November 16, 2021 Special Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:00:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: This meeting will be conducted in accordance with the city of Mountain View city council resolution number 18613 in accordance with assembly bill 361. All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference with no physical meeting location. Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so at mountain view.legistar.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 comments during the public comment period. By visiting mountain view.gov slash meeting. To enter the Zoom meeting, or by phone by dialing 669-900-9128 and entering webinar ID 854-3123. 0162. Any emails received by 430 p.m. today were received directly by the city council, and we'll begin with a roll call vote. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[00:01:13] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member, F.A. Coca? Council member Hicks?

[00:01:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:01:17] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member labor.

[00:01:19] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Here.

[00:01:20] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Mattachek.

[00:01:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: There,

[00:01:22] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member show alter.

[00:01:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Sure.

[00:01:24] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[00:01:26] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:01:27] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mayor, can I?

[00:01:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:01:29] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Thank you.

[00:01:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So we can move on to item three, which is our study session. Item 3.1 is our housing element update. The purpose of this study session is for staff to brief the city council on the housing element requirements. And for the city council to discuss and provide input on initial housing element program policy. Sorry, on initial program and policy direction. After the staff presentation, the council will answer the following 2 questions in turn. Question one is, does the city council have any comments regarding new key housing element requirements related to the following? Rena approach and cites inventory, constraints to housing. Question two, does the city council support the initial list of draft housing policy topics? Are there other policy topics that should be included? Principal planner Eric Anderson and senior planner Ellen Yao will present the memo. Assistant city manager and community development director, Archie Shravostova, and the city's consultants, Matt Cota, from BAE Urban Economics, and Beverly Choi, from Environmental Science Associates, are available for questions. Think we'll start with you, Miss Yao, is that right?

[00:02:53] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Uh, no, all start, mayor, thank you so much. Uh, this is Eric Anderson, principal planner. Can you hear me? Okay, great. awesome. Let me share my screen. Again, thank you very much, America May, city council. This is a study session regarding the housing element update. I'm Eric Anderson. I'm joined by Ellen Yao, who's managing the housing element update process. Here's an overview of the presentation. We do have 2 questions for counsel tonight. regarding the key requirements and challenges, as well as the potential policy topics. First, an overview of what the housing element is. It is a chapter of the general plan, and it's regarding the city's housing needs. State law, every city and county to update up the housing element every 8 years. And it must meet strict requirements set by the state. After it's adopted, the State Department of Housing and Community Development must approve it. All Bay Area jurisdictions are updating their housing elements at the same time right now. A housing element has 5 key components. We must assess our housing needs, including demographic and housing trends. We have to evaluate the previous housing element. The section that usually receives the most focus is the housing's inventory where the city shows that it can accommodate the number of assigned units in the arena. In addition, we must show that there aren't any other barriers to accommodating the arena through the constraints analysis. Lastly, the city must identify goals, policies, and programs to further support the creation of housing. This cycle brings a series of new requirements and challenges. Many of these are the result new state laws intended to address the state's housing crisis. These include a significant increase in the arena. Additional requirements for the site's inventory, no net loss, which requires the city to maintain its inventory throughout the cycle, even if individual sites do not redevelop as planned, changes to the city and changes to the city's constraints, and affirmatively furthering fair housing. The housing element must identify sites that can reasonably accommodate the regional housing needs allocation or arena. This is the number of units the city must plan for over the next 8 years of the housing element. It is determined through a process that starts with the state assigning needs housing need to the region, which then allocates that need among all the local jurisdictions. The city is not required to build the units. only to identify opportunity sites and remove barriers to their development. However, not building the units does have implications, including review of some residential developments without discretion or public hearing through SB 35. This slide shows the increased Rena, Mountain View is responsible to accommodate over the next housing element cycle, a total of 11,135 units. It is almost fourfold increase over the previous cycle. In addition to the increased arena, there will be additional requirements for whether a site qualifies as a housing element site. This is done through the site inventory analysis. Some of these requirements include that it has to be zoned for residential use, there has to be access to appropriate utilities. It has to be able to be developed within the planning period. In addition, lower income sites must be zoned for at least 20 dwelling units per acre, though we are confirming whether this may be increased to 30 based on updated census numbers. In any case, we do anticipate most sites will be in excess of 30 dwelling units per acre, no matter what. The city must also consider fair housing implications, such as avoiding clustering and supporting access to high resource areas. If existing zoning cannot accommodate the full arena, the city must identify areas to rezone to create additional capacity. The project team has prepared an initial approach for accommodating the city's rena, which benefits from the proactive work the city has done to enable housing at all income levels. First, we divide the 11,135 units into above moderate units and other units. The 4,480 above moderate units will be easily accommodated through known pipeline and anticipated development. The 6255 other units cannot be fully accommodated through known pipeline or anticipated projects, though we anticipate that approximately half of this amount can be. In other words, we will likely need to identify sites with zoning and constraints that do not preclude development for about 3200 units. Because of the no net loss law, we will be identifying approximately 30% more to ensure that we have enough capacity in case these sites do not develop with affordable housing. The project team will 1st focus on existing zoning to accommodate these units. We do not recommend relying on the R3 update, since its outcome and timing are currently uncertain. If existing zoning cannot accommodate these units. We will propose targeted rezonings. We are seeking any input council may wish to provide on this approach and the site inventory process. In addition to identifying sites with adequate zoning, we must also analyze whether any constraints preclude residential development, including government's constraints and economic constraints, that we may not be able to control every constraint, we must demonstrate local efforts to remove constraints that hinder the city from meeting its housing needs. If there are constraints present, we must reduce it or other constraints to enable development, or find areas not subject to those constraints. It's also important to note that fair housing laws mandate that sites throughout the city be identified for lower incomes. Some examples of constraints include city fees, standards, and process, which we will further analyze later in the process. Another example is the recently proposed Wisman School District, Community Facilities District, which would likely increase costs and reduce sales to sales prices on new units. If areas north of Central Expressway were made less hospitable for housing, sites in other areas would likely need to be identified. The city recognizes the effect of growth on the schools, and has partnered with the school districts on a collaborative approach with the school strategy adopted by council in 2020. This is a three-part approach that includes a land strategy for the city to support school acquisition of land, a cost share strategy, which acknowledges the range of resources available to schools, and a shared understanding of the financial gap, and communicating it to developers who may volunteer contributions. The city continues to look forward to collaborating with the school districts and meeting their needs. The 1st question to counsel is on the slide here. We are asking counsel to focus their comments on these 2 main topics. The arena approach in sites inventory and constraints to housing. The housing element is required to include policies and programs to facilitate housing production and address housing needs. To generate these policies and programs, the project team has identified policy topics based on the previous element, council strategic priorities, key requirements, and outreach. The 2nd question for counsel is to provide feedback on this list, including your support or other topics we should consider. I'll now turn over the presentation to Ellen.

[00:11:25] Senior Planner Ellen Yao: Great, thank you. I think we can go on to the next slide. All right, so I wanted to cover the public outreach. The project has included a significant amount of outreach to date. As you can see, we have done, um, informational video, a website interviews, pop-up events, community meetings, and a survey that's currently ongoing until the end of the year and available at our website at mvhousingelment.org. The summary of these activities are included in the staff report as an attachment, and they did help inform the initial list of policy topics that you saw on the previous slide. So the project team is going to be working on identifying populations that are underrepresented based off of the outreach that we've already done. So we're doing targeted outreach with the school district and other CBOs. And we will report back at a later date with the outcomes of that effort. If you can go onto the next slide. So over the next year, the project team will come back to the city council, for a couple more study sessions, which includes a review of the public draft in June. HCD will be reviewing our draft prior to adoption by council, as well as after adoption to ensure compliance with housing element law. State law requires a city to adopt the housing element by January 2023. Um, and we will have them review uh, the housing element and provide feedback, um, expected within 60 days. If any revisions are required after HDD reviews the draft, cities will take the. The city will take the comments from HCD revise the draft and present it to APC and CC for adoption hearings. If any revisions are required, after we make those revisions, uh, The rise housing elements will need to be submitted by May 2023 or 120 days after the housing elements are due. There are additional statutory deadlines related to rezoning, that staff will update council as we develop more of the site inventory to determine whether we need rezoning. So throughout the schedule, we will be conducting a necessary analysis required under the California Environmental Quality Act, and we will keep council updated in the study sessions in February and in June. On the next slide. Here as a reminder are the questions for council consideration tonight. We have 2 questions. Um, this concludes our presentation, and we look forward to answering any questions to assist with us tonight. Um, we do have Beverly Choi of ESA and MadCowta, VA Urban Economics, our consulting team. Thank you.

[00:14:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much. So since this is a study session, we're actually going to take public comment 1st. So, um, would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or cross star 9 on your phone. And we'll display a 2 minute timer on the screen. Great, so we'll just reset the timer. Gary Rosen. Gary Rosen? You just need to unmute. There you go. Did you get the unmute request scary? Here go. Try one more time. There you go. Okay, we'll restart the timer, Gary, hold on just a second. Okay, here we go. Go ahead.

[00:15:31] Gary Rosen: Okay. Well, what I was saying, I downloaded the staff report, and I read through it, and I was pretty impressed with it as being thorough and detailed, and I wanted to reemphasize what I believe they said in the presentation, that they recommend the housing element, that we try to satisfy the housing element through the existing general and precise plans, and not try to rely so much on rezoning. Some people suggested that we need extensive R3 rezoning. And that's another question, but, uh, staff pointed out, I think, on page 14 of the report, that that may not actually do as much to create more affordable housing, which is the biggest issue, since, you know, we will probably be able to satisfy the element for the, uh, more expensive housing. And, um, the general and precise plans were developed over a period. I know, um, I remember the process there, they were developed over a period of time, and took input from all the citizens of Mountain View. That's another thing to remember that, you know, people talk about stakeholders, but the most important stakeholders, I believe, are the residents of Mountain View here. And in fact, these plans are actually admired outside of Mountain View, because they're seen as an example of thoughtful city planning. So if we make any changes to that with regard to zoning or anything else, we should take the same amount of deliberation to make sure that everyone in the city is represented. When we make these changes. Thanks, that's all.

[00:17:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Devin Connolly?

[00:17:29] Devon Conley: Good evening, Mayor K May, Vice Mayor Ramirez and honorable council members. My name is Devin Conley, and I'm the president of the Mountain View Wizman School Board. I'd 1st like to say thank you to the city for your partnership with our district as well as the high school district and our neighboring Los Altos school district. Um, around trying to find ways to house the student growth that we anticipate is going to come as we build more units in this city. Um, we're facing a climate crisis and a housing crisis, not just here in Mountain View, but across our state and our world. And one of the imperatives to help address the climate crisis is to increase density and have more housing. That being said, making sure that the students that will come with that housing, those constituents will be served with school facilities, is going to be an important part of planning for the future. So the school district has been working with information from the city planning department. Um, I know that your director of planning has been coordinating with our demographer and consultants to help us try and project what those impacts will be. And what we have to prepare for. Um, one of the things that we believe is a positive of this future growth that we're gonna see is the opportunity to do some land banking, that the city and the school district and partnership, perhaps, could work on acquiring green space, that could become schools with shared park facilities in the future, when the schools need to be built to match the construction. We appreciate your time this evening, as you consider the housing element, please keep in mind the students who will be generated. Thank you.

[00:19:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Robert Cox.

[00:19:33] Robert Cox: Can you hear me?

[00:19:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:19:36] Robert Cox: Okay. Um, honorable, uh, Mayor Kamet, vice mayor of mayors and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this housing element update. Livable mountain view. Uh, for which I'm speaking for the steering committee supports the general direction of the staff's approach to meeting our arena allocation. In particular, we concur with staff statement on page 14, that they do not recommend assuming our 3 update densities in the site inventory because of the timing of the R3 update, uncertainty of future future. Density is in the fact that many are 3 sites will not result in net new units that could cause displacement effects encounter the city's housing and equity goals. We are looking for robust, fair, and effective public outreach to make any important decisions on widespread rezoning in our city. And we continue to recommend that the established precise and general plan process. is the best way to decide what, where, and when significant changes should be made to our cities, zoning and land use. Thank you very much.

[00:20:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Jessica Gandhi. Hi Jessica. Hold on, let me try to click it again. There you go. You there?

[00:21:19] Jessica Gandhi: Can you hear me?

[00:21:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sorry, I can hear you.

[00:21:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay.

[00:21:22] Jessica Gandhi: My name's Jessica Gandhi, and I live in the Northwestman neighborhood area and have been a leading member of that neighborhood association for over 20 years. Recently, neighbors and I have been meeting up and talking about the ramifications of R3 zoning to the neighborhood and the city as a whole. And we have personally reached out to city council members and APC to share our concerns. And tonight, I just want to, again, reiterate that we do not want Mountain View to rely on rezoning to meet the RHNA numbers and that any R3B zoning considerations be done only after the robust and fair public outreach. Personally, I witnessed what I feel is outright biased at some of these outreach meetings, um, were the concerns against rezoning, that a lot of us had brought up, were literally left out in the summaries from the moderators, um, back to, you know, you guys. And so I feel that that's, uh, the city council is not getting accurate representation, um, of the people who live in Mountain View from the citizens. So thank you very much.

[00:22:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Salim. Dumber Gigi.

[00:22:34] Salim Damerdji: Hi. Uh, I'm Salima, a member of Mountain Vegan B. The housing element is a once in a decade opportunity to shape our city's future. And for as much good as we've done as a city, we are role model city, we only have to look around to see we are still treading water when it comes to stemming rising rents, displacements, and homelessness. But this housing element, we need to insist on solutions that match the scale of the housing crisis. With this housing plan, you are setting a vision for the next decade. of housing policies. And the ensuing projects will last half a century. This housing element, and its potential to end the housing crisis, or at least stem it in Mountain View, can be a major part of your legacy on city council. You can close our city's jobs, housing, and balance, if we want to. We can up zone high opportunity areas to give kids from working class families a leg up on life if we want to. We can give housing insecure neighbors the protections they deserve, and we can overshoot our housing targets and create 1000s of homes affordable across the income spectrum, if we want to. Um, there is a lot to say about uh, the toolbox of housing policies you can choose from. There's one thing that I think is particularly important. In the staff report, they mentioned correctly that they need to take into account the likelihood of redevelopment on inventory sites and that if the likelihood of development is sufficiently low, that additional zoning is necessary. Um, I believe we need to take a data driven approach to calculating that likelihood of redevelopment. Los Angeles and San Francisco are using rigorous modeling. Um, but if you just even look at simple statistics, it's very helpful. Mountain View is on track to develop around 21% of its 5th arena cycle site inventory. So you should apply great scrutiny to a housing element that claims the median inventory site has much more than a 21% chance of the element by 2031. So I think additional up zoning is likely necessary. I hope we use data to come up with the likelihood of redevelopment estimates. And I hope we insist on solutions that match the scale of the crisis. Thank you.

[00:24:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Cat?

[00:24:46] Kat Wortham: All right, good evening, honorable members of the Mountain View City Council. My name is Kat Wortham, and I'm the South Bay and Peninsula Organizer for the Housing Action Coalition. I'm here tonight to express the importance of a robust housing element that affirmatively furthers fair housing and meets the future needs of Mountain View. To achieve the goal. The Housing Action Coalition believes the city of Mountain View should look at multiple ways of encouraging new development. First, by following the federal requirement to affirmatively further fair housing, identifying sites for low income individuals to live across the city. And not placing the majority of new housing opportunities in just the East Wisman area or the North Bay Shore area, is critical to the success of the next housing element. Um additionally. Looking at other areas within mountain view that you can rezone to expand housing, such as within the downtown core, through a revisit to the downtown precise plan, for which we know an update is imminent, is another potential opportunity. Next, we know that more naturally occurring affordable housing is torn down in mountain view than most other cities in the county. We'd encourage a city to look at ways to encourage preservation of those homes while also encouraging new homes of all income levels, not just for sale options that are currently being produced in the city. This may include following San Jose's Palace Act ordinance update among other examples. Then lastly, we'd encourage the city to work with developers and community stakeholders to examine citywide fees on new development to ensure that those fees help and not hinder new development. An example would be working with the school district to ensure that the CFD, as outlined in the staff report, does not place an unfair burden on new development. Um, an interesting conclusion, I'd like to think city staff, uh, really just fantastic staff report, very thoughtful and then just always, always have diligent attention to detail. So really want to say appreciate that. Thank you.

[00:26:42] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Kevin Ma.

[00:26:48] Kevin Ma: Evening in city council. My name is Kevin Mong, a resident and homeowner in the San Antonio neighborhood. I like to remind the council that Rina is meant to be a floor, in the words of Jesse Arrogan, is that this is the bare minimum. We need to make so that our city's housing costs and housing burden on this population doesn't grow more than what it is currently. So there should be a greater amenability to set up, you know, internally a higher target. There's no great penalty to having, you know, more people in our community, other than, or more homes in our community, specifically, other than rents going down, or, you know, more people to make Mountain View what it is. I understand that, obviously, there's a lot of concerns about traffic, about the impacts of people coming in, but inherently, if we do not plan for that correctly in Reno, then we have basically screwed ourselves in planning for, you know, our urban forestry plans or whatever active transportation plan we have. So we need to be focused on people first, and then make all the plans correctly afterwards. Fundamentally, I agree that all the policies that set the prison is good, in particular, we need to be making sure that it's streamlined, and have correct sapping, 'cause inherently, development is a cutthrift business. If we make too many roadblocks, the only people who are going to be in the business are, you know, a holes. So we do need to make sure that we are given that development a good player's shots so that we can have, you know, cheaper developments that can be built faster, rather than building everything to decades afterwards. Thank you.

[00:28:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Dennis Martin?

[00:28:40] Dennis Martin: Good evening, mayor, council members, and staff. I'm Dennis Martin, speaking on behalf of BIA Bay Area. BIA agrees with the staff analysis, the city's site inventory would likely accommodate most arena through its specific and precise plans, but that constraints will be significant, and that the Mountain View Whisman school district CFD is a potential, a significant constraint on the production of housing, and as BIA is concerned about the proposed mellow ruse, imposing highly disproportionate new annual taxes on new market rate units, and new BMR units. The district's proposed CFD would likely be unfair and unjust because it would run afoul of California State Constitution Section 4, as it would unfairly create highly disproportionate tax rates on new residential units versus existing presidential units. It would also be in conflict with state facility funding law, uh, because it would be a de facto school facilities mitigation measure on residential development, which, as you know, state law expressly preempts. The district CFD would likely have a significant effect on housing production in Mountain View, complicating the efforts of the city to craft the next housing element, and would contribute to the already troublesome economic challenges of new development in North Mountain View, confronted by high fees and taxes, as analyzed by the city in 2019, and likely make housing infeasible to build throughout the North Side planning areas for many years to come. BIA is afraid, in fact, that the ballot measure could become a referendum on all new housing in Mountain View, exacerbating already tense politics of housing development existing in the city. And so, we strongly encourage the city council to continue closely monitoring the district's CFD scheme, continue to work to find ways of facilitating residential and school needs, and direct staff to continue close work with the district, monitoring students. Thank you.

[00:30:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Thank you. Tony Brat?

[00:30:55] Toni Rath: Hi, I'm Tony Ross. I am a resident in Questa Park, for more than 10 years, and I would like to support the staff report and recommending that the Rina allocation should be met with projects other than the R3 rezoning proposal. The R3 proposal is flawed in many ways. Um, I will only mention one here, which is that it is not suitable to meet the city's housing and equity goals. This is because it would displace existing residents and rent controlled units during redevelopment, which can easily be several years. And it is unclear whether these tenants are going to live during these years, and after project completion, their plans may have changed, and they may decide to not come back. Which means they're effectively displaced. And in addition, since the R3 project targets areas that are already developed with housing, existing units will 1st have to be destroyed before replacing them. And the result is basically a modest net gain and the number of units. And we can get more housing units if we are looking for projects where no housing has previously existed. And so finally, I'd like to recommend that they are used that we use the established precise plan and general plan processes to make changes to the city's zoning and land use rules, because those generally have seen wide input from the community and consensus, and they also come with the necessary infrastructure planning that is absent from the R3 rezoning proposal. Thank you.

[00:32:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Chuck, mirror, mirror.

[00:32:38] Chuck Muir: Yeah, good evening, council members and staff. Thank you, council members for providing me with a chance to share my opinion, uh, regarding the city's proposed, uh, new R3 zoning standards. I do appreciate that staff and council are open to looking at alternatives to meeting the arena numbers, besides just upzoning all sites throughout the city. I want to say I support city staff doing outreach to all demographics in the city. I also ask city staff to meet with single family dwelling units, let them know how the R3 standards could affect them, and what they think about these impacts. For example, informing each neighborhoods, affected how tall, including bonus provisions, and the new building standards could be, how close those new, I think buildings would be, how much traffic would increase, how much parking would be impacted, and how nearby schools could be affected, and what the city plans to do to increase green space, to accommodate high number of people affected in those neighborhoods. I would also like to ask city staff to identify other cities, which have changed their zoning standards, and find out how these zoning changes has impacted that community, and what they would do differently. If the city has to use rezoning in some fashion to meet rena numbers, I recommend the following, create wider setbacks for projects near single-family dwelling units, restrict height for stack flats next to single-family dwelling units, create green space between stack flats and single-family neighborhoods, increase green space, and allow stack fat, flax to be further away. Um, require developers to provide underground parking for any new, uh, multi-MFE, uh, units being built. Um, and also, I'd like to ask that the consultant to provide at least 3 options for the city to meet these new arena numbers. One example was using the precise and general plan process, updating zoning, but include protections, uh, near uh, single story dwellings, as indicated above. And look at only...

[00:34:42] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Kalisha Webster.

[00:34:51] Kalisha Webster: Good evening, council members. My name is Kalisha Webster, and I'm a housing advocate for housing traces. We advocate for increased housing possibility for people with intellectual and development disabilities, a special needs group for which the city is required to include a housing needs assessment as part of the housing element. As a direct service provider, helping people with development of disabilities, find independent housing, we see firsthand every day, their growing need for the high risk population to have access to integrated and inclusive housing, as more group homes are closing and many are living at home with aging parents. Because of the fixed or extremely limited incomes of its population, they are at increased risk of displacement or homelessness, and are more likely to be harmed by these circumstances as their disability requires that they receive supportive services from both formal service providers as well as informal support systems developed from having grown up in Mountain View. We appreciate the city has shown a willingness to help house these extremely liable members of the Mountain View community, such as at Lunavista and some Antonio Place, where a number of units are set aside for people with development of disabilities, who require coordinated supportive services from the regional center in order to maintain their housing. While these units have provided more opportunities for people with developmental disabilities, to live independently, the city still has a long way to go, to go in meeting the housing needs of mountain view residents with developmental disabilities. State financing laws require development of units for people with physical disabilities, needing modified units. However, there are no requirements to increase accessibility for people with developmental disabilities. It is therefore up to you as local policymakers develop plans to increase accessibility for this high risk population. We urge the city to make sure that outreach to people with developmental disabilities in other special needs groups, which the city is required to provide a housing assessment for is part of the update process. It's important that assessment of constraints and development of programs and policies to address these constraints is informed by the people directly affected. Thank you.

[00:36:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Laura Blakely.

[00:36:58] Laura Blakely: Good evening, Mayor Kame, can you hear me?

[00:37:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:37:02] Laura Blakely: Thank you, council members. Um, I'm Laura Blakely, vice president of the Mountain View physical district. And I wanted to say that we are a community. We all need to be creative and work together to find solutions that achieve all of our goals, including affordable housing. We means the city, government, the school districts, the community, and key businesses. None of us can do this alone in silos. Our community needs affordable housing, but we as a community also need the amenities that go along with this housing. And as things stand, the schools will be left holding the bag. Wherever new housing developments are located, there will be kids who live there who will need schools to attend. The school districts have limited funding sources. The Mount V. Whisman has explored many, many options over a number of years, including establishing a mellow Rus community facilities district. This may not be an ideal solution, but it's the best one we've been able to identify. Developer fees are currently limited by state statute. Thank you, BIA lobbyist, to $4.6 per square foot. This is only enough money to rent portables and plop them on existing sites, and our kids will have to cross the city to be transported to existing schools outside of their neighborhoods. So we need to work together to identify other sources of funding and land now. Land is a diminishing resource that costs 15 to 20000000 per acre. We know we can't force the city to identify land, or large owners like Google, which earned $18.9 billion of net income last quarter to provide land. And we can't force the developers to provide school development fees in excess of $4.06. But I really hope that the schools, the city, major landowners like Google, and even voluntarily developers can identify work together to provide funding sources in land that can be used as green space initially and a school and community parks in the future. Thank you.

[00:39:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Louise Katz.

[00:39:09] Louise Katz: Thank you, mayor, and city council members. Um, on behalf of Livable Mountain View. I wanted to state my agreement with the prior speakers, that the issue of rezoning is not something that we should be undertaking at this time before we have had some important decisions and a lot of outreach, and some answers to a lot of the questions that the public is asking for. Um, I wanted to also, um, acknowledge what others have said that, um, there seems to be this odd kind of economic, um, imbalance that some people don't seem to recognize that tearing down buildings in addition to the cost of the land that they're sitting on is somehow going to yield affordable units. We know developers are not going to build to bring down rents. They're going to phase in their buildings. And they're going to keep the market as tight as possible. They're not in the business of earning less money. Google has showed us this when they indicated years back that whatever they built, they would be phasing in over a period of time. They were not in a rush to build everything all at once. I also wanted to point out that the concept of how many people will be displaced, and the impact on the community is something that needs to be considered. Thank you.

[00:40:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Albert Jeans.

[00:40:41] Albert Jeans: I have flights, uh, of course. I was gonna ask.

[00:40:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay.

[00:40:46] Albert Jeans: Okay, I have my own timers. I'll just get started.

[00:40:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Oh, Quirk is getting those ready.

[00:40:51] Albert Jeans: Good evening, Mayor Command Council members. Albert Jeans, longtime resident of Struan Estates. I totally agree with you.

[00:40:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Albert, Albert, please. I'm sorry. Let me let me stop the timer and let's get your slides on the screen first, okay?

[00:41:04] Albert Jeans: Okay, well, it's okay. Okay, cancel, cancel, cancel, see it until...

[00:41:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, we don't see it yet. Okay. We see the slides now, so let's restart the timer for 2 minutes.

[00:41:16] Albert Jeans: Okay. I'll keep I'll keep a. I'll keep count two.

[00:41:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Go ahead.

[00:41:19] Albert Jeans: All right. Okay, 1st I totally agree with staff's opinion that the in progress, our 3 rezoning should not be counted on to meet the arena numbers. At the last APC study session, the proposed R3 rezoning would have allowed buildings like this to be constructed next to single story single family homes. This is a view of R3-C behind the houses on Farley. Clearly, more work needs to be done to make the rezoning acceptable, most Mountain View residents. Next slide, please. There's a lot to there's a lot said in the staff minimum about the challenges of providing schools for Mountain View's increased population, but not much was said about parks. Based on mountain use, arena allocation, about 67 acres of new parkland, must be dedicated to sort of the new residents. Note that the area north of El Camino Real is already running a parkland deficit. Now I calculate that there's only one. 16 acres per 1000 residents, including part-time school grounds, but not including Shoreline Park, which is a regional park. Parks should be located within the neighborhoods they're intended to serve. Next slide, please. How big is 67 acres? I don't have a very good feeling for that. So to some numbers. I thought of Mountain Gee's 2 artist parts, Cuesta and Ranksdorf, and also through an in Shenandoah Square near my home, since it is a potential acquisition. The total coincidentally equals 67 acres. So along with the 22,000 new residents, this is the amount of park space, which must be anticipated. Next slide, please. For 2 of the 3 change areas, new parklands seem feasible. In North Bay Shore and East Wisman, Google's master plans so far include enough park space for their proposed residential units. I think the challenge will be El Camino, which is already densely developed. Dedication of new parkland would require the destruction of existing buildings, which means new buildings will have to be that much taller to accommodate more units. Maybe the arena numbers may well mean residential towers along El Camino Royale. Thank you very much.

[00:43:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. David Lewis.

[00:43:19] David Lewis: Damn time. Hi, can you hear me?

[00:43:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[00:43:27] David Lewis: Okay, I'll try to be brief here. I do support the staff's approach to beating our arena goals for the six cycle. Uh, I really don't view Rina as a floor, or some have suggested, I think, is probably a growthly optimistic projection on our growth. I also agree with not assuming, uh, the R3 update densities, uh, based on the uncertainties. We heard about data driven, uh, with this previous speaker and data driven depends on data, and there's an old saying, garbage in, garbage out. Only your projections are only as good as your data. Which we didn't hear about that. I don't think the R3 updates would produce many affordable housing units. Approits a lot of other stuff. And they would have a lot of other detrimental effects. I worry about whether we have enough electricity and enough water in the future, in 10 or 20 years, to support all these new residents and offices. It doesn't come out of thin error. And I would say there needs to be a lot more public outreach than we've had. I've been really very little so far, to ensure this is really a transparent process. And the end result that we get is what the citizens of Mountain View. The people who live here, want and what they can live with. That's what I like to see. So I suggest working a little harder on a general and precise plans. Don't take an artery, quick fix, rezoning approach to things, but do your work with a general and precise plans. Thank you.

[00:45:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. David Hulsey? Earth, Daniel, sorry about that, Daniel.

[00:45:24] Daniel: Yeah, hi, you can hear me?

[00:45:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[00:45:27] Daniel: All right. Um, so, I just want to comment. I, uh, read through some of the memo. One thing I noticed in the report, you know, so we have several income categories for housing that we need to try and address. Um, and, you know, if you look at our historical trend here, uh, we have strategies for making very low income housing, we have strategies for making low income and we have strategies for above moderate. But if you look at the numbers for moderate housing, meaning housing for people who make median income, there have been 18 units created. Um, and so I think we need a strategy to make sure that AMI housing gets built. Uh, and my main uh, strategy for this that we need to look at is looking at parking requirements. So, uh, this is something that has been done. It has been proven in other cities. You eliminate parking requirements, and the rent drops 20% on average. And the reason is, it costs less to build. Parking's a luxury. So people who don't need it, don't have to pay for it. Um, and the math really checks out on this. If you look at, if you do the math on AMI and above AMI, 20% less puts you in that category. Um, Of course, there are a whole bunch of other benefits to this kind of housing. lets you build density without adding to traffic. Uh, and then it increases uses of transit and our green transportation options and elope carbon footprint. Um, so that's, that's my main comment. We need to look at reducing our parking requirements so that we can start making this moderate income housing. Thank you.

[00:47:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. It says, It's an email address. I think it might be Olga, bright, or bright, Olga?

[00:47:34] Olga Bright: Um, I, um, I'm a Mountain View resident and um, thank you, uh, the council and the mayor for giving me this opportunity to participate. Um, I'm just, I'm actually, uh, I don't really have a background in planning, but I've been listening with great interest to the comments, uh, that have been made. I'm very concerned in response to the previous speaker. about eliminating parking for new buildings. Uh, otherwise, uh, people will just simply park on surrounding streets and cause a lot of congestion. Having said that, um, I'm already concerned about the zoning plans that have been, um, put in place in some areas, in particular, um, in the Monteloma area, um, where, um, it seems like, uh, there are 2 areas that have been zoned, are three. in an area that's of single family housing. And I don't know how that came to be, but I think it's something that should be reconsidered. I've healed the balance of my time to another speaker. Thank you.

[00:48:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. We don't yield time to other speakers, but thank you very much. Kelsey Baines.

[00:49:04] Kelsey Baines: Good evening, council members. My name is Kelsey Baines. I am the regional director for UNB action, and we are part of the campaign for Fair Housing Elements, which is a statewide coalition, working to enforce new housing element laws, including affirmatively furthering fair housing, which mandates that cities need to dismantle patterns of segregation. So one of the really important things for mountain view is to plan for housing in high resource neighborhoods, including downtown, and avoid concentrating all the housing development in industrial areas with few resources or on high traffic corridors. Um, with regards to outreach, we've heard quite a bit from securely housed homeowners who want minimal change this evening, um, but we're really missing input from people who are not being served by our current housing policies, so people who are staying in in interim housing, vehicle dwellers, uh, day center workers. So those are voices that we really need to bring to a table. Um, I was glad to hear staff mention a potentially very significant restraint or constraint, uh, with a Mela Ruse proposal. Um, we do support schools. We want to see them funded, but it needs to be a well designed funding mechanism so that it doesn't harm the families of students and educators by killing, um, needed development. Um, and finally, um, It's hard to imagine that rezoning is not going to be part of this process. Um, and so we wanna be looking at anti-displacement policies along with the rezoning. Um, but I think Mountain View is going to need to consider rezoning um, as part of this process, the status quo will not suffice. Thank you.

[00:50:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Julie Muir?

[00:51:00] Julie Muir: Hello, um, Honorable May, vice mayor of Ramirez and council members. My name is Julie Muir, and I've been a homeowner in Mountain View for over 25 years. I support staff and not recommending that council count on the R3 project to make the next cycle of arena numbers. As other speakers have said, the Arthur 3 Project needs to go through a robust, fair, comprehensive and effective public outreach, so that everyone in the community understands what its impact will be on their community. Applying R3 rezoning will not result in many net new units per site, and will displace current residents, as I've seen in other developments throughout the city, at least temporarily, or even permanently from our city. Doing so is counter to our city's housing and equity goals. And not against growth, but it needs to be done thoughtfully and considerately. Speaking of the public outreach effort, I've also found that the people running the housing element workshops that I've attended on September 23rd, were very pro density and didn't acknowledge my concerns of too much density, concern over where that growth happens, and the lack of infrastructure and city services. I really felt like my opinion as a long term residential homeowning citizen of Mountain View wasn't valued, um, which then spurred me to, uh, come to city council meetings, so maybe that's not such a bad thing, but I was shocked that they were more interested in talking to people who wanted to live in Mountain View, in advocacy groups, and not their own long term residents. Lastly, I have heard, like, we had earlier to eliminate unbundle parking requirements and to relax, um, development standards, to facilitate development. I think that's a really short sighted thinking that creates huge problems for the community in the future. We just don't have the transportation infrastructure that supports high proportion of residents. Some of us do. I bike to work. But I don't have the ability to get rid of my car. Thank you very much.

[00:52:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Uh, no name, it says, Events, SVH.

[00:53:06] Mathew Reed: I apologize, uh, that is events, Silicon Valley at home. My name is Matthew Reed. I'm the director of policy at SV at home. Um, Mayor Committee and Council. I appreciate this opportunity. And I really appreciate the staff's presentation. Um, We are tracking this process throughout the county. Um, I would a lot of respect for the work that staff is doing to engage the community. We know this is a difficult challenge. One of the things that we've been trying to explain, and I think is valuable in this context, is that while there is a lot of choice and a need to make difficult and challenging and important decisions at the local level, this is also a process that is happening within constraints that are set by state law. Um, there are new numbers, and there are new rules, and how you meet them, are up to you, and there should be an active discussion. Um, but it's, it's important to acknowledge that this is a process that has to be done, uh, that a compliant housing element is essential, and it won't be simple, and it, it's something that people need to lean into as opposed to, uh, to run away from. One of the greatest challenges that we're seen, is that cities like Mountain View have done a tremendous job of doing important planning work and preparation. Um, specific and precise plans, and that in the interim, uh, the state distributed guidance for affirmatively furthering fair housing. This is a 2018 law. It wasn't unexpected, but the expectation is that the development will be dispersed throughout the community in all portions of your city and not be concentrated in isolated areas. We know this is a challenge, but we're looking forward to working, going forward. Thank you.

[00:55:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Paula?

[00:55:16] Paula: Good evening, Mayor.

[00:55:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hello.

[00:55:18] Paula: Good evening, council member. Um, members. Um, I would like to reiterate some of the, um, points that were brought up by homeowners longtime, um, homeowners in Mountain View. I live in Cuesta Park. Uh, and have raised my children here in Cuesta Park, and uh, really enjoyed being in the city, uh, uh, for the last 30 or so years. Um, changing and rezoning, the city is a huge, huge, uh, step, and I think, uh, there really needs to be a very robust, fair, and effective, public outreach, uh, before R3 rezoning efforts can take place, or that can be used for, uh, for the renal process. So I completely support staff. And that the R3 zoning should not be the way for us to reach arena numbers. But also, the other thing that really nags at me is that affordability percentages of whatever projects we are going to try to interject through precise planning, throughout the city, may not be enough, to reach the arena numbers required, of us to reach, back in October 20th, when the EPC, Matt. The environmental planning commission, Commissioner Yen, really stressed on the importance of finding a way so that we can increase the percentage of affordable housing in the approved projects, currently or going forward. And I think she mentioned community trusts that the city, perhaps, along with the county or the state, can find a way to, you know, pull resources to increase the affordable percentage of the housing, now, and moving forward. Thank you.

[00:57:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Ilya Grin?

[00:57:35] Ilya Gurin: Good evening, Mayor Kameen, members of the council. Can hear me?

[00:57:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[00:57:40] Ilya Gurin: My name is Ilvia Guerin, and I'm a member of Mountain View, Yembe. Pleased to be speaking with you tonight. Mountain View has a unique opportunity to set a strategy to provide homes for our future neighbors. However, the arena is a significant challenge, particularly at the low income levels. So significant reforms will be needed. Mountain view is considered to have an unfriendly environment for development. Administrative de laser routine. We encourage the city to streamline permitting and invest in expanded staff capacity to process development applications promptly. Expanded, we also need to expand our zoned capacity for development. We strongly encourage the city to create an affordable housing overlay zone that would allow significantly increased density beyond the state density bonus for projects that provide significant affordable housing. In particular, areas near transit, such as downtown San Antonio, and El Camino can support significantly higher density than they have today. If we rezoned up to 10 stories or more, just to throw out a hypothetical number, we would unlock significant resources to grant a right of return for any displaced tenants, and to create the additional affordable units required under arena. Furthermore, we agree with the staff recommendation to not rely on the R3 zoning update to meet the arena target. However, We strongly report strongly support the R3 update itself. Um, thank you.

[00:59:25] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Scott O'Neill?

[00:59:30] Scott O'Neill: Hi, thank you. I'm a former Mountain View resident. I lived and worked there for about 10 years. I miss, uh, living within walking distance of Castro and hope many more people get to enjoy that as part of their lifestyle. I've heard people opposed to housing talking about children. And as a father of two, I want to encourage everyone to think one step deeper and consider your grandchildren. In particular, where do you think your children will form households if cities in our region are not building enough housing? You think your grandchildren will live. If your children form households far away. Those of us who grew up in the Bay Area in recent decades can tell you. Our experiences, maybe Texas, maybe Oregon, Arizona is popular. It's going to be someplace that's producing housing. So if you don't want to be lonely in your old age, if you don't want to have to buy a plane ticket to see your grandchildren, if you want instead to be able to bike or walk to see them, then please consider supporting building them that home that they will need. Rena ought to be the floor, not the ceiling. Thank you.

[01:00:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: James Kuzumal.

[01:00:39] James Kuszmaul: Good evening. Um, I'm James Cruzwell. I am a lifelong resident of the Willowcate neighborhood. and just speaking for myself today. I just want to call out a couple of key points. Um, that I think first, uh, in order to encourage more cheaper and more sustainable housing, uh, like Daniel West Engineer, we should remove parking minimums, wherever possible, and where feasible, impose fees are constraints prevent extra parking being built to ensure that new residents, both have access to more affordable housing, and to ensure that new residents don't bring additional car traffic. Um, and this is particularly important in areas near transit where there are reasonable options for people to not own a car. Um, and there will be all the existing housing stock for those few residents who may need to be able to rent an apartment or buy a house that does have parking. Secondly, I would call out some of the, um, afford, uh, affirmatively fair, furthering fair housing concerns that I believe a couple speakers already called out about concentrating all our planned, uh, new housing in a few areas. Our most transit rich and many rich neighborhoods are in the immediate vicinity of downtown, and I mean, I live in one of those neighborhoods in Willgate, where a lot of the land is currently just attached single family homes, which are very inefficient use of space, in fact, we hoarding the land for no good reason, and we should be focusing a lot more up zoneing in those areas, to ensure that we're actually making use of the little transit infrastructure we have. And lastly, just as a general comment. We can plan for more housing in the arena allocations. It's if we accidentally end up with more housing getting built than our allocations, say, that's not a bad thing. We want more people to be able to live here. And I don't, so let's aim as high as we reasonably can't. It's not, it's not the end of the world if we get more neighbors. Thank you.

[01:02:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: 22

[01:02:49] Juju Thompson: Oh, hi there. Yes, hi, guy, evening, um, council members and uh, uh, Mayor Committee. My name is Juju Thompson. I live in one of the R3 Zone myself. Um, a few things I wish to say. Well, 1st of all, I want to make my point clear. I am against the current density plan for reforming the arthraism, and so point one, the parking. It's a wishful thinking to eliminate some parking that allow more building space. It sounds good, but in reality, especially in the areas that public trend is not well established. It's impossible to live without a car. I, I, I have two kids. I mean, I have three kids, and, uh, you know, if I take one them to the swimming class, and the one right next to the tennis class, forget about it. Public transportation, no way. So it sounds good, but it's not feasible. And, uh, then, the, um, other thing is, I wish to say, um, is, um, could the city try to meet the, um, the RH and AR location without counting on the R3 zoning. So that's a 2nd thing. And the 3rd thing is, um, I highly, I highly recommend the city to improve the outreach, um, outreach, uh, outreach to the effect of the residents. Most people, I talk to, that live on the same street I live, that, which is considered our 3 zone. They don't know about it. When I ask them, they like, what's going on? They don't know about it. Um, just like one of previous, um, residents, when she brought up, she joined the last outreach meeting, uh, which resulted her to feel like her opinion was not, um, valued. So she came to today's meeting. I actually felt the same way at that meeting, she attended. I felt like they didn't want to hear the R3 zoning the residents' opinion. So, um, I think, all in all, I feel a little bit scary that people from all over the place that has no ski in the game isn't, you know, saying about the, thank you.

[01:05:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks. Trevor Wu.

[01:05:12] Trevor Wu: Hello? you hear me?

[01:05:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[01:05:15] Trevor Wu: Uh, uh, so I'm a commuter uh, who works in Palo Alto, and I just want to commend Mountain New for at least building more housing than Palo Alto has. Um, So I want to express my support for more density within Silicon Valley. This is one of the greatest job centers in the entire world. It's where, uh, my parents moved and immigrated to achieve the American dream, and I hope that young people like me, you know, I'm a new college brad, that, uh, we have enough housing for everyone here to also achieve the American dream in the future. Thank you.

[01:05:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Mike Denham?

[01:05:56] Mike Dunham: Good evening, counsel. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Just make sure you reset that.

[01:06:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah. I was just about to say, Mike, we're going to reset for you. There we go. Okay, go ahead.

[01:06:05] Mike Dunham: There you go. Thanks so much. Um, good evening, counsel. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mike Dunham. I'm a lead with peninsula for everyone, and I've been following a bunch of the housing elements up, and down to the peninsula in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. And I just wanted to put a plus one on some of the comments earlier about affirmatively furthering fair housing. Uh, I think you've, if you've been following the housing news, there's more and more uh, talk at the state level about uh, housing strike force, about a housing accountability unit. Uh, the state is taken really seriously. What it means to affirmatively further fair housing. And I think, uh, maps of zoning changes that are uh, only on the periphery of cities, uh, and are not showing uh, housing production, and uh, up, Sony throughout cities are gonna be very suspicious. So it encourage you all to think about citywide policies and citywide changes that apply to every neighborhood, or especially in the most affluent, highest resourced neighborhoods that have not seen multifamily housing production. The 2nd thing I'd encourage you all to think about is taking really seriously what it would take to actually build 6200 below market rate units in the city. A number of other cities on the peninsula are considering citywide affordable housing overlays. Basically, if you have our nonprofit developer wanting to build 100% affordable housing, we will let you do it anywhere in the city. Um, you know, figure out what heights you're willing to tolerate everywhere, what densities you're willing to tolerate everywhere, but give nonprofits, a leg up over the private sector, let them build buy right, let them build, uh, multifamily units anywhere in the city. Uh, that's a really good way to encourage uh, below market rate construction, and it would also affirmatively further for housing. So I strongly encourage you all to consider such a policy. Thank you.

[01:08:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Kelly Ketchmark?

[01:08:10] Kelly Ketchmark: Thank you. Thank you, council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I'm a resident of the Wagon Wheel Neighborhood for 18 years and I've been a homeowner for 16. I agree with what many other speakers have said with regards to supporting the staff report. Uh, I don't agree that the R 3 up zoning should be used to meet the arena numbers. You may be wondering why so many of us are focusing on our 3 tonight, um, which is 11 mention of the whole report. There's a real concern that there hasn't been much outreach about this or a real understanding by the average resident on what Rena is and what the R3 zone is and how changes to that could greatly impact us. I think that adding increased density does not automatically mean housing prices are going to come down. It's the talking point, and it sounds like a simple economics of supply and demand, but that's often not how it actually plays out in this metro area. Because developers are counting on building market rate housing. Planning for actual affordable housing should be something handled in a different way through our other established processes like the general plan, precise plans, which can account for traffic and other significant environmental impacts. Thank you.

[01:09:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Bruce England?

[01:09:38] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor Command, and council members, hear me okay?

[01:09:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we do.

[01:09:41] Bruce England: I can't hear myself, so I have to just trust it. Yeah, just a few quick things. I know you're fielding a lot of comments here, so yes, I'll try to make it. It fast. On the parking policy. You're hearing a lot of comments on that. I just want to point out that there is a lot and you know this. There's a lot going on around vehicle use, transit, autonomous vehicles, all these moving pieces, micromobility, and Mountain View starting to work on their new active transportation plan to help encourage people to not use their cars or other vehicles to get around so much. So having flexibility on the parking policy in any way, I think, is prudent. And that might mean unbundling parking, having, um, different kinds of numbers for parking depending on the location and things like that. Also, this, this is, this goes to the Mound View MB letter, it's mentioned in there about vehicle residents, and I think that they should be considered in this. They actually live here, even though they're living in vehicles and sometimes in safe parking lots, sometimes at the curbs, but they're residents, really, and they should be accounted for, and accommodated in new housing opportunities. And then speaking for green spaces MV. We have strong interest in not seeing trees cut down. So where projects are more densely loaded into our available areas. We want to see as few a number of trees cut down as possible. And we know that there are projects right now being worked on where a lot of trees are being cut down. It's a little, um, distressing. And then to echo the point that others have made about affordable housing being distributed around Mountain View. Um, we definitely would like to see that happen. Thank you.

[01:11:25] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Isaac Stone.

[01:11:30] Isaac Stone: Ah, yes. Um, I want to speak to some of the other comments tonight in that a lot of people are mentioning the R3 up zone and how it shouldn't be relied on to meet the Rena numbers. And while I agree with that staff assessment, I want to point out that I'm also in favor of the R3 op zoning, I think that, uh, the good things about it, not necessarily just that it will add more density, but it is a move towards form-based zoning, and it is really well researched by staff. Uh, and I don't think I, uh, the negativity here today shouldn't mean that that should be shelved, I think, all of the residential zoning, uh, outside of the mobile home residential zoning should be looked at and moved towards the known best practices, uh, in city planning, form-based zoning, impact zoning, um, and away from the the old stuff that we inherited. That's all. Thanks.

[01:12:42] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Rise us, sing.

[01:12:47] Risa Singh: Thank you, Mayor Kamei. you hear me?

[01:12:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[01:12:50] Risa Singh: Uh, thank you. My name is Risa Singh, and I live and work in Mountain View. I'd like to strongly support the MV and B letter as well as the comments of Kelsey Baines in reaching out to underserved populations. On the topic of outreach. I think that since the significant portion of Mountain View, our renters, I strongly encourage staff to go around to the various apartment complexes and solicit the outrage of the renter population of Mountain View. Thank you.

[01:13:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Alex Brown.

[01:13:29] Alex Brown: Finally. Well, uh, Alec Brown, mobile homeowner, Sanjago Villa, North Bajore.

[01:13:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Timers on, sorry.

[01:13:39] Alex Brown: Okay, there it is.

[01:13:40] Alec Brown: You know, I want more housing up here, and I especially want the grocery store and gym that come with it. But it's not going to come quickly enough, so let's build housing by the existing grocery stores and gyms. Oh, have you looked into building one really big complex downtown by the Calton Station? Maybe like 50 stories, maybe taller? It could be long too, but not super wide because people deserve windows and natural light is important. Uh, the courtyard would be cool. Like with, you know, the little park inside. We can lean into the height and shadow, make the whole city a sundial, visible in satellite pictures. We have at least one satellite imaging company in town. I could work with this on that. As for zoning updates, I'm R3D all the way, unless you want to go Universal R4, that's cool too. Preservation is important. Please consider the people living here alongside the people who will live here soon. Our 3 has already had a lot of net loss projects with residents who were displaced and his lives have been upended. Amending zoning could and should help the remaining residents wherever possible, but not in such a way that we can't make room for new neighbors. Can we somehow limit real estate speculation, the associated barriers to housing caused by inflated prices? Nice. Anyway, so you just do what you can now so we can maintain some control of the project approval and maybe get fewer buildings that are just a mishmash of cheap EIFS rectangles. They're hideous. I don't know why they're approved. Thanks. Albert, I really miss your simulations. The slides are just not the same.

[01:14:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: That was well under 2 minutes. I don't know why they

[01:14:59] Alex Brown: yeah. I didn't need her time at all. Thanks.

[01:15:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I don't see any other hands so we can bring this back to the council. So before we get into the 2 questions, I thought we could see if any members of the council have any questions for staff. Um, does do any members of council have any questions for staff before we get into um, the 2 that have been posed tonight? All right, council member Hicks.

[01:15:30] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I have a question or two. First, I have a question about, uh, net new housing, uh, table 3 on page 8 shows we've permitted, I think, over 1800, uh, housing units in the 3 lower income categories, very low, low, and moderate income. over the past cycle, but we also demolished a lot of units in those income brackets. So I'm wondering how many net new lower income units we may have produced. Y'all handle that one.

[01:16:14] Eric Anderson: Thank you for the question. Just want to clarify your data point in table three. We, we've actually approved uh, in that table uh, about 450? Is that what you said, 450 in low, moderate, and very low?

[01:16:31] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Um, yeah, maybe I read the wrong cell, but I was trying to add the three together. Anyway, yes. Wreck my mistakes, and then whatever number of net new units we may in affordable units we may have created.

[01:16:46] Eric Anderson: Yeah, so we've, we've, uh, through these projects about 600 rental units have been demolished over the course of the last rena cycle. Now, that isn't necessarily VLI, LI and MI units. It could include above moderate households. which, unfortunately, I don't have the data for. Um, but, um, uh, like, to to answer your question, for these roughly 450 units, we have, uh, over the course of the arena, we've demolished about 600 rental units.

[01:17:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So it's possible we haven't created any new, any new.

[01:17:34] Eric Anderson: It is possible, yes.

[01:17:36] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Affordable units are even gone into negative territory. Because your rental, your rent controlled units are a stand in for those affordability categories.

[01:17:48] Eric Anderson: Right.

[01:17:49] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, okay, I get that. Thank you. Um, And then I was wondering about your first thoughts on changing the, uh, notice of funding availability process review that was in the staff report. This is, for people who don't know, it's the process for producing affordable housing, maybe you can explain it better than I can.

[01:18:15] Eric Anderson: Um, I'd like to defer this one to, uh, the community development director, Mr. Vosteva, who, uh, has a little bit more knowledge of the, uh, NoFA process than I do.

[01:18:28] Aarti Shrivastava: Um, Council member Hicks, could you repeat the question? I just wanted to make sure.

[01:18:33] Councilmember Alison Hicks: The staff report says that that staff has some thoughts about changing and, of course, improving. I expect the notice of funding availability process.

[01:18:47] Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, that is one of the items the housing division is going to be looking at. Um, one of the differences between what Mountain View does and other cities do is we start our process very early in the development um, for affordable housing developers. Um, this is before they even have a project approved, many other cities, um, do it right alongside or as, as the project is being approved, which sort of elongates the process, and we're looking at some best practices to see if we can streamline ours, um, affordable housing developers do like our process because it provides certainty before they design the project for sure. I mean, they're working on concepts in general or before they apply for the planning application. But on the other hand, it does add some time. Um, because we we do bring some of the design information to the council and the Nova committee prior to allocating the funding.

[01:19:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay, so shortening the process a little.

[01:19:54] Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, but it might add the uncertainty back, right? They're not sure which projects are going to get funded for how much. So it's a, it's a, it's a balance.

[01:20:02] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I see. So I imagine you'll do some outreach and make sure that the balance is in the positive direction. Okay? Um, and then last, I wanted a little more, um, detail on, on page five, the staff report says, uh, HCD provides guidance on picking sites for low-income units, and that they shouldn't be clustered. Now, we've done, uh, affordable units through, uh, through subsidized units and inclusive units. And I think they've been in North Bay Shore, East Wisman, Terabella, El Camino, the downtown area. In fact, most of them in the downtown area, I think, and San Antonio. So, I'm wondering if you cover such a broad, if you're creating affordable housing in such a broad number of areas, is that considered clustering, or maybe you can shed a little more light on that concept for me.

[01:21:07] Eric Anderson: Uh, sure, I'll take a first stab at this, and then, um, perhaps one of our consultants can also weigh in. Um, you know, the, uh, the guidance is general, uh, and, uh, the HCD is going to be looking for the things that we've been saying, which are, like, access to opportunity areas, um, and, uh, that we're not kind of putting all units in, in these areas that are, are, that, that don't have access to services, um, and, uh, good jobs and, access to opportunity. Um, so we are looking at, like you said, a whole range of different areas that may um, accommodate our lower income units. Our initial thought is that, as you said, the all of these citywide areas should satisfy those concerns, and that we shouldn't need to, for example, up zone in areas, you know, far south of El Camino, for example, but I'll kick it over to one of our consultants who may be able to provide a little bit more information about them. Matt, go ahead.

[01:22:28] Matt Kowta: Sure, happy to jump in a little bit. Matt Kota with BAE urban economics. Um, It is, indeed, guidance. I don't think there's any hard and fast rule about, you know, what exactly constitutes an overconcentration of lower income housing, but the idea of dispersing the housing, so it's not all concentrating in a single area, um, and being mindful of of placing the housing where never possible in those areas of higher opportunity. Um, as Eric said, places where there's transit access, where there's various resources such as schools, shopping, services, of various kinds, recreational, um, opportunities, and so forth, that all contribute to the, um, you know, positive life outcomes for residents is is really important. So I think, with those things in mind, at least initially, it's looking like there's good potential to avoid any kind of situation that would create concerns in that regard.

[01:23:36] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I guess another way of phrasing that question is that, from reading the staff report, it seems that the history of what you've created is somewhat important in predicting the future. And since we've created affordable housing in such a broad array of places, I'm wondering whether that would be looked on positively for the future, that will probably, you know, continue to do that in the future as well.

[01:24:05] Matt Kowta: I would say so, um, certainly. And a lot of the focus on AFFH is really to try to remedy past patterns where there's been segregation, and isolation, and so forth, and to the extent that you already have a good distribution of locations where your more affordable housing is located. I think that's a positive place to start from, and then just continue to work on that, um, good distribution of housing throughout the community.

[01:24:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, and I actually... Oh, uh, Eric, were you gonna say something, or...

[01:24:43] Eric Anderson: no.

[01:24:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, actually, I'll go off with one more question. We've been getting messages about possibly having to do 20 dwelling units per acre, or 30 dwelling units per acre, depending on how this shakes out. Um, in order to encourage or show that we're providing, uh, sites that are likely to have affordable housing. And I'm wondering, whether you give an example so that we could picture what 20 units per acre or 30 units per acre are, just because that's a little abstract.

[01:25:21] Eric Anderson: Sure. Yeah, a really good example of 20 units breaker are typical row house developments. Those almost always come in at almost exactly 20 units per acre. Um, so, um, any of the recent Rojas developments that have happened. Um, 30 units per acre, we don't see very many projects at that density, um, because it's kind of this transitional density, um, between, you know, the profitable row house density and and kind of what's next profitable, which is probably the 60 to 70 dwelling units per acre level. Um, but in the past, we have seen a lot of projects at about 30 units per acre. So thinking about, um, many of the apartments along California Street, uh, in the Rangsdorf area are approximately 30 units per acre.

[01:26:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you very much.

[01:26:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:26:24] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Um, thank you, Steph, for this, uh, presentation and the staff report, um, very comprehensive, um, you know, I, I, I think we've all gathered that, um, we're doing well in terms of, um, market rate units that 345%. So it seems like our real task is to try to shift some of that to more affordable units. And I guess I was hoping to get a little bit more, um, um, description about, uh, how we might be able to do that. Um, someone mentioned the, an out, um, overlay, affordable housing overlay, um, is that possible in light of the, um, no clustering, um, requirements? Um, and what are the other strategies? Like, are we able to zone, um, certain parcels for, you know, higher than the 15% inclusionary, um, zoning requirement, inclusionary, um, housing that we have right now? Um, how do we do that given, you know, I've been, I've pushed for higher than 20% in certain areas that been told, it's not feasible. So just if hoping to get a little bit more clarity on the real, the real possibilities, I guess, of being able to meet our affordable unit requirements. Thanks.

[01:27:48] Eric Anderson: Yeah, I'll echo your concern. There are a lot of challenges in meeting these affordable housing, uh, goals. A lot of them are funding challenges. So where is their national funding available? State funding available? Um, and there is kind of a catch 22 where if we increase the BMR requirements on market rate projects that makes them less feasible. So, and we don't want to reduce our all housing production, if the benefit for affordable housing is limited. Um, so, but I do, um, you know, there are a lot of strategies out there, um, um, I know that our housing division is working on a number of them. But on the question of affordable housing overlay, We'd have to see how that would further the existing incentives that we have for affordable housing. For example, we recently adopted a density bonus ordinance that allows the council to set 100% affordable projects at any density. We also have a nofa process that allows 100% affordable projects to bypass the gatekeeper process. So they can come in on industrial sites or commercial sites, without having to wait for the gatekeeper. So those are the types of things that we'd have to see if, like, an affordable housing overlay would provide any additional benefits over those things that we already have. Um, go ahead, Archie.

[01:29:33] Aarti Shrivastava: Oh, I'll just piggyback onto what Eric said. Um, you know, currently our density bonus ordinance focuses on no for projects. So we, in effect, have an overlay through our density bonus ordinance, where the council can grant, um, you know, uh, much higher densities beyond what's allowed on the site, if projects are 100% affordable. Um, um, and then in, in response to your question, Councilman Bravo Coga, um, about, um, is it possible to, to incentivize, maybe, maybe a better way would be to incentivize projects that provide higher affordability with, with greater density. That's one way of doing it instead of requiring that all projects provided. Maybe that's one way we could look at it so that we're not causing a specific constraint on all housing, but we are rewarding projects with, um, that provide greater density. State density bonus already does that. We have the bonus FAR process in our precise plan. So, I think we have to make sure that we're not, we're not, um, just duplicating what we've already done because I think we have a lot already. Um, and then finally, I think by, um, incentivizing the, the, um, uh, meeting BMR requirements through um, providing sites to the city, even though it doesn't provide units can can provide certainty. So, um, those rights, um, can certainly be focused on low-income housing. And so that's what we are using in our pipeline projects. We're only looking at sites that for sure are going to be built at affordable levels. So those are ways in which I think cities can, uh, make sure that we are targeting sites specifically for lower densities.

[01:31:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So is that the land dedication?

[01:31:29] Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah.

[01:31:30] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. The land dedication program. Okay, thank you. So, um, how I guess how does this work? Um, let's say there's a parcel now that we, Um, me designate or um, pick out as potential for affordable housing development, um, but it's zoned, uh, that's our, our 3 uh, well, I don't know, all the zones, but let's say it's zoned for 20 units an acre right now. Um, do we have to specify that, you know, I think we're up to like 120 units an acre and some sites we're looking at, but potentially if that's possible in this site, um, for affordable housing, do we have to indicate that or can we do that after the fact? Um, because, you know, my concern or the issue there is, um, the land prices, right? They're very expensive, the more we up zone, the more expensive the land gets. So how do we strategize to keep land, you know, somewhat reasonable or reachable, affordable, um, but then be able to put down the units that we really need to meet, meet our goals for our requirements?

[01:32:47] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: That's a very insightful concern that you have. And, um, I think that we, uh, our 1st step is in that is to rely on existing zoning, uh, as much as we can, because that's already been broadcast to the market. And so the housing element, just relying on existing zoning, won't change any of those market forces. If we do need to identify, uh, targeted up zoning. Uh, I think we can, um, kind of work with our consultants to see if there are ways to, uh, provide, um, uh, ways to limit any speculative effects that that might have. Um, and, um, you know, there are the, the pros and cons of, of, you know, telegraphing less information. Um, you know, one, one pro is that we're more certain to get HCD approval for using that site. But of course, the con, like you said, there could be negative speculative effects. So we're going to have to weigh those in the, as we, uh, determine if additional sites need to be rezoned.

[01:34:05] Senior Planner Ellen Yau: Oh, we'll just add that, um, cities have a little more time to rezone. Typically, it's 3 years that could be reduced to one year. So, um, you do have a little time after the option of the housing element to be on site. So once, if we identify specific sites, we don't have to rezone them by the adoption of the housing element. It could be a subsequent rate. But it has to be done by the city and not the applicant, so.

[01:34:32] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Oh, okay. Okay, great. Thank you very much.

[01:34:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Does any other member, oh. Perfect. Vice Mary Ramirez, go ahead.

[01:34:43] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. A few questions. So 1st we've had, uh, a tremendous number of, uh, emails and public comments about the R3 zoning district update, and I know staff have, uh, are doing the outreach in a very different way. And I'm hoping that you can share with us and the public what your strategy will be to solicit community input moving forward.

[01:35:11] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Sure. Yeah, thanks for that opportunity, vice mayor. Um, so we are currently planning, uh, for early 2022, uh, a series of uh, 6 community outreach meetings in each of the CNC neighborhoods, um, where we are going to get, uh, input about the R3 update, uh, from residents targeted to those neighborhoods. Uh, that's, uh, our, our kind of next big task for the R3 update. In addition, we'll continue to do analysis about concerns that we've heard, such as transitions, adjacencies, and other such issues, before we bring back any new proposals to council in the next year.

[01:36:07] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Great. Thank you. Planning Commissioner Caprillis had, I thought, a very good suggestion, since not everybody might be informed about the current development standards. Uh, will the outreach include some education about where the R3 zoning already is and what the development standards currently are.

[01:36:31] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, that, that's, and and lots of diagrams and and things so that people can really understand uh, what's proposed and what's existing.

[01:36:42] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Great, thank you. I'm very pleased that Stats is doing that. Now, we have, I think council member Hicks spoke to this. We've seen uh, several R3 properties, uh, redeveloped over the past decades, um, and I remember uh, among the uh, elements that we have to include in our analysis is uh, sort of the, the trends of what's occurring with uh, existing housing stock, housing preservation. I think is one of the goals of the housing element. Um, to what extent, uh, has what we've seen with R 3 already happened. Uh, to what extent does that inform the work that staff is doing for the housing element moving forward?

[01:37:36] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Uh, so there, there are, uh, you know, a few projects the council has asked staff to work on related to this issue. One of them is the anti-displacement strategy, which is happening in parallel to the housing element update. Uh, and you'll be getting more uh, information about that uh, process in in the coming months. Um, the, uh, the housing element itself, uh, can include high-level policies and programs that, uh, will uh, be developed through the anti-displacement strategy, um, and can be encoded in our general plan through this housing element update. In addition, uh, through our arena process, we are proposing to focus on sites that have no or very few, you know, like a single family home or duplex, uh, existing units on those sites. We want to make sure that whatever sites we're identifying in the arena, we are displacing as few residents as possible, as, um, making sure that we're getting the net new units that we need to, in order to accommodate our arena, and demolishing units that reduce that effect.

[01:39:00] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. I guess maybe reframing the question a little bit. Will we identify as a concern, uh, the, I guess the fact of the reality that many of these older naturally affordable rent control units are at the end of their useful lives. Many of those buildings are at the end of their, those at their useful lives. So we need to think about strategies to respond to that. That some, is that analysis that goes into or in any way influences the housing element work.

[01:39:36] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Absolutely. We do need to have policies and programs to support rehabilitation, to support maintenance of existing units. Um, I would also say that, um, you know, most of the apartments in Mountain View are about 50 years old. Um, you know, they're that are significantly older than that. But 50 years old doesn't necessarily need to be the end of a building's useful life. And, uh, so we are looking at, um, we can definitely look at policies to encourage their their preservation and maintenance as well.

[01:40:15] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, great. Thank you. And then, um, we also received, uh, many comments about, uh, amenities and services and infrastructure that, uh, I think the community reasonably expects whenever having production occurs. Um, and I got a question also about, um, whether the, the reach codes, for instance, would, would apply. All of the regulations that we have in place now. Uh, will remain enforced as this housing gets built, right? So, the parkland dedication requirements will remain in place. We will identify any infrastructure impact through the sequel analysis. All of that will occur, and the housing element doesn't just look at housing production, but also includes the whole package of amenities and services and infrastructure that's necessary to make sure that the housing is, um, you know, is well served. Is that right?

[01:41:20] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Yes, you're absolutely right. We are going through a sequel process, well, where we will identify potential impacts to public services and, um, uh, transportation and and, you know, other typical sequel impacts. that information will be coming, um, probably in about 8 or 9 months from now, and there will be a public draft for the community to review and an opportunity for counsel to weigh that information in their decision. Um, I do want to say that with respect to Parkland dedication. Um, you know, we've certainly heard from the community and from developers that the Parkland dedication fee is is high relative to our peers, and we do want to, um, uh, we don't want to pull any, any, The housing element will need to identify constraints, which could include fees. It doesn't necessarily mean that the housing element will mandate changes to those fees, but we do need to do that analysis.

[01:42:27] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Understood. And then last question. Um, General plan hasn't allowed for some residential capacity in certain commercial areas. Um, but the zoning doesn't allow for that residential development to occur, as part of the housing element, will staff include preliminary suggestions or plans for how to approach those, those areas in the general plan where there might be some residential capacity, but the zoning doesn't align with the general plan.

[01:43:08] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Um, that would depend on if we need to identify additional sites to accommodate arena. And if council, uh, directs staff to look at those commercial areas for those additional sites, if that's the case, then some high-level guidance would be appropriate for how to address that. Um, if the housing element, uh, does not include, uh, or does not require those, uh, commercial areas, uh, for the arena, um, it, that information could be provided in our high-level policy and programs section, um, but it is also, um, a, uh, It would be less imperative for us to kind of put that work into, uh, the, um, developing those those programs policies and guidance.

[01:44:13] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Right. Those are all of my questions. Thank you.

[01:44:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Councilman Michelle Walter.

[01:44:22] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thanks. A lot of my questions have been have been answered, um, but I'm sure they'll come up again in the. in the deliberation section. But, um, one of the things that, um, we've always had a great deal of trouble with is producing moderate rate housing. I mean, quite literally, we, um, we produced 18 units in the last rena cycle, and we're asked being asked to produce 1,885. That's 100 times. Um, what we've produced. So could you talk a little bit about how we're going to, um, uh, to do that? And, um, uh, what are some strategies that you think might help?

[01:45:09] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Well, I think the first strategy is to see what all of the great work that council has already done on this issue and see how it actually plays out. Um, you know, there are a couple of projects in the pipeline that are adding a significant number of moderate income units, uh, like the 777 middle field project. Um, the, um, in addition, when we updated our BMR code, we, uh, included a 2 income requirement for projects, uh, with the express intent of providing uh, a higher diversity of income levels and and maybe trying to get some of those modern income units as well. Um, additional efforts, I'm going to have to, uh, see if the community development director has any additional. thoughts on what the housing division may be doing.

[01:46:08] Assistant City Manager/Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, the housing division is actually, um, working on a proposal by, um, uh, uh, a group, uh, uh, a JPA that the city joined that may be looking to acquire existing, um, apartment units and need restricting them for moderate housing or maybe lower housing. Um, you know, and until a recent state law was passed, we couldn't have countered existing units. But now that the law has passed, we can, if they're deed restricted. So this would look at deed restricting the units and and depending on how many units we get, we could add to the modern income or the affordable housing inventory.

[01:46:48] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Oh, that's very interesting. Thanks. I'm glad to hear about that. And then I have another question. Mountain View is really not very biz, big physically. We're, you know, 12 square miles. So when you talk about, and I remember when, when we were looking at public transit, the, the, the definition of public transit was, I think, a half a mile from a bus stop or other public transit, and, and the whole city qualified. So, which, even though we all know that the public transit here really isn't that great. It's still, um, the whole city, uh, qualified as access to public transit. So I wonder, um, do we have any real guidance on how the, um, the state is going to look at the idea of clumping of affordable housing, given that, um... I mean, it's certainly not on every block in Mountain View. But it is distributed throughout our community. Is this viewed as what we have currently viewed as good? Um, or do we know that? Um, uh, I'm very concerned about, um, about the affordable, I mean, about the fair housing. It seems like, you know, that something that we, um, we've really come to, uh, be concerned about in the last two years. And so in previous reader cycles, we didn't necessarily look at it, at least, with that lens, and now we are. So, I guess what I'm asking is, how does our track record of producing affordable housing throughout the, um, the city match with what the state is looking for?

[01:48:39] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Yeah, I'll start and then I'll throw it to Matt. I just like to reinforce what you said. about the city size, which is a really, really good point on this. Um, you know, you think about some of the other bigger cities in our region, and they have areas of low opportunity that are bigger than Mountain View. Yeah. Like, the whole area is, you know, the whole, uh, areas of poor access to opportunity are, are, sometimes many times bigger than the city of Mountain View. And so, um, kind of thinking about it in that lens is maybe helpful, um, but I also want to moderate expectations. Um, and I, hopefully, I think, um, Matt can provide that information.

[01:49:30] Matt Cota: Sure. So we've already talked a little bit about how an existing affordable housing is kind of scattered in various locations throughout the communities. That's a great starting point. AB686 is the state law that created the requirement that we include the assessment at fair housing in the housing element update. And within that legislation, there was direction to do some analysis of these patterns of segregation, isolation, within the community. And there's a concept or a metric called racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty. There's some math that you do in order to look at, um, objectively, whether you have segregation of various racial or ethnic groups or isolation, of certain racial or ethnic groups within the community. And that would be kind of an assessment of your existing conditions. And if we go through that process, and we're sort of using those tools, we identify that there are some issues from a quantifiable standpoint, then we're going to need to incorporate some policies or programs within the housing element to address that, and part of that would, I would imagine, would involve looking at how we can identify those sites for additional lower income housing development in ways that do not exacerbate those kind of patterns, but actually help to ameliorate or mitigate them. So, we do have some objective measures to look at and to help guide that process. Um, and that's all, uh, kind of laid out in AB 6, 86, and the AF page guidance that HCD's put out. So we'll be following that. and keeping an eye to make sure that we are not creating any problems, and hopefully making improvements in that distribution of housing throughout the community.

[01:51:42] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So, essentially, what you're saying is, that's analysis that's going to be done as part of this process, and we haven't done it yet.

[01:51:50] Matt Cota: Yes, it is forthcoming.

[01:51:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you. Okay. That's my question.

[01:51:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah. Okay. Great. Any other council members with questions? All right, seeing no their hands raised. Maybe we can get into the questions that we're being asked in the study session. So I'm gonna do my best along with staff to keep track. So there's 2 questions. Um, you know, one of them is, does the city council have any comments regarding new key housing element requirements related to the following? The arena approach and sites inventory and the constraints to housing. And question 2, does the city council support the initial list of draft housing element policy topics? Are there other policy topics that should be included? And so I will keep track along with staff. And if you could answer both questions one and two, um, that would be really helpful. Great. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[01:52:48] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor, and appreciating the time. I'm going to try and be brief. I know we were supposed to start the regular session at 6.30. Um, there's a lot to say. Uh, this is uh, a meaty item and I'm glad to see that there's, uh, a lot of community attention to it. Um, I also know that while there's a lot I want to say, I feel like this particular item is fairly narrowly scoped. Um, so if other members of the council speak to some of those things, I might come back for a 2nd term, but right now, I'm primarily going to respond to these 2 questions. Uh, so 1st I feel like that is on the right track. I support the staff approach. Um, just the recommendations, uh, to, um, basically do everything we have to do to, to rebated compliance with state law. Um, I, I don't think there's, there's a, a lot of discretion that we have in, um, you know, avoiding some of the, the, the new provisions, the no net loss requirements and affirmatively furthering uh, fair housing. And in fact, personally, I think those are good things. I think, especially for bad actor cities that historically have not made any real attempt to, uh, to meet the arena obligation, I think these are good laws, and I see them as an opportunity for us also to help achieve our own housing goals. So I'm, um, I don't have a lot to add. Um, if anything, uh, I do feel on the constraint side. Um, I appreciate the staff's analysis about the Mountain View Wisman school district, community facilities district. I feel, um, uh, personally uncomfortable speaking too much about that because I live in the Los Altos school district part of Mountain View. I couldn't even, you know, if it were a district wide boat, I wouldn't even even be able to participate in that discussion. But I would frame it a little bit differently. I feel like there's not much or anything that the city can do about a school district decision, but we should be, uh, I think, transparent about our own fees and taxes and, um, you know, process constraints. Um, that impede housing production. And I feel like, you know, we might, if the school district proceeds with that and the voters approve it. Uh, we might have to make some tough decisions, and that will include looking at our own, you know, sees in taxes and uh, development standards and processes and that kind of thing, um, and making changes to offset whatever impacts the CFD might have. So I feel like that's an important thing for us to truly understand, and I hope that there's a robust analysis, included, um, when you're evaluating, uh, government imposed constraints in particular. Um, on the uh, 2nd question. Uh, everything in there looks very good. I think all of those are issues that are of concern to the community, all things that we need to be mindful of. Um, just a couple of other things that I would like to see maybe fleshed out or developed, um, the, you know, I, and I, and we're not talking about R3, but we do have a history of displacement that, that has occurred through redevelopment under our existing development standards. And they think it's very important for us to, again, be transparent in identifying those, you know, what, what regulations exist now, that have led to the redevelopment of existing properties and the displacement of generally, you know, low and moderate income people. Uh, so by identifying those challenges, and then coming up with solutions, as I know staff is already doing, uh, to, to mitigate those impacts. I think that's that's critical. I feel like that would be a high priority for me personally. Um, I also feel like community outreach is critical. Or making some very difficult decisions. Um, you know, I, I, I, the previous arena cycles were probably tough then too, but we're talking about, uh, an order of magnitude, more units we have to, we have to plan for. Um, and and much more stringent regulations to make sure we're on track to meet those targets. Uh, so really delving into, uh, especially in targeting, targeting populations that historically maybe haven't been approached and understanding their housing needs. Um would be, I think, very beneficial for this process. So in particular, um, uh, Eric, I think I sent you an email with some suggestions for, for groups that we might want to, uh, talk to. I have a particular interest in focusing on low income people, people of color, um, renters, who I feel like have, um, you know, a lot to to contribute, and on our own understanding of our communities, housing needs. Um, so those groups, um, we've had many people who have been displaced, and I think it would be interesting to hear from them about the, you know, the concerns that they have about our housing policies. Um, we've been doing a lot of work to reach out to unhoused people in our community, and I think it's important to get their perspective as well. And I feel like we also can align with other work that's being done. Um, I'm remembering in the uh, human relations commission work plan. There are several housing related items, including, you know, collecting stories from unhoused people in our community. Why not use that as an opportunity to get, you know, some information that we could put into our housing element and respond to, uh, the state, uh, mandate, you know, to to conduct this kind of robust outreach. Um, so I think those are, those are things that we, we should look at very seriously. Uh, and I'm sure every member of the council is, is, you know, able to share particular stakeholder or community groups that might be able to, to help us, um, you know, reach out to groups that historically have not been involved in these kinds of efforts. Um, so that's all I've got for now. But, um, so far, I think a great start and I appreciate the work that you're doing on this, this difficult topic. Thank you.

[01:58:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, council member Hicks.

[01:59:03] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, I, I, I'll start off by saying I, um, agree, particular with, with what the vice mayor said in general, but particularly the last comments on making sure to do outreach to, um, low income community groups, people of color, and others who, who possibly have been overlooked in outreach in the past. Um, as, I think most of my comments are, uh, addressing the second question. So I'll just say, as for the first question, I just wanted to, uh, thanks staff and compliment them for, you know, the basic framework that was, uh, presented in the staff report is something that I, that I, um, liked very much, um, and look forward to see going forward. Um, as for the second question on, um, policy topics that should be included, you know, there, it's a very comprehensive, maybe two pages of policy comments or topics that I, that I also agreed with. I just wanted to say, I think the elephant in the room is housing affordable to very low, low, and moderate income households. And I'm not the first person who said that, other council members have said that in the questions, and also EPC members. But I wanted to highlight it, because we've permitted, I guess, according to, uh, the table on page eight, we've permitted, permitted three and a half times our, uh, Reno objectives for upper income households and a quarter of, I think, of what we were, what we targeted for the various lower income groups. And we may have even created net 0 units. So, it's not that we just need to focus more on affordable housing, it's that, you know, this is a dramatic and daunting difference, I would say, um... And I think we have to be really clear on that. It looks like almost 90% of the units we've permitted are for higher income people. And then, again, if there's net zero low income units, that would make it 100%. So, you know, we're not a city that avoids producing housing. We're a city that produces a good amount, but we, I'm not, we produce little to know, net positive affordable housing. So I would like to make that explicitly one of our goals. It's not, and one of our prime focuses. It's not currently listed, I think, as one of our goals. And another way to put it is to focus on the racial and ethnic aspects of this problem, the 2020 census showed that our Latinex population is down by 12%. And that's not just dropping because the as a percentage, because the population is growing. That's, um, it shows about a little bit under 2,000 individuals. In other words, individuals less than we had 10 years ago. And the highest growth in our county is in Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Um, and, and that's where the, as these populations who are being displaced, that's generally where they're going, they are in south of here. So, um, and many of those people are still driving here, uh, for jobs, and they're not driving here in Teslas. So, you know, they're driving here in, um, in cars, often with very large carbon footprints. So, um, so that would be, you know, undermining our sustainability goals as well, as housing goals. So, some of the things I would like to look into, and other people have said them are hiring staff. Looking at streamlining, but I want to remind everybody that there's streamlining and streamlining, the most recent streamlining we found, did away with affordable housing units. So I want to make sure that streamlining doesn't mean going so fast that we're not careful in terms of meeting our objectives, including affordable housing. Um, in terms of affordable... So I'm very interested in taking a deeper dive on displacement. Affordable housing production. I want to look at funding in particular because honestly, I think that's, that's the reason. I don't think we're unwilling to produce affordable housing. I really think it's funding that's stopping us. Um, and I would do like to do legislative advocacy was mentioned. I would like to do legislative advocacy around that. Um, and legislative advocacy around supply and city infrastructure, whether it's schools or parks or other things, um, as we grow, because I think we're having trouble fulfilling those goals. Um, I'm also, in addition to funding to provide affordable housing, I'm interested in alternative forms of housing, like community land trust. One of our residents brought up mixed income cohousing that, as a way of possibly producing more affordable housing. Um, I'd like to look into the tenant opportunity to purchase and maybe loan a streamlined ADU process with loans so that people can, um, Or or units accompanying SB9 loans that allow people to actually build the housing that that those zoning changes have enabled. Um, One of the, the policy topics is diversity, equity, and inclusion, and I would like, under that, to emphasize local workers and families, not just tech workers, is one of the, the aspects of, of diversity that we want to maintain. There was also a policy topic on data, and I would love to have a data dashboard that allows us to see how what our goals are, how we're meeting them at all different income levels, including housing for the currently homeless, and also how we compare to other cities. And lastly, I'll just name a list of places that we could look to sites we could look at to produce more housing and affordable housing. One is the Caltrain BTA site. Um, I think that the, the, uh, a similar site in the city of Santa Clara just fell through. If there's a way to speed up development of that site. Um, you know, it's virtually on top of transit, and hopefully we could go, you know, a little higher than we have in the past in that area. Another is, I think, the EPC brought this up, but low density shopping plazas that could be rezoned for mixed income instead of, um, just shopping. Um, there's West Terabella. Uh, there's the, um, Margaret Caprias on the, uh, EPC mentioned one story offices around El Camino Hospital could become mixed use. There's the Moffat precise plan. Um, maybe exploring taller buildings in targeted areas. Uh, and, uh, lastly, more city lots downtown, like the police, the very large police lot, or, um, the lot that we looked at for the parking garage if we transferred the parking to the police lot. So those are my comments. Thank you.

[02:07:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you. Council member Shel Walter.

[02:07:22] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, I would particularly like to thank council member Hicks for that list that you just gave us. Many of the things that she came up with were things that I wanted to mention. In particular, I feel like some of the commercial strip malls that we have are good really have good potential for mixed juice, with significant housing on them. And that is something that would require rezoning, because most of them are currently not zoned for that. But we heard all of the people, pretty much who spoke to us, said that they, um, they liked the, they supported the, the staff report, and they really supported the suggestion of not using R3. Um, I would concur with that. But I think that one of the things that, so for question one, my answer is definitely yes. I think that, um, the, uh, the staff has done an excellent job in describing this, and I'm really pleased to see, you know, the, the thoughtful approach that's been taken. Um, but I, I do really like the other sites that, that, uh, council member Hicks has mentioned, I think that, um, particularly with the need to get the 30%, uh, kind of cushion. We will need to do some of that. Then the other thing I really wanted to talk about is public outreach. Uh, we've heard almost everybody who spoke to us, talked to us about the housing element in R3. These are the two things, the two rezoning things that are in everybody's mind, together in our community. And I really, I think that, um, we should use this opportunity to educate the public about both of them, uh, at the same time, if we can. I know that they're on a... They're on a different schedule. The housing element comes first, but I think that it's really important to educate on both, at the same time, because because they're both very related to increasing housing. And, um, uh, and there's a lot of questions. So I think, you know, that right now, we're, in a sense, putting off the R3 discussion. And, um, I think that that's maybe reducing the level of trust that the community has in how good a job we're gonna do with that. So I think we need to make sure that that is, you know, that is brought up, um, in, as part of the background, um, information that is shared at all of these public meetings. The other thing I really would like to suggest is that we consider having a task force, of stakeholders, to help us work on the housing element and the R3. I know that we're having, we're scheduling a lot of public meetings, and, of course, that's valuable. But when people come to one public meeting, they get, they typically don't necessarily have to do any homework. They come to one public meeting. They, they, you know, they participate, they give their comments, and then they go home, and you never hear from them again, or you often don't. When you have a task force, you have people who come to multiple meetings and learn at each one of them. And I think we have, um, the sustainability task force as a, you know, an incredible example of the, um, really the rich income and assistance we got in the process. So I want to mention that as something that I would really like staff to consider, is, is what would it take to have a task force on these two issues? And, um, uh, you know, do we have time to do this? Particularly with, uh, R3, um, uh, I mean, particularly with, with, with the time scale that we have for the, um, uh, the housing element, which is, you know, very, very discrete. Anyway, so, um, so, question one, I really, um, applaud the, the, uh, the staff, thank you for the thoughtful report and question two. Um, I think this is a very thorough list, but I like the addition of other places and, um, to look, and I also would like people to think about a task force. Thank you.

[02:12:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Council member Matachek.

[02:12:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, um, in general, um, I agree with Steph's recommendations on the approach to identifying the sites to meet Rena. Um, but I do want to call out a few things um, in particular. Um, and the 1st is, um, I agree with staff, as well as lots of members of the public who have emailed us or come here tonight to participate, saying that they are not supportive of using the R 3 project that we have going, um, to accommodate sites for Rena, and I completely agree with that. Um. I think the general plan, zoning, precise plans we've done have been put together with a great deal of thought and a great deal of public input. And, um, that rigor has not been done yet on the R3 uh, rezoning. So I'm not supportive of using that. It's very discouraging to hear residents say that they don't feel like their comments were included in the summaries from the community outreach meetings. And this is not the 1st time I've heard that, um, when I was on the planning commission. I would attend some of those meetings and Um, I felt like the summaries were definitely, um, missing a lot of public input. And so I want to make sure all public input is captured. Um, at the meetings that we hold, whether it be for our 3 or any other topic. We do have diverse opinions in the community, and we need to hear them all. Um, I am concerned about um, the outreach we do for R 3. Well, I think it's important to talk about specific areas with when you're in that community. Um, or that neighborhood. There are a lot of people who are very interested in the entire city. Um, they don't just stay in their neighborhood. So, um, I think it's important to talk about our 3 throughout the entire community when we do the individual outreach to the neighborhood groups. Um, Let's see. Um, I also want to note that um, Well, I've already said I don't want to look at rezoning. I, in particular, do not want to look at rezoning any industrial. We um, need to make sure that we preserve our industrial base. And you know, I don't want us to become a city that's 100% housing. Um, we need a mix of land uses. And I feel like we have been chipping away a little bit at our industrial base, and I don't want to do that. Um, let's see. I also want to make a few comments about the, um, Or share my concern about the proposed community facilities district or mellow ruse district, um, proposed by the Mountain View Wisdom and school district are being considered by them. Um, you know, I think we all agree that having a great neighborhood school, um, really adds to a neighborhood. Um, but we also have a lot of other things that make for a great neighborhood, parks, um, retail nearby, um, a nice place to walk, nature, um, you know. Services nearby. And all of that, especially in some areas, um, doesn't exist. And so, you are building the infrastructure along with the residential uses, along with all of these other things. So, um, I feel like we really need um, the city and the school district to work together on this. So that, um, we don't end up in a situation where, um, the fees, taxes, whatever you want to call these, are such that, um, it really halts the development of residential. Um, we have put so much thought and consideration into our precise plans in North Bay Shore and East Wisman, it really would be a shame to have those not um, because of um, an extra tax. So I really want to make sure we all work together on this so that we see the vision come to fruition that um, we all have in mind. Um, in terms of the 2nd question, um, There are definitely, you know, this was definitely a long list, a comprehensive list, I think. I don't have anything to add to it Um, but there are some that are particularly important to me. And actually, there's quite a few. So, um, I wasn't gonna list them all. I just went through and I numbered them. So I'm just gonna tell you the numbers. Is that okay? One, three, four, five, six. 910, 14, 15, 16. Those are really important to me, and so I put those at higher priority. Um, some of the other ones I feel like, you know, maybe if we don't get to them. That's okay, but those are really important, I think, to address. Um, and that's it. Thanks.

[02:17:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great day, council member.

[02:18:01] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you again to staff and consultant for this report. Um, I, um, echo a lot of what my colleagues have already said. Um, I, I don't have anything to add in terms of, um, The list. Um, I guess for me, um, well, number one, I guess I'll start by saying, um, as council member Hicks has mentioned, um, you know, I, I believed it, and I, I'm glad that, um, we see it, and and other, the rest of the, you know, the area, the area, wherever we want to talk about it, is also seeing it too, that mountain view has never shied away from housing, we have always built housing or allowed for the development of housing. And, um, you know, as we see in this arena cycle, um, you know, we are going to exceed our overall numbers. Um, I believe this isn't the only cycle where we've done that. Um, so, um, you know, frankly, I'm glad that that's finally being acknowledged. Um, so, um, you know, thank, thank you to staff, thanks to, you know, our community, our council for, for continuing to, um, push forward. Um, I will say that, you know, this round, as I started hearing about what our number was gonna be. I was, um, frankly skeptical. I'm still a little bit skeptical. Um, so I'm really quite, um, amazed and pleased that staff has come back to us saying that we think we can, you know, figure out where we're gonna put these units. Um, which I think is a huge achievement, given that the number is this number, this round is 4 times larger than, um, our past round. And I believe, is it, where number 3 is it in the county, based on population. Um, I think that I appreciate the staff's letter. I hope everyone, including, um, you know, our public numbers, read the letter that was, um, submitted earlier this year, we did not appeal our number as most. I think there was something like 28 cities that did. Um, you know, we accepted the numbers, but I think the letter really provides a lot of information and detail, um, that really supports, frankly, um, my, some of my skeptism towards, um, this, frankly, the process. And, and I've had the benefit of, um, serving from, uh, working on the state, how state housing legislation through a MTC A bag committee, um, right? I provided a lot of comments about the just the challenges of what the state was, um, bringing down, putting down and bringing down to, to requirement in terms of requirements for local governments. And, um, this year, serving on MTC, have had a, another window, um, to seeing what is happening and going on in terms of the plan Bay Area, um, these housing elements. And frankly, um, you know, so I really wanted to focus on some of the constraints and hopes of, um, us as a, I would, you know, I call ourselves good actors in terms of, you know, housing, production, development. Um, and yet, despite us being, you know, I think, good, um, actors, the continuous challenges of reaching these, frankly, I'm kind of, I'm starting to think unrealistic goals. And the reason why I say that is because even though we can, you know, reach our overall numbers, it's really about affordability and I appreciate that every folks, most folks have mentioned that, and I mean, I've been seeing that too. Um, I think it was a few months back when I just did a, you know, calculation and came up with the fact that Our affordability requirement is about, I think, 40% of the total. And when we have something, when we have 15% inclusionary, which is on the high side for the Bay Area, um, we're doing a lot of affordable housing projects, and I, you know, would mention that, right, there's now a program that's tracking all of the cities and how much housing, uh, affordable housing production is being done. Um, and we're number 6 out of um, the Bay Area with our, I forget, I think we had 83 units that were built. Um, but we're number 6 and they, they're taking the top 15 and, and whoever comes into, in that top 15 is supposed to get more housing affordable housing funds. So, you know, we're we're doing a good job compared to the rest of the Bay Area. And yet, you know, these numbers are pretty hard to achieve. And so I am, my hope is that we can use our situation as an example, um, to do the advocacy. Uh, someone else mentioned advocacy, um, at the state level to kind of, you know, to really sort of highlight how challenging, um, they have made these requirements. Um, they're really pretty unachievable without the funding. And that's the caveat. I think if we had funding, we could probably achieve these schools. But we, the funding is not there now. Um, I currently now serve on the Bay Area housing finance authority, which was created by an assembly bill to come up with ways to find affordable housing. The idea was to do a ballot measure in 2022. Um, polling came out saying that it wasn't going to pass. So 2024 is the earliest that we can even think about something. So that's 3 years away plus administrating. It's about halfway into the cycle. So what do we do in the meantime is the question. So that's my hope is that we can use our, you know, situation as an example of what the real challenges are and to kind of highlight that and to see if we can get either assistance or changes made that make this all more realistic. I, you know, I'll go to the schools issue. Um, I understand the challenges with the school district's proposal or possible proposal for a novel ruse, but I, you know, I will say I applaud the school district for trying to come up with a strategy where they're taking, you know, they're taking the issue into their own hands. Um, I think as a city, we have done a lot and we will continue to do a lot to try to work with the school districts to find ways to meet their needs. But, um, you know, we've tried and frankly, it's, it's difficult. Um, you know, if you ask me, if someone said a public comment was about, well, we should come up with a, you know, a strong strategy for how to, um, resource schools. Um, You know, that's been the $1000000 question for many, many years, and so far, nobody's come up with it. You know, I would say if you ask me, we could go back to the state fees, but, um, you know, the $4 that they're that they're given right now, um, could be, you know, could be up, I would say, but there's been a lot of lobbying efforts not to do that. So in the state, frankly, you know, we've talked about doing that to advocate to our state legislators to increase that fee and have been told that, um, you know, frankly, it's never gonna happen. So what do we do? Um, and and this is a real serious need. The last, um, item. There's many more issues we could talk about is transit and transportation. Another constraint. And I will say this, um, you know, this is something that I've been working on this year, uh, with my role at, at MTC. Um, I've discovered, uh, being new. So others have known this, but I just recently discovered that, um, like, frankly, in other situations, the South Bay, Santa Clara County is a donor, uh, county, uh, into the other 9 Bay Area counties in the, in, in our region. And so we're not getting our fair share of transit. And, um, you know, there's a lot of, uh, discussion about formulas and how to allocate the funding. Um, there's been, I think, traditionally looking at um, ridership, current ridership and putting more money into where the current writers are and not as much about where the growth can be. And, um, I think that's really disadvantaged disadvantageous for Santa Clara County because we are the largest county. We are the county that's growing, and yet we're not getting the dollars. And I think these issues are real issues that need to be highlighted because unless we get the resources we need, we're not going to be able to achieve these, you know, these requirements or goals that are being, um, placed on us. And so my hope, and I ask, is that we can begin to, um, you know, tell our story in that fashion. And um, I'm glad that we have our new firm that's helping us with advocacy. Um, I met with them and talked about issues and we talked a lot about these um, topics. And the hope is that we can do more of that advocacy at the state level to really then, you know, come up with a real plan that is, frankly, realistic, um, because I just don't see it right now. How we're gonna achieve our affordable housing, uh, requirements with what we have at this time. Um, I will, also, just a quick comment on our three. I do agree with the staff's assessment and I appreciate the public for coming forward today. Um, you know, when we talked about our three. My biggest concern was that that we hadn't really gone out to the public to explain to them what we were doing. Um, I think some of that is happening and that's why we're starting to hear from folks. Um, this is a, you know, big change. And so I think the entire city community needs to hear about it and know about it. Um, but to be honest, frank, um, you know, I, as in terms of how we move forward, I'm actually thinking, you know, this is a little off the top topic that I think somewhat relevant that, um, as we move forward, we probably should be looking at our general plan and with it coming up on 10 years, um, reviewing it to see, um, you know, what we can update. I'll say for 2 council number Hicks, I appreciate her, um, you know, mentioning some sites in the El Camino plan. I haven't read it in a long time, but I remember, you know, we had created these centers or, um, you know, centers gathering places, and they were the shopping centers along El Camino, and we did own those for mixed use. But so far, you know, nothing's come to fruition. I've heard that the one on Grant Road, there was talk about housing development there, but I don't know what happened. Um, so, you know, maybe we need to look at those plans again and just double down and see what we need to do to really incentivize, um, fruition of these, uh, these strategies that we created. And they'll just leave it there. Thank you.

[02:29:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Council member Lieber.

[02:29:53] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, mayor. I'm gonna try to keep this very short. Um, because I think that everything has been said. Um, I think that staff has done a very good job of, of navigating us and presenting us with the, the beginning of, um, the process that we have. Um, it's not an easy thing. Um, And I know that we talk. as council about sustainability and our response to the climate crisis, and that's really part and parcel of what this is all about, is a state. Are we going to build out into green belt areas? Or are we going to constrain ourselves to being near transportation in in compact communities? And there, there isn't a way to, um, uh, to not make it one of those options. It's one or the other. Um... So some things that I am very interested in. Um, in understanding more about the affordable housing, zoning overlays, what those would give us, and if we had an overlay that was the entire city, um, what that would give us. It's very clear to me. And I think that council member Hicks really elucidated this as well. that, uh, with when you factor in the loss of affordable housing, Um, we have not really been, um, in the bottom line producing affordable housing. Anything like what we need. Um, and it's, it's hard too, because, um, a lot of folks that we heard from tonight were saying, Let's listen to the current residents at Mountain View, and I agree with it very, very much. But we also have to factor in, uh, the needs of, uh, home care and child care, and elder care workers, and our future education workers, um, our our healthcare workers, um, because they are the individuals who would have been, um, in the affordable housing that's not there. Um, I'm hoping that we can look for more ways to accelerate ADUs. Santa Cruz County has a very good program of making it easier for homeowners to create ADUs, and helping them to find tenants who qualify for affordable housing. Um, I think that we need more housing for single adults. Um, it's not gonna work in the long term to keep people in portables or in 6 months long programs. I would like to see us, really, uh, amplify ELI as a category. I think that's very much needed, not that we need to ascribe specific target numbers to it. But I think that we do need to amplify that as the important category than it is. And I absolutely think that we have to, um, really push on the issue of, uh, housing for, um, individuals with, uh, developmental and intellectual disabilities, um, because there is such a paucity of of housing in that area. And, um, it's, it's something that has really gotten to a critical, um, point. Um, I hope, though, it is we go through this process, we can get some data from labor organizations, um, and from the community organizations, uh, about the housing needs that they see, uh, for our critical workforce, almost all of whom are lower income individuals. Uh, so those are just my comments for now. Thank you.

[02:33:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Okay. So I think everyone had an opportunity to provide, um, comments, to questions, uh, one and two. Um, and I think before I summarize, I'll try to give mine. Um, so for, for question one, I want to echo the thanks to staff and our consultants for all their, all their hard work. And, um, also appreciate staff sending the letter to to MTC. I know that this is kind of the preliminary phase and we haven't received a, uh, um, a response from MTC A bag, um, but appreciate staff being proactive and letting them know, um, kind of, uh, mountain view's perspective. Um, and um, want to echo that. I feel like the direction that staff is going in with both the, um, kind of the key elements for the housing element, as well as the initial policy topics. I think are the right direction to kind of tackle the, the large number that we have before us. Um, really grateful too, for the website that staffs put together, MVHousingElement.org. I think it's really great to have one repository with all of the videos and all of the links and all of the information and what I was impressed with was, you know, I think the city has made concerted efforts to be, um, multilingual as well as multi-ability. And I saw a lot on the website that was, um, in various languages and very, various, um, um, ability levels and so really want to, um, complement and thanks to often share with the public, if you're not aware of that website existing, that it is quite helpful. Um, you know, I remember looking at the housing element back as a planning commissioner. And I see EPC as kind of our task force, you know, that the EPC is appointed by the full council, um, to provide direction to us and provide their recommendations and I see them as the 1st kind of, um, providing, providing input. And I think many, uh, of, of our colleagues tonight have referenced some of the comments by the commissioners, which is exactly what we should be doing because they are, you know, uh, the ones reviewing it. So I think when it when there's discussion about a task force, I feel like we have that with EPC. Um, and then wanted to talk about, you know, initially when looking at the general plan I was in client, um, looking at the housing element, I thought a lot about the general plan and I thought, you know, do we need an amendment? Do we need to? But, but what I was most kind of impressed with was kind of the foresight of all of those who worked on the general plan before us. Because if you look at the general plan and where it's supposed to take us, which is where this latest update of the housing element is supposed to take us as well. We've been pretty forward thinking. We have precise plans throughout our city. We have change areas throughout our city, um, that I think will help us meet, um, the goals and the large numbers, um, that we've been given. And when we look at the city's current project list, at least for October 2021. I saw a 36 page document with 81 current projects. So staff is, is, is working really hard and I just want to commend them once again for not only kind of the, the 30,000 foot views, which the housing, or the general plan was created with in 2012, but also that we've been able to continually implement B forward thinking. And then we continue to have, you know, almost a 100 projects in the pipeline, um, to help address our housing needs. So, um, I do think that there are other, there are other kind of puzzle pieces. Um, and they were mentioned tonight, the, the, our, our 3 update as well as the, the CFD brought up by the school district. And so I think those are important puzzle pieces, but I think it's, you know, how do those, um, kind of intersect with the housing element, um, versus kind of wrapping them in? And so I want that to be an ongoing conversation of all of these, um, and having robust community outreach about each of these various topics because they are interrelated. But I don't think one supersedes the other. I think it's going to have to be kind of a holistic kind of suite of projects and programs that the city is going to do to address, you know, lack of better word, our housing woes. And then the only thing that really stood out to me in terms of, um, Some items is the, I really liked the data efficiency. I really appreciate that. Um, You know, we're moving in this direction. I think it promotes a lot of transparency and greater understanding for both, you know, council members, but but also the public and and do appreciate the comments about legislative advocacy. I know that, um, some other colleagues mention this as well, but I think if we've learned anything during this pandemic, it's that we can't do anything alone and that it needs to be regional collaboration. And so what does that mean? Does it mean kind of more county collaboration, state collaboration. Um, we're seeing many more bills coming from Sacramento. So, um, really want to highlight that point as well. So those are my comments. Um, in terms of summary, I'm going to turn to our assistant community development director, uh, or assistant, uh, city manager and our community development director, Mr. Vostova, to see if she can, um, summarize things. Or would you like me to take a stab first?

[02:40:04] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Um, I can start if that's okay. I've been taking some notes. Um, um, in general, I think, uh, council was supportive of the staff approach to Rina, um, constraints analysis as well as the policies. What we did here, um, were that, um, the city should look at constraints in a more robust manner, and do some robust analysis, would be also heard is that we should do a lot more community outreach, um, to folks who are not traditionally brought into the process. And, um, uh, we have received quite a bit of information and be happy to get more. Um, if there are specific groups you'd like us to target. Um, uh, looking um, at, uh, what the, uh, uh, HRC is doing um, to see if the story, some of the stories could come into the housing element. Um, it's interesting because we were looking, we were actually going to be doing exactly that. So that's a, that's a great idea to, to, um, create, uh, sort of personalize people's experiences so they understand what, what the housing album can do for them. Um, we also heard, um, on, um, uh, continuing with advocacy for funding, um, so that the, the city continues to get support from the state, as well as the county. Um, there was general, there was agreement to not include our 3 areas, but also to make sure that, um, residents and and the public who are interested in the R3 process get get information on that. Um, I would like to say that we, there's a, there's a very good reason why we separated those because the housing element is on a different track and the R3 um, is really going to be slowed down because we want to reach out to community before we bring it back. Um, additionally, um, there were a lot of policies regarding, um, looking at how to increase housing for affordable categories, um, as well as single adults, um, extremely low income or ELI, uh, folks who are, um, developmentally challenged or disabled, um, let's see. Um, in terms of um, housing element sites, I think council member Hicks provided quite a comprehensive list of low density, um, shopping malls, looking at West Terabella, around El Commune Hospital, Moffat precise plan, looking to increase heights in some areas where necessary. And then city lots downtown. Uh, in terms of policy. So again, there was general agreement. Um, I think, um, some of the ones that I'd like to highlight are, um, looking at housing local workers and families, looking at, um, had to streamline and provide incentives for ADUs, including loans, looking at tenant opportunities to purchase, um, community land trusts or CLTs, um, mixed income co-housing. Um, those were sort of the general summary, uh, mayor.

[02:43:11] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, and we did hear, you know, wanting to, um, I did hear the sustainability. You know, I know that that's a bullet, but just maybe like an asterisk next to the sustainability. I heard quite a few folks mention that as well as, um, you know, transportation, particularly public transportation. How might that help us meet those sustainability goals? But I think that that is the summary that I heard. Um, Unless any member of council would like to include something. Council member, Matt, check.

[02:43:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I just wanted to do a check-in on, um, really what the summary should include. You know, in the past, um, when we've talked about this at our, um, council team building exercises. Um, we said that at study sessions, we would summarize the council majority view. Um, and I feel like this was a lot more than that. Um, it was, um, a lot of comments that maybe one council member or 2 council members made. So I think we need to either, um, like circle back to see if all the council members or the majority agree with all those comments. Um, because I feel like it was much more than what I thought we were traditionally doing when we summarized.

[02:44:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sure, well, let's, we'll circle, go back. Let me hear from council member Lieber.

[02:44:48] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, mayor. Um, I meant to mention this before, and I, I just wanted to voice out of caution about identifying specific parcels, um, that, you know, might be something that, uh, could, there could be incentives to redevelop, um, because I, I think, especially, um, when we're talking about the small doctors and dentists and veterinarian offices and some of the, uh, and some of our, um, Uh, service businesses in the community that have been there for many years and do represent diversity in terms of ethnicity. Um, I think that a note of caution is really important to, um, make sure that we don't start expectations out and create problems for people.

[02:45:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Council member Leaper. That reminded me, yes, I wanted to talk about, we have, um, our small business strategy that we've been working on. And so how do we have the small business strategy? Um, also play into um, the housing element. Okay, I'm seeing lots of different hands getting raised. So I think that I'd like to try to circle back and, and, and, and do what Councilman Matachek mentioned, which is what we heard Council Majority on. So I appreciate Mr. Vastava giving us the summary of what she heard. Um, And then I can help distill what I heard. Um, unless that these are questions or these are clarifications. Is that what council members have? Council member heads.

[02:46:27] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, it is.

[02:46:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You have a clarification or what it, what is your plan?

[02:46:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, clarification.

[02:46:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay.

[02:46:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So when I listed the number of possible sites that could be looked at, I'm certainly not saying to develop all of those sites or reason all those sites, but one of the things in the, the staff report was the possibility of coming back with multiple options. So, I kind of wanted to cast as wide a net as possible, so that we could, in future sessions, see a lot of options, just fleshed out a little bit, so that we would have choices. Um, and, uh, along with saying that, I want to say that I'm mindful of what council member Abbe Koga said that when you up zone, you often make a, make the area more expensive. So I would also like to know how to get around that liability.

[02:47:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Counselor shelter.

[02:47:28] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I was just gonna say that, um, I think, uh, Council member Matachek had a good point. Um, in many instances, uh, this wouldn't be a summary. But what we're doing tonight is the beginning of a very important project, and we're sort of trying to get more of the summation of what are the council's thoughts and feelings based on what we've heard and studied. So, I think in this instance, the laundry list that you've come up with is actually quite good.

[02:48:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Council member, Shel Walter. So, you know, I think that it's, uh, yes, it's, Mr. Vestra, I'll get right to you. So I think part of it is the study session is, you know, just that. It's a study session. And so I appreciate every everyone putting forward all their ideas. And I think when Mishra Vasanva and I are coming up with our summary, it's what we heard. This is the summary of what we heard. And so I think before we go forward, you know, Mr. Fosovic can clarify, I think, what they need. And I think what they need was the answers to questions one and two. Um, and we can see if there's anything that rose to the top in terms of if we heard four, which is the majority or more, mention anything in particular. So just wanted to provide that clarity point. Um, but you know, this is not a final council action. And I think, um, it's more of the exploratory phase. But Mishra Vastovva, are the, it can you had your hand raised?

[02:49:04] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, if I had to summarize the majority, I would say that, um, question one, um, there was agreement with the staff approach, um, on the housing element sites and constraints analysis, um, and question number two, there was support of the policies. Um, the other overarching issue that was brought up by the majority of council members was to do additional outreach and reach out to communities, um, who are not traditionally represented. Um, and the others, I think, um, we didn't get four, but we think they're all good ideas to follow up on.

[02:49:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I might, I might even kind of bring that a little bit, um, narrower, Mr. Vasava, and just say, a majority spoke about outreach. I would say outreach. And I don't want to, I don't want to narrow it too much, but it sounded like more robust outreach overall. That's what I heard. City manager McCarthy.

[02:50:01] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. If I may, uh, the 3 main, um, areas that I heard council majority feedback on, um, besides what's already been summarized, which was supportive of staff's approach to question one, supportive of the policies, but the 3 areas were to do more robust community outreach that, um, to folks that weren't traditionally part of the process, uh, to groups who might not be traditionally part of the process. The 2nd one was to continue or try to advocate more um, funding, um, whatever efforts that we might be able to do at the state level. And the 3rd area was to not include the R3 as part of this process. So those were the overarching, uh, areas that I heard from majority of council besides, uh, just some of the general feedback.

[02:50:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So I, I think for the summary for purposes of the, of the clerk. So, for question one, agreement with staff approach, question two, support of the policies, and council majority, which is 4 or more, on community outreach, to continue to advocate for more funding from the state, and to not include our three. Our council members comfortable with that summary. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:51:30] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you very, a quick question. So not include R3 means that we're not for the purposes of the housing element, not identifying. We're inclusion in the inventory that are zoned R 3. Is that right?

[02:51:44] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Yes.

[02:51:45] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, great. Thank you.

[02:51:46] Principal Planner Eric Anderson: Well, let me let me just clarify. sorry to interrupt. We may identify our 3 sites in the inventory, but we would not assume any increased densities as a result of the proposed R3 update.

[02:52:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks, Mr. Anderson. Great. All right. Well, we are well past our 630 regular meeting start time. If colleagues are comfortable with this summary, um, then I'd like to move forward. Can I see some nodding heads? Okay. All right. All right. So, um, I'd like to, if people are okay, perhaps move on and we can, um, take a break maybe at another point, just given the lateness of the, of our start. So, um, I believe I need to call to order our special session. Is that right? City attorney Chopra?

[02:52:49] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah,

[02:52:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: okay. So, um, We'll be starting our special session at 754. Welcome to the city council special meeting of November 16th, 2021. I'm going to read the usual announcement as required. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with the city of Mountain View City Council resolution number 18613 in accordance with Assembly Bill 361. All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference with no physical meeting location. Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so at mountain view.legistar.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 comments during the public comment period by visiting mountain view.gov slash meeting. To enter the Zoom meeting or by phone by dialing 669-9009128 and entering webinar ID 854-31230162. Any emails received by 430 p.m. today were received directly by the city council. If you would please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Great, we'll move on to item two, which is our roll call. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[02:54:28] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Coca. Council member Hicks,

[02:54:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: here.

[02:54:32] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Labor. Council number Mattachek.

[02:54:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here,

[02:54:37] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member, Shelter.

[02:54:39] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.

[02:54:40] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Spice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:54:42] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[02:54:43] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: And mayor, can I?

[02:54:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here.

[02:54:44] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Thank you.

[02:54:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. So we'll move on to item three, which is our presentation. We'll now take public comment for the presentation item. Would any member of the public on the line, like to provide comment on the presentation item listed on the agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star 9 on your phone, and we'll display a 2 minute timer on the screen. Okay, I am not seeing any hands, so I'll close public comment and bring it back to our city manager for item 3.one, which is our COVID-19 update by our city manager, Kimber McCarthy.

[02:55:23] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Great. Thank you, mayor. Good evening and hello council members and members of the public. So I am back again. I don't think that any of us thought after we wrap this up in June that I would necessarily be back with the update. My last update to you all was on June 22nd. And at that time, we did not really expect the Delta variant to take effect as bad, terribly as it has. So, we thought that it would be helpful to provide counsel in the public with an update on what's happening now and what is available to people in the community and resources. So I'm gonna go ahead and start my presentation. Okay. So, the 1st thing that I'm gonna show is, if you'll remember, this was typical of what we always talked about before in our 1st slide. And so the numbers you see now are as of yesterday, countywide, and

[02:56:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: we don't we don't see your slide yet.

[02:56:22] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Oh, you don't see them?

[02:56:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: No, sorry. It might be a delay. I'm not sure.

[02:56:27] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Let me see here. Hold on. Actually, you know what? It is operator error. Sorry about that. All right. Can you see it now?

[02:56:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, it's kind of, it's not full screen, though.

[02:56:45] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Oh, it's not. Okay. Well, there we go. There we go.

[02:56:49] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: But now?

[02:56:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, now it is.

[02:56:50] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Okay. Okay, great. Yeah, that was it. That was operator error. Okay, here we go. So, again, this is the dashboard that we always used to talk about in the past. So, you see the top, those are the COVID numbers countywide as of yesterday, and the bottom dashboard are the numbers as of November 12th. So what I wanted to point out here, as I mentioned, the last update was on June 22nd. So at that time, the cases countywide, we're right around 120,000. So now they're around 148, 149,000. At that time, there was around 81% of folks countywide vaccinated, now right around 86%. In Mountain View, we had around 3,100 cases compared to now, there's about 3,800. So there really has been less of an increase in our county compared to a lot of other places. We've certainly had an increase, but it has slowed down considerably, presumably, what we all think is due to the vaccine. So, last week, the governor did announce that he was continuing to extend the executive order that he issued almost two years ago in March of 2020, um, to extend the state of emergency. So, essentially, what this means is that the governor said that this is really about the ability to have access to goods and services and continue funding, that we would be receiving, but it also is in response to some counties inland that are actually experiencing higher case rates, where they are increasing at a much quicker and faster rate than we are here in the Bay Area. So you all may have heard that the criteria for lifting the indoor mask requirement is related to a few different considerations. So as a region, the Bay Area Health Officers announced in October last month, the 3 metrics are going to be used to determine if the county is going to be able to relax these indoor mass requirements. The 1st one is that COVID transmission needs to be at a moderate or the yellow transmission level. And this is the level that the CDC has required. So right now, we are in the orange level. So we are below the yellow level. So we haven't quite hit that yet. The 2nd requirement is that the vaccination rate needs to be at least 80% for all residents in the county regardless of vaccination, eligibility. Or 8 weeks after the FDA has approved the 5 to 11 year olds for vaccinations. And then the 3rd metric is that hospitalizations need to be low and stable. So what all this really means is that it is really looking like it's probably not going to be until late quarter one, maybe early quarter two, to when we are looking at a potential, um, lifting of this masking requirement. So, again, maybe March, maybe April, but if you look at how all three of these requirements play out, and if you look at this 8 weeks after, uh, children can be vaccinated, we're really, we're really kind of going into that uh, spring time frame. In terms of what's happening with holiday travel, There has been a concern that as we go into this Thanksgiving and holiday period in December, that there will be numbers of cases climbing again. So as I mentioned, there were areas inland that have been hit harder, particularly in the Central Valley and Greater Sacramento region. And also in those southern California areas like Orange County and Riverside. Their hospitalizations have increased pretty significantly just in the last couple weeks by over 20%. Um, but here in the Bay Area. We are actually at our lowest point in 3 months. So you see there's quite a bit of disparity between what's happening here and what's happening in other places and we really are fortunate in that we have a very high vaccination rate. compared to many other, most other counties. And then also statewide, the vaccination rate is 63%. Whereas I mentioned earlier, we're at almost 86%. But all of this is driving what the public health officials decisions are. So I would just say that they are not inclined to loosen any further mitigations. And again, we probably aren't going to be looking at until, you know, later in 2022 in the spring, uh, for the masking requirement to be lifted. As far as booster shots go, boosters are now encouraged for everyone. over the age of 18. So before, uh, the, they were encouraging people that had uh, various health concerns or were over a certain age to get a booster shot. But now the public health officer has encouraged everyone over the age of 18 to get their booster shot. So you can still schedule that appointment at SCCFreeVax.org. And I just checked it earlier this evening and there are actually quite a few slots available even at our Mountain View community center. Um, actually, the, the, um, dates were right before the Thanksgiving time period that we're open. So I believe it was starting the 19th. And then there were some open on the uh, 24th and a few days thereafter. Um, so as I mentioned, the vaccine is available now for children, ages 5 to 11, and that is also a 2 dose regimen, just like the adults take. However, it is 13rd of the dosage for adults. So we also have appointments available for children at our community center. And the way that the appointments work is, you generally have to check, you know, every few days, every week, they release various appointments at a time. So you're not gonna be able, whether it's at our community center or elsewhere, to go on and see a whole month's worth of appointments, but you will generally be able to see appointments for the following week. Uh, so as I mentioned at our community center, the vaccinations generally run from Tuesday to Friday, um, also on Saturday, uh, the appointments are required, and they are still free. If you have insurance, you can put in your insurance, but otherwise they are free for anyone. And I also wanted to just give an update about how our city operations have been just during this last stage of COVID, and we have open city hall now since July, and we have all of our other facilities that have been open to the public, and we are operating at our current levels of staffing since July. We do have around 41% of our staff, that is telecommuting. At least one day a week. So the majority of staff that work from home also work in the office. So, uh, we have a really robust uh, plan in place to allow folks to maximize telecomdian as much as possible, but also come into the office a couple days a week as needed. And we are looking at around the April time frame to fully reopen. So after we come out of this uh, time period, after the masking uh, mandate is lifted, that, that's really the time frame that we are hoping for and looking at to have everyone back while still being able to keep our telecommittee in policy in place because that actually has, has worked out for a great majority of our staff. So I do also want to give an update about some recent community events that have been very successful and really point out the great work that our city staff have done to continue to pivot and offer these great events even during the pandemic. So all these pictures you see here are from our monster bash from October 31st on Halloween. And I don't think that any of our staff expected this event to be as well attended as it was. So we had around 3 to 4000 people, attend this outdoor event at Ringsdorf Park. And one of the really cool things about it this year was we had a Dia de los Puertos, um, area where people could come learn and talk to our staff in our multi, uh, cultural engagement program team was there, educating the community and educating children about that holiday. So we were really excited that we were able to combine that with our monster bash. Um, I'm also really happy to announce that we had a very recent graduation of our Spanish language Civic Leadership Academy. So this was a hybrid academy where some of the days were virtual. Other days were in person. And we are happy that we graduated 18 participants this year. And also, I'm excited to announce that we're expanding this program. And we're gonna have a Chinese language civic leadership academy that will be launching next spring in 2022. So we're really the looking forward to to having that as well. We are also this week in our United Against Hate Week. So in the last council meeting last week, council passed a resolution, um, about we are standing united against hate, and we have a number of efforts at our teen center and our library that are supporting this effort. So I would encourage folks to visit our website to see all of those events that they may be able to participate in. Uh, we also have a grab and go Thanksgiving lunch that will be underway. So our community services agency, senior nutrition program will be serving a grab and go lunch this Friday, November 19th, from 1130 to 1215. So we expect that we will be giving lunch to about 250 people. And our senior center staff are coordinating with CSA for this very popular event, and they've also been working with a local Girl Scout troop. to include a handmade turkey drawing in each bag from the Girl Scouts. And then the last thing that I want to mention before I close is that we are very excited that we are going to be having our community tree lighting back in person outside, um, on December the 6th. So it will be from 530 to around 8 PM at our Civic Center Plaza. And of course, this is free, and we're gonna have live music, refreshments, and of course, everyone's favorite, Santa Claus will also be in attendance. So, that concludes my presentation and I am open for any comments.

[03:08:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much, city manager McCarthy. Does any member of the council have any questions or any comments? Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[03:08:32] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor, and thank you, city manager, for the presentation. A lot of, uh, very good news and, great and successful events. Um, we used to receive information about, uh, the rent relief program, uh, as sort of a proxy for our folks faring in terms of the housing impacts of the pandemic. And I'm wondering if you happen to have any information about, um, the success of the direct financial assistance program, and also any information, uh, about, uh, number of notices to vacate and sort of the post, uh, eviction moratorium ex- expiration world.

[03:09:17] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So my apologies, I do not have that data tonight, but what I can do is talk to staff and provide that to council next month in another, in another update, if that would be helpful.

[03:09:30] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, thank you.

[03:09:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Any other council members have questions or comments? All right, well, I just want to take, thank city manager, McCarthy, and um, for giving this update. I think in talking with her, we we realize we haven't done one in a really long time and the city's doing a lot and it would be really great to have have an update. So I think we'll just make sure that we add this onto the December. until a December meeting as well, um, so we can address what the vice mayor mentioned, but also maybe talk about any other information and items that the city is working on. Um, I think it's, you know, as a city manager mentioned, we didn't think that we would need to continue these. But as our community center is, once again, a vaccinations site. Um, I think it's really critical and really important, um, to highlight everything that we're doing as well as, um, let people know, um, and thank and thank staff. Um, I did just want to highlight 2 more things, which is, um, the, uh, the, Teens, our, our youth advisory commission had their teen wellness retreat on, um, Saturday. It was a great success. Um, the limit because of the pandemic was 100 students and they had that many people RSVP. So I just want to give kudos and thanks to staff from the youth perspective. It was great to hear, um, so many laughs and and, uh, see smiling eyes, um, despite being in masks. Um, and then also, um, wanted to thank our, um, uh, our staff too, who I know, um, did a really wonderful job, um, tending and caring to our veterans memorial. We had our veterans day memorial on Thursday and got many compliments on the hard work that stuff put together for making that in-person event happen. And then I know this week our library is putting forward many different events, um, for the United against hate as well as our recreation division. So I just want to thank them very much for everything that they're doing, um, and making us feel like such a community, even though we still. It's still not quite normal yet. Great. Thank you. Thanks, the new manager, McCarthy. So we'll move on to item 4, which is our consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. The reading of the full text of the resolutions and ordinances will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. As a reminder, the purpose of the consent calendar is for the council to efficiently and quickly consider a high volume of routine or administrative business items with one motion. Although council members may remove items. It is generally not intended for the council to have a lengthy substantive discussion on consent calendar items. Would any member of the council like to pull an item. Council member Abbe Koga.

[03:12:34] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, mayor. I don't need to pull it. I just have a question on item 4.4.

[03:12:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um, city attorney Chopra, should we take the question now then if it's not being pulled or?

[03:12:52] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, that would be fine.

[03:12:56] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, yeah, so I, I was the one who asked a written question about, um, our, sorry, but regarding our council calendar, um, in the past, we've tried to avoid school, um, closure, we break school breaks, um, to allow for, um, everyone to be able to participate, um, when, um, school is out. Uh, families tend to go away and and so, um, if they want to come and do public comment or whatnot, they they aren't able to. And so we've tried to avoid the school holidays and breaks. Um, and there are 2 um, dates in this coming year that fall on during spring break and I think it's winter break. And, um, I, I understand that we're in a different situation, and I guess I just wanted to confirm that even if we are to come back in person, Um, will there be an hybrid option, will there be an option to be able to, um, to zoom, zoom in to our meetings, um, and does that include, and, you know, I'll just say I still have a daughter, and, and so, does that include even our, um, you know, city staff and council?

[03:14:12] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Uh, Mayor, may I answer that?

[03:14:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay,

[03:14:14] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: thank you, council member Abbe Koga. So, yes, we are planning on having hybrid meetings, and I know that we'll probably see how everything goes as we get back in person and as we adjust, um, but that would be the ability that you would have the ability to participate remotely. Um, and we are planning on doing hybrid meetings via Zoom.

[03:14:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you.

[03:14:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Councilman Mattachi.

[03:14:47] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. I also had a question then on item, on the council calendar. Um, and If a council member is participating via Zoom, um, does that mean they have to be in a location where the public can be with them?

[03:15:11] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: I can take that. I believe the rules will be relaxed and remain relaxed as they are now. I think if the allowance for hybrid meetings continues, uh, that the that requirement is from the pre-COVID era, and I don't think that would apply.

[03:15:30] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Because that was my concern about one of the dates, um, because it conflicts with the NLC meeting. And I find it very challenging to participate from, say, a hotel. Um, where you have to arrange for a conference room, um, so that the public can participate. Um, I've had um, very unsuccessful attempts at that. I will say. Um, okay. And then the other one, um, I just want to register a no vote on the, 1st part of item 4.3. There's several sections to that. So while I support most of the appointments, I don't support all of them. So I'm going to register a no vote on item one of 4.3.

[03:16:22] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So point of clarification, city attorney Chopra, um, art is that possible? Is it to take portions of a?

[03:16:34] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yes, for item 4.3 sub item one is a resolution, and the, the no vote for Council member Madachek can apply just to item 4.3 sub one, and then...

[03:16:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I'm saying.

[03:16:49] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, the rest 2 through 5 is, is, can still be a yes.

[03:16:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. I will read it as such. Thank you very much. All right. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on the consent calendar? If so, please click the raise, hand button in Zoom, or press star N on your phone. Okay, I am not seeing any hands raised, so I'll bring the item back for council action, and note that the motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the resolutions attached to items 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. Council member show alter.

[03:17:32] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, 1st I'd just like to make a comment on, on the fiscal budget one, 4.2. I'm really pleased to see that there's going to be a new human resources analyst that we're continuing that. I know that having, that recruiting is a big deal. We have quite a number of vacancies, so that's great to see. And also, the reclassification of the chief sustainability and resiliency officer position. That's great decease. I wanted to make that comment first. And then I would like to move the consent calendar. Um, and item 4.1, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, directing all legislative bodies of the city of Mountain View, subject to the Brown Act, to continue to meet remotely in accordance with AB 361 and making findings pursuant to AB 361. And then 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, amending the salary plan for regular employees for fiscal year, 2021, 22, and 4.3. Adopter resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, appointing Sharon Sue to the Library Board of Trustees, reappointing Joyce Law. appointing Chris Clark and Alex Nunez, and appointing Jose Gutierrez as an alternate. Should a vacancy occur between January 1st, 2022, to December 31st, 2022, to the Environmental Planning Commission, and reappointing Steve Filios, and appointing Jonathan Davis to the Parks and Rec Commission?

[03:19:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Council member Hicks.

[03:19:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I second that.

[03:19:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, and a 2nd by council member Hicks. So we have a motion by council member, Show Walter, 2nded by council member Hicks. And that will include a no on sub-item one from council member Mattachap. We'll do a real call, though.

[03:19:39] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council of Roche Walter?

[03:19:41] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes,

[03:19:41] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Hicks.

[03:19:43] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:19:44] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Coca.

[03:19:45] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I

[03:19:46] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Leper.

[03:19:47] Councilmember Sally Lieber: I,

[03:19:48] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Matachek?

[03:19:50] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[03:19:51] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[03:19:53] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[03:19:54] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mayor May?

[03:19:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:19:56] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Motion carry?

[03:19:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. We'll move on to item five, which is oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in zoo, or press star 9 on your phone, and we will display a 3 minute timer. All right. Okay, President Connolly, go ahead.

[03:20:40] Devin Connolly: Thank you, Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez and honorable council members. Um, I wanted to take a moment to share with you 2 resolutions that the Mountain View Wisman school district passed on November 4th. Um, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Devin Connolly. I'm the board president of the Mountain View Westman school district. The 1st is a resolution in support of establishing a county health clinic in Northern portion of Santa Clara County. Supervisor Samidian, who serves District 5, our area, brought a referral to the county board of supervisors. Um, earlier this fall, asking the county to explore opening a health clinic here. That helped clinic would largely serve people who receive some sort of health insurance support like Medi-Cal, for example, and the majority of those patients often end up being children. So the Mountain View Wisman school district, voted in support of a resolution to encourage the county to pursue such a health clinic in our area because we believe it would serve many of the children in our district, who might not otherwise have consistent access to a regular pediatrician visit or other healthcare services. Um, the 2nd resolution that I wanted to share with you, is a resolution declaring our school district to be a defender for reproductive healthcare access and freedom. Um, this is in light of some of the actions we've seen across our country where, you know, we have great reproductive support and healthcare access here in California, but many people in our country do not right now. Many people who are able to give birth. Have no access to reproductive healthcare. And so we wanted to make sure we took a stance. If we want Congress and other groups to take a stance on reproductive rights, it makes sense that in a place that is so amenable to it. We should also be able to have that discussion and take a stance on it. Um, so I wanted to just flag those 2 resolutions for you all. I will be sending them in a letter to council members so that, um, you can review them and take whatever actions you see fit if you find them interesting. And thank you for your time tonight. I really appreciate all of your work.

[03:23:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other hands, I will bring a close public comet and bring this back to council for item 6, our public hearing. Item 6. Our public hearing on our downtown business improvement areas, an allocation of 2022 business improvement area revenues. Business improvement area assessments are subject to majority protest by the affected businesses. Written protests against the proposed assessments received either by mail or at the city hall utility payments mail slot. Prior to the close of this public hearing will be counted. At the end of this hearing, we will take a short recess to enable staff to collect written protests received during the hearing and complete a final count. Economic vitality manager, John Lang will present the report. I think, are we waiting for John to come over? Let see. I think he is moving over as we speak.

[03:24:12] John Lang: Hi. Good evening, mayor and city council. Tonight we are holding the 2nd public hearing in the annual renewal process for the downtown business improvement areas. The 1st meeting on October 12th, 2021 was to review and preliminarily approve the BIAs. There are 2 improvement areas. BIA number one includes all businesses along Castro Street and the side streets. BIA number 2 includes businesses in the 100 to 300 blocks of Castro Street. The BIA assessments are used for specific programming and services to support the downtown business community. Any changes to the areas, including the fee structure and boundaries, do require a majority vote by the downtown businesses. In the annual report prepared by the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, the 2022 Projective Revenues from both areas are approximately $3,400. Tonight, there are 3 recommendations for city council consideration. Adopt resolutions to levy an assessment on BIA number one and number 2 and authorize the city manager to allocate the 2022 revenues from BIA's number one and number 2 to the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. This concludes staff's presentation.

[03:25:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Does any member of the council have any questions? Okay, not seeing any. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in zoom or press star nun on your phone. All right, I am not seeing any. So I will now close the public hearing, and I'm going to recess the meeting for 10 minutes while staff collects any written protests received during this hearing. So let's say it's 828. So let's just say 840. We'll see everyone at 840. Great, thank you.

[03:38:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, welcome back, everyone. Um, city clerk laser, has the city received any valid written protest on the business improvement areas one or 2 assessments?

[03:38:45] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Thank you, mayor. No, we have not.

[03:38:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. I will now bring the item back for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolutions attached to the report. Vice V Ramirez.

[03:39:06] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'll move the staff recommendation, including adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View living, the annual benefit assessments for fiscal year 2021 to 22 for down 10 Mountain View business improvement area number one and adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View living, the annual benefit assessments for fiscal year 2021 to 22 for downtown uh Mountain View business improvement area number two.

[03:39:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. We have a motion by the vice mayor, Council mayor Matachek.

[03:39:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Second the motion.

[03:39:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, and a 2nd by Counselor Metachek. Just do a roll call, but.

[03:39:46] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[03:39:48] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah.

[03:39:49] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Mattachek?

[03:39:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[03:39:52] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Koga?

[03:39:54] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I

[03:39:54] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member Hicks.

[03:39:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:39:56] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Lieber.

[03:39:58] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Hi.

[03:39:58] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council of Russia Wilker?

[03:40:00] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[03:40:00] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: I'm Mayor Knight.

[03:40:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes,

[03:40:03] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: motion carry.

[03:40:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. All right, so that concludes this item. We can move on to items 6.2. Our row house development at 294 to 296 Tyrella app. Would any members of council like to make any disclosures? Councilman Romatachek.

[03:40:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I met with the applicant a long time ago. And I have been by the site on my own.

[03:40:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[03:40:42] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Uh, I would also like to disclose that I had a conversation with the African.

[03:40:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. Thank you. All right, I'm not seeing any other hands. So we have senior planner, Clarissa Burke, who will present the report, and then we will have a presentation from the applicant, Forrest Lynn Barger. Current planning manager, zoning administrator, Stephanie Williams, public works director, Don Cameron, and senior civil engineer Renee Gunn are available for questions. We'll turn it over to you, Miss Burke.

[03:41:20] Senior Planner Clarissa Burke: Thank you and good evening, Mayor May and council members. Today's presentation will introduce the Rojas project on Tyrella Avenue and request council action on the proposed project and subdivision. The project is located at 294 to 296 Tyrell Avenue at the intersection of Middlefield and Tyrella, in the multiple family zoning district. It is surrounded by multi and single family uses. The project proposes 11 ownership units. The 3 row house buildings are separated by a common driveway and common open space, 5 of the units front middle field road, and the rest open to an internal for sale. The project is compliant with the rowhouse guidelines. The elevations merge traditional design elements compatible with the neighborhood with the more modern design elements, such as clean lines, architectural detailing and a modern color palette. Many details of the project are discussed in the stock report. To summarize some of the key information, the project proposes to remove a single heritage tree in poor health. Due to the project details explained in the staff report, the applicant is not required to provide tenant relocation benefits to a single tenant on the site. And the project is subject to BMR phase one requirements and will provide in-loof fees. The vesting tentative map to create 11 units and 2 common lots is also proposed today. In June 2021, applicant posted a virtual neighborhood meeting, the DRC and the zoning administrator provided recommendations of conditional approval in September and October of this year. The council considered these recommendations to conditionally approve the project and subdivision, subject to the findings and conditions in the staff report. This concludes staff's presentation, the applicant is available and will provide a brief presentation. Thank you.

[03:43:31] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So perhaps we can turn it over to the applicant for their brief presentation, and then we can do council questions.

[03:43:42] Forrest Linebarger: Well, I wanted to, uh, 1st of all, thanks staff, uh, for their hard work on this project. It has been a long time coming. It's been about 7 years. Uh, you know, so

[03:43:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Do you mind introducing yourself, please?

[03:43:56] Forrest Linebarger: Yes, I'm the applicant. Uh, well, I'm for the applicant, Forrest Linberger, uh, and, uh, uh, I am, uh, also, uh, we are a downtown business uh, on Castro Street. And a small builder, so it was very interesting to listen to the uh, uh, the housing element item that you had uh, item 3.one, although very long. Um, So it's been a long time coming. I want to thank all of you, thank city council, um, the mayor, the vice mayor, and all the staff for their hard work on the project. Unfortunately, it's a little bit bittersweet for us because currently this project, as it's conditioned, is not financially feasible due to the high fees that the city is imposing upon the project and the conditions of approval. The uh, fees for this project uh, have gone up uh, almost 3 quarters of a $1000000 since when we started the project, including the land use, the park dedication fees and increased uh, BMR fees and the number of other fees. Currently, they represent approximately 20% of the project costs. So, city imposed fees and offsite improvements are 20% of the total cost of the project estimated this time and actually makes the project unfeasible, unfortunately. Um, And I think this is interesting because it fits into what you guys were talking about earlier today with the housing element. Um, I think, uh, This project is on a vacant lot. We have the high, so we have the highest level of park dedication fees, and I think the, I think the city council knows the park dedication fees are the highest in the county, and I believe the highest in the state. And, uh, and then it goes on from there, all the other fees, uh, and the very, very, very high uh, offsite improvement costs required by the city. Um, But I think that when you guys are thinking about how to increase housing, you probably want to figure out ways to incentivize small builders, I'm a local builder, I'm a local businessman, right, on Castro Street. And figure out ways to incentivize smaller projects. I did notice the map of the proposed areas of the project. Really, that's going to be fitting in with very large institutional developers, which I know make up the vast majority of the projects that are built, and I wonder if it is best for our city to be built to have as landlords, a handful of large industrial, sorry, institutional developers, to make up the majority of our housing. It would be really nice to see, uh, see you guys think about how to make projects feasible for smaller builders such as such as ours, uh, and how the costs be in control and also for projects that uh, that we would be doing, this project that we're talking about. Essentially a vacant lot. We have a single family house on it. On the 2 lots together, who would really fit in well. It's almost all what you guys are calling net new housing. It would be really nice for a project like this to work. And unfortunately, as it stands right now, it doesn't work. Although it did when I started the process. Uh, the fees have come maybe not double, but very close to doubling since uh, since we uh, since we uh, began this process. So, Like I said, it's very bittersweet. I was hoping to uh, be ready to launch and build this project at this point in time, but uh, it will go to towards your rena goals. Um, because all you have to do is approve it at right now and it goes towards arena goals. But it's not financially viable at this point in time. Thank you so much.

[03:47:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So a point of clarification, not, is, is, is counsel reviewing this project tonight or is this item getting pulled? If it's not financially feasible, I am I am confused at why this is coming forward.

[03:48:05] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Uh, council member, um, uh, Mayor Kamei, this is our teacher Vastova, um, um, the city is processing this in compliance with permit streamlining law. The applicant has not told us that he wants to pull the permit. And and so we're moving forward. We're conditionally recommending approval and applying all of the laws and fees that are consistent with all development in the city.

[03:48:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I guess the question is for the applicant, you're asking staff or counsel to move forward with their ear project tonight, even though you've just told us that it's not financially feasible. I feel confused.

[03:48:48] Forrest Linebarger: Well, I, uh, I, I did try to, uh, I have been trying to get the city to, uh, take a look at some of their, uh, some of their policies for, uh, to to reduce the, uh, impact of fees. One of the things that the way the city interprets their fees, although it's not in the zoning code, is on section 4.one, sorry, 41.4 of the municipal code, the park and land dedication fee. They are interpreting that as the fees are due before construction. I asked them to postpone those fees till after there's inhabitants, after the building is the housing is sold so that one could use the funds from the sale to pay those fees. But currently, uh, the way staff is interpreting that code that, uh, they do not feel they can do that. And uh, they also are interpreting another, that's uh, uh, for almost $500,000 in cost that would be uh, put at the beginning of the project instead of the end of the project. So I did ask that those fees be, um, brought to the end of the project and not paid before, and that is, it's not actually written in the code either way. Uh, the section 41.4. And I did also ask that, uh, the city uh, look at their, the way that they're interpreting, um, the undergrounding of electrical, which is another $250,000 in costs, it's for offsite improvements, where they're asking me to not only do the lands that abut my abut the project, but asking me to cross one of the busiest streets in Mountain View, which is uh, middle field, uh, 4 lanes of traffic, uh, very heavily, uh, uh, heavy traffic, and a very wide boulevard. And those two things would actually make the project financially feasible. But the town, the city does not agree with those interpretations. Um, And those 2 conditions, uh, or you could say the accumulation of all the fees and all the free changes that have happened, have really made this project, uh, financially infeasible. But I have asked to have the project move forward, get the conditional rights right now, but as it stands right now, this project will not get built. I think if you look at most of the projects that you guys have before you, There are almost always larger projects, and even those smaller projects that you do see, very few of them are getting built. And I think it's because of the impact of the fees. Uh, that's what I'm expecting because that is what happened to us. is this extremely large fee. So I am asking the project we conditioned, and get the approvals, but it won't, it does not seem like it could be built right now, which is interesting because we actually have a very pot housing market. So it's, uh, fees are very, very high. These fees and offsite improvement requirements, the highest I've ever seen.

[03:51:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I saw Ms. Travostova's hand up. I don't know. I don't know if we should proceed with counsel...

[03:52:02] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: America may, if I may, if I may say, yes, staff is suggesting the council proceed with making a decision on the project approval. Um, I would also like to note that both of the issues brought up by the applicant have been addressed in the staff report, and public works staff is also available to, um, address if there are any other questions you may have. But we have addressed those specific questions in the staff report as well.

[03:52:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Right. That's my understanding too. Thank you. Okay, so does any member of the council have any questions? Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[03:52:38] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor. I've got 2 quick questions. So the 1st is, uh, I think you've already touched on this, um, RT, but, uh, we have a legal obligation to process the application under state law, right? Because it's code compliant and, uh, the application was deemed complete and all of that, is that, is that a fair assessment?

[03:53:00] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes.

[03:53:01] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, um, and then uh, the applicant said, this is interesting to me. Even though there's no intent to proceed with the project. Can we actually include this towards our arena obligation?

[03:53:15] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, it depends on when they pull building permits. Um, I think if they pull permits after July of next year and they could, they could, um, probably, um, count towards the above moderate.

[03:53:29] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, but it, but if they, entitling the project is not sufficient. The, the, the applicant would have to pull permits at some point.

[03:53:40] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, there, there are 3 categories of, of being able to meet Rena. One is, you know, permits that are pulled after a certain time period. That brings your number down. I think we went through that last time, to let you know. The 2nd is, um, looking at existing sites, and then 3rd is to look and see if we need to rezone new sites. So this would be the 1st category where the city can get credit for building permits issued, um, on projects, um, within that rena period. Which begins in the 2nd half of next year.

[03:54:14] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, but if the entitlement expires, then we could no longer put that number.

[03:54:20] Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, the development is, is, is good for 2 years. Um, and and, you know, the planning manager can correct me if I'm wrong about an additional year, being given for projects related to COVID. In that, the automatic extension would no longer apply, but they could always apply prior to the 2 year expiration. For up to an additional 2 years. So they have up to 4 years to full permits for this project.

[03:54:55] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you.

[03:54:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Council member Lieber.

[03:55:02] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Um, I I know that uh, we can't apply different rules to different applicants, you know, based on the size of of their business. Um, just, you know, in an ad hoc way, unless we had a policy. Um, in, in that sense. And I, I do appreciate the, the applicant's comments about the, the biodiversity of developers, um, producing housing in mountain view. Um, but I wanted to know from staff, in terms of the utilities crossing middle field, um, is that something that commonly happens with, um, developments such as this, that it would need to cross a very, um, wide street going off the site.

[03:55:56] Senior Civil Engineer Renee Gunn: Good evening, council members. My name is Renee Gunn. I am a senior civil engineer in the land development department. Um, we do have multiple projects that are in some form of development right now who do have to cross streets. Um, you know, sometimes they're not as large as Meadowfield, but they do have to cross, um, some of our other major streets and we have been consistently applying. Uh, the requirements that the underground across the streets.

[03:56:26] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And my other question is, what is the projected sales price of these 11 units?

[03:56:38] Senior Planner Clarissa Burke: The projected sale price that was reported to city staff when analyzing the BMR in Luffy's was $14 million.

[03:56:47] Councilmember Sally Lieber: For each of the 11 units.

[03:56:50] Senior Planner Clarissa Burke: Correct.

[03:56:52] Councilmember Sally Lieber: And, um, So, it seems like buying a piece of property that has a single family home on it, and then, um, producing, uh, dead amount of money in return, um, Isn't there a way to borrow for the fees? Or.

[03:57:19] Senior Planner Clarissa Burke: I would ask that the applicant answer that. Because there are various ways to get funding for projects.

[03:57:26] Forrest Linebarger: I'd be happy to. Uh, well, the, uh, The way that, uh, lending works is, uh, you need to have a certain amount of cash on hand, uh, to get the loan. So the trouble with things like the park dedication fee and the way that that is currently being interpreted, which I said, like I said, the condition is not the same way as it's written in the code, which does not state when it needs to be paid. But, uh, The way it's interpreted makes you bring the cash out front. So that takes from your cash to cost ratio, making making lending more difficult. Whereas if it is if that same fee was placed at the end of the project, such as the way BMR fees have been traditionally handled in Mountain View, that is then taken from the proceeds of the sale and does not impact the loan. So that kind of difference makes a big difference in the financial viability in getting a loan. Now, large institutional investors use a lot of corporate paper. They tend to have larger funds. That's, I think, one of the things that helps helps them be able to pay these fees earlier. Another one is the size of the project. So all those Mountain View has sometimes required other places, say, to cross streets. rarely as large as middle field, which is one of the largest boulevards in town. And we are only 11 unit development, not a 56 unit or 106 unit development. So the relative costs go up quite a bit. And also Parkland fees, the highest in the state, we are, we are paying for them because we're a vacant, basically a vacant lot, just one single house on there. We pay the, we pay it on, on 10 of the 11 units. So, somebody who's tearing down an apartment complex, uh, and put tearing down a 56 unit apartment complex putting in 56 rowhouses. They do not have to pay those fees. So, uh, so the fees are also disproportionately following falling onto, uh, a bear lot development.

[03:59:22] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you.

[03:59:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: That's where my check.

[03:59:27] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. You know, I should have sent this one in, but um, what percent of the landscaping is native?

[03:59:38] Senior Planner Clarissa Burke: Compliant with the water conservation landscaping regulations, the city adopted 80% is either native or will go water use. Um, and the majority below water use plants are also native as well.

[03:59:50] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, great. And then um, how long have you owned the property?

[03:59:57] Forrest Linebarger: I've won the property since uh, 1992.

[04:00:00] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you.

[04:00:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Seeing no other hands. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise handbun in Zoom or press Star 9 on your phone. Okay, I am not seeing any hands, so I'll bring the item back for council deliberation, action, and note that emotion to approve the item should also include reading the title of the resolutions attached to the report. Counselor Mattache.

[04:00:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I'm happy to get the ball rolling by making the motion. Um, I um, recommend the staff recommendation, which includes uh, 2 resolutions. Um, adopting a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving, a planned unit development permit, and a development review permit to construct an 11 unit rowhouse development, a heritage tree removal permit to remove one heritage tree, and finding the project to be categorically exempt, pursuant to section 15332. Infill development projects, of the California Environmental Quality Act, at 294 to 296 Tyrella Avenue. And um, a doctor resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving a vesting tentative map, to create 11 residential lots, and 2 common lots, and finding the project to be categorically exempt, pursuant to section 15332, and failed development projects of the California Environmental Quality Act, at 294296 Tyrell Avenue.

[04:01:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, we have a motion by council member, Madocheck, council member, Abi Koga.

[04:01:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah, 2nd.

[04:01:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so we have a motion by council member Mattachek 2nded by council member Abe Koga, so we can do a roll call vote. Uh, city click laser. Council member Mattachek?

[04:01:56] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[04:01:57] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Koca?

[04:01:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi,

[04:01:59] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Hicks.

[04:02:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[04:02:01] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Libor. Council member show Walter.

[04:02:05] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[04:02:06] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Vice mayor Ramirez.

[04:02:08] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah.

[04:02:09] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: And Mayor May?

[04:02:12] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, yes,

[04:02:13] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: motion cares.

[04:02:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. All right, this concludes item 6.2. So we'll move on to items. Council staff and committee reports. Does anyone have any thing to report out? Council member Abbe Koka.

[04:02:32] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to report out from our Silicon Valley Clean Energy board meeting from last week. Um, we had a number of items that we discussed and moved forward with uh, when uh, we are extending the relief to customers with outstanding balances uh, due to COVID um, hardship. Uh, so, um, this means that, uh, customers have outstanding balances on their energy bill will remain a SVCE, um, with SVCE through March 2022. And this is for about 11,000 of our customers who receive relief through the California arrearage payment program. Um, too, we discussed uh, ways to expand our efforts to cut carbon initial emissions locally. We're calling it doubling down on decarbonization, and we'll be focusing on multi-family AV charging assistance and grants and incentives, full building electrification grants and incentives, reach codes 2.0. And a, um, and permitting simplification as well as, um, looking at ways to, um, provide accessible financing. And we've also approved a couple of new customer programs. Um, one is, um, for EV chargers, uh, multifamily properties. And the 2nd one is a pilot program where we will be giving away 50 portable electric batteries to qualified medical baseline customers to provide backup power in case of outages. We also had dedicated $20,000 for high school scholarship, high school scholarship competition. Um, I think this is, it's gonna be a short film competition where I asking, uh, or inviting students to, um, submit short films. Um, and, um, finally, we have signed 13 long-term power purchase agreements committing over $16000000 to renewable energy projects. So a lot going on. Happy to report. And then, um, also wanted to report that we had our cities association board meeting on Thursday, even though it was a holiday. Um, and, um, The, I, I, I think there'll be a report from council member Hicks that the main topic there was regarding, um, the airport round table. You know, let her finish that off. Thank you.

[04:05:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Council member Hicks.

[04:05:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sorry, roommate, remote problems. Yes. I do have news from the Santa Clara Santa Cruz Airport Roundtable. Um, for those uh, members of the public who don't know, uh, almost all metro areas with significant air travel, have round tables made up of elected officials, largely to make sure that noisy flights are not directly over residential areas where people sleep and live their lives. Um, the Santa Cruz, the Santa Clara Santa Cruz roundtable was established fairly recently, I think, in 2018, according to their MOU, to address dramatically increasing air traffic and root shifts. It achieved some notable successes that some members of our council were part of, like strategic plan and work plan, and response to health and annoyance impacts of increased aircraft noise above us. But, unfortunately, our round table is one of the few, maybe the only, in the nation, without an ongoing fiscal sponsor, having a fiscal sponsor was, um, was the main problem keeping it going. So, in our last meeting, on November 11, we voted to shut the round table down. leaving, um, leaving us, I think, as the only, uh, region with significant airplane noise and no round table, although you can check me on that, that's what I've been told. Um, So, at this point, concerns on airplane noise can be brought to your congressional representative, uh, on an issue. and the San Jose Airport Commission. And that's the end of my report.

[04:07:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you very much. Anyone else have anything to your part? Okay, and I'll just share, we had our VTA pack meeting last Friday, November 12th. They moved it from the 11th to the 12th. Um, and included was, um, you know, recommendations. I think we also have the letter from supervisor subidian related to measure B. Um, so that went forward unanimously and that we'll go forward to the full VTA port, which accounts remember Avico, that sits on. All right. I think that's it for our report. So we'll move on to item eight, which is our closed session announcement. City attorney Chopra will make remarks, and then the city council welcomes public comment on the items listed for closed session. City attorney Chopra?

[04:08:06] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you, Mayor. The city council will now meet on item 9. One item in closed session, public employee appointment, California government code, section 54957, title of position, city attorney, interim city attorney, conference with labor negotiators, California government code, section 54957.6, Agency designated Representative, Sue Rush, Human Resources, Director, Unrepresented Employees, City Attorney. You may now request if there's any public comment. Mayor.

[04:08:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. And, uh, would any member of the public on the line like to provide public comment on the closed session item listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nun on your phone. Okay, I am not seeing any public comment. So, before we all leave. Um, we will adjourn to closed session. We will have our closed session, and then we need to come back to the this Zoom, come back here for our regular session for our closed session report, and our adjournment. So, We would go to close session and then come back. All right, see everyone in closed session. Thank you.

[04:11:51] (archive recording) Mayor Ellen Kamei: So if we can reconvene. That would be great. Let's see, city clerk blazer. Is that? Are we able to take the There we go. Perfect. Great. Thanks. All right. Welcome back, everyone. We'll move on to uh, item, um, 10, which is our closed session report. And I think for this one, I have a report out, if that's all right for you, City Attorney Chopra.

[04:12:32] (archive recording) City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Sure.

[04:12:33] (archive recording) Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. So, um, Just one moment. So council met in closed session earlier this evening and voted unanimously to direct the human resources director to proceed with the hiring process for the interim city attorney. When the interim city attorney is hired, There will be a public announcement regarding the interim appointment and the compensation details. And that is my closed session report. And that means that I can move on to item 11, which is our German at 9.28 p.m. Thank you so much for joining us, our next city council meeting will be on December 7th, 2021. Until then, stay healthy and have a great night. Thanks, everyone.

[04:13:19] (archive recording) Unknown Speaker: Good night. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

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