. So, um, I understand that the pandemic is sort of throwing us for a loop and we will obviously be doing our analysis to see if public transportation is, is effective when we come back. But, um, it, it, if we chose to modify any of the recommendations related to TPAs from OPR, we would have to substantiate that with substantial evidence relevant to the mountain view contact. Um, so just, just a thought. I don't think we had a whole lot of discretion on that one. Um, I think it's a conversation we continue to have with the state, and we really don't have any, any data to refute what the state has come up with. So, I think for now it'll have to stand, but, I think as we talk to VTA as we talk to NTC and some of the other agencies. I think we'll be able to refine. Our conversation accordingly. So, on that one uh, we don't have a whole lot of discretion.

[05:02:30] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Um, any other? I don't know if this is helpful to staff, um, I mean, I will say it, it, it, it, it, takes a little while to really understand and, and digest all this, I think, so that might be part of the challenge.

[05:02:51] Staff Member: Um, but, uh, yeah, I, we may need another path that this, if you're looking for, consensus. I think we have a surprising amount of, um, you know, I mean, you've, you've been able to absorb a lot of information very, very little time, so I have to say we're very impressed. Um, and I think we can, we can take the input we have and and develop it into a set of recommendations. Um, so, uh, you know, if there are any questions to be answered, we're, we're happy to, to go, go look at that, um, and maybe provide you a little more, um, background behind why we're making those rights.

[05:03:37] Unknown Speaker: Mayor still needed? Right, there we go.

[05:03:43] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: You had your hand up and down?

[05:03:48] Unknown Speaker: I'm fine now. I was going to make a suggestion. It's really hard not being at the day of being able to look other people in the audience here, they're thinking, I was just, I was going to suggest that if you took a show of hands on like the, the 2050 versus the staff recommendation or the 30 versus the 25, you might be able to get 4 votes, but it sounds like it's that's just going to come back with more justification and information that also finds. We don't, that's why I live in my hands. I figure they can just come back.

[05:04:17] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, I think we're another pass this night. help. Um, and then counselor medic check.

[05:04:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Just one quick question, um, remind me again when the multimodal will come to counsel. But we get that before, um, since we haven't seen it at all, but we get that before the next pass of this.

[05:04:42] Staff Member: We'll bring an overview of the multimodal, um, with MPA process and analysis requirements as well as recommended screening criteria for when a project must do an MTA at your gym meeting.

[05:05:01] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And is that before we talk about this again?

[05:05:05] Staff Member: It'll be the same meeting where you're talking about.

[05:05:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Okay thanks.

[05:05:13] Staff Member: And I'd like to point out that um, you know, we do have this July 1st deadline for when we sort of have to comply. Um, and if we do adopt, you know, that recommended um, threshold of significance and screening criteria, or if we recommend it, or if we adopted something different from that. Um, we do still have the ability to go back in at a future date and change those. Um, they don't, we don't expect these thresholds and these screening criteria to be set in stone and immovable. Definitely, we want them to be responsive to new information.

[05:05:51] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Not made up would be helpful too. Hey, any other, anything else for this item? If not, thank you very much. Um, so, um, past 10 o'clock, we just have council staff committee before, do. Is there anyone opposed to doing that? great. Are there any council support? Yes, counsel on McAllister.

[05:06:28] Councilmember John McAlister: You may have heard that VT, we had a VTA uh, work study shop uh, uh, Friday where we were discussing the boring, um, options to go underneath San Jose, and the discussion centered around what, it would have cost about $10 billion, and what VTA could afford was the $5 billion single board versus the billboard. And it would came that, you may have heard there was quite a bit of contention between the 2 departments, the 2 agencies of how to accommodate their desires to mesh, and they announced that Bart and ETA have come together, on the solution for the tunneling underneath, the city, and that they're gonna move forward with the, the boring projects, so boring, not so boring, but boring. And it should be, somewhere down the road, it's still $5000000 still looking for a little bit of money, but, with VK, you're probably looking at maybe 10 years out or so, so it's going to be a large profit. This is the 1st time that consensus was, uh, cheap between BART and DK relatively quick and quickly on trying to decide what way to go forward. The other things that are possibly up for discussion, is, do we need to have a Santa Clara? Station maybe saves the money, or do we need a railing at the end of Santa Clara to turn the trains around, so, that's what we had recently, and, uh, we've all seen that we've had a tremendous downturn in DTA. All the ridership is for free now. They are gonna be in a financial pickle when things return around. But MTC did give them some money, about $73000000 plus or minus $73000000 I'm not exactly certain, but it was a big chunk of change. Hopefully, uh, get them over the hump, so. That's what's happening with.

[05:08:34] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Anyone else? Um, I just, I just wanted to record out last week, uh, we talked about the Silicon Valley song fund, and, uh, I participated in a call, um, on Friday, um, that, uh, comes, actually, was, um, nice mayor, Chappy Jones, from San Jose, put together, um, but, uh, mayor, Ricardo actually joined in the call, um, talk about, uh, how we could. We work together more as the region moving forward. Um, they, they, they reported that they've raised about $24000000 for the fund, um, but admittedly, 75% of that has gone to San Jose. Um, and so I mentioned the comments that, um, Mr. Tom Myers and CSA had brought up about our funding was being dispersed or it was originally sent to, um, uh, nonprofit in, in San Jose, um, rather than being dispersed throughout the county, so, um, I think there's a misconception about what was going on, um, and I've heard, I heard from Mr. Myers that, um, the Sacred Heart and, um, destination home folks have reached out to him to discuss this further. So, I'm hopeful that moving forward, they'll be um, more, uh, assistance coming our way, and um, I did hear, though, that, uh, someone's, uh, manager, that, there were about a 140 mountain Pee residence system, assisted through Silicon Valley Strong, so the number was much more than what they had originally heard, so, um, I'd say just stay tuned, and um, hopefully there will be, um, for resources coming. to our community. Uh, with that. I don't see any other hand, uh city attorney, do we have a code session report?

[05:10:39] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: There is no closed session report tonight.

[05:10:42] Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you. Uh, so then we stand joined at 1036 PM until the next city council meeting which is scheduled to be held on Tuesday, April 28, 2020 at 530 PM. Thank you very much, everyone, and have a good evening now.

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