Video
Speaker Summary
(37 speakers)
| Speaker | Words | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Mayor Ellen Kamei | 2,456 | 20m |
| Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez | 640 | 4m |
| Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga | 2,316 | 15m |
| Councilmember Pat Showalter | 2,208 | 15m |
| Councilmember Alison Hicks | 1,489 | 10m |
| Councilmember Lisa Matichak | 1,235 | 9m |
| Councilmember Sally Lieber | 186 | 1m |
| City Manager Kimbra McCarthy | 448 | 3m |
| City Attorney Krishan Chopra | 351 | 3m |
| Jim Lightbody | 2,603 | 18m |
| Aarti Shrivastava | 2,142 | 14m |
| Martin Alquire | 1,495 | 10m |
| Public Works Director Don Cameron | 967 | 6m |
| Unknown Speaker | 782 | 5m |
| Jim | 369 | 2m |
| Bruce England | 417 | 2m |
| Bill Viera | 321 | 2m |
| Cliff Chambers | 246 | 1m |
| Ryan Jones | 248 | 1m |
| Jeff Morris | 329 | 1m |
| Robert Cox | 236 | 1m |
| Daniel Holsey | 202 | 1m |
| Brian Pors | 156 | 1m |
| Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden | 104 | 1m |
| Corey Quevedo | 177 | <1m |
| Karl Baumheckel | 139 | <1m |
| Erica Paul | 127 | <1m |
| Salim | 119 | <1m |
| Be Leah | 95 | <1m |
| Archie Shavastva | 106 | <1m |
| Martin Alkire | 80 | <1m |
| Alex Brown | 81 | <1m |
| Public Speaker Albert Jeans | 424 | 2m |
| Public Speaker Cliff Chambers | 268 | 1m |
| Public Speaker James Kuzmo | 292 | 1m |
| Public Speaker Kevin Ma | 226 | 1m |
| Public Speaker Daniel Holsey | 108 | <1m |
Transcript
[00:00:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Or by phone by dialing 669-9009128 and entering webinar ID 812-715-75416. Any emails received by 4 p.m. today were received directly by the city council. City Attorney Chopra will make remarks, and then the city council welcomes public comment. On all 6 items listed for the closed session. Did he turn Chopra?
[00:01:09] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you, mayor. This council will now meet in 6 items in closed session. The 1st item 2.one, conference with real property negotiators, government code section 54956.8, property 2000 North Shoreline Boulevard, agency negotiator, Dawn Cameron, public works director, negotiating party, Google, LLC, under negotiation price in terms of payment, underground lease for site remediation. Item 2.2, conference with real property negotiators, government code, section 54956.8, property, 16, 16, 16, North Shoreline Boulevard, agency negotiator, Angela La Monica, real property program administrator, negotiating party, Google, LLC, under negotiation price in terms of payment for sale of interest in real property. Item 2.3, conference with legal counsel. Liability claims, Government Code Section 54956.9, D2, and E3, the claimant, Tao, Patricia Sanders, against the city of Mountain View, item 2.4, a conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Government Code Section 54956.9 D1. Name of case, Silerina, Navarro, Janet Stevens, Armando, Kovarubius, Evelyn Estrada, Gabriel Ranjo, Jamie, Alma, Al Daco, and all others similarly situated versus City of Mountain View, United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Division, case number 5, 21, CB, 05381, NC. Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, excuse me, item 2.5, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, government code section 54956.9 D1. name of the case, name of cases, James R. Zugel versus City of Mountain View at all, United States District Court, Northern District of California, case number 517, CV 03249, BLF, and case number 521, CV 07538, BLF, and item 2.6, conference with real property negotiators, government code section 54956.8, property, portion of Fairmont Avenue between Castro Street and Hope Street, Agency Negotiator, Angelo LaMonica, real property program administrator, negotiating party GPRV Castro 10, LLC, and undernegotiation is price in terms of payment for sale of interest in real property. That concludes the closed session announcement you may now ask for public comment.
[00:04:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, City Attorney Chopra, and before, uh, we move on to public comment, Council members Abi Koga and Hicks, do you have any announcements you'd like to make?
[00:04:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you, Mayor. I will be recusing myself from item 2.6 due to real property I own near the site being discussed.
[00:04:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Great. Thank you, Council member Hicks.
[00:04:30] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes, I also will be recusing myself from item number 2.6 because of my real property near the site.
[00:04:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on the closed session item? The closed session, items, all 6 listed on tonight's 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. And I see 2 hands, so we'll just wait for the timer.
[00:05:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, Robert Cox.
[00:05:13] Robert Cox: You hear me?
[00:05:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, go ahead.
[00:05:15] Robert Cox: Okay. Honorable mayor, comet by Stefan Ramirez and members of the 50 council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you as a member of the steering committee of Livable Mountain View on item 2.6, the closed session item, Farmout Castro El Camino. First, let me say, that as vice chair of the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association, I have requested a general neighborhood meeting with the applicant so that all our neighbors can be heard on the issue of a central sale of gateway park for the applicant and the relocation department. There have been more postings on this topic on our neighborhood list. on the talk than on any other subject this year, and the public wants to be heard. All but one of the postings are opposed to the sale part. Beyond this, having seen the developers, the Liverpool Mountain View is deeply concerned that the park itself appears to be a mere extension of the developer's housing development. This is because it is overshadowed on both sides by very tall buildings, and there are no prominent entrances from Castro and Elmino. Furthermore, rather than a vibrant ground floor reap of public space, the developer's proposal includes only a focus, retail or restaurant presence. These issues must be remedied to produce a gateway project, of which our city can be proud. Thank you very much. I yield my time.
[00:06:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Bruce England?
[00:06:47] Bruce England: Thank you, mayor and council members. I have brief comments on 24 and 26. I'm speaking for Mountain Coalition for Sustainable Planning. We have long been concerned about the services and infrastructure provided for vehicle residents in our city. And as you know, uh, providing safe parking and curbside parking is just a stopgap measure anyway, what we really need is adequate housing and affordable housing for people. And the fact that there are compromises to the parking for oversized vehicles is really problematic given that it's not a great solution as it is. So, um, I just ask that you keep that in mind. when you discuss 2.4. On 2.6, essentially, agreeing with what Robert Cox said. Um, it seems to put the cart before the horse, then doesn't have enough of the public scrutiny before some of these questions are posed. The gateway area around El Camino and Castro is an important location in Mountain View. And historically, that's been what represents to people coming into Mountain View, what they are going to experience. So the nature of how that part of town is handled is really important. And then what happens with the park and accessibility to the park is also important. So, again, I agree with Robert Cox. Our organization does as well. Thank you.
[00:08:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks so much. All right, I am not seeing any other hands. So I'll close the public comment and bring it back to counsel. So we will exit this meeting and move into our closed session and, um, come back to this session at 6.30. All right, everyone, see you in close session.
[00:08:12] (archive recording) Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council and Shoreline Regional Park. Community special joint meeting of December 7, 2021. I'm going to read the usual announcement as required. This meeting will be conducted in accordance with city of mountain view city council resolution number 18618 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 812-715-75416. Any emails received by 4 PM today were received directly by the city council. All right. And we'll just move on to item number two, which is our pledge of allegiance. All right. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.
[02:27:21] Unknown Speaker: 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.
[02:27:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. We'll move on to item 3, which is our roll call. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.
[02:27:45] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Koka,
[02:27:46] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: here,
[02:27:47] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: council member Hicks.
[02:27:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here?
[02:27:48] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member labor.
[02:27:50] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Sure.
[02:27:51] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Mattachek?
[02:27:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.
[02:27:53] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Shelter?
[02:27:55] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.
[02:27:56] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Nice Mira Ramirez.
[02:27:59] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.
[02:27:59] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: May I, mate? Thank you.
[02:28:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So we'll move on to item four, 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 resolutions and ordinances will be waived, unless the 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? All right, I am not seeing any hands. So I, I will move on to mayor. Oh, sorry, I... Go ahead, Council member Hicks.
[02:29:01] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I raised my hand late, so it wasn't, it's not. I just thought I could call it... No, you didn't ignore me. I just wanted to call attention. I don't want to pull anything. I just want to call attention to 4.9 because there was, it's about bike lanes on California Street. There was a lot of interest. And I just wanted, it's a, I just wanted to tell people who are not aware that it's kind of an ability to do a pilot and see how it goes. I know most people were strongly in favor. A few people said, Let's change it a little bit, and I just wanted to let people know that if that was your feeling, let's change a little bit, then write it, and see how it works, and tell us what we could do better. I think it's exciting to have a pilot like this. So thank you.
[02:29:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Any other council members like to pull an item or make a comment? All right. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on any item on the consent calendar? 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. Great, thank you, Bruce England.
[02:30:20] Bruce England: Thank you, mayor, and council members. Bruce England, speaking for Mountain Dew Coalition for Sustainable Planning. Also on item 4.9 and really just some comments here. Um, I believe this is part of a larger project. I'm looking at page one of the staff report. It cites the California Street of Scala Avenue, Shoreline Boulevard, complete streets, feasibility study. So there are other streets, um, under consideration, I guess, as part of that larger project. I believe that this was triggered by the fatal, um, collision with William Ware at the intersection of Escuela in California. So I'm wondering about that. You know, like, is this really part of that larger project, which will have some teeth in it later on. And then on page 4 of the staff report also. It says that staff will evaluate similar complete streets treatments on California between showers in San Antonio. And it says, as a future pilot project, with no date. And so I am wondering about what sort of date are they thinking about how far into the future? And I can explore that on my own, but I just wanted to raise it for your attention. Thank you.
[02:31:31] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. All right, there are no other hands for public comment. So I will bring this back to council for action and note that emotion to approve the consent calendar. Should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to item 4.12. Council member show Walter.
[02:31:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I would like to move the kids in calendar and particularly thank staff for all of the work that this represents. There are 12 items on here. And each one of them, um, is, uh, a project in itself, if not more than one. So thank you for all of that work. And with that, I would like to move the approval of the consent calendar. And that includes reading for item 12, 4.12. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, authorizing the city manager, or designee, to accept and execute an agreement with the state of California, Department of Housing and Community Development, for $8 million in state funding for affordable housing. And I'd also like to thank our Senator Josh Becker for helping us get this grant. This is great. Thank you.
[02:32:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. All right. Council number hit.
[02:32:53] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Oh, second that motion.
[02:32:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. So we have a motion by council member, Showalter, seconded by council member Hicks, and we'll do a roll call vote. Counselor Michelle Alter?
[02:33:04] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes,
[02:33:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member Hicks?
[02:33:07] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.
[02:33:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member Abbe Koga?
[02:33:09] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi,
[02:33:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member Labor.
[02:33:11] Councilmember Sally Lieber: I.
[02:33:12] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Council member Metachek.
[02:33:14] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.
[02:33:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Vice Mayor Ramirez?
[02:33:17] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah.
[02:33:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: American May? Yes. Mission carries? Great, thank you. So 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 nonagenda 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 zoom or press star 9 on your phone. All right, I am not seeing any hands. So I'll close oral communications and move on to item six, which is our public hearing. Item 6. one is a public hearing on the gateway master plan. General Plan amendment for 1555 Plymouth Street and North Bayshore Precise Plan Amendments. Advanced Planning Manager, Mount Martin Alquire will present the report. Assistant city manager and community development director Archie Shravostova. Economic consultant, Libby Cycle from Cycle Consulting, and planning consultant, consultant Chris Sensening, from Ramian associates are available for questions. California Environmental Quality Act consultants, Christy Weiss, and Tyler Rogers from David J. Powers, as well as traffic consultant Dan Rubens from Fair and Piers, will also be present. And I think everyone is making their way into the Zoom room.
[02:35:12] Martin Alquire: Uh, Clerk Blazer, I'm trying to, uh, add my, this is Martin. I'm trying to add my presentation uh, to the meeting.
[02:35:23] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Do not have the ability to share your screen?
[02:35:26] Martin Alquire: Uh, I'm not showing it, and you're free to, uh, add it if you have that, that I sent earlier. I'm not able to share at this point.
[02:35:48] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Okay I'll have it, so.
[02:35:50] Martin Alquire: It's okay. I was just given access, so thank you. Apologies for the delay. Uh, thank you, counsel. My name is Martin Alcair, Community Development Department. We'll be presenting on the Gateway Master Plan, General Plan amendment, and precise plan amendments this evening. My presentation will cover 3 things. Again, the gateway master plan, review some background and policy foundation for that, as well as then moving to the General Plan Amendment and the precise plan amendments this evening. First of all, I think most council members are aware of the location of the gateway mash plan is shown on the screen. It's at Shoreline Boulevard and Highway 101. Uh, typically referred to as a century theater, movie, uh, theater site, uh, and that's the subject of, uh, tonight's meeting. Uh, the gateway master plan is really built on a strong policy foundation, found in both our general plan and North Bay's precise plan, those bulleted, um, uh, phrases there kind of reflect those key, uh, policy directions that have guided, uh, the work that's been going on at this site for quite some time. And, uh, the gateway master plan is the final piece in implementing the general plan and precise plan for this area. In terms of specific strategy and elements that are within the master plan, first of all, the development standards, in the master plan, rely on the North Bay Shore precise plan standards, and then add some new gateway specific standards. to fit this site and what the city is looking to get out of this site. The second thing it does, it coordinates improvements. such as new streets, multimodal improvements, shared open space utilities. And then the third thing it does is create flexibility. In two ways. First of all, it allows the development of the entire site to move forward jointly between Google and SiWest, the two major property owners, or it allows each to proceed individually, as long as they can show how they integrate with the larger master plan at a future date. And then it also provides a wide range of land use flexibility, which I'll be talking about soon. Just to give a picture of some of the key, uh, kind of aspirational images that we would like to see in the master plan area. I will just spend, just briefly, a few slides here. The first one, kind of showing a central plaza concept that we hope could perhaps be ultimately built out in the Gateway Master Plan area to provide a place for employees and residents in the neighborhood to gather. Also, provide some type of strong retail Main Street frontage. Again, this will not be an area with a lot of, you know, big box retail or destination retail. It will be smaller types of retail businesses, but still, could be activating the street, as you see on the screen. And then, also, a neighborhood park concept within the plan area as well. Again, to give a place for employees and residents in the area to gather. In terms of specific land uses, you see on the screen, three kind of sub areas in the plan, the residential area in yellow, mixed use area in brown, and the entertainment mixed use area in blue. And again, those are helping to organize the location of land uses in this area. And then those areas are integrated with new public streets, as you see on the screen, and dark gray, as well as common, open space, and other improvements. As I mentioned, the plan provides a wide variety of land use options, as shown on the screen, from minimum amounts of land use that we'd like to see in terms of residential, minimum amounts of open space, minimum amounts of ground floor retail. Those are all intended to make sure that the plan has key place making elements. We feel those are very important to really realize the vision of this area. And then it also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of office, and the last, call of retail entertainment and hospitality, provides a lot of broad flexibility for future development. This next, these next 2 slides, again, here's the existing site, kind of a bird's eye view. You can see Shoreline Boulevard in the foreground U.S. 101 on the side there. You can see the dome theaters, kind of in the center. That's the existing site. And at full conceptual buildout, we would hope to see something like this. Again, this is not exactly what we would expect. There's a lot of flexibility, but this gives an overall sense of the look and feel and the character that we'd like to see, and you can see the intensity of buildings, the compact developments, new streets, the common open space. And then also how buildings front on Shoreline Boulevard. So, that kind of how we envision everything tying together. Uh, there's been a lot of discussion recently, in recent years, in North Bay sure, about economic feasibility. This plan did have an initial feasibility analysis done in 2019. That was updated this year by our economics consultant. And, um, just to note, um, you know, we realized the 1st bullet point that, uh, development uh, can be very challenging. The fees, structure, as well as construction costs. Those are all challenging, and we're not trying to hide that fact. But, again, the four remaining bullet points on the screen, we feel provide a long term advantage to this site. You know, it's a strong market, a strong location, There's a lot of other similar developments happening in North Bay Shore, outside of North Bay Shore, that indicate that this is still a prime place to develop. We have continued property owner interests for both Google and SiWest, the two major owners in this area. And then, lastly, the city has spent tens of million dollars, in terms of public investments, in and around the gateway area, to really enhance the area and support future development in the area. Now, the second main item tonight, General Plan Amendment. At this site, 1555 Plymouth. shown in black there on the screen. Um, this small parcel, or narrow parcel, is owned by a Google, and the proposal is to change the designation, general plan, from high intensity office to Mix Shoe Center. And really, for two main reasons, it maximizes the utility of the parcel. Again, it's a narrow parcel, and by absorbing it into the larger gateway area. It provides more utility, not only for the parcel, but also for the larger gateway area. And then it also allows more diverse uses, such as residential, which is the key land use in the area. In terms of the third and final item before you tonight, precise plan amendments to the North Bay sure precise plan. Uh, the first two bullet points, master plan language, and mobility chapter maps, uh, in your packet, there are a number of, uh, just kind of what you would call cleanup or clarifying edits, uh, to those two areas. The last bullet point bonus FUR review guidelines. Um, those are also have been updated. And just as a reminder, we have about 250,000 square feet of remaining bonus affair on North Bay Shore. The plan is in the winter to send out notices to property owners in the complete neighborhoods, and then ultimately bring to council any bonus FAR proposals for a decision. There was a supplemental staff memo posted on Friday, available on the website, which showed some additional staff edits to the bonus FR guidelines that were really added to clarify some of the language in those guidelines, based on some discussions with property owners. Um, and just to reiterate, the bonus FVR guidelines are saying, uh, any bonus FVR, um, uh, proposal must be from an area within the complete neighborhood locations, which is the three colored neighborhoods on the screen. Another amendment, in the guidelines, is that we're providing a lot more flexibility for new residential units to be either on a project proposal or off site, but still remaining in North Bay Shore. And then finally, uh, we are requiring a phasing plan to describe how, uh, any future residential units will be built in conjunction, or, um, with the timing of any new office in the area. So, uh, that concludes uh, staff's presentation. And, uh, as I mentioned, we have a, or as a clerk mentioned, we have a number of consultants available, as well as our T Shrivastava, our community development director for any questions you may have. Thank you.
[02:45:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks so much, Mr. Alkire. So, um, we'll start with council questions. Does any member of the council have any questions? For Mr. Alcair or his team. Vice Mayor Ramirez.
[02:45:48] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I only have one question. Um, the proposed revisions to the bonus F AR guidelines, notwithstanding, the council will retain the discretion to authorize a bonus F AR application that does not comply with the guidelines, or, or I guess, and uh, deny projects that do comply. with the guidelines. Is that right?
[02:46:17] Martin Alkire: Yes, I mean, ultimately, the guidelines are written flexibly enough, with some key threshold criteria and minimums, um, uh, criteria, but yeah, ultimately council has that discretion. That is correct.
[02:46:29] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you.
[02:46:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, council member hit. So, late this afternoon, we got an email from one of the property owners, Si West, um, asking questions on how, if they wanted to do an, uh, majority housing development with no office, um, how that would be viable, because the, uh, the office is the carrot in, uh, in this area. area So I'm wondering if you can, um, can answer that question.
[02:47:11] Aarti Shrivastava: I can try to, I'll begin, and Martin, maybe you can chime in. Um, Council member Hicks, um, that's exactly what the bonus FAR was intended to do. Um, after the master plan from Google and um, some of the recently approved developments are accounted for. There are approximately 2000 units, um, left in the, in the north patio master plan. And the intention was to use the bonus FAR to partner and to incentivize the units. So sidewest has the ability to partner with other developers and other developers would be required to partner in order to deliver the units.
[02:47:49] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you very much.
[02:47:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Any other ques? Oh, customer Broadway Koga.
[02:47:59] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mary. Sorry for the late. And raised. Um, one question. Um, TDRs. I believe there might be some still being, uh, marketed on the secondary market at least. Um, those can, can those still apply to gateway project proposal? If some developer chose to buy the TDRs.
[02:48:26] Aarti Shrivastava: I believe the intent of the TDRs was either to incentivize residential development or environmental improvements to sites. Um, so depending on where the TDR is expected to come from, um, there will be, um, I believe a master plan required, um, as part of it to show the sending and receiving sites and what's going to happen to those sending sites as part of the project. We haven't yet seen a TDR proposal, but, um, we are happy to review one, uh, when it comes in.
[02:49:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Actually, I meant, um, the TDRs from like, uh, I believe, less out to school district. I think there's still some to be to sell because of some of the projects not moving forward. So, can, if I remember correctly, they can be applied anywhere in the city, but I just wanted to make sure or clarify that, um, that it would could be applied to a gateway project proposal.
[02:49:25] Martin Alkire: I think we'll have to check on this, but I believe the East Wisman precise plan was specifically amended to acknowledge the location of TDRs. That language doesn't exist in the North Bay shore precise plant or other parts of the city yet.
[02:49:41] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I just, I don't recall as limiting where the TDRs could go. I thought they could go to it, project pretty much anywhere in the city. But if you could clarify that and it can be offline, that's fine.
[02:49:54] Martin Alkire: Yeah. Let's clarify that offline for you.
[02:49:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Do any other council members have questions? Um, okay, I'm not seeing any. So I'm gonna move on to public comment. 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 9 on your phone. It will display a 2 minute timer on the screen.
[02:50:27] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Ryan Jones?
[02:50:32] Ryan Jones: Hello. My name's Ryan Jones. I with local 393, department Pipe Peters. Steam fitters, HVA, uh, CR technician to represent Santa Clara in San Benito County. We appreciate the work we've done with Google in the past, and we support this project. As a member of city council, you guys can help. Ensure that Google and invest in the next generation of skilled workers through the policies. For the North Bay Shore area. I understand that city council has already included a local workforce policy in the Norse Bayshore plan that will ensure local construction workers and local apprentices build the opposites and homes envisioned in this plan. I thank you for having the forethought to include this workforce policy in the North Bay Shore plan. I ask that you work with Google, then lease, and the mechanical craft to ensure that the policy is implemented as the plan moves forward. We look forward to discussing. We look forward to discussions on how we can work together to provide local labor on this project. We ask the Google and Lindleys use local labor. Also, North Bay Shore precise plan, transportation, priority, improvement, projects at Renstrov Connector, and the Permanente Creek Bridge projects are necessary to improve transit operations, to create efficient street networks, circulations, to support the housing development. We respectfully request, the city council commit to funding and construction of both, to run Stroff, Connector, and the Permanente Creek Bridge project as soon as possible. Thank you.
[02:52:21] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you.
[02:52:23] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Erica Paul.
[02:52:30] Erica Paul: Hi, thank you city council. This is Erica with local 393. We represent over 3000 members in Santa Clarence, San Benito County. We support this project. We respectfully request that city council commit to funding the constructing both the ringstorf connector and permanent creek bridge projects as soon as possible. As North Bay Shore precise plan, transportation priority improvement projects, the rainstore connector, and permanent creek bridge projects are necessary to improve transit operations and create efficient street networking, circulation, to support housing and development. We at local 393 are confident and are looking forward to working with Google to support local hire within this jurisdiction in these projects. We need to support our future by supporting local apprenticeship, our local apprenticeship programs. Thank you so much.
[02:53:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. And just to clarify, we're on item 6.one, which is our public hearing on the gateway master plan, the general plan amendment for 1555 Plymouth Street, and our North Bay Shore precise plan elements. We'll be talking about the North Bay Shore circulation study, um, right after this.
[02:53:44] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Corey, Cavedo.
[02:53:49] Corey Quevedo: All right, good evening. My name is Corey Corvado. I'm a plumber with UA local 393. Google has made commitments that the commercial portion of this project will employ local construction workers and pay family supporting wages, and that is terrific. We need to invest in the construction workforce. We need to train the next generation of steel workers. But it's not clear yet, it's wherever the workforce come from and who will build these thousands of homes. We were talking about a few thousand jobs. I sure hope Google and Landlese will step up to the plate on these jobs, to coming out of the pandemic, local workers need every one of these jobs. The city's own precise plan for this area of steps, the local hire, and training like our apprenticeship programs, as goals for projects like Google, but hiring locally with all the different trades, 100s of new apprentices will get the opportunity to begin their careers. And Google will help, will be helping to build a new local workforce. Thank you. Thank you.
[02:54:44] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Cliff Chambers.
[02:54:48] Cliff Chambers: Hi, this is Cliff Chambers, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Mountain View coalition for sustainable planning. The gateway area is really important to the city of Mountain View, and we're really supportive of the high density mixed use development that's proposed, including the inclusion of 2,800 housing units. The timing of the housing units is very important, and we fully appreciate and support the requirement that 500 housing units receive an occupancy permit before any office space receives an occupancy permit. We also appreciate the amendments to the bonus FAR, FAR guidelines that allow for a community benefit, for inclusion of affordable housing and extis requirements of this precise plan. We also strongly support the change to the bonus FAR allocation criteria that require a balance of new residential units to offset the demands of new construction office. However, we'd like to see more specificity on the ratio of housing, to allocations of office space. Property ownership also have the option of dedication of land for housing, particularly affordable housing. And finally, as is pointed out in the staff report, coordination of phasing it, of the gateway area will be extremely important to ensure high quality development. And we apply the efforts for requiring the integration with the adjacent parcels in the future. And we really do agree with the economic feasibility study conclusions, and we really hope now, long process, it's now really up to the property owners to proceed with actual development.
[02:56:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you very much. Thank you.
[02:56:46] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Brian Pors.
[02:56:50] Brian Pors: Hi, thank you. My name is Brian Pors, and I'm also with local 393. I'm a journeyman plumber and project manager and a lifetime barrier resident. Um, I support the gateway master plan, 100%. I see an incredible variety of benefits to our community. And I look forward to seeing another great vision become reality here. Um, you know, there's, uh, Among the potential benefits here, there's a great opportunity to provide years of work to our hardworking journeyman and apprentices living in, uh, in our local community. Um, you know, we, uh, I really appreciate our shared passion for training and quality and doing it right the 1st time. And, uh, you know, I'd like to really thank the city of Mountain View. Um, the development team, Google, and everybody involved for continuing to support local labor and uh, family sustaining wages for our highly skilled workforce. Um, thank you very much. Appreciate your time.
[02:57:51] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you.
[02:57:53] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Carl Baum Heckle?
[02:57:58] Karl Baumheckel: Hello, good evening, my name's Carl Baumheckl. I'm an Air Force veteran and a member of Plumbers and Fitters Local 393. I'm grateful to local knife, local 393 and their contractors for enabling me to earn a family sustaining wage and raise my family in this valley. Now my son is a local 393 is in local 393 is comprehensive apprenticeship earning his way to live here as well, who couldn't provide these good jobs without good clients like Google and Lenleys. Teaming up with Google and Len lease helps ensure that valuable capital is returned to our community allowing small businesses to thrive as well. I'm asking that you, the city council, partner with Google, Lenley's, and Union Mechanical Trades to ensure a good workforce policy is implemented as this plan moves forward. Thank you for your time.
[02:58:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Good evening. Thank you.
[02:58:55] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Jeff Morris.
[02:59:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Jeff, are you there?
[02:59:08] Jeff Morris: Yeah, excuse me.
[02:59:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay.
[02:59:09] Jeff Morris: Good evening. My name is Jeff Morris. I have owned a 2 acre property at 188 North Shoreline for over 35 years. Thank you for the changes of staff included in the supplemental memo. The new language is very helpful. My concern is the bonus FAR guidelines provide enough adequate flexibility for smaller landowners to develop our properties. There's still some ambiguity around 2 issues that I'm hoping council can clarify during celebrations this evening. First, there are so few sites within the precise plan area that are not controlled by large landowners. So I'm concerned that there may not be too many offsite options. One potential way forward for smaller landowners would be an option to pay into a seed fund designated for affordable housing. We understand that Google and Sobrado are dedicating several parcels to the city to satisfy a significant portion of their affordable housing requirement. The smaller landowners could contribute to a fund benefiting below market rate housing in North Bay Shore. This will enable the city to utilize these funds to subsidize and accelerate the construction of affordable housing in the plan. is not clear to me whether the payment of additional fees above and beyond what is required under the plan would satisfy the proposed criteria. So I'm hoping for some clarification. Secondly, under the existing bonus of AR guidelines, the council will review and consider all proposals. Under the proposed changes, can you please clarify whether the council would still have an opportunity to review all proposals, or would staff be able to determine which proposals are brought to council, or respectly request that the council keep any threshold language bar enough to allow council to make the termination, as to whether a project provides enough benefit to the city to qualify for the competition. Finally, I would request that the landlords have at least 90 days to submit a comprehensive proposal for the competition. Thank you very much.
[03:00:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Be Leah?
[03:01:22] Be Leah: I'm sorry, I just found the unmute button. No worries. Okay. Um, yeah, uh, Mr. Alcar, I'm glad to finally see this, uh, project. Uh, good job. And uh, LGTM, that's Google for looks good to me. Uh, council, let's move forward on this project and get those plumbers, pipe betters, electricians and carpenters back to work. I'm definitely in favor of that. And I'm looking forward to all of us living in a much nicer neighborhood by 2030. Uh, so let's get moving on this uh, project and thank you. I yield my time.
[03:02:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Daniel Holsey.
[03:02:08] Daniel Holsey: Yeah, um. So, uh, I'm just speaking in favor of the, uh, gateway projects, um, I think in terms of the uh, modifications, uh, it looks pretty much fine. Uh, but we need to make sure that, um, housing gets built out of this development. Flexibility can be good for that. You know, I think there was some uncertainty around whether some of these uh, retail uh, businesses would really actually make sense there. Um, but we don't want to make it so that this place is is just, uh, ends up being office with no housing. So priorities should be making sure that housing gets built. Um, Gateway is unique in that it has really high height limits. Um, I think this is a very good thing, um, and it gets us started on like densifying as a city and getting used to it. Um, but, uh, We need to make sure that, uh, these developments actually end up taking advantage of these height limits, um, for housing and things like that. And to make sure that these developments that we can do whatever can be done on the city side, to make these developments actually pencil out at full density.
[03:03:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Salim?
[03:03:41] Salim: Hi, yeah, I'm Salim. I live in work in Mountain View. Um, it's been a lot of years to get to this point. I look forward to these homes finally getting built. Um, and uh, I'm strongly in support. Um, I do hope Si West becomes a more productive collaborator in this project. We all want to see this land get developed in a way that solves our city's needs, especially with housing. Um, and it's disappointing that they've been so unproductive. Um, Their letter complains about not getting new information about economic feasibility. They also have not provided any information about, uh, why it is that they're uniquely unable to make money from selling homes. Um, thank you.
[03:04:25] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Alex Brown?
[03:04:30] Alex Brown: Hey, I wanna just strongly concur with my friend and neighbor B. I'm also looking forward to this project getting done and something actually happening. It's sad to see Gold's gym or what used to be there, just sitting there, fallow, nothing happening. Let's move forward, get something built as soon as possible. I want new neighbors. But also, I'd like gold gym back, please. Can you please open it in the meantime, I miss it. It was nice. Thank you.
[03:05:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. All right. I don't see any other hands. So, oh, we have one last minute hand. All right, so this will be my last call. Uh, Bill. Here we go. Bill.
[03:05:22] Bill Viera: Uh, good evening, uh, Madam Mayor and uh, council members, this, This is Bill Viera with Siwest Development. I appreciate the opportunity to comment tonight. There's a special commemoration, obviously, Pearl Harbor 1941, and the personal sacrifices of so many on this day. I also wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season, because I'll probably forget to mention that, as I'm done with my comments, so I wanted to lead with that. Um, I simply wanted to advise counsel that we did submit a letter today and, um, acknowledge the accomplishments in bringing the city lead master plan process to conclusion. I think it speaks well. quite frankly, to the city staff and the city in their determination and ability to achieve a big goal. When everyone is focused and really leaning into finding a common goal and reaching a common objective, in our letter, I did touch on a couple of issues. I wanted to touch on one critical one that still lingers at the very heart of the master plan, and that is the plan's economic viability. And I would encourage the city and staff to lean in with perhaps equal vigor in finding a solution to lower the impact fees and thereby unlock the ability to deliver a project of a high concentration of residential units within the gateway area. I would also like to implore staff to think seriously about the implications of embedding the district parking into the interior of the gateway, which, by doing so, it forces commute traffic into a residential neighborhood, solely for the reasons of finding and grabbing a parking space. It may, in that sense, be inconsistent with plan stated objectives. But I understand the necessities for finding concentrated parking. But our company remains interested in continuing to pursue development on the site, and we look forward to working with the city to solve these challenges. Thank you.
[03:07:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you again for your kindness. Thanks. Okay, any others wishing to provide public comment to the council? All right. I think that concludes. I don't see any other hands, so that concludes public comment. So I'll bring the item back. Uh, for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of resolutions attached to the report. And there's 4 recommendations listed. Do colleagues have any questions? Okay, Vice Mayor Ramirez?
[03:08:18] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Uh, I'll go ahead and move the staff recommendations, uh, including one, um, approved the initial study, the environmental significance and addendum for the general plan amendment at 1555 Plymouth Street, North Facial Precise Plan Amendments, and the North Fay Shore Gateway Master Plan pursuant to sections, uh, 15162 and 15164 of the California Environmental Quality Act, and find that the proposed would not result in any new significant or substantially more severe environmental impact. Beyond those previously evaluated and disclosed in the general plan, environmental impact report. North Bay Shore precise plan. Uh, environmental impact report 2014 and North facial precise plan, supplemental uh, environmental impact report 2017. Adopt a resolution of the city council. The city of Mountain View to amend the general plan, land use designation at 1555 Plymouth Street, from High Intensity Office to Mixty Center, North Bay Shore. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city is mountain viewed to amend the P 39 North Bay Shore precise plan to include the parcel at 1555 Plymouth Street, within the North Bay Shore precise plan Gateway character area. Revise the bonus FPR guidelines and master plan provisions, and make minor text and graphic updates. And adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, adopting the North Bay Shore gateway master plan. And the only other thing I'll add is, um, I, I do share some of the concerns expressed by, um, Jeff Morris and maybe other, smaller property owners about their ability to meet, um, or comply with the bonus FAR guidelines, but, um, since the council ultimately retains the discretion to authorized bonus that they are or to, uh, to authorize any application for bonus FAR, even if they're not fully compliant. Um, with the guidelines, I think there is sufficient flexibility, um, to, uh, to consider bonus FPR applications from small property owners who might want to propose, um, some alternative way. Of, uh, of, of meeting the, the housing component requirement. Um, if the council is supportive. I'm open to including, um, explicit language, uh, for instance, um, the applicant may, uh, propose an alternative mitigation or whatever we want to call it, um, and be subject to council approval. Um, and if somebody wants to accept, uh, propose that as a friendly amendment, I'm happy to include it, but aside from that, I think the staff recommendation is very strong, and I appreciate all the work that has gone into, um, uh, uh, bringing, uh, all of the, the recommendations before the council today.
[03:11:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. We have a motion by the vice mayor, but I want to turn to our assistant city manager and community development director, Artist Shravostova, first.
[03:11:20] Aarti Shrivastava: Um, vice mayor. I wanted to make sure that the North Bay Shore Precise Plan Amendments included, um, the recommendations in the supplemental memo sent on December 3rd.
[03:11:34] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes, my apologies. I just read from the agenda flow. Yes, that's included as well.
[03:11:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Great, thank you. And Mishabasva, did you want to, um, respond to the concerns brought up by the vice mayor and Mr. Morris?
[03:11:52] Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, there were a few points brought up. Um, the 1st one was, um, that there was ambiguity and a couple of issues. One is whether people could find other ways like donating land or paying into a fund to further affordable housing. We've kept the requirements flexible primarily to allow these. And we didn't want to name one or two, implying that others weren't okay. So, really, the idea is to figure out how to move forward on the vision. While the, uh, one of the things we'll review, and all applications will come to the council, regardless of whether they meet or don't meet the requirements, um, as a further clarification, we will be able to assess to what extent the money of the land will be able to help. And the council will then make the decision. So, there's a reason why we kept it flexible and didn't name one or the other, um, you know, implying that, you know, other creative ways of implementing residential were not allowed. Um, so all they have to do is show how they will implement. Residential to further division and show how it will be faced. So they might say, I'll give you one acre of land when I get final occupancy, and this will allow, you know, 100 units to move forward. That could be a proposal. Um, um, so there's different ways of bringing that forward. Um, and then finally, the 90 days to submit, um, Yes, we were expecting to have about 90 days or give people about 90 days to submit applications.
[03:13:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you for answering all those questions and hopefully that helps clarify things for colleagues. Okay, council member match.
[03:13:40] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I'll 2nd the motion and just want to comment that I appreciate the flexibility because we do have some smaller property owners, um, that I want to make sure they have an opportunity to participate in the rebuilding of North Bay Shore. Thanks.
[03:13:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much. So we have a motion by the vice mayor, 2nded by council member, Mattachek, council member, show Walter.
[03:14:06] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I just wanted to, um, I will be supporting the motion. I'm really glad that we are here. We've been. I remember on, uh, uh, it was in our December meeting in 2017. We passed the North Bayshore precise plan, um, uh, redo that had included housing. And, um, we didn't really have any idea that there would, it would take all this time for various parts of the planning effort to come forward to us, but it has, and, um, I think that this is a good plan, and I'm glad to see it. Um, I am, I am expressing concern, as was said in the, um, in the, um, economic feasibility study, and both of the major landowners have said about the economic feasibility. But I think that it's a good idea for us to pass this plan, and then for the applicants to come forward and say, This is what we can do, if you gave us, if you change this aspect of it, then we would be able to meet it better. You know, I think that this is a very important point for future negotiations as to specific projects. So, kudos to everybody for getting here. Thank you.
[03:15:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Mr. Vasua, your hand is up.
[03:15:36] Aarti Shrivastava: Okay, I lowered my.
[03:15:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, perfect. Great. Thanks. Just wanted to be sure I acknowledge you. Council member Lieber.
[03:15:44] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Um, well, I want to 2nd the the comments of uh, council member show, Walter, that, um, uh, I'm glad that we are finally at the point of that we are, and, um, moving these projects forward. I think it's the next step for our community. And I'm very glad that we had the voices of labor included tonight. Um, they are critical to all of our efforts in Mountain View. And to my mind, we will do nothing without labor being at the table. And, um, I'm very glad that they spoke to the local hire and to the future placement of the apprentices and, uh, the role of working people going forward in our community. I think that, uh, I see that stitched through so many things that we are working on, uh, the affordable housing, um, quotient, uh, that we have in our community. And I just want to, um, say how valuable it is that, um, these individuals took their time to be a part of the meeting, uh, their voices are critical. Thank you.
[03:17:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Council member Hicks?
[03:17:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I will be happily supporting the motion. Most of the comments I was going to make have been made by other council members. I was particularly happy that, uh, that the vice mayor called out flexibility for making sure that affordable housing is built, um, and the needs of small land owners as well. So I'm glad to hear that there's flexibility, flexibility built into the plan. So there's little left to say, except that I, the one I noticed about the plan is that the tree buffer between 101 and some of the housing looked a little thin, and if that can be enhanced at any time, I would appreciate that, but everything else has been well said. Thank you.
[03:17:57] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Council member Abbe Koga.
[03:18:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I had one question uh, that came up as we were just discussing, um, in regards to flexibility. I do appreciate the comments that have been made. Um, I too am concerned about, um, making sure that, um, we, um, give everyone an opportunity to, to help, uh, redevelop North Bay Shore. Um, I guess my my question to Mr. Vasteva is, in terms of that flexibility, um, can a uh, developer, uh, partner with the city. So for instance, um, we are anticipating land dedication to the city for affordable housing. So, um, could a, a developer come, um, approach the city in terms of, um, providing funding, um, for the development of the, dedicated land by the city. And how does that happen if a project isn't like, if we're not ready to actually develop it yet? Or will we be creating a, like a fund? Um, for that development, future development?
[03:19:12] Archie Shavastva: So a developer is free to propose anything. And one of those could be, oh, you know, you have 5 acres of land dedicated. We propose to give you $20000000 towards that. And what staff will do is sort of weight against, it's not gonna help build the 2000 additional units, but it might help with this. And so, it'll be up to the council then to decide if they're willing to accept the proposal or not. So, we do the evaluation and the council can decide and we show you how they're gonna meet, meet the, the goals and the vision and the precise plan.
[03:19:49] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great, thank you so much for that clarification. Um, I too will uh, be supporting this um, motion. Um, I want to thank, uh, staff for their hard works, uh, especially on this since, um, It, it, frankly, ended up landing on staff to, to, um, put the master plan together or take the lead. putting the master plan together, given the challenges we've had, we had with the various parties involved. I also want to thank our members of the labor community who came out and spoke this evening. Um, I'm glad that we were able to, um, include local hire. Appreciate, um, our labor members coming out way back when we were discussing that. And, um, thanks to their, um, encouragement, we were able to include that, and I look forward to working, continuing to work in partnership, um, moving forward. Thank you.
[03:20:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much, everyone. All right, so I think we have, we can call a question. We have the motion by the vice mayor seconded by council member, Mattachek, and grateful for. That we're here and for all the public comment and all the input. So I'll turn it over to City Clerk Laser.
[03:21:08] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Hi, Mayor Ramirez. Yeah. Council member Mattachek?
[03:21:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.
[03:21:14] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abby Koca? Council member Hicks?
[03:21:19] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah.
[03:21:20] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member labor?
[03:21:21] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Hi.
[03:21:23] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member, show Walter?
[03:21:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.
[03:21:25] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: American May?
[03:21:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes,
[03:21:26] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: motion carries.
[03:21:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Much appreciated. All right, so we'll move on to item 7. item 7. is our North Bay Shore circulation study. Project manager Jim Lightbody with light body consulting will present the report. Public works director John Cameron, an assistant city manager and community development director, director. Archie Shavastva will also be available for questions. Just wait for Jim to come over.
[03:22:38] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Good evening. This is Don Cameron, public works director. I see that Jim Lightbody is just coming on.
[03:22:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hey, he's here. We just need to unmute Jim.
[03:22:52] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Ego. Okay, there we go.
[03:22:54] Jim Lightbody: All right, thank you. I'm sorry, I, a little delayed in getting, uh, promoted up here, as they say. Uh, anyway, good evening. Thank you, and, uh, I think Don is going to run some slides for me.
[03:23:15] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Okay, I assume you can see the slide?
[03:23:18] Jim Lightbody: Uh... hang on. There we go. There we go. Okay. Got it. Anyway, thank you.
[03:23:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Um, Jim?
[03:23:42] Jim Lightbody: Yeah.
[03:23:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I'm hearing a little bit of an echo.
[03:23:45] Jim Lightbody: Yeah, hang it.
[03:24:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Hopefully that takes care of it. Thanks. Take your time.
[03:24:12] Unknown Speaker: I think it's if you're watching it and you're out.
[03:24:14] Jim Lightbody: Yeah. Yeah, I know. Okay. I think I'm okay now, but
[03:24:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Perfect. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[03:24:21] Jim Lightbody: Anyway, thank you. Thank you for, uh, uh, The, uh, circulate, North East Shore circulation study, uh, uh, was established in 2017 as part of an implementation of the precise plan, and the purpose was to identify strategies and uh, uh, review the policies needed to support the North Bay Shore vision, uh, related to overall trip restrictions, restrictions, and other policies. Uh, the focus has been on the full North Bay Shore development, not on interim phases. So what you'll see today are our conclusions, uh, based on the full buildout of North Bay Shore. Uh, the study has been done in several phases. Uh, so we brought back elements of the work uh, previously to council in May 2020, we've reviewed uh, the feasibility of uh, a couple of specific infrastructure projects and got some direction from the council. Uh, and then in June 21 based on that, direction we uh, brought forward and you approved a list of uh, updated list of priority transportation improvements that support the future development in North Bay Shore, and also some other actions that we had developed related to the current uh, bicycle and pedestrian plans and gateway trip cap uh, action. So, today, uh, what we're bringing to you are the final elements of the circulation study that we've been working on, uh, specifically related to 3 uh, 3 items, the, uh, overall strategies and policies related to, uh, compliance with a gateway trip cap, uh, envisioned in the precise plan. Uh, the feasibility of a potential congestion pricing program, and some additional, uh, uh, proposed improvements in the plan that would support, uh, greater use of other transit boats, uh, other modes such as transit and bicycle and pedestrians and transportation demand management. Uh, and those would all support the overall uh, transportation goals. Uh, The 1st item related to trip cap, uh, the trip cap compliance, that's a critical element, uh, for the plan, but in our study, we've determined that the current policy, uh, relates to 45% single occupant vehicle rate is probably not sufficient to allow the full development of North Bay Shore and still meet the gateway trip caps. So, the study addressed uh, potential strategies to deal with that, uh, including the priority transportation improvements that we discussed before, uh, specific policies related to how we monitor and comply with the trip cap. And then uh, what would be needed in the way of new strategies, including potentially reducing the single occupant vehicle rates. Uh, X slide, uh, what we've determined in part is that we need more flexible policies. And so we're proposing some modifications to the current policies that would uh, allow, uh, compliance to be measured in the peak period rather than just the peak hour, as well as combining the shoreline and ring store of gateways for compliance. Uh, we think these are needed to reflect the, uh, the new approach post COVID with more flexible, uh, travel and uh, use of the, of, uh, remote work and so forth, and, and would be a better measure of what is actually happening uh, out in North Bay Shore in terms of understanding the traffic demands. Uh, We've also, uh, done an analysis to update the capacities for the gateway, uh, trip cap, and we've got some specific, uh, improvements, uh, modifications to the gateway capacities as those specific priority transportation improvements are completed. And then, thirdly, we, we're suggesting that there be some modification in the penalties for known compliance, focusing on, uh, higher financial penalties. And uh, not as much on, uh, the restrictions on building permits. Uh, So, specifically, the strategies, we think, uh, from the study, we, we feel that, uh, a lower SOV rate below 45% is needed probably 35 to 45%, and that that should apply to both existing and new employees when they apply for new office projects. Uh, this lower rate does reflect the benefit from housing and internalize trips, which are significant part of the ability to lower that SOV rate from what's currently in the precise plan. Uh, in addition, uh, new development projects would need to include other specific strategies, to fully address uh, trip cap compliance. Uh, turning to congestion pricing, uh, the, the, the circulation study did a, uh, feasibility study of congestion pricing, which was identified in the precise plan is one potential strategy. Uh, we've done a, I think we've learned a lot about congestion pricing through uh, a variety of steps that you see there, uh, learning about the technology, the impacts, the costs, and and potential, other considerations. What we've learned from that. Uh, next slide, is that there is a potentially suitable program that could, uh, could help meet the trip cap. Uh, we think, uh, consultant team recommended that it be applied, uh, strictly to the inbound AM trips, uh, in the morning, say, from 8 to 11, uh, with residents exempt, and part of the reason for that is to, uh, impact them, uh, minimize the impact on other potential, uh, drivers into North Bay Shore. With that approach. Uh, the analysis is that we would need a charge somewhere between 5 and $13 depending on other factors to keep, uh, vehicle trips below that trip cap, and that could potentially result in reductions in the SOV rate of 10 of, uh, 52% to 5% overall. The capital cost, which includes uh construction of some infrastructure, to uh monitor the traffic, as well as some administrative and operational costs. It's fairly significant of $30000000 and ongoing operations would be in the order of $7000000 dollars. However, the revenue potentially could provide enough, there could be enough revenue that could cover the operations cost and potentially help uh offset the capital cost. So it's, the program is feasible. Uh, it would be implemented through Bay area, tolling programs such as the Bay Area, toll authority, or VTA, uh, building on what's being done in the express lane program around the Bay Area. Uh, we do, we did find, however, next slide, that there are significant challenges. Uh, today, that uh, need further attention. But 11 primary reason is that this is a totally new concept. There's no experience in the U.S. with an area wide congestion pricing program. Well, there are a number of cities that are exploring that, including in the Bay Area and around the country. Uh, we don't have enough experience really to know how it would work. Uh, in addition, uh, there's challenges in defining the discounts and how we manage and provide discounts, for example, for low income drivers. Uh, and then there's, there are potential secondary impacts that we've identified on non-commute drivers. Well, the majority of the, uh, drivers that would be impacted by this would be commuters in the morning. There are a fairly significant number of visitors to Shoreline Park, at museum, computer history museum, events, restaurant workers, and others would also be affected, and we'd need to, we'd, we would need to know more, understand more about those impacts. And then finally, there's a question about how a pricing program would impact future North Bay Shore development, particularly uh, the necessary retail services that we would like to see to support housing. So, our conclusion at this time, in regard to congestion pricing, is that we defer a decision on a congestion pricing program, while we continue to monitor the other Bayer tolling activities, learn more about the potential impacts, and monitor the traffic. This is particularly important. How is traffic evolve after the, after COVID, what are the, the demands on the system, post COVID, and understand that better, then revisit a congestion pricing decision at a later date. So, with that, uh, We have a number of recommendations, or we have a recommendation to approve the circulation study draft report, which is included in your packet, and within that, there are several, uh, individual recommendations that are summarized here in more detail in the council report. Those include uh, revised gateway trip cap policies that I mentioned earlier. Uh, potential new financial penalties, uh, for noncompliance, establishing the lower SOB rate in the plan, uh, 35 to 40 per- 40%. Uh, completing uh, priority transportation projects that are already in development. Um, and, in addition, moving forward with the next planning phase for the ring store connector project, which includes several priority elements, uh, and would help relieve, uh, demand on the Charleston transit corridor and has other benefits that we think would be beneficial in making the circulation plan for North Bay Shore work. As I mentioned, deferring decision on congestion pricing. And then, uh, in terms of modal strategies, uh, we also, uh, recommending that there be more attention given to expanded public transit service, Uh, the plan includes several additional strategies, but uh, basically trying to uh, upgrade public transit. Uh, to better serve the area as residential as it becomes a residential area in particular. And then administratively, there's, we would need to update the North Bay Shore precise plan to reflect these recommendations. And because of some of the uncertainties and and questions about, uh, you know, traffic conditions and uh, the need to consider the uh, near term development plans and so forth, we think that it's appropriate to revisit the circulation study, and perhaps firm up some of the recommendations in the, a 3 to 5 year time frame. So with that, glad to take your questions.
[03:35:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much. Does any member of the council have any questions? Council member show Walter?
[03:35:55] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I do. I have quite a few questions. Um, I would like to compliment um, the team on, on this, uh, this piece of work. We got a tremendous amount of information and it took a long time to read through it all. Um, but that's okay. That's good. Um, but I just wanted to start with that. Um... Well, one of the things you mentioned is how the capacity of the gateways changes with various transportation improvements. But when I looked at those changes, some of those changes, it seemed like the improvements that are expected are quite modest, or, in other words, are very conservative. Is that correct? Did you think that those, um, you know, the, the, uh, improved traffic flow that you would, we would get from the various improvements was on the conservative side of what we would really expect to see?
[03:36:59] Jim Lightbody: I think what we tried to do was look at what would be the necessary steps to stay within the trip cap compliance. That doesn't mean that it's going to be free flowing traffic. There's still is, you know, we would expect that there will be some congestion in North Bay Shore during the peak periods. Uh, But, you know, that's to be expected with uh, the amount of development uh, with over, over 40,000 employees and, and something on the order of 18,000 residents out there. So it's going to be, it's going to be a popular area and uh, well, we can significantly reduce single occupant vehicles with this plan. Uh, we would hope, uh, it's not gonna completely relieve traffic congestion at times. If that's what you're referring to.
[03:37:49] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Not quite. Um, what I meant was, for instance, the, the, um, the completion of the off ramp of shoreline. I believe that the improvement was only, like, 100 cars an hour or something. I mean, it was a fairly small number, or I thought it was a small number. relatively. And I wondered if, if, if, if they were, you were using very conservative numbers on purpose, or those numbers are really what you would expect to happen.
[03:38:20] Jim Lightbody: I don't think we were not trying to be conservative. We had a traffic engineering firm that took an independent look at the capacity estimates. I believe the shoreline off ramp, the value in terms of additional capacity was more than a 100. I don't remember the exact number, but I could find that out. Um, I do have it in front of me. It was more on the order of about 650 in...
[03:38:46] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong graph. Okay.
[03:38:48] Jim Lightbody: In the peak hour. So over the peak period, it's nearly 10,000 when you spread it out over three.
[03:38:56] Councilmember Pat Showalter: That's, that's not, that's not low at all. Oh, I'm sorry. I have to look at the difference. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's about 650 peak hour and then it's about 2000 peak period. Okay, good. So it's a lot. All right. So, um...
[03:39:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So, how will we, how do you suggest that we, we incorporate changes in the trip cap as these projects come online? Um, uh, would we... I mean, clearly, they come online at different times? So the improvements happen at different times. Um, so would we, you suggest that we change the trip cap from time to time? So maybe it's evaluated when you do the trip cap report every year, or how will we do that?
[03:39:44] Jim Lightbody: Well, as I said, what we did of the circulation side was look at the full development. So what, when we suggest the 35 to 40%, that's based on when everything is built out there, there would likely be some interim standards that would be applied to projects that they're phasing of their developments occurred. I think if you're referring to these infrastructure projects, um, that was the purpose of table 2 in the in your council report was to say that, as these infrastructure projects come online, We would adjust the capacity of the gateways based upon, you know, what this study indicated, although we can revisit this through time, also, as we see what's happening with trip patterns. But yes, we would recommend that, you know, as the new infrastructure comes online, it does change the capacity of the gateways, and that would be put in place. And then as we do the monitoring, then whether they're exceeding the trip cap at the gateway, it would be based upon that capacity at the gateway.
[03:40:53] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you. That's right. And so it would be an iterative thing. We would change it conceivably multiple times over the years. Okay, God, thank you.
[03:41:02] Jim Lightbody: What would not change, and I think this is what Jim was getting to, is, um, as conditions of approval are set and developments have specific trip reduction targets, they have to meet and the SOE rates. That doesn't change. They still have to meet that. consistently, no matter how many infrastructure projects we bring on board.
[03:41:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. Um, And then I really liked the, um, I really liked the idea of, uh, of having a broad set of penalties in place instead of just, um, the complete stoppage of development permits. I thought that was really smart. Um, and, um, but I was interested in how the penalties would be applied. Would it be applied across the whole TNA? Um, or who would, who would be, um, Who would be, uh, issued the penalty?
[03:42:07] Aarti Shrivastava: So, Councilman Michelle, Walter, it would be applied based upon the development and their condition of approval that states, uh, what their trip reduction target SOV rate is, uh, and as part of those conditions approval, we already have a couple developments that have these. They're required to submit 3rd party monitoring reports. And if they are not retrieving those targets, then it is up to the city to enforce and apply those penalties. And I'll just make a note that this is one of the key reasons that we're bringing on the new TDM analysts that the council previously approved and we've wrapping up the hiring processes so that we do have somebody that can really spend the time receiving these monitoring ports, checking them over in, you know, not only enforcing financial penalties, but also working with the company saying you can do better. And creating that partnership with the TMA, in terms of they're working with the companies and in terms of how they may end up using any financial penalties, uh, as, as specified already in the precise plan and elsewhere, the intent is, they need to use that money to provide more options, more services to help get people out of their cars.
[03:43:25] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. Um, So we would be essentially setting up a process that was very collaborative to meet the goal, not to just penalize people, but to meet the goal, which is, you know, definitely a wise way to go about it. Okay, and then I was very interested in the congested price congestion pricing. which has always been, you know, listed as, okay, that's one of the things that could happen if the trip cap is exceeded, um, several times in a row. And, um, yeah, it turns out, as you mentioned, that it's pretty rare in the U.S. if not being used anywhere, yeah, where it's being studied a lot of places. Um, and, uh, I was wondering if we should be looking at, uh, since this is such an unusual methodology and fairly expensive to, um, uh, to implement. I was thinking about how, should we be looking more at pricing of parking. I mean, when we first started looking at the North Bay Shore, it wasn't clear where parking would be. But as things have gone forward, it looks like an awful large percentage of the, um, employee parking is gonna be in two parking lots. So it seems like it would be fairly, um, straightforward to apply parking pricing, um, at those two locations. So I wanted to ask you about that concept, and, and, um, uh, has it come, you know, I'm sure it's come up. What have you thought about it? So, Jim, I know you did some research on this. Could you please comment and confirm that although the park district parking is is going to have a lot of parking is by no means going to have. I mean, 1st thing we need to talk about is the fact that there's going to be still a lot of parking out there that's not in the district parking structures and do we call?
[03:45:42] Jim Lightbody: Yeah, it was, I think, I think it looked like it was about 22% of the parking, ultimately would be in a couple of district parking garages. And the rest is primarily surface parking, uh, including, you know, companies like Into It and, uh, Microsoft that are not included in the Google plan.
[03:46:04] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So the, so you think that the, the district parking will be primarily associated with Google, and, and I guess SiWest too. Is that is that what you're saying?
[03:46:14] Aarti Shrivastava: Would not be, we don't know, um, but we do know that it does not represent the lion's share parking in North Bay Shore, and, um, you know, from what staff knows about when paid parking works well. It's when you can make sure the majority or more of the parking is paid parking so that you're not providing other options where they're just driving around, trying to avoid the paid parking. And you're not also creating a situation where an employer may feel that they actually have to subsidize the parking, reimburse the employee or provide them some kind of specialty pay in order to recruit because they're the only ones charging for paid parking. There's a lot of challenges involved. When these are not city owned, you know, its city doesn't control the parking. And we can't be assured that we can have paid parking for most of the parking in an area. What we have been strongly recommending as staff is because this is private property. These are private employer operations, is that we hold them accountable for their trip reduction and SOV rates. And we say, we don't care how you get there. But you will achieve this. And here's a whole list of strategies. You're welcome to try. And paid parking and and the converse of paid parking, which is cash out parking, which is more of an incentive base, as opposed to a punitive base. Are very strong strategies that they can consider. Um, so, uh, staff, again, we, we are suggesting that definitely paid parking needs to be in the toolkit. Cash out parking has been toolkit, but so do many, many other TDM options. And we tell the employers out there. You will achieve these targets or face significant financial penalties. Um, so invest your money in in making this happen. And if in the end they decide to do paid parking because that's how it's going to work or cashed out parking. Then they will.
[03:48:30] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, um, When you talk about uh, only 22% of the parking is going to be in, um, uh, in these district parking lots, you think at this point, I mean, it's still early to say. Um, it's still my understanding, and I just correct me if I misunderstand this, that the vast majority of the residential parking would be associated with residential buildings. Is that true?
[03:48:58] Aarti Shrivastava: I believe that's correct, yes.
[03:49:00] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. Well, anyway, thank you very much. Thanks for answering all these questions, and, um, I, uh, I would be glad to make a motion if no one else has more questions.
[03:49:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I have to...
[03:49:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: People do.
[03:49:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, good. All right. That's not surprising. I have to open it up for public comment. Um, and we have more hands. Vice Mayor Ramirez.
[03:49:25] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, mayor, just to clarify a response to one of uh, council member Shel Walter's questions. Uh, the penalties imposed, uh, indie event, the trip cap that succeeded, uh, would apply only to commercial properties with TDM requirements, not to residential, not to, uh, small retail, that kind of thing, is that right?
[03:49:51] Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, I think that's correct. At this point, no yeah, you're correct. It's not envisioned for small retail. Or residential. The residential is going to also have TDM requirements on it. Uh, We, I, I, I'm not as familiar with how that's laid out yet in the precise plan. But we would expect it to have TDM requirements similar to we are placing TDM requirements on other large residential developments throughout the city. Because that's the other side of the trip, and they also make other trips besides commute trips, and especially for North Bay Shore. The key is, if you live in North Bay Shore, we really want you walking biking to where you want to go. Not driving your car for a mile and a half to get to where you want to go. There might be something related to residential, but I think we'd have to explore it as part of the precise plan.
[03:50:49] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Oh, okay. So maybe this is a, you'd be determined, but I'm wondering about in the events, let's say, uh, individually owned condos are constructed out there, you know, with the HOA, pay the fee, or would it apply to affordable housing with PDM requirements? So I do have some concerns about how in practice. That, the financial penalty might, if, presidential properties, if the gateway trip cap is exceeding.
[03:51:20] Jim Lightbody: We have answers not great, but if you don't know. Yeah, they, they precise plan, clearly exempts residential projects from having to comply with the trip cap, the trips are counted, but they do have specific TDM guidelines that they have to adhere to, which presumably, and there is a, a set of guidelines specifically for residential development that would, apply to residential projects. So, there would be some requirements on them, not just, uh, wouldn't directly relate to the gateway cap.
[03:51:53] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Right. And just to be clear, including the proposed fee.
[03:51:58] Aarti Shrivastava: Uh, residential development would be exempt from that if the cap is exceeded.
[03:52:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you. Vice mayor. I am going to let. Ms. Shravastova, who is trying to unmute and raise her hand, answer the question. So I, I think she was trying to get in there. There we go.
[03:52:17] Aarti Shrivastava: Uh, yes. So I kind of liken this developments in North Bay Shore to some of the lowered parking requirements we have in East Wisman. The goal is to design a project where, um, we actually, um, uh, reduce the, the incentive to drive. And they will have TDM requirements and, um, you know, the hiring of a TDM coordinator, connection and joining of a TMA. These are all examples that we are doing, not just in East Wisman, but citywide. So those will be applied. And then, so that's an example of what we would do for residential development. But, but we're really proposing to replace this building permit, um, you know, um, moratorium, with trip, um, you know, if the trip caps are tripped with this additional SOV rate requirement for commercial development. Um, and, and one of the ways they will achieve it is through, um, uh, you know, some of the internalization, uh, rates that the residential will rate, which is fewer employees will, you know, so it's, it's all intended to work in concert. But not expected to be applied directly to residential the SOB rates. Great.
[03:53:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Council member Mattachek.
[03:53:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, there are a couple things and the recommendations that still need to be sorted out. Um, specifically as we were just talking about the financial penalties. And I was wondering um, What is the timing of starting those out, and how do they get sorted out, and do they come back to council? For approval? Specifically when it comes to the financial penalties.
[03:54:15] Aarti Shrivastava: So, uh, I'll give you an example of the, the Charleston East project where the, there were actual, there was a TDM plan that was approved as part of the council approval, and it had financial penalties for non-compliance with certain, um, trip, trip reductions. So that's an example of what the council might approve as part of the master plan. Uh, a phase master plan, that will then just be applied to every development as it comes in. Um, so, um, uh, if you look, if you're asking about a specific development, if the development comes in individually without a master plan, um, you know, we will look at applying that 35 to 40% SOV rate, and we'll have a standard, um, um, I would say a penalty applied to every development based on some recommendation that we have. They won't be different for different developments. If that's what you're asking, council member.
[03:55:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So we have the ability to have it approved. At staff level of council approves the overall program. So if we ever wanted to change it, would we be able to if it's part of the approval of the development?
[03:55:36] Aarti Shrivastava: Um, if a development's already approved, then that would apply to it. I don't think we could go back and change the condition of approval if that's what you're asking.
[03:55:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, because, um, I guess I'm asking, or wondering and then asking, you know, things change. And just like we are revisiting, again, the trip caps and how we're measuring them. Uh, measuring compliance with it. We're looking at changing SOV requirements. Maybe we want to change the financial penalties. And if it's built into the approval of the development, we wouldn't have the ability to do that.
[03:56:23] Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, you're right. But we have the ability, the, the, so, so every development as it comes in with a development project, we, we assign a certain TDM plan and penalties associated with it. But, um, any future commercial development that comes in with more than a 1000 square feet, have to submit a TDM plant. And as part of that, the council can amend or add, um, you know, um, the penalties. So I think it will depend on future projects coming in, and we have a fairly small threshold for additions for them to come in and amend the TDM plan. And these would be applied primarily to commercial development.
[03:57:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Oh, in other words, if an employer who has an approved development already with conditions of approval, but they come in for something else, That's when we would be talking to them about, well, we now have new TDM requirements, it's somewhat different and about that, it really needs to apply to all their employees in North Bay Shore.
[03:57:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, so if there's an approved master plan. And an individual project comes through that's within that master plan area. And the streamlined development review process is adopted, that would not come to council. Is that correct?
[03:57:59] Aarti Shrivastava: No, it wouldn't come to counsel, but it would be subject to the TDM plan approved by counsel.
[03:58:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, um, I guess that was another one that I was going to ask about. So the, TDM and the SOV, um, we were given a range for the SOVs, and would that, when would that be determined? Or is it a range that then we would figure out within that range for each individual development? Um,
[03:58:33] Aarti Shrivastava: I, Don, you might be able to help me better here.
[03:58:36] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So the range that we've provided is the target. And from day one, I think we have to figure out how they get to the target, because part of achieving the target is making sure we have residential come online, because that's going to help with the internalization rate. So I think we need to do a little more analysis to figure out how the phasing works to make sure that we're implementing it. A, in a realistic manner, but certainly, um, in a way that exceeds the 45% SOV rate right from the get go. Um, so the precise plan says 45%. Our target is the 35 to 40%. Um, part of the achieving the target is making sure residential comes online, and that, you know, employers are also thinking of other ways to improve. Um, so I think it depends on the project, and we want to make sure that every project's able to achieve the target within the phasing. So some of this will involve looking at the project itself. Um, you start with the 45, you work your way to the 35 to 40.
[03:59:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes, but that's our understanding as well. You're still going to have to set a specific target. You can't tell development you have this range.
[03:59:51] Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah. But as the developments come in, uh, we will have to evaluate what's the right target, and it might be a phasing target situation, especially if they have multiple phases with their development. Because, you know, as Jim mentioned in his presentation, One of the keys to getting down as low as 35% is the housing. So it may be initially, you know, it's going to be a big struggle just to get down to 42, 40%. But a future phase, as the housing gets built, we may say, you've got to phase down now because now you do have the housing gear, and you can start taking advantage of internalization. And those are the things that we feel we're going to need more time to study, which is why the circulation study is saying, we do see we have to hit this range, but we need a chance to now evaluate specific developments and their timing and how they relate to certain other pieces like the housing in terms of setting specific targets or maybe a phasing down strategy.
[04:00:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So there could be a phasing down strategy for an individual development. Is that what I heard?
[04:01:05] Aarti Shrivastava: We can leave that on the table and study that. Um, but definitely in terms of the master plan, which is going to be, you know, that's your study session next week and what you're going to see is, you know, they're proposing a phasing strategy. And there could, it could be set up based upon each of their phases, ratcheting them down, that type of thing.
[04:01:32] Aarti Shrivastava: Okay, to add, the bonus FAR is expected to come with implementation of housing. And so part of that could look at, when is the housing going to come online and what can the expectation be? Because particularly for smaller property owners, it might be challenging to get to 35 but might be easier to get to 40. So we've created a range to kind of help. Um, help help them.
[04:02:01] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. So, um, earlier, when, uh, I think it was in response to a question. Council member Sher Walter had, um, Mr. Lightbody said that, um, and I want to make sure I heard this right. That, In simulating what was going to happen in North Bay Shore, terms of the circulation. You were looking to meet. So what it would take to hit the trip cap, at the various gateways. Um, And that we would still probably have congestion. We will have congestion. And is that what, like when you're optimizing a model, that's what you were trying to optimize for? was hitting the capacity of the gateways.
[04:03:03] Jim Lightbody: Yes, that's that's correct. I mean, the, uh, the, the definition of the trip cap is, is the capacity of the gateways. Uh, doesn't mean that it's free flowing conditions. It means that that's what you can get in without excessive backups and undue delays. And so that's what we're trying to strive for is the estimates that, uh, our traffic consultants came up with in terms of the capacity at the gateways. Which, you know, limits the number of trips into North Bay Shore substantially. but allows the, the system to still function reasonably well. Uh, doesn't doesn't meet its level of service, free flow, A, B, or something like that. But it means that it's functioning adequately in the peak hour to, to allow the, this is the overall system to perform.
[04:03:57] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And I guess I was thinking all along that maybe we were optimizing for something else, which is why I'm struggling with some of the changes that are being proposed. Um, I was looking for a more free flowing of traffic, um, like, will the congestion on shoreline that exists? It existed pre-COVID. Is that considered free flowing or acceptable? Um, that we've been seeing for many years? In the morning, commute hours? Where it's backed up, you know?
[04:04:34] Aarti Shrivastava: Uh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
[04:04:38] Jim Lightbody: The monitoring reports that we've done every 6 months or so, uh, essentially shows that the current traffic levels on shoreline, for example, are close to, but still slightly below the capacity, uh, of the gateway. So that's similar to what we would expect in the future, I would say. Hmm
[04:05:04] Aarti Shrivastava: I will note, yes, that there were times, you know, we all were aware of significant queuing and backup on shoreline. And some of that is not, you know, it also, that also constrains the amount of traffic going through the gateway. But some of that is also due to some operational challenges through there that will be addressed as we finish up the one on one off-rap realignment and make some additional adjustments. to shoreline with the right turn lane onto pair and so on that can smooth out the operations.
[04:05:45] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, okay. Um, let's see. So, the recommendation to combine Rengstorf and Shoreline. Um, in terms of measuring, uh, Compliance with the trip cap. If you combine them, does that make it easier or harder to meet the trip cap?
[04:06:11] Jim Lightbody: I don't think it's not necessarily one or the other. Uh, it's, it's not my dog. Uh, it's not, it's not necessarily easier or harder, it's just, we think, provides a better representation of actual traffic behavior, which we believe, you know, there will be inter, people will interchangeably use the 2 gateways. And that way you get a better overall measure of what's happening out there.
[04:06:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So sorry, for some reason, it says the host has needed me. Um, If your feet, it's your feedback, Lisa. So when they try to answer you, it's why that there's the feedback. So I think you'll have to ask the question and then mute yourself so that there's no feedback.
[04:06:59] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Get back from what?
[04:07:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You can, whenever somebody answers any of your question, it gives feedback to the rest of us.
[04:07:08] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Just for me?
[04:07:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes. Okay.
[04:07:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, didn't know that. I don't know why it would be doing that. I don't have any other devices on. Um. Okay, um. I guess that's it. Thanks.
[04:07:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. All right, council member Abby Koga.
[04:07:33] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I just had a question regarding congestion pricing. Um, so the recommendation to delay it. Um, Do we have a sense of how long we're planning to delay it? I'm looking at the, um, priority transportation improvements list, and it was in our 5 year category. Are you suggesting we move it to tenure into the tenure category or? Is it gonna stay where it is?
[04:08:00] Jim Lightbody: I don't I don't think we had a specific time frame. I think what we're suggesting is that we should observe, what happens with post COVID traffic conditions, we should follow what is going on in other systems in the Bay Area, other pilot projects. For example, there's a potential, uh, express lane pilot for low income drivers that, uh, will come into play in the next year or two. I think we will better serve to learn more about what else is going on and then revisit it, at least in a couple of years.
[04:08:36] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. And then, regarding this list. Um, I can't remember. Do we get, um, updates yearly or, um, what, yeah, what is the time frame? Is it the 3 to 5 years that is being recommended? Could you clarify the timeline in terms of um, updating the priority transportation improvement list?
[04:09:04] Aarti Shrivastava: You want to take that down?
[04:09:06] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Certainly. Uh, we originally were recommending 5 years, but, again, because we don't know how, post-COVID, how, what's going to happen with the traffic conditions, and how things are going to change. We said, we may need to do it as early as 3 years. So we're talking about in that range. And the reason why, especially when we're talking priority transportation improvements, as you know, none of these get delivered in a year, these do take several years to deliver. So, and we have 5 year CIP. So, the thinking is, we work with what we have right now, for priority transportation improvements, and the newer term ones are already in our CIP, we do some plenary planning work, for some of the 10 year ones, maybe in, you know, start working those into the 5 year CIP. And then at the right time, 3 to 5 years from now, we revisit the circulation study. and re-examine, you know, do we still need all these transportation improvements? Do they need to change? Do we need to reprioritize them? How we can keep flowing into our five-year CIP.
[04:10:15] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Um, in particular, I just noticed that, um, quite a few, like, the bike head projects are in later years and wondering if there's a way of moving them forward in light of, um, COVID and, you know, the just, uh, changes and, um, pattern, transportation patterns that have happened and that we hope to continue to encourage, um, post COVID.
[04:10:40] Public Works Director Don Cameron: So it's a little misleading when you look at that list, the 20 year list. It looks like we're putting off those bike pad projects in that. They're called bike pad projects, but the reason you see such incredibly high price tags is because they involved like reconstructing a freeway overpass to get it in. There's actually a lot of biceped improvements baked into those five-year projects, 20 year, 10 year projects, as well as what would be built as part of development in terms of them putting in their own frontage improvements and so on.
[04:11:18] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, great. Thank you.
[04:11:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks, council member Hicks.
[04:11:26] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So 1st uh, comment on, on council member Mattachek's question, which I thought was good, what are we optimizing for? I thought we were optimizing for. a car light neighborhood and maximizing use of alternative modes of transportation. And therefore, maybe, as council member Mattachek said, more free flowing cars, hopefully, you know, 10 years from now, all electric, but that people would be using other modes, therefore, I'm repeating myself, but therefore, cars could flow freely. I'm not optimizing for, personally, my goal is not to optimize for congestion anywhere. Anyway, that said, that's more of a comment. Um, I, you know, I'm supportive of the staff recommendations, um, and, in particular, uh, you know, updating closer to three years, rather than five years, as we look at how COVID, uh, you know, changes with, with COVID and with the construction, they're pan out, um, and, uh, shifting from, uh, withholding permits to financial and a lot of the other things. I also strongly support recommendation number seven, which we haven't talked about much, which is, um, public transit. I really think that's, um, what's gonna, I think, we're all in this together. The developers, the, you know, city officials, city residents, employers, and we all have to make it work. Nobody is gonna benefit if we just let people develop, and nobody can get in and out. Um, so, I think that public transit is really the one of the big things that's gonna make it work, because my understanding is that the way Google meets their, um, current 45%, um, uh, SOV rates, it is mainly through the Google buses. So the thing that I find missing, and that maybe staff can clarify how we could put some teeth in it, or add to it, is how we're going to, how will we make the public transit, or work, since that's on there, uh, it doesn't seem like what we've been talking about now, which is, you know, upping, lowering the SOB rates to 35 or 40, and then penalizing people if they hit those is gonna really make, generate enough money to create the mass transit. So, would it be through the only things that I can envision, or either that the, um, well, that we all sit down, that we all sit down together, the employers, and look at the, you know, maybe we don't have, um, private buses anymore? Maybe that's not working, because, like I said, we're all in this together. Maybe we sit down and work that out so that it's more public transit. Maybe we decide that instead of charging the fees later, we charge something earlier so that we can create it, but that's the, I strongly support this recommendation for public transit. And I do think that's what we have to do, but I don't see it happening in this plan, and I'm wondering, since you recommended it as recommendation number seven, how you see that happening.
[04:14:59] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Well, part of part of that is, uh, is tried to influence ETA to, uh, uh, increased service. Uh, we think there's going to be some opportunities in the future, they have talked, they've discussed uh, service expansion. Obviously, they'll need additional operating funds for that. So, part of what we're saying is, Mountain View is developing a high, high, uh, quality neighborhood that, uh, that deserves good transit service, and we could advocate for that. Now that's not a full answer, but that's, I think we think part of the strategy. Uh, the other piece would be to work with the uh, TMA, in developing additional services, and that could partly be funded through other programs that uh, would, would be available. Uh, including the potential penalties uh, on SOV usage.
[04:15:55] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, well, I I generally support that answer. I think we may have to beef that up a little, but we'll say that for comments. Thank you.
[04:16:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Great, thank you. So, uh, do any other council members have questions for staff? Okay, I'm not seeing any questions. So I am going to open it up for public comment. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide public comment on this item? 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. Great. Albert jeans.
[04:16:37] Public Speaker Albert Jeans: Hi could you please show my slides?
[04:16:40] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, just one moment.
[04:16:43] Public Speaker Albert Jeans: Great. Yeah, Albert Jeans, longtime resident. In general, yeah, I'm very impressed by this report here. It has a lot of good stuff in it. I'd like to draw your attention to section 8. Next slide please. which is the results of the actual simulation, and these are the kind of simulations that I was always showing you. It's called micro simulation where they actually, you know, seem like every single car going through the system. And I wish Jim would show some of these to show you what the traffic would actually look like. But if you read in that, the summary of it, it says results of this simulation show that even with the SOB reductions and additional infrastructure, both scenarios, which is with, with and without, the rank store for improvements, result in a decline in key performance indicators compared to existing conditions. This is what council member Madachek was referring to. For example, hours of day, hours of delay increases from 750 hours to over 2000. Think of all the extra greenhouse gases going out because of that. So next slide, please. For example, if you've got the corridor travel times and my favorite, of course, is Shoreline Boulevard. Currently, it takes, according to them, you know, fifth, 12 minutes to go from Shoreline, from Middlefield to Crinton. That sounds about right. And you know, that's with, you know, the congestion that we had. With all the improvements. It's going to increase the 15 minutes, which is equivalent to going at 5.2 miles per hour, which is a little bit faster than you can probably walk. But that's how fast you're going. The next slide, please. So that means conditions are going to be worse than this. And this is what it was like, you know, before COVID. You know, maybe it's going to be look like this on all 3 gateways, Rang Storf, and San Antonio. I'm not sure how much worse it can get. Remember, this is sometimes backed up to the Safeway, you know, almost the central expressway. Is it going to be backed up past central? You know, when North Bay Shore is fully built out. And as you said, we do not, you know, should not be looking at, well, let me said, when you're, when you build these things to go at capacity at the gateways, this is what you're building for, you cannot reach the gateway capacity or you're gonna have that kind of congestion. you.
[04:19:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we'll just get the timer back. And Cliff Chambers.
[04:19:15] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: Thanks. Cliff Chambers. I'm speaking on behalf of the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. I really feel that staff and the consultants have done a really excellent job of crafting the recommendations for the circulation study, and we're generally in concurrence with most of them. I think it's very wise to update the circulation study in about three, maybe 4 years, once more is known, known about the post-pandemic circulation patterns. And there's a lot we don't know today about that. But I think this brings to 3 opportunities. The first opportunity, in that update, would be the incorporate the findings and the recommendations of the act of transportation plan that the city is just embarking on, since walking in bicycling our critical modes in the North Bay shore precise plan. The second opportunity is what council member Hicks was referring to and really developing a robust public transportation plan. And this really, we have an opportunity to combine resources from the major employers out there, the TMA and the city to really have a robust community transit service serving the needs, not only of the three residential developments, but connections to the rest of the city. And I think this is a major opportunity we need to take advantage of. And then, um, There's a lot of discussion about paid parking. Pay parking is one of the most effective TDM measures, as Ms. Cameron said, It's part of the toolbox, but it's one of the most important parts. You know, of the toolbox to really make the system work out there. So thank you very much.
[04:21:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. James Kuzumo? Oh. I lost you, James. Oh, here you are. Hold on. All right, there you go.
[04:21:25] Public Speaker James Kuzmo: James Kuzmo, speaking for myself. I generally would like to echo Cliff's comments, um, I think this is a excellent plan, and I look forward to it being implemented. The, um, focus on adding increased public transit service is particularly important, and it would be great to see that happen as some sort of collaboration with the ETA rather than adding, uh, yet more random transit systems to our area, but honestly, even improvements in Vico in the community shuttle would be outstanding and better than continued private mass transit service, which is still better than cars, of course. One other thing that I would like to press on is the introduction of some sort of, um, pricing scheme for cars, whether that's by doing paid parking as cliff alluded to, and as, um, don't remember who was asking questions about it, but as that was alluded to. Or by way of congestion price, congestion pricing. There are a lot of people who maybe are on the edge of choosing, oh, do I take the bus today, maybe that's a couple minutes longer, or, oh, do I bike today, but is it hair chilly out, or do I just drive? And making it so that there's this even slight financial penalty to make people think, oh, yeah, I'd rather not pay a few bucks today to cross the bridge. is extremely valuable and has consistently throughout the world been shown to help immensely in reducing car use. So I would look forward to seeing some form of, um, pricing for car used to help discourage sea occupancy vehicle trips, whether that is in the form of congestion pricing or in the form of a paid parking program or something else. Thank you.
[04:23:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Daniel Holsey?
[04:23:11] Public Speaker Daniel Holsey: Let's see. I think I'm on. Yeah, okay. Um, so I just want to agree with the previous commenter that, um, You know, I'm not necessarily tied into any specific solution to this, but, um, whether it be, uh, uh, congestion pricing system or paid parking or whatever, uh, uh, introducing some financial, like, incentive to move people out of single occupant cars and into buses or on the bikes or or whatever is, uh, really a key sort of motivator for, uh, getting that to actually happen and and building a more sustainable city. So, uh, I I just want to state support for that. Thank you.
[04:24:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Kevin Ma.
[04:24:17] Public Speaker Kevin Ma: Evening counsel, my name is Kimma. I was speaking on behalf of Mount of UMB tonight. We are in support of the staff recommendations on the North Bay Shore circulation study. Um, we are pleased that staff has recommended shifting enforcement to financial penalties rather than permit restrictions, given that we understand that financial feasibility of the housing products are likely heavily dependent on the commercial properties being developed. We do concur that the fines from noncompliance should be fed back into products that will be targeted to reduce single occupancy vehicle driving. We also support the city working with partnerships such as the TMA or VTA or the shuttle. To create a viable public transportation system in Mountain View, as critical to just traffic concerns, as well as environmental concerns, and for pursuing a transit rich designation that may provide grants and streamlined XO as a project. I believe this is the 1st time a city has affirmatively tried to, uh, add more transit in order to get those kind of, uh, uh, grants. Um, inherently, transportation is important, and I believe that the considerations of a faster library route, as well as perhaps a new bus route to the NASA NASA Aims. A library station will be good as an overall plan. And we are committed to make sure this plan succeeds. Thank you.
[04:25:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Would anyone else like to provide public comment on this item? Right, I don't see. Any more hands, so I will bring the item back for council deliberation and action. I believe there are, there were, I think, 9 recommendations, is that right, Jim? Council member Matachek.
[04:26:17] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, sorry if I'm still getting feedback here. Uh, I agree with most of the recommendations, but I have a question about, um, the area that I have the most concern, and that is tying penalties and the TDM and the SOV rates to a specific uh, development at a specific point in time. It would it be possible to have those as like a separate, like schedule, that when a development is approved. It's subject to that schedule, that then we can modify when we need to. Uh, because I don't want to run into the situation where we can't change something and yet, the conditions are such that we need to change something. I don't know if staff has a perspective on that.
[04:27:17] Unknown Speaker: Sure. Let me, Miss Cameron, should you answer that question or, Mr. Lightbody, would you want to? I think this needs to go to our community development director. Okay.
[04:27:32] Unknown Speaker: Um, I, I believe council member Mattachek, that when we set conditions of approval, we have to give the complete, um, list of impacts and fees that are applicable to the development. And, um, you know, I, we might have to take that back to ask as a question, but if I had to answer it today, I would say that a condition of approval has to specifically state what the development would be subject to. We typically add CPI or CCI increases, and that we have the ability to do, but, um, I haven't yet, um, haven't yet, um, seen a project where the, the impact was unknown for a project, and we approved a project based on some future fee that, that, um, was not identified as part of the conditions of approval.
[04:28:30] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um. So, um, when council member, uh, Hicks talked about, you know, her vision was car light. I was saying I imagine cars were flowing freely. It is because there are not very many of them because people are taking alternative forms of, uh, transportation or walking or, um, other ways of getting around. And so I'm concerned that, um, that isn't what we've sort of optimized for. And, you know, I'm sort of hesitant to say, you know, I totally support this plan without having looked at how could we make this more car light, um, so that other forms of transportation are moved more, are used more. I will quickly add that I am concerned about relying on VTA to provide the public transportation when it doesn't seem like they've done a great job of that in the past, but I do know that the, um, TMA and the city of Mountain View have done a better job. And so I would hope that we would continue to invest in those solutions rather than the VTA. But, um, you know, I'm concerned that we're not optimizing for what maybe several of us, or maybe all of us envision as what we want to see in North Bay Shore.
[04:30:00] Unknown Speaker: If I may just add, and maybe Dawn, you can add more color, since you've been part of the circulation feasibility study from the start, the North Bay Shore precise plan sort of envisioned this complete community, and that, um, that the housing would help, um, you know, reduce the number of trips. But it still set a target of 45% SOV. I think what the circulation study has done is kind of improved upon that to say, if we build out this development, even accounting for internalization rates, we think the 45% is not sufficient. And so we want to ratchet that and make it more car light by focusing on a reduced SOV rate. And we're not going to do it by holding up development, but we're going to do it, development by development as it comes in, by, uh, basically assessing this, uh, basically requiring employers not only to include their project, but all their employees into this new SOB rate. So we're really trying to fashion, um, a path forward, that looks at car light. But I think we're looking, we're trying to do something that's realistically achievable so that the vision is still implemented. Because part of this is to see how can we make it happen and happen in a way that's not just achieving the vision in the plan, in the plan, but goes beyond it. And so, I think staff is coming to you with this, additional car light recommendation for the SOV rates where we not only ratchet down the SOV rates, for, Beyond the 45. But not only include the new development, but also include all the existing employees as part of it. So if Microsoft comes in, for example, they would have to, they would be subject to this lower rate, but also, they would have to pull, pull in all their existing employees. For example, that current campus, which wasn't subject to it. So, we're looking for a path forward here, um, that goes beyond even the vision in the North Bay Shore precise man.
[04:32:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: But do the simulations that were done, include, um, pulling in existing development at a lower SOV, and you still have congestion, or were the simulations before those what you just said happens?
[04:32:35] Unknown Speaker: Jim can answer, I think, I think we looked at the bonus FAR, right, Jim?
[04:32:40] Jim: Yes, the simulations did factor in reductions across the board in terms of SOV, but the nature of those simulations is also that they're designed to somewhat portray a worst case situation. So we can understand the potential impact. So, we'd hope that, uh, you know, the, the actual results would be better than what uh, the, the, uh, malice shows. I would like to, some of that color, maybe, that RT mentioned, to point out, a few things to recognize. 45% SOV rate was incredibly ambitious. You really don't see it in the Bay Area or other areas of California unless you're dealing with a huge major downtown, like New York or something. Now we're saying we want to go down to 35 to 40% SOV rate. I mean, that is incredibly ambitious. Getting anything lower than that. is, yeah. Well, it's going to be quite um, quite an achievement that we can crow about. nationally if we achieve 35 to 40%. I want to point that out for context. Even with that, The simulations are saying that we would be at capacity at, uh, you know, pretty much very close to capacity at shoreline and ringstore gateways. So, we talk about we are car light. I mean, to go to 35 to 40% is car light. That's different than when we're talking about the gateway capacities that we're trying to stay under those caps. And the other piece is the, um, uh, theory of induced demand, which is if you, if we were to try to go with free flowing gateways, It can have the opposite impact, uh, effect of bringing uh, people choosing more, it's easier to just choose to use their cars. So you're trying to find this balance of, you know, you want to keep things moving smoothly. But you also want enough inconvenience and congestion that also helps people say, I don't want to be in my car. So we're always working with this balance. If you really want free flowing gateways, I can bring you, I, it'll be major infrastructure we'll have to build. Because, It, it would be very challenging to do anything less than 35 to 40% of SOV rates.
[04:35:21] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I don't think I'm looking for additional infrastructure. Um, I'm looking for really car light. And yet not a real negative impact on this side of, uh, 101, uh, with a lot of backup at the 3 gateways. Thanks.
[04:35:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So, um, just to clarify, council member Matachek. So I know you, did you make a formal motion there with, okay. Okay, it was questions. All right, great. Thank you. Just wanted to double check. Council member show Walter.
[04:35:59] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, um, I would like to, uh, uh, bring up the idea of of making, um, Membership in the, the member, all the members of the, the TMA uh, work on these things collectively. And um, that the, the mem, you know, and the city to do what we can. I suppose with people who don't have a new ministerial um, connection, maybe we don't have the authority. But to get it to be part of the TMA's rules to reduce the SOV and to share, um, sort of a proportionally, shared proportionally, the, um, you know, the work associated with that, being, you know, everybody doing their fair share, as council member Hicks has stated repeatedly. Um, I, I feel like if the, we build everything in just at the development phase, that doesn't allow for how traffic will change over time, you know, say, you know, say 40 years after build out, or 20 years, as after build out. Things could also change and be a problem. So I would like to explore that, I would like this, hopefully, Steph will explore the idea of how could we, um, have it built into the TMA to regulate, to self regulate as an, um, you know, as a body, to self regulate their traffic? For the good of the whole? I mean, one of the things that we can all say, we can say about all of these, um, these, uh, the corporations that we're, we have in the North Bay Shore is, they are, are marketing very loudly, and saying, goodness, they're doing it. They're, um, their sustainability goals. and their commitment to a planet, um, where, you know, GHD reductions are less, you know, sustainability ideas are strong. Anyway, I just think that we should work that idea for how they behave locally. You know, the old, um, uh, um, idea about you need to act locally, uh, advocate globally and act locally. I mean that's really... I think what we have to, we have to work to figure out how to do that. Anyway, with that, I am very, um, I would like to move the, uh, staff recommendation to approve the North Bay Shore circulation study draft report, which is attachment one, and, um, and that includes the list of recommendations that are in the council report.
[04:38:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we have a motion by council member, Show Walter, a council member, Abi Koga.
[04:38:59] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I'll go ahead and 2nd the motion, and if I can just add a few comments, again, I'd like to think staff for those comprehensive reports, I thought it was very well done and well written. Um, I, you know, on the whole, do, um, uh, uh, support the recommendations. Um, I will say that I understand, but I am um, disappointed in the congestion pricing um, item. Um, it's something that, I think it's gaining steam. I remember when we 1st talked about it, no one wanted, except me, me. Now, I'm excited that more folks are looking at it. Um, but I do understand that it's, it is, uh, we're probably early in the, in the movement. Um, I will say as um, Mr. Lightbody mentioned. Um, some exciting things on the horizon. as part of NTC. Um, we have the Bay Area infrastructure financing authority that is in charge of express lanes for, um, much of the Bay Area express lanes, and we just, uh, passed a measure to, um, conduct a pilot program and meet for means tested tolling on the, um, I 880 express lanes. So, I think those types of studies, um, are moving forward and our pilot programs and we should be learning and getting more data and that should help us and as we look at, um, uh, this potential project um, for our North Bay Shore area. Um, I do concur with the others. I talked about paid parking or asked about paid parking and how we can implement it in North Bay Shore. Um, I continue to, um, you know, have a desire to do that. Um, I understand the challenges because we don't control all of the parking out there. Um, but if it is, it can be included as one of the DDN measures. I think that is a good 1st step. Um, I would also, um, highlight, as mentioned, uh, in terms of trip caps, and congestion, and, um, delays and, um, SOV, traffic. Um, I, I think it was Mr. Lightbody, or Ms. Cameron mentioned. Um, and I remember seeing this actually back in the 2010 to 2014 era. Um, When, um, the economy was picking up again and and, um, traffic was congestion was increasing. Um, people started actually taking like light rail, public um, public transit. This was when I was on a VTA board, and it was because, um, it was faster to get on light rail back then than to sit on when I won highway traffic. So, I do think there is a, there's that balance, there's mentioned, there's a, a fine tension there that I think that exists between, um, making SOV, flow freely or or not making it flow freely, and, um, encouraging alternative modes of transportation. So, um, I think, uh, we, um, we can improve congestion, but at the same time, if we can continue to work on our bike head projects to make it more attractive, um, to take the, take a bike or walk over, um, you know, since, um, it seems like, It, it's been in the, before COVID, it was really that last mile or half a mile or even a quarter mile that, um, folks were taking their cars to get to work, but because the, the long hauls were being, um, satisfied or addressed with the, the private shuttle services, but it was really, uh, we, it was antidotal that we heard about the folks that who lived closest that were driving into their, their company parking lot. So, um, I think, uh, in light of that, um, I hope we can, yeah, encourage and continue to, to improve on our bike pit projects or move those forward. Um, but, um, We probably can't expect to have free flowing traffic of SOV traffic. If we really want to encourage alternative modes. And then finally, um, or actually, a couple other things, the TMA rule, I guess I'm still, I, I guess I just need to maybe understand better because I know the city is a member. So I don't think my understanding is we can't dictate what the TMA does. It's the membership that decides that. Of course, we can encourage the TMA to do things. We're a member of voting member, so we have that kind of role, but it's not really our role to be able to say you need to do this, but I do agree that, um, I hope that the TMA will play that role in, um, convening all of the different entities. Um, you know, encouraging the TMA to increase their um, public transit um, programs. And the goes sounds like it's been pretty successful. Um, I know that when we started the TMA, we had looked at the Emeryville model, which was offering shuttles, ended up offering shuttle service to the entire community, um, as a result, and that was my vision or hope that we would get there. Um, I think with the combining with our community shuttle, that can be more of a reality. Um, so, um, definitely would encourage that kind of effort with the TMA. Finally, in terms of public transit advocacy. I know you've heard me, uh, as I've re-engaged in the transportation world. I, um, I think there, um, you know, everyone likes to bash BTA. I tend not to do that because I think BTA has done a lot of good things. I will say, I was going to mention this in our announcements, but in terms of projects, we just approved of the before to prove last week, um, funding for measure refunds for the interchange, the Shoreline off ramp realignment project. Um, as well as a couple of other interchange projects. Um, and also, we're in a new, new phase right now with VTA, um, in light of what's happened this year, especially the tragedy, the shooting tragedy that occurred that, um, effectively, stop light rail service for a while. Um, I think there's a, a beginning of reimagining what public transit could be or should be. And so, um, I'm hopeful. I think I'm hopeful that there is opportunity in the future. And I'll also say that in terms of transit service, um, you know, I, I, I don't know if we can encourage VTA to increase their best service in Mountain View, but, um, perhaps we can look at grant funding for, like, the community shuttle, I believe, our expansion was partially funded by, it was either VT or MTC funds. Um, as I sit on NTC and VTA. I do see a lot of grant opportunities and I think we could maybe look at. I know, you know, our staff works really hard and it's been overloaded, but hoping that with our new legislative consultant. There can be some help in looking at more cramp funding opportunities. So that may be an avenue that we can pursue in terms of how we work with VTA. Um, And then again, you know, as I mentioned, the it's not so much, or it's not just VTA, but working with MTC to ensure that we get our fair share of funding here in the South Bay, so we can increase our transit service. Um, so with that, again, I'll thank uh, staff and uh, look forward to supporting this motion.
[04:47:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So, we have a motion by council member, show welter, um, 2nded by council member, Abe Koga, council member Hicks.
[04:47:12] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I will, I wanted to add my thanks to staff and I'll be supporting the motion as well. And I just wanted to emphasize my support for, what a number of council members have been saying, but I guess in particular, uh, council members, Mattachek and Shulwelter was saying, maybe we can do more than just, um, wait for the, um, wait, wait for the triggers to be passed and penalize people. I think we can, I hope that the city, whether it's through the MTMA, or through the new, um, transportation demand analysts, or through the legislative advocates that we've hired, that we can provide some robust leadership on moving some of these things forward before they become a problem, whether it's getting more public transit, or some other means, some other more robust measures for alternative modes of trans Um, or for, um, or for peg parking as well, some way to get that work, some of the things that can really make a big difference. So, you know, I just, or maybe just, uh, sticking to 35% as a trigger rather than 35 to 40. But some way of getting ahead of the game, not waiting until nobody can get in and out, getting ahead of the game to get some of these things going. But I will be supporting the motion.
[04:48:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Any other comments from colleagues? Council member match?
[04:48:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No, I am wondering if, um, We could include, uh, some of the comments council member Michelle Walter made about, um, the TMA and including that the city of Mountain View was a member of it, uh, take the lead on bringing forward the ideas, uh, or do we have to have like a, uh, separate vote on that or something? I don't want that to get lost in this, um, because I do think it's really important, um, for the success of the area that we push forward with some of the ideas that we discussed here tonight. Um, and, you know, I don't want to lose that. So do we need to include that in the motion?
[04:49:37] Public Works Director Don Cameron: Through the chair and the mayor, if I may. Um, So, as I believe was acknowledged by one of the council members, we do have to remember that the TMA is a nonprofit corporation membership funded. The city is a member. We do sit on the board. We have a vote. But we're just one vote. So the city is not able to, let's say, direct the TMA. However, what we have heard, and we can take, and I don't know if you really need to make this part of the motion. is that you would like city staff participating on the TMA board to further engage the TMA and all the TMA members. And it's not just the staff person who is me that sits on the board, but all our other staff involved, our transportation team and so on. To have some real discussions with the TMA about them stepping up in terms of a leadership role, working with all their member agencies. And, and, I mean, they've done a lot. I, you know, I'm sure you've acknowledged that. Their envy goes shuttle system, which they were just ready to expand before COVID. They were adding a brand new route. It's free and open to the public. Um, the subsidies they were providing to get people into carpools. Uh, there's quite a bit they've done, but it's not to say there's not more they can do, including in, you know, one of the things I took away was engaging their members who are providing their own private shuttle buses of. Is there more that they can do to come together in terms of their own private shuttle systems and sharing and, um, helping to increase transit in the area. As staff, we're going to take that as direction, that you want us to re-engage the TMA and see if we can end, you know, encourage them and light a fire to say, can you please start trying to do more?
[04:51:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, I think the DMA has done a great job. Um, I don't want people to think they haven't or that I'm saying they haven't. I think they've done a fabulous job. And so I view it as a good vehicle to do even more. Because they've shown they can do great things.
[04:52:01] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Does that answer your question, Councilman Mattachek, do you? Okay, great. All right. So I think then we have the motion and we have the 2nd so I think we'll just call the question. um city clerk laser.
[04:52:15] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member, she Walter?
[04:52:18] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.
[04:52:19] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Abbe Coca? Council member Hicks.
[04:52:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.
[04:52:25] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member labor.
[04:52:26] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Hi.
[04:52:26] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Council member Mattachek?
[04:52:29] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.
[04:52:30] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Spice Mirror Ramirez.
[04:52:32] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yeah.
[04:52:33] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: May I come next?
[04:52:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.
[04:52:34] Interim City Clerk Silvia Vonderlinden: Mission Harry?
[04:52:36] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks, everyone. All right. So that concludes item 7.one. So we can move on to item 8 council staff committee reports.
[04:52:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Do any colleagues have anything to report here? Council member Abi Koga.
[04:52:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mary. Just continuing from my earlier comments, I attended the VTA board meeting last week. Um, a new chair for next year, 2022 is elected at um, uh, Vice Mayor, Chubby Jones from San Jose, and Vice uh, chair will be, uh, Mayor Rich Constantine from Morgan Hill. Um, so there, it was an approval of measure V, a measure B funds, um, for highway interchanges, and that included our 3 projects for Mountain View, so the shoreline, um, off-ramp realignment, the 237 Middlefield interchange, and the 101 interchange at San Antonio Road to Charleston Road in Ring Starf. Um, I also attended the sustainability committee, uh, council committee. meeting. I, you know, the, uh, my, the 2 other committee members are here too. Um, I'll let the chair maybe expand on the report. Um, and then I wanted to just mention, um, that's this air district related. Um, follow up, um, regarding the leaf blowers or, um, the gas powered landscaping equipment, as you all, probably know, the, um, state assembly member Berman's bill was, um, uh, signed into law. Um, I, I was just discussing, uh, with air district staff, implementation of that, um, law. And, uh, learned that there actually was $30000000 um, included for an incentive program to do the exchanges. Um, 30000000 isn't a whole lot for the state, entire state. Um, but as you know, there's a budget surplus and there's discussion about. how to, um, use that surplus and so, um, air district staff that that they will be working on seeing if we can, um, increase the funding for that incentive program. And then as the sustainability committee meeting, I was happy to hear that Silicon Valley Clean Energy has, um, approved a pilot program for us in Mountain View to do the, um, exchange program. Um, so I know there are some emails I saw about, um, whether, you know, the, the bill, the state bill doesn't affect 2024. Can we do something sooner? And frankly, it just takes a while to get these programs up and running. So, um, at least the, and, and there are these, um, incentive programs. I think that is gonna be the issue for, um, because there it could be financial hardship for some of the smaller business owners who use landscape equipment. Um, so I think this is actually aligning quite well timing wise, so just wanted to mention that. Thank you.
[04:55:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Council member show, Walter.
[04:55:54] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I just wanted to say ditto, um, to, well, congratulations, uh, Margaret, to, um, being, uh, uh, voted in as as the chair of ETA. That's wonderful. Uh, no. It wasn't me. It was Chappy Jen's. Oh, okay. All right. Well, anyway, thanks for sharing. And thanks for your service on it. I know you spent a tremendous amount of time, and you built up a lot of, um, know how. Anyway, um, the sustainability meeting really was a great success. I just want to specifically thank all of the staff involved for the time and effort that they put in to getting just a tremendous amount of information available for us. And, um, it, it was just really appreciated. So, we had a great meeting. Then, but on the flip side, you know, apparently, this was the first sustainability meeting, committee meeting in two years, and, um, that's just too long a gap between meetings, so, I hope, you know, I hope we can have one much more quickly. Um, but anyway, I just wanted to make sure we thank staff. Um, council member, uh, Hicks and and, uh, Abikoga and I, I think we're all very, you know, impressed by, uh, the information that we're shared with us and and the recommendations. Um, I wanted to, uh, just announce, again, that that this Saturday, we're having a bike ride along the, um, bay trail to talk about, uh, the Salt Pond Restoration and the various sea level rise protections that are being worked on there. And the ride's going to start at the shoreline lake parking lot at 10 o'clock. And then we're gonna end there, hopefully, maybe around 12, And those of us who want to can go to lunch at the Lakeside Cafe together. So I would just like to, you know, invite everybody who might be interested to come. Um, and, uh, we're going to have, um, John Marchand and Ray Wong from our staff, taking part, as well as David Halsing, who is the executive director of the South Bay Shoreline, um, I mean, the South Bay Salt Pun program. So there'll be people with a lot of know how on the trip to, uh, to share what is happening. And hopefully, we are also getting somebody who is a bird expert to help point out some of the wildlife that we might see. So that should be fun. And then, uh, kind of not the announcement part, but I, um, I, uh, I wanted to, just as an itemate item, uh, ask about where the safe parking expansion of shoreline, um, safe parking lot is, and I don't know if we would want to get a report back in the future, or, the city manager can report at this point, or, but I would be interested in, in hearing that. It was certainly relevant to what we heard about earlier.
[04:58:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, what we've heard earlier this evening. So I, I'm a little bit confused, council member, show Walter, um, are you making an emotion for further information that you would like to do a straw poll on?
[04:59:16] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I guess so. if that if that would be appropriate. Or if staff has current information, they could just share with us. That would be fine, but otherwise, a straw poll, I'm interested in finding out what is the status of, um, uh, the safe parking, uh, expansion at Shoreline. I know we have talked about it in the future, I mean, in the past.
[04:59:36] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So I believe...
[04:59:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Same here, you mean?
[04:59:41] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yeah. Thank you. So, we have, uh, discussed it, and staff provided an update to council, um, the last time about the spaces that were expanded, were for the use of the project home key site, uh, 34 spaces, um, at that time, and we did expand, um, to put in, I believe, 10 or 11 more spaces at the site, and any further expansion, uh, would really need to be discussed with, uh, the county and also live nation. So they have resumed their concert season, and they are very much, um, attuned to the spaces that they have there and that they want. We also are required to do, uh, various processes with the county and the state about, um, remediation because it's a landfill site. So we have to have checks when we expand. So, there are still quite a bit more work that staff have to do. But we did add more spaces, those 10 or 11 spaces. And so, uh, we will need to come back with uh, further information about what to do. Uh, I will remind council that we have a homelessness uh, strategy, that we will be preparing when the human services manager, the new human services manager comes on board. Um, and part of that is looking at the safe parking program, um, and the expansion. So, that's the latest information that I have now, but, um, we will certainly have more information once, uh, we can get this strategy up and going. Thank you.
[05:01:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, Council member Matachek.
[05:01:30] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So since the last council meeting, I have participated in a number of board meetings as a board member. Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Authority, Santa Clara County Airport Land use Commission, and the Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency. And, um, then, As council member, we had, um, a couple of Council committee meetings, the council policies and procedures committee meeting. And I believe the results of that will come to council maybe at our next meeting. Um, and then, uh, we also had a council finance committee meeting. And one of the things we discussed again at that meeting was the potential refinancing of any bonds. We have outstanding, and I had asked the city manager if we could get an update on that. Um, we had, um, Mr. Tagahashi provided information that really the only bonds that we could potentially look at are the shoreline, one of the shoreline bonds. Um, because it's callable, but the others are not yet. Um, and then um, I think the city manager had some additional information.
[05:02:53] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, council member Matachek. So, in terms of what's happening with the bonds and just timing, um, so if council would be interested in expanding, um, well, I should say, looking at refinancing the shoreline community bonds, this would need to be added to your strategic roadmap action plan. We already have in the hue, the potential Hope Street bonds that staff is anticipating doing in the 1st half of 2022, which is a significant workload. We're also doing the fee study and the TOT measure, and of course, as you all know, the budget development at the same time. So if council would be interested in staff exploring the, um, refinancing of the shoreline bonds, it wouldn't be until the earliest fiscal year 22, 23, And it would have to be put on the work plan, and then counsel would need to come back and assess the timing and feasibility of that. Um, but that, that's really where we're at right now with all of the priority projects in the queue, and another fun refinancing in 22. Or not a refinancing, a new financing in 22. Thank you.
[05:04:12] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Um, and that's it for me.
[05:04:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you, council member Hicks.
[05:04:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Well, I'm glad to hear that, uh, council member, Abby Koga and Show Walter enjoyed the Sustainability Committee meeting. There were meaty issues for sure. And I was gonna give just a couple of details of that meeting. Um, the, we 1st talked about, uh, that transportation, of course, is the largest part of our greenhouse, portion of our greenhouse gas emissions, and lessons learned from the pandemic, uh, in terms of, uh, what we might be able to do to, given remote work, and so forth, what we might be able to do to reduce, um, our, uh, greenhouse gas emissions. I thought it was a staff produced a very, like I said, media and well written report that every, all council members might want to read, but, um, the two elephants in the room were, uh, that, uh, was transit hesitancy, and the fact that the, that remote work may, uh, get people to choose to three elephants in the room, uh, people to, uh, choose more sprawling housing. So, be further away, and therefore, greenhouse gas emissions go up, and the, um, and that also, if people, current employees are only coming into offices, part time, uh, employers may just hire more people, um, and so there are a lot of problems for us to work through so that the outcome of, you know, what we've learned from the pandemic is not, uh, more greenhouse gas. emissions rather than less. Also, council member Show Alter brought an item on sea level rise, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the major outcomes was that, of course, we can't, we can't mitigate sea level rise alone in Mountain View. We have to coordinate with our neighbors. So, uh, that uh, there is forming a regional committee of elected officials and council members show Alter can be more precise on that than I just have been if she wants to be. Um, And then the last thing we addressed was the possibility of accelerating our carbon neutrality goals to 230, and the outcome of that is that staff is going to come back with a quick survey, not, you know, that's not the kind of subject you can study over the next 5 years or we won't, or it'll be almost 2030. They're going to come back with a quick survey on what other cities are doing that council can work off of. So that's some quick summary of what. Well talked about. Thank you.
[05:07:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: You froze there for a second, council member Hicks, but I think you were saying that you were finished. So I think we're okay.
[05:07:23] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, perfect. I don't want history ending.
[05:07:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, leave us. leave us hanging. Um, okay, so thanks everyone for your reports. I just have a quick one. Um, last week I attended the uh, Peninsula, League of California, Cities, Peninsula Division, uh, retreat, um, where I'll be serving on the board as the treasurer this year, and also attended the League of uh, California City's Board of Directors meeting, where I'll be uh, serving on the board for the next 2 years as um, a member. They added the 5 diversity caucuses and I'm representing the women's caucus. Um, And I think that concludes item eight, so we'll move on to item nine, which is our closed session report. City Attorney Chopra, do you have a closed session report?
[05:08:13] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you, Mary. Yes, I have one item to report. Council met earlier in closed session on item 2.3 and unanimously voted to direct the city attorney to reject the claim of Tao Patricia Sanders. And that concludes my closed session report.
[05:08:31] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much, city attorney Chopra. And I'd also like to note that the our upcoming meeting, the school resource officer item previously slated for the December 14th, city council meeting has been deferred to the council's January 25th, 2022 meeting. Just wanted to make sure everyone knew. And we'll move on to item 10, which is adjournment. Um, thanks so much for joining us in our next city council meeting. For the year. will be held next Tuesday, December 14th, 2021. Until then, stay healthy, and our meeting is adjourned at 9.40 p.m. Have a great night everyone. Thank you.