City Council Meeting - December 14, 2021

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:00:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Everyone, thank you for joining us for close session. I'm going to read the usual announcement as required.

[00:00:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: This meeting will be conducted in accordance with city of Mountain View City Council resolution number 18618 in accordance with Assembly Bill 361.

[00:00:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: All members of the city council are participating in this meeting by video conference with no physical meeting location.

[00:00:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Members of the public wishing to observe the meeting live may do so at mountainview.legistar.com, on YouTube at mountainview.gov/youtube, and on Comcast channel 26.

[00:00:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: As noted on the meeting agenda, members of the public may provide oral public comments during the public comment period by visiting mountainview.gov/meeting to enter the zoom meeting or by phone by dialing 669-900-9128 and entering webinar ID 834-4698-5143.

[00:01:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Any emails received by 4:30 PM today were received directly by City Council.

[00:01:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: City Attorney Chopra will make remarks and then the City Council welcomes public comment on the item listed for close session.

[00:02:02] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you, Mayor. The City Council will now meet in closed session on one item. Item 2.1. Public employee appointment California Government Code section 54957. Title of position, City Attorney.

[00:02:16] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: That concludes the closed session announcement.

[00:02:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we'll, um, would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on the closed session item listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in zoom or press star nine on your phone.

[00:02:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, I am not seeing any hands. So I will close public comment and bring this back to item 2.1, which is our closed session.

[00:03:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So Council will recess to closed session and return here for our regular meeting at 8:30 or sorry 6:30 PM. Thanks everyone.

Segment 3

[01:34:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, welcome back everyone. Um... welcome to the City Council meeting of December 14th, 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 mountainview.legistar.com, on YouTube at mountainview.gov/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 mountainview.gov/meeting to enter the Zoom meeting or by phone by dialing 669-900-9128 and entering webinar ID 834 4698 5143. Any emails received by 4:30 p.m. today were received directly by the City Council. And today, I'll just turn around so that we can um have the Pledge of Allegiance. So please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[01:36:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: 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.

[01:36:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. We'll move on to item two, which is roll call. The City Clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[01:36:25] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga

[01:36:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here.

[01:36:30] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks

[01:36:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:36:33] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber

[01:36:34] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Here.

[01:36:35] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Matichak

[01:36:36] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[01:36:37] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter

[01:36:39] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.

[01:36:40] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez

[01:36:42] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:36:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Kamei

[01:36:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Here.

[01:36:45] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Thank you.

[01:36:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we'll move on to item three, which is presentations. We'll take public comment for the presentation item. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. And we'll display a two-minute timer. All right, and I see a hand. Erica Valentine.

[01:37:18] Erica Valentine: Just to confirm this is for the Google project, correct?

[01:37:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: No, we are on item three presentations.

[01:37:27] Erica Valentine: Sorry, wrong, wrong item. Sorry.

[01:37:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, no problem. All right. So I see no other hands, so I'll close public comment for item three, which are presentations, and bring it back to council. And we'll start with item 3.1, our proclamation in recognition of City Attorney Krishan Chopra on his retirement. Of course, City Attorney Chopra needs no introduction, but uh, he... this is his last evening for his final council meeting as our city attorney after his announcing his retirement on September 8th. And I'm honored to present him with this proclamation. The proclamation reads: Whereas Krishan Chopra joined the City of Mountain View as an Assistant City Attorney in 2009, was promoted to Senior Assistant City Attorney in 2015, and then was appointed as City Attorney in 2019. And whereas Krishan has provided expert legal advice and guidance to the City Council and staff, helping craft solutions to complex issues that reflect both legal requirements and the city's values and priorities. Whereas Krishan has drafted many city ordinances to protect the health, safety, and welfare of residents and address important community issues, including recent ordinances to ensure gun safety, prohibit smoking in multi-unit residences, and enact rent stabilization for mobile home park residents. And whereas Krishan has made significant contributions during the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the city's legal needs, including extending eviction protections for rental tenants and clarifying the impact of the statewide eviction moratorium, assisting with opening an urgently needed COVID-19 vaccination site at the City of Mountain View Community Center, and facilitating the expansion of outdoor business regulations to help support businesses during the public health emergency. And whereas Krishan played a critical role in supporting the rapid roll out of the Project Homekey program and Safe Parking program. And whereas Krishan was instrumental in the development of complex agreements, such as collaborating with the City of Palo Alto and Santa Clara Valley Water District on a long-term agreement to develop beneficial uses for recycled wastewater. And whereas Krishan has provided leadership to the City Attorney's office, managing a high volume of responsibilities, including complex litigation, weapons petitions, claims, land use and environmental matters, public works construction projects, conflict of interest compliance, initiatives and referenda, Brown Act compliance, public records requests, and contract review. And whereas Krishan has dedicated 23 years to public service. And whereas Krishan is recognized by peers and colleagues for his passion of law, work ethic, expertise, and dedicated assistance to the City Council and city departments. And whereas Krishan's colleagues in the City Attorney's office thank him for his leadership and guidance, compassion and understanding, support and inclusiveness, sense of humor, and for keeping the office connected and motivated during the COVID-19 pandemic. And whereas after 12 years of dedication, hard work, and loyalty to the City of Mountain View, Krishan will retire on December 30th, 2021. And whereas Krishan's colleagues will miss him and wish him the very best in his next chapter. Now therefore I, Ellen Kamei, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council, do hereby recognize Krishan Chopra for his many contributions to the City of Mountain View. I think that deserves a round of applause. City Attorney Chopra, would you like to say a few words?

[01:41:22] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you very much, Mayor. I have a few remarks. Thank you so much and, and to the whole council for your uh kind and thoughtful proclamation, and thank you for your leadership and service to the City of Mountain View. All of my contributions to the city were made possible by the hard work, support, and collaboration of so many people, and I'd like to personally thank and recognize them now. Those include my fellow council appointees, the department head team, city staff, and my tremendous colleagues in the City Attorney's office. What I will miss most in my retirement is working with this group of talented and dedicated people. Serving the City of Mountain View has been the highest honor of my professional career. I am now excited to start a new chapter in my life, but will keep many fond memories of working with all of you. And most importantly, I need a prop for this, I will be planning my next adventures at home on my own personal private street in Mountain View. I will show this to you all, I don't know if you can see this... uh... it says Chopra Court. So thank you all so very much. I'll miss all of you and um I wish you all the, the best success in the years to come. That concludes my remarks.

[01:42:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thanks so much, City Attorney Chopra. Uh, would any member of council like to say a few words? Uh, Councilmember Matichak.

[01:42:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Well, Krishan, I want to thank you for everything that you've done for the City of Mountain View. Um, it's been an absolute pleasure to work with you and we've worked together for a very long time, on both EPC as well as the City Council. And um, it, it really has just been um, a pleasure to work with you, um, laugh with you. I appreciate the mayor mentioning your sense of humor. You do have a great one. I will definitely miss that. Um, and I'll miss seeing you every Tuesday night, and I wish you all the best in whatever you do next. So thank you again.

[01:43:33] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you so much.

[01:43:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[01:43:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I too want to just um offer my deepest uh gratitude to Krishan. Thank you so much for all that you've done. You hold a special place in my heart because you joined the city um during my first tour as mayor and so 2009 it's been a long time and a long and wild ride at times. Um, but you've always been very upbeat, positive, um, you know, hard-working, and um... yeah I love your sense of humor. Um, but mostly as mentioned in the proclamation, um I really value your genuine heart and your loyalty to the city. I always knew that you were doing your best um and you sincerely care about Mountain View. Um, of course, you're a resident here, so I think that, you know, that means a lot. Um, but I I really appreciate your, your genuineness and your, your true heart, and I will certainly miss you. Um, I hope that you'll keep in touch since you'll still be a resident of Mountain View, but thank you so much for all of your work all these years, and I wish you all the best in your, your new adventures ahead, and I'll miss you.

[01:44:55] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you so much.

[01:44:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. City Manager McCarthy.

[01:45:02] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. Um, Krishan, just on behalf of myself and the entire department head team and the entire organization, I just want to thank you for everything you've done. Uh, for those of you who don't know, Krishan and I very first worked together many years ago on the minimum wage ordinance. It was both... it was my project uh when I was Deputy City Manager and Krishan's project when he was the Assistant City Attorney, and so he and I got to know each other quite a long time ago and spent many hours together just on that endeavor. And at that time I knew I was dealing with a really special type of attorney. And by that I mean many of the things that you all have mentioned in terms of him being very humble and compassionate and kind, and for those of you that have either worked in the legal field or know a lot of attorneys, his lack of ego is certainly not something that you see all the time. And so Krishan, I just want to really commend you and thank you for everything you've also done during the pandemic. I don't know if a lot of people really fully grasp the extent that you and your team had to pivot for the organization to really help get through within sometimes hours, sometimes just a couple of days, all of the contracts, all of the financial arrangements, even moving to online and electronic contracts, that's a big deal for an entity that has never done that before and doing it within days. So there are so many other things that I could say and I think the mayor highlighted many of your accomplishments, but I just want to thank you and wish you well on behalf of the entire organization. I know whatever your next chapter will be, you'll approach it with abandon, and we really just wish you the best. So thank you so much for everything you've done for the city over all these years.

[01:47:03] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you so much. That means, means very much to me. I appreciate the remarks.

[01:47:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. And I, and I know I said a lot so I will, I will now take it as a point of personal privilege to say I'm not going to take it personal, City Attorney Chopra, that you are leaving uh before our 10-year anniversary of serving the City of Mountain View together, because I was first appointed as a planning commissioner in 2012, um, but I, but I won't be upset that you're leaving in year nine instead of year 10 to celebrate our decade together. Um, but uh really just, you know, feel like you are a true public servant through and through. And you are compassionate and caring and here to humbly serve, which I think has been, you know, the City of Mountain View and our community has truly benefited from that. And I think you have um travels in your future and I can't wait to hear about all of your adventures, namely all the food that you'll be eating as uh you make your way on, on and do those travels. So uh just want to thank you once again and I'm gonna ask my colleagues to give you one more round of virtual applause. And thank you for your service to Mountain View.

[01:48:14] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you.

[01:48:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Alright. Um, and I'd like to move on to item 3.2, which is our COVID-19 update by City Manager Kimbra McCarthy.

[01:48:25] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. I am going to start sharing my screen now. And hopefully I get this right this time around. All right, can you see my screen?

[01:48:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So I think... hold on, there's a slight delay. And it... there we go. Perfect.

[01:48:41] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Got it? Okay, great. Thank you. So I am here tonight to talk a bit about the uh things that we have learned just since the last update in terms of COVID and all the changes that have occurred. And then I also wanted to present some information and data about all of the programs that the city has had in place not only over this past year, but really since the beginning of uh the pandemic in 2020.

[01:49:09] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So in terms of starting with the latest on the pandemic, you all know and you've all heard that the Omicron variant is now here in Santa Clara County. So the good news is that we do have 80% of all residents are fully vaccinated, and just this past Thursday when the county announced the very first resident with the Omicron variant, uh they really... the county really really is really pushing for folks to go get their their booster shot. Only 39% of the population in the county has the booster shot.

[01:49:42] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So again, 80% fully vaccinated but only 39% boosted. So health officials are anticipating that we will see more transmission of this variant in our county along with other places around the, in the Bay Area.

[01:50:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So with that, we do have a new travel advisory that the California Department of Public Health has issued, along with some new COVID-19 guidance due in part to this new variant, but also because we're going into this holiday season.

[01:50:19] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So since Thanksgiving, the statewide seven-day average case rate has increased by around 47%. Hospitalizations have increased by 14%.

[01:50:31] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So in response to this, taken with the Omicron variant, the Department of Public Health has issued this new guidance which requires indoor masking, regardless of vaccination status, through January 15th. Now in our county, we have always had this indoor masking, but there are other counties across the state that haven't necessarily had indoor masking, so now the state has put this uh masking requirement out statewide.

[01:51:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Also we have what they're calling new mega events, which um are crowds greater than 1,000 people indoors or greater than 10,000 people outdoors, uh those crowds of people are going to be required to either be vaccinated or have a very recent negative COVID test.

[01:51:20] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Another new thing for the holidays is that travelers arriving in California from out of state or out of country are recommended to be tested for COVID within three to five days of arrival. So this was just announced, I believe within the last day or two, so these are obviously going to be uh big changes going into the holiday season and it's essentially it's looking like we are not going to have that masking requirement lifted anytime soon.

[01:51:51] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: In terms of what's happening with the booster shots, so right now everyone over the age of 16 can get a booster shot. So only the Pfizer shot is authorized, and the way that it works is if you have the Pfizer shot you can get your booster six months after.

[01:52:09] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Also the same for Moderna, but for those people who have received the Johnson & Johnson shot, it's recommended to get your booster two months after that shot.

[01:52:19] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: You can still schedule your appointment at sccfreevax.org. That also includes our Mountain View Community Center that's part of that sccfreevax.org site where you can make an appointment there. And you can also um check out our website and it has information about our testing as well.

[01:52:40] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So this chart really just shows what's happening with vaccinations. The orange line that you see at the top is the case rate for unvaccinated residents. The gray line is the county overall case rate, and the blue line that you see at the very bottom is the positive case rate for fully vaccinated residents.

[01:53:01] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So you can see here in the chart that there's quite a disparity between the cases that we're seeing of people that are vaccinated versus unvaccinated. So just to reiterate the times that you can get vaccinated at our community center, it is Tuesday through Friday 8:00 to 6:15, so we have expanded those hours so that more children can be vaccinated and more people can go there to get their boosters. Again, this is free, but you do have to make an appointment.

[01:53:33] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So then I also wanted to present the snapshot of what the county-wide COVID-19 numbers look like. So what you're seeing here are the chart from the last update I gave compared to this current update. So you can see that cumulatively across the county, there were around 148, 149,000 in my last update about a month ago, now we're at around 154,000 cases.

[01:53:58] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, we do have around 80% of folks, as I mentioned before, that are fully vaccinated compared to about a month ago there was around 74%. So we definitely are making progress on the vaccinations.

[01:54:12] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: In terms of what's happening here at the city, in the last update there were 77 new cases, and since then we have 145 new cases. So you can see in that third column from the left, the cumulative positive cases in Mountain View we've gone from around 38, 3,863 cases to a little over 4,000 cases.

[01:54:35] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So I want to pivot to talking about what we've done with our relief programs. And I'm really pleased to report that we have had several thousand residents not only benefit from our rent relief program, but also our small business assistance program.

[01:54:52] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So as of September of this year, CSA, as um most of you know, CSA is the provider that we're working with to administer the rent relief program. They've used funds to provide rent relief to over 1,000 households, so 1,204 households have received rent relief. That has helped almost 3,000 residents, so 2,914 to be exact.

[01:55:18] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, we also have a rent relief program that the state is administering, it's called Housing is Key, and that program has helped 266 Mountain View residents. And the rent relief program at the state is similar to the program here at the city. Both renters and landlords can apply for assistance, and applications are accepted at housingiskey.com.

[01:55:45] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So I wanted to also talk a little bit about the direct financial assistance program that the city has provided funding to CSA, um and the CSA also is getting funding from other sources. The city has uh provided a million dollars to CSA that they could distribute to direct assistance or also for other purposes that they saw fit.

[01:56:07] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So they've spent around $262,000 for this flexible direct financial assistance. Most of it was used for rental assistance, but it was also used for other things such as bills, or um car repairs, or groceries, or things like that. And those funds served around 83 households, which was around 204 residents that it helped.

[01:56:34] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: For our Mountain View Solidarity Fund, so City Council also allocated a million dollars to this fund, which helped struggling families. Uh, we have so far given out two rounds of funding. Uh, the second round actually um was just released yesterday. In the first round of funds, we distributed for around $400,000 and it helped 473 residents in around 130 households.

[01:57:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And the second round, it's 300,000 that has been provided and it's expected to also help over 100 households. So so far there's been almost 400 inquiries for assistance. So you can see that between the rent relief program, the direct assistance with CSA, and the Solidarity Fund, that the city has really stepped up in a leadership position to help those most vulnerable residents in our community, and we've worked very closely and have had a really great collaboration with CSA to administer these programs over the last almost two years now.

[01:57:41] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I also want to provide an update on our Eviction Help Center. So at these clinics, residents receive one-on-one assistance in applying for rent relief. And currently the Eviction Help Center is open two days a week now. So it's open Tuesdays from 10:00 until 2:00 and Thursdays from 1:00 to 5:00. And both of these times are at the Mountain View Public Library.

[01:58:08] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And the reason why we're doing this twice a week now is really because of increasing demand. So I just wanted to highlight some of the numbers of residents that that we're helping and we're serving. And these are just from November. So we've had 19 clinics and a couple pop-up events. We've had over 200 tenants uh attend these events and 3 landlords. We've had 157 individual households apply for rent relief just at the help center alone. And that's assisting 227 clients total since mid-August.

[01:58:46] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, most of the people that we are assisting at the help center do have a primary language other than English, so over 80% of the people speak another language, primarily Spanish. And most of the people that have learned about this help center are learning it through folks that we've either helped um at the at this eviction center before or they're learning it through other community members. So we really are thankful that um the city is able to provide these resources and partner so that we can help residents in our community who may not normally know about or hear about these sort of programs.

[01:59:24] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So that kind of leads me into this next section, which is the community outreach that we have done on eviction prevention. So we've really taken a very specific multilingual approach to giving direct communications in many different ways. So not only are we sending emails, we are sending postcards to residents, we are doing targeted mailings to renters, we are working with our community partners and the community advocates that are um very specifically working with the most low-income people in our community. And we're really also trying to constantly update the website and put out flyers all of the time.

[02:00:09] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So just to give you a few more data points, we've had over 500 inquiries, six pop-up events, we've done 12 webinars on this topic, 307 mailings, and two postcards to all households, and that's not even in addition to the many emails that we've sent about this. So the city really is again taken a leadership role really trying to help out the people that need it the most this whole time during COVID.

[02:00:40] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Now pivoting to the small business relief, um there were a couple rounds of the small business grants that we gave, and in this first round uh we provided almost a million dollars in funding. And round two has supported around 34 businesses and there's still about 13 more businesses that are in review right now. So when all of this is said and done we will have provided almost $1.2 million in grants to small businesses in our community, helping 167 businesses.

[02:01:15] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, I also want to highlight that the county is right now currently applying for a 2.4 million dollar state grant that's expected to launch in the new year where they will be able to help uh support grants to businesses throughout Santa Clara County, and those grants are expected to be around $2,500 each, so we do expect that some Mountain View businesses will be able to apply and we'll be able to get these grants. And then I also want to remind people that our Castro StrEATS program and the closure of the blocks in on Castro Street will continue to be closed through January of 2023.

[02:01:56] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Now just pivoting to a couple community updates. I do want to let everyone know that the community shuttle's hours of operation have expanded, and this is starting after the holidays in the new year. So starting January 3rd, the bus or the shuttle will run from 7:00 to 7:00, so 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Uh weekend hours are going to remain the same, it's going to be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

[02:02:21] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And we are really thankful that we were able to expand these hours. This is through a grant that we received uh through the VTA, through Measure B funding, and the grant was over uh around $700,000. So we're very thankful to the VTA and really um glad that we were able to use this funding to expand those hours. I also want to thank Google for working so closely and collaboratively with the city over many years and uh getting this shuttle going, um transitioning the shuttle to the city and also the MTMA, which now um is going to be operating the shuttle.

[02:03:03] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: And then lastly I just have a few pictures here highlighting the very successful Community Tree Lighting that we had on December 6th. I think that there were many, many people that were just excited to be outdoors and have that sense of normalcy and be around everyone. Staff has estimated there were around 3,000 people that attended this event. And our staff is really already thinking about how we can expand it next year uh and make it even better and brighter for everyone. So with that, that concludes my update and I'm open for any questions.

[02:03:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks so much City Manager McCarthy and I'll let you um remove the the PowerPoint, but I think before we get into council questions, I think colleagues can we just give a round of applause to City Manager McCarthy and our city team that's been working tirelessly all year, but going back you know the pandemics now I think we're in month 21. So just really wanna make sure that we we give our our thanks before we go into questions. Alright, Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:04:13] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor and I I agree completely. Um one quick question. Uh the council also allocated um I can't remember precisely how much, nearing a million dollars in ARPA funds for unpaid uh utilities. And I'm curious to know uh how is is that spent, you know what what's the status of that um allocation?

[02:04:39] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh, thank you Vice Mayor Ramirez, that's a great question. So uh, yes, there have been many utility accounts that have been unpaid, and I am working with um FASD staff to get an account of that, and it is likely that in round two of the ARPA funds, which council will revisit this spring, we will likely bring...

Segment 4

[02:15:00] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: another recommendation to council to allocate even more funds towards that because we have, you know, many accounts that have been unpaid due to Covid. So um there's more to come on that and like I said I'm I'm still getting information from staff but we will be bringing this back to council with an update.

[02:15:20] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Great, thank you.

[02:15:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, any other questions or comments from colleagues? Okay. Great, it looks like no more questions and would any member of council like to say a few words? Alright. I am not seeing any. Um, City Manager McCarthy, once again, thank you so much for the update. Um, unfortunately we're probably gonna have to continu[e] these into 2022. Um but really grateful to you and City staff and our community um for for getting through um this year. So thank you so much.

[02:16:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Alright, we'll move on to Item 4, which is our consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. The reading of the full text of resolutions and ordinances will be waived unless a council member requests otherwise. As a reminder, the purpose of the consent calendar is for the council to efficiently and quickly consider a high volume of routine or administrative business items with one motion. Although council members may remove items, it is generally not intended for the council to have a lengthy, substantive discussion on consent calendar items. Would any member of the council like to pull an item? Councilmember Hicks.

[02:17:49] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I don't want to pull an item, but I do want to ca- there were some very interesting items and I just wanted to highlight several of them if you can tell me what might be the appropriate time to do that.

[02:18:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I believe now is the appropriate time to make comments, although I do see some other hands raised. Um, so City Attorney Chopra, shall we do comments and pulling items for consent, or shall we do um pulls first?

[02:18:17] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Yeah, we can, we can do them all together, we can treat Councilmember Hicks's uh comments as a, a pulled item just for her to comment on that, and take the other um council members' uh items they'd like to pull also.

[02:18:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, perfect, okay, that's what I thought, thanks, just wanted to double check. Councilmember Hicks go ahead and and uh make your comments.

[02:18:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sure. Again, I'm not pulling these, but I just want to welcome the public to read through the consent items, they're often very exciting things on there that um are not worthy of us uh taking time discussing. In particular, I'm gonna call out right now uh 4.14, which is amending some Council policies. I won't read all their letters and numbers. But uh we have, if you read the details, we've added uh maternity and parental leave for uh giving birth and adoption, as so a sort of a sign of the times. Um I believe that, you know, as of several decades ago, there were uh not even any women on Council, so you can tell things are changing. So that's one I'm very proud of. And then another is uh 4.10, the MTC Mobility Hub Pilot Grant Program, which is gonna have something that uh many people I know who want to uh ride ebikes have been asking for, which is upgrading the bike room with new racks and electric charging for ebikes and e-scooters, which I know people like to um often like to park electric bikes in um in uh bike garages like this where theyre extra secure. So I'm hoping that will encourage people to to buy ebikes. Um there are a number of other interesting ones, but maybe um people will be pulling those and and we'll be talking about those more. Thank you.

[02:19:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[02:19:17] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I'd like to pull item 4.7 for discussion.

[02:19:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[02:19:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I don't want to pull these items, but I just wanted to comment on a couple. Um 4 point uh 10, as the Councilmember Hicks mentioned, I was just um really excited, I saw this on our MTC agenda a while back, and we were one of a handful of um projects that was granted the funding. So I'm very proud of our, our City's application, and look forward to that project moving forward. And then 4.8, um always very excited about the community shuttle, as mentioned by the City Manager, we're expanding as in in January, which is great. Um I I was excited to see that numbers, our ridership is starting to get come back, um and that even pre-Covid, um our numbers were, you know, very, doing quite well. Um as, as it says in the staff report, VTA has a minimum of 15 boardings um per hour I believe um for their um for their service bus service, and we, I think we're at 24 or so. Um so I'm very happy to see that um interest in our community shuttle. Look forward to the expansion. And then um I I hope that pre-Covid, um we were starting discussions with the Air District. They actually have funding under their TFCA, which I can't remember now what it stands for, but it's the Clean Air Fund. And um my hope is that we can resume conversations with the Air District to see if we can get some funding to um as we actually get close to having to replace the vehicles, 'cause that's one area that they they seem to fund. Um so, thank you.

[02:21:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter.

[02:21:17] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, just adding to the kudos. Um I would like to congratulate the staff of the City of Mountain View, and also the Coastal Conservancy, on um uh item 4.9. Um and and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration. Uh these are agreements that they've been working on for um a long time. And um they will lead to the restoration of Pond A2 off of um our shore, which is really the first major um sea level rise protection project that we are um uh embarking on, and that that's just great news. So uh congratulations to the staff of all of the organizations that have worked on this.

[02:22:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Lieber.

[02:22:08] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Well I I wanted to um particularly thank uh my colleagues on Council Policies and Procedures for um their work in moving forward uh 4.14, uh the policy to provide for parental leave um for Council and our Boards and Commissions. Um my reasoning in requesting this item was that um I think it's really critical that we have the full diversity of the community um involved, both at the Council level and also on our Boards and Commissions, and and this is an important move towards uh doing that, and I'm proud to say that we do have a feminist council here of uh six women and one feminist man, and this is a great example of that kind of policy that we need. Um and I wanted to join Councilmember Showalter in giving my thanks to staff um for moving forward uh 4.point uh 4.9 on the uh uh South Bay Salt Ponds uh item. My understanding is that uh this is going to uh help to uh release uh some actions that uh can help us start the restoration as as early as January, and given that we just have about eight years to um make these um needed uh environmentally sensitive restorations on on the bay, this is really critical, time is um of the essence.

[02:23:45] Councilmember Sally Lieber: And then on uh item 4.6 on uh the Castro Street closure, uh I wanted to say that with regret, I'm going to be abstaining on uh this item, because I do feel that um there is is needed work that um we can do um in terms of um improvements before moving towards uh a half a million dollar expenditure. And I think that sometimes it's easier to uh go to a consultant uh to rely on them to um take the steps that are needed, and and that could actually I think delay us from pursuing some uh very simple and effective things that are are really needed to keep up the quality of of Castro Street, and to make sure that the closure is a a good and and beneficial and economically strong uh situation for all of our businesses. So I'll be abstaining on this um item tonight, but I will uh definitely continue to work with staff and with Council uh to try to get those needed improvements uh done, so that we have an attractive and uh well-kept up uh Castro Street.

[02:25:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Any other council members would like to pull an item or make any comments? All right, I am not seeing any hands, so we will move on to public comment. 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 nine on your phone, and will display a two-minute timer. Just waiting for the timer, here we go, and Michael Abramson.

[02:25:43] Michael Abramson: Uh, can you hear me? Yes. Uh I'd like to comment on item 4.8 about Community Shuttle. Uh, so I appreciate the work that you're doing to keep it operational, but uh, this is the item that I'd like to see a little more exciting. Actually, a lot more. So, it's about two years ago when there was this community shuttle study that made several good recommendations. One of them is about to be implemented, extending the hours of operation. But another one was to extend, to improve frequency of operations, and for this, we need more shuttles than what we have. And you are going to lease only four. And this procurement, my understanding, that it takes about a year, if not more, so it will be already three years from those recommendations. So, isn't it time to move uh, further than this, and uh really try to lease as many buses as needed to implement these recommendations? Maybe a little smaller, maybe they will be a little cheaper, we don't need probably 31 passengers per bus. And maybe some of these buses, instead of these two gasoline buses, maybe consider hybrid buses to save on fuel and to use it in line with electric buses if needed. So, that's something that I'd like to see and not just to struggle to keep it in the same state as it was. Thank you.

[02:27:43] Bruce England: Thank you Mayor, good evening. Um, I'd like to speak for item 4.6, the Castro pedestrian mall for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and Green Spaces MV. And just a comment on Michael Abramson's comments, uh, I hope he doesn't mind, I just want to mention that he was uh comment his comments reflect the comment letter from MVCSP that was sent earlier today with his signature on it.

[02:28:13] Bruce England: Um, on the pedestrian mall, just two points on that. One is the just to reiterate our support for Option uh C for the rerouting of Evelyn. And actually with a desire that that be moved even further east to create more open and green space around the intersection of Evelyn and Castro. And then lastly, with the um, the intersection of California and Castro, right now there's a blinking red light, so you stop and go, and that's true for pedestrians and bicyclists, which is ideal. I'm not sure if when the new closure with the first three blocks takes place that that is going to continue at California and Castro. Um, but I hope it will continue and we'll be watching the feasibility study to see what happens with that. Thank you.

[02:29:02] Eileen McLaughlin: Yes, good evening Mayor Kamei and members of Council, I'm Eileen McLaughlin, representing the Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge. And I would like to comment on Item 4.9, the South Bay Salt Pond project, and add to comments that our members of the council have already made. Uh, our organization was not involved in uh the work that's gone on over years to get bring this to you, and I've heard about it because we are stakeholders in South Pond project and work with the Refuge. So, uh, your staff has done, you know, moved mountains, worked closely with Dave Halsing with the with the SEC Salt Pond Restoration Project and Refuge Management to get this done. And not can't afford to delay, like, last summer there were tens of thousands of cubic yards of clean dirt that they had ready to start this project. But because we hadn't gotten to this part, that was lost, it went someplace else. Fortunately, there's dirt now that is available and by passing this today, we do get to move forward on that project and I hope it is in January. Thank you.

[02:30:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I don't see any other hands raised. So I will bring the item back for Council action and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should include reading the titles of the ordinances attached to items 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4, the resolutions attached to 4.5, 4.6, 4.10, 4.13, and 4.14. And I will also note that item 4.7 has been pulled by Councilmember Matichak, and Councilmember Lieber is noting an abstain vote on 4.6. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[02:31:07] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you Mayor. Um, I would like to go ahead and make a motion approving all items on the consent calendar other than 4.7, and that includes the reading of and please uh bear with me here. 4.2, Adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View repealing and replacing Article V of Chapter 16 of the Mountain View City Code related to food service ware. 4.3, Adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View adding Article VI to Chapter 16 of the Mountain View City Code to mandate organic waste disposal reduction. 4.4, Adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending Article XIV of Chapter 36, Zoning, of the City Code related to the application of Affordable Housing Program standards and exceptions, and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3). Item 4.5, Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View directing all legislative bodies of the City of Mountain View subject to the Brown Act to continue to meet remotely in accordance with AB 361 and making findings pursuant to AB 361. 4.6, uh one of two items, Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View amending Resolution No. 18470 as amended by Resolution Nos. 18489, 18496, 18547, and 18576, temporarily suspending and designating parking restrictions and prohibitions pursuant to Mountain View City Council Code Chapter 19 and temporarily closing the 100, 200, 300, and 400 blocks of Castro Street pursuant to California Vehicle Code Section 21101 to facilitate outdoor dining and outdoor business operations. 4.6, two- two of two items, Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View amending Resolution No. 18546 as amended by Resolution No. 18577 temporarily suspending certain requirements for sidewalk cafe license renewals pursuant to Mountain View City Code Section 36.42 and waiving sidewalk cafe license renewal fee payments, May 1, 2020 through April 30, 2023, to facilitate a consistent outdoor dining program in the Downtown area. Item 4.10, Adopt a resolution of the local support of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing the filing of an application for funding assigned to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and committing any necessary matching funds and stating assurance to complete the project. 4.13, Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View adopting revised salary plans for regular and hourly employees for Fiscal Year 2021 to 2022. And 4.14, Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View amending Council Policy A-13, City Council Meetings, and Council Policy K-2, Council Advisory Bodies.

[02:34:07] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, I'll second the motion.

[02:34:12] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, we have a motion by Councilmember Abe-Koga, seconded by Vice Mayor Ramirez. Uh, we'll do a roll call vote.

[02:34:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[02:34:21] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[02:34:22] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[02:34:25] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:34:26] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[02:34:27] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:34:28] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber?

[02:34:30] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Aye, abstaining on 4.6.

[02:34:34] City Clerk Heather Glaser: 4.6 or 4.7?

[02:34:39] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Uh, 4.6.

[02:34:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: 4.6, yes, perfect, thank you. Uh, Councilmember Matichak?

[02:34:48] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[02:34:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[02:34:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:34:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: And Mayor Kamei?

[02:34:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:34:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries.

[02:34:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So, um, now we will move back to item 4.7 which was pulled by Councilmember Matichak. I'll turn it over to you.

[02:35:07] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So when we um first talked about this um and were considering it putting it on the work plan, um I know I was a little bit hesitant um and I think at the time we discussed you know sort of checking in to make sure it was the right timing um, you know, before we got too far into this. And um I'm kind of feeling like maybe this isn't the right time to do this. And um I think it would be better to uh focus on cost savings at this point rather than uh revenue generation. Um, as I said before, and um I know there is uh opportunity to refinance some of the Shoreline bonds, that um, if I recall correctly, um when we discussed this at the Council Finance Committee meeting, uh the net present value of refinancing those bonds was $7 million? Is that correct, uh... I see a head nod. Um, and um, you know I get that that's the Shoreline District and not the General Fund. Uh, but there are uh certainly a lot of ex- expenses coming up in the Shoreline District. And we uh certainly don't know how long the interest rates are gonna be favorable to doing this refinancing. And I think I've mentioned before that, you know, other agencies have been doing this. I know Mountain View has talked about this, um, you know, City Manager and the Finance Director. And um, you know, BAWSCA did this and saved uh quite a bit of money uh over time. And um ours isn't quite as much as BAWSCA, but uh I still think $7 million is quite a bit. Um, nothing to um pass up, I don't think. Um, and I also know that Finance has a lot on their plate right now. So I don't think we can do both the um, bond refinancing as well as the uh, TOT uh, ballot measure. And so I, I kind of feel like I'd like to swap those and focus on the bond refinancing now and then two years from now consider doing the TOT um, increase. And I think in two years hopefully you know the uh economy will be in better shape, and we'll have recovered more from Covid, and that maybe the timing is better uh a couple years from now. So I guess I'd like to propose that to my colleagues, um, that we swap those two projects because again, Finance can't do both of them at the same time.

[02:37:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Uh, Councilmember Hicks.

[02:37:59] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So as this proposal is new to me, and I didn't expect it, I'd like to know from staff um, whether, whether in fact it is an either/or uh situation, or whether we could do both. Um, and also what the if there's any rough, I know that our TOT tax is very much lower than our most of our surroun- the vast majority of our surrounding cities. If there's any rough estimate so I'm hearing $7 million from refinancing the bonds, but is this what's the is there a rough estimate for the TOT or have we not gotten there yet? Thank you.

[02:38:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you Councilmember Hicks. I'll I'll take some of that and then I'll defer to the um Finance and Administrative Services Director, Jesse Takahashi. So, in terms of just the workload, and I think Councilmember Matichak did mention this, um, we would not have the capacity to do both of these items at once. Uh, we are already obligated to issue Certificates of Participation for the Hope Street Lots, and I mentioned this last week, um at the beginning of the calendar year. And we're also um, as this study um, excuse me, this staff report mentions, going to be embarking on the TOT measure at the same time. So we couldn't add it would be very difficult to add another um refinancing to that. So I think that's what um Councilmember Matichak is proposing is for Council to discuss your priorities. And you know, the timing. Um, and I I would ask uh Mr. Takahashi if he had any comments about um the workload piece of it, but part of the um discussion point should be, you know this is a new work work uh project, and so it does involve trade-offs. And I think that's essentially what you're being asked to discuss um with this matter. And Mr. Takahashi, I don't know if you had any comments further about the workload or the um Hope Street Lots being issued at the beginning of the year also.

[02:40:20] Jesse Takahashi: Yes, thank you. Um, so there there is quite a a bit on the plate for this fiscal year. One of those, as you mentioned, the Hope Street is uh a previous commitment that the City already uh engaged in related to that development agreement. Um it has been on hold for a bit but is now moving forward. Um and so that we are committed to do over um probably the next uh three to four months. Uh and so that will take staff uh staff time. Um, we're also uh trying to work on updating our cost allocation plan and master fee schedule, as Council is aware, uh there's a number of issues with a development fee study and the potential need to um support all the projects that are going on there, and to make sure we're recovering our costs. Um yeah and we're also doing uh projections for our uh Education Enhancement Reserve uh JPA, um, and that is taking a lot of the staff's time as well. Um, as well as the ongoing pieces of uh the the normal budget development process. Um, and some other things, we will also be losing uh two very experienced folks in our finance department, and while we have been in the process of transitioning that, um uh there, you know, will be certainly some uh loss of um, you know, well that you know 30 years of knowledge for that, and someone working on our budget. And so, there are quite a few things, and we are feeling um like there is quite a bit to do, so we would, in order to be give adequate time to do these things, um like to you know, space that out. We feel we could probably start something maybe towards the end of this fiscal year, probably early into next fiscal year uh, for that refunding would probably be uh a reasonable time given all that's going on. Um, and we still have two two vacancies we're also trying to fill um in, in the financial management division as well, so there's quite a bit of and that financial analysis that still needs to occur. Um, and so that's that's why um we're just trying to look and balance everything out.

[02:42:42] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you Mayor. Um, so regarding um item 4.7 the TOT tax. Um, if I remember correctly, I believe it was unanimous that the Council put it on as one of our projects in our priorities. And um, for me, I started looking at the TOT tax because um we have some real needs in our sustainability, our very ambitious Sustainability Action Plan. And I remember I believe if I remember correctly in three years we need something about something around 7.5 million dollars. And um, so, and when we were thinking of um you know what other revenue generation we can come up with to pay for the the those projects, um I thought the TOT tax would be an ideal um measure to explore in light of the fact that we have been, if you look at the chart in the staff report, you know we're very low compared to all the um most most of the cities around us. I think there's 24 cities 29 cities 28 cities that have have uh taxes higher than us and um just one lower than us. And quite a difference from us at 10% to Palo Alto at 15.5%. And it looks like the extra generation would be another 3.5 million above what we're getting right now eventually. Um, I you know this is an exploration. It take there's many steps to getting this on the ballot. And I think that the key for for me is the timing, that we only have an opportunity to do this every two years during a general election. And so um, if we don't do it this year, we would have to wait two more years. And I I do I understand the economy is still um still trying to recover, but it looks like it is starting to recover. And we do have hotels that have recently come online and we have one also coming online, and I just don't want think that we can wait much longer frankly because you know I I think we really want to get our sustainability projects going. So, I appreciate Councilmember um Matichak, I really appreciate your diligence in and your recommendation, I could support putting that on the work plan um after I think as staff mentioned in the next fiscal year so after this one, um, so I would say let's get the TOT tax measure exploration going, see if we can maybe get it on the November ballot, 'cause there's no guarantee we can get it on the November ballot because it'll depend on polling. But I'd like to continue to move forward on that and then come the new fiscal year, as Mr. Takahashi mentioned, um you know we can look at doing the refinancing then. Um, again, as mentioned it's the Shoreline Fund and I think we really do need to look at um General Fund revenue for the sustainability measures. Thanks.

[02:45:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Lieber.

[02:45:57] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Well, I I really appreciate Councilmember Matichak um raising this, and I I do look at pretty much every expenditure and and question everything, and I think that's a a habit that I developed from coming into the state level when there was a a 29 billion dollar shortfall on my first day in office. And um, uh it's a harrowing experience when the money goes away. And there's nothing like keeping the public's money in in the public purse for as long as as you possibly can. So I do want to pursue what what she's raising. But I I think that our residents really have an expectation that we will get business participation in the costs of our city and in the worthy projects that we have going forward. And this is a way to do it. And uh a problem develops when you don't raise fees to a a reasonable level and we are so far behind our our neighboring cities um, that I I think we really have to use this what is pretty much a de minimis amount of money to examine whether or not this is possible for the the 2022 election and and to move forward so that we do have that that business participation uh coming into the expenses of our city. But I I don't want to lose track of what Councilmember Matichak has proposed, and I hope that we can uh pursue that as well in the next year.

[02:47:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter.

[02:47:37] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Um yeah I uh I have a great deal of respect for uh Councilmember Matichak's financial acumen, and uh I I do think that um, the uh refunding of our bonds is uh is very timely, I mean interest rates haven't been this this low um in my entire life, I I remember when I first bought a house and and and mortgage rates were 16%. Let me tell you, it it was a really made the calculations very unpleasant. Um, anyway, um, so I I think that that um, rebonding is something that we can do that um is is really less intrusive to our community than um, and and and we should really take advantage of it. I think it's it's the responsible thing to do. Um, I, you know, I'm not opposed to increasing the TOT tax. But um on the other hand, I I'm not excited about it either, and I think that the change in the mortgage the change in the mortgage rates from the little I read, um is likely to happen quite soon. So if we don't get on top of this um rebonding in the next three to six months, we might lose quite a bit of money. Uh is that true? Um anyway, so that that would be my I I would in a sense prefer to flip it, and I think if if we have to put off the the the TOT, that that's not a problem, I mean we will get to it, and and um there will always be a need for more money in the City of Mountain View. We're always going to have more things we need money for, so um, I I think I'm really interested in what uh Councilmember Matichak has suggested.

[02:49:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[02:49:32] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So um, I just want to clarify the timing. I was under the impression that um we really couldn't do both, um that if we did the bond refinancing then we couldn't do the TOT until that was done. But if we did the TOT, it also sounded like um our Finance Director said we could potentially start the bond refinancing fairly soon. Uh, and I guess I just want to clarify the timing.

[02:50:08] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So Councilmember Matichak, we can start the bond refinancing next fiscal year. The challenge is trying to figure out a way to do it within the next six months. Really is the, which is that January to July timeframe. So that's I think what we were referring to, so we would essentially be being put on the second year of the work plan cycle. So I think we can manage to do that, it just wouldn't be into the next until the next fiscal year. But we'll actually have done the work at the staff level on the TOT by then. So once Council makes the decision or not to put the TOT on the ballot, that will have to be before the August um deadline anyways to make the ballot. So you all will have made your decisions and done your work before that summer, so then after that is when staff could start the refinancing, which is into next fiscal year. If that makes sense.

[02:51:13] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you for the clarification.

[02:51:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[02:51:18] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor. Uh one question for staff. Um, and my apologies if you've already answered this and I just missed the answer. Um, we have funding available for some amounts of time for our sustainability and um, you know the homeless services work. Uh, when do we expect that funding to to be exhausted?

[02:51:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Vice Mayor Ramirez, so there is a one-time um amount of funding that was set aside, I believe back in 2019 when this issue was discussed, um I believe it's around $3 million, but um would ask Mr. Takahashi to um verify that amount. So that one-time pot of funding was just to help get the program started. There was also the recommendation to hire a considerable amount of new staff, which we are in the process of, including the Chief Sustainability and Resilience Officer, which we're in the middle of right now. And so once that one-time pot of funding is exhausted, there is no ongoing funding that has been identified to cover the staffing cost for this program. So that money would essentially run out pretty quickly, I I couldn't tell you right now off the back of my hand exactly, you know, what year it would be, but $3 million to cover several staff um wouldn't wouldn't last that long. Um, so did that answer your question?

[02:53:48] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Uh, yes, I I know it's difficult to to put a date on that, but I I think it's fair to say um, it would be exhausted probably around the time when we would start seeing, if the TOT is placed on the ballot and approved by the voters, by the time we start collecting meaningful amounts of revenue from that increase, we may likely have exhausted the initial funding for for those programs. I don't know if there's, there might be some overlap, but we wouldn't see an increase in TOT until you know, the the beginning I guess January of 2023, right?

[02:54:30] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Correct.

[02:54:33] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Uh and then with time to to ramp up. Uh I'm gonna move the staff recommendation uh for a couple of reasons, it doesn't commit us to placing a measure on the ballot, um uh I I do think there's there's a lot of discussion that will have to occur, I appreciated the email from uh Peter Katz at the Chamber offering to uh participate as a stakeholder. Um I think that will be essential, and and the Council um making a final determination about whether to to pursue a TOT increase I do think we we will have to think about ongoing revenue to support the programs that the Council um has already put in place, um whether that's through a TOT increase, I think that's for us to to determine at a later time, but I think it's worthy of exploration, and I appreciate it that the the Chamber, I'm guessing, you know with the tacit consent of some number of members who um, you know who operate hotels, um you know expressing support for the exploration. That seems, you know, an appropriate action to take right now. Um, I I I think there's a lot of merit in Councilmember Matichak's idea. Um, but we're not technically agendized for for that action. I think a separate motion would be necessary to bring it back I guess for a formal placement on the work plan, I guess I'll defer to uh the City Attorney and City Manager on that, but I I think it would technically require a separate action. Um but but I I think the staff recommendation for now is um is appropriate and worthy of our support. Thank you.

[02:55:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. I see um City Manager McCarthy's hand.

[02:55:12] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. Um, yes, I just wanted to clarify um the information that I just gave Council. So, it excuse me, it's actually seven and a half million dollars over three years. That's what what um was determined back in 2019 to the one-time fund for sustainability, so I just wanted to clarify that amount.

[02:55:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. And then that's for the General Fund versus just the Shoreline Fund, right?

[02:55:43] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Uh correct, the 7.5 million is from the General Fund.

[02:55:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Got it. Okay. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[02:55:50] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Uh, I was gonna second the motion.

[02:55:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so um there's been quite a bit of discussion, so I'll just clarify. So um, it sounds like there's a motion for the staff recommendation by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Councilmember Abe-Koga. Are there any questions or comments about this item before we take the vote? Okay. Um, Councilmember Hicks.

[02:56:17] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I'll be supporting the motion but I am I'm very intrigued by what Councilmember Matichak has brought up and and hope that we maybe through an item eight or something can can find a time to put it on on our work plan if not immediately, you know, at some point. Thank you.

[02:56:37] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Um, thank you Mayor, to Councilmember Hicks. My recommendation after you vote is if you want to talk about this in Item 8 if that's what it falls under in our agenda tonight, um and take a straw poll, and I think I mentioned last week that we are bringing the work plan to council in February at mid-year. So should the council majority want to move forward with this, we can incorporate that into the work plan that's coming back to you all in February and then project out um a potential timing for that. Um now we wouldn't have all the details, but we can at least include it in in that work plan. Um, but you would need to take a straw poll on that, and tonight would be best just so that we can have that direction.

[02:57:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, and I and given the the discussion I'd be I'd be comfortable with that. So perhaps um, Councilmember Matichak, we can um, talk about the topic as an Item 8 for the straw poll and then see if we can get it on um, our mid-year work plan for February, 'cause I think some colleagues have expressed a sentiment that I agree with which is, you know, general interest, but wanting to um move forward with the TOT given the prior discussion that Council had that was unanimous at the time. Um, but always looking um for other um opportunities to to to fund all our other priorities in our very busy city. Um, and so uh I think I'm going to call the vote. Uh City Manager McCarthy, sorry about that, go ahead. Is that a legacy hand? Legacy hand. Okay cool. Alright, so I think um we can we can take the vote then. City Clerk Glaser.

[02:58:58] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[02:58:59] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:59:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[02:59:02] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[02:59:03] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[02:59:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:59:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber?

[02:59:06] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Aye.

[02:59:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Matichak?

[02:59:09] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No.

[02:59:10] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[02:59:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:59:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: And Mayor Kamei?

[02:59:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:59:17] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries.

[02:59:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Alright, so this concludes um Item 4 which are our consent items. We'll move on to Item 5, 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 three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items. Would any member of the public on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom and press star nine or press star nine on your phone. And we'll display um the three minute timer. Devin Conley.

[02:59:21] Devin Conley: Good evening Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and Council members. Um I'd first like to thank you all for supporting Supervisor Simitian's proposal to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors regarding establishing a North County clinic. It was passed unanimously today by the Board of Supervisors, and I know that the city played an advocacy role in making that happen. I hope that the city can also reach out to Supervisor Simitian's office around trying to find a space to locate that clinic um the closer it can be to our students and families in the Mountain View Whisman School District, for example,

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: who are high needs and might not have a regular pediatrician that or doctor that they see, the better. Um, I also wanted to talk to the council wearing a different hat. Uh in another role I am the president of the Digital Equity Coalition here in Santa Clara County. When we had to close schools back in 2020, I and five other board trustees across um this the county formed the Digital Equity Coalition to advocate for closing the digital divide in our community.

[03:00:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: We advocated at the city, the county, and the state level. We got some short-term emergency solutions in place. Um, but we really saw a need for long-term broadband infrastructure development in Santa Clara County as well as the state of California. So we advocated at the state level this last year and there were some bills passed as well as a budget by Governor Newsom specifically for broadband to build out middle-mile and last-mile broadband networks.

[03:00:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: And today, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to begin the process to form a municipally owned internet service provider that can offer affordable and reliable broadband internet service to our unserved and underserved residents and businesses in the county. This is going to be possible by drawing down those state and then also federal funds that are available to expand broadband right now.

[03:01:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: It's coming back to the Board of Supervisors a full proposal on the 15th of February. So if Mountain View wants to be involved or get, you know, some of that infrastructure for our residents who don't have internet access, um the time to engage with the county around it is probably now to be part of the planning phase.

[03:01:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I'll send a follow-up email with more information, but I wanted to bring it to your attention. And um a lot of trustees across Mountain View from the high school district, elementary school district, our neighboring Los Altos school district, over 50 trustees from across the county um either wrote in or spoke out today to get the Board of Supervisors to um pass this and and we're thrilled it's happening. Thank you for your time and thank you for your service of our community. Service for our community.

[03:02:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you, President Conley. Steven Goldstein.

[03:02:25] Steven Goldstein: Thank you for your time this evening. I just wanted to say unfortunately, I feel like I'm playing a tune again, but uh I remember around January, February of uh 2020 I was discussing how COVID was going to become a problem. And now we have Omicron and at the same time, we have still in the county we only have less than 100 ICU beds available when our county has 3,000 uh ICU beds.

[03:02:54] Steven Goldstein: At this point in time it also appears that uh Gavin Newsom has in fact extended his emergency order until March. I am starting to think that we are about to unfortunately replay uh January and February 2020 all over again because uh even though we have vaccines, uh they are not necessarily going to work on Omicron. People are saying it's likely, but no one's gotten any scientific proof yet that in fact the vaccines are going to be of any use with with Omicron regarding moderating its impact.

[03:03:29] Steven Goldstein: In fact unfortunately, Omicron is more infective, sorry more contagious than any version we've seen. Uh, and so unfortunately I'm asking one major question. Given the fact that the uh rental assistance program and the eviction uh uh moratorium is about to expire again at the end of this month, I would figure that it might be a need for another emergency order for an eviction eviction protection because it looks like unfortunately we are going to run out of time regarding any action on the state regarding the possibility of extending the rental assistance program given the fact that Gavin Newsom has just extended the emergency order for another three months.

[03:04:14] Steven Goldstein: So if anything I'm simply asking at this point in time uh the uh city council should investigate the possibility of enacting another emergency eviction protection plan for at least 30 days uh starting in January uh so that the state can catch up on this situation. Because from what I'm also seeing is that unfortunately uh the evidence is coming pretty clear that this is going to to be maturing just as the the turn of the new year starts.

[03:04:47] Steven Goldstein: And we are probably going to be right back up where we are before. The fact that the masks have been reordered, I think what's going to happen is that the indoor uh capacity limits are going to be reinstated and it may be even worse because of the fact that the ICU beds are so low at this point. We are far below the 10% uh or sorry 15% uh level we had last year. And last year we were in Code Blue meaning that everything was locked down. So all I'm saying is please uh I would strongly urge the city to consider a new moratorium at uh for the next meeting.

[03:05:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. There's a phone number 650 and the last three digits are 176. I think to unmute you have to hit star 6, I think. If you are a phone number... Oh there you go. Can you hear me?

[03:05:48] Steven Nelson: Thank you. Uh yes, yes I can, Mayor. Uh my name is Steven Nelson. I am a retired school board district member. I wanted to uh thank the staff and the council for the great agendas that you guys have. Um, I'm um, I'm always well informed by them. And uh and I like to see that you're putting the cost of things up in the uh resolution. Uh so it's very easy to somebody see whether this is a ten thousand or a fifty thousand or a quarter million dollar budget that's being uh discussed about.

[03:06:24] Steven Nelson: Um I wonder I happen to notice, since I notice Brown Act things a lot, um whether you made an announcement of the last vote. Um I heard the vote being taken by roll, but I don't think I heard the uh chair announce what the final vote was. Uh perhaps it was unanimous, um, but uh you might uh review whether you actually called the vote or not. Thank you very much.

[03:06:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Alright, I don't see any other hands, so that concludes public comment. So I will bring it back to Council for item number 6, which is our study session. Item 6.1 is Google North Bayshore Master Plan.

[03:07:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: The purpose of this study session is to receive Council input on the proposed Google North Bayshore Master Plan. After the staff presentation, the Council has a set of four questions that we will be answering. Um, and I will read those questions when we get to that part of the process.

[03:07:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Um, and the following representatives are available for questions on behalf of the applicant. From Google we have Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development; Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead; Javier Gonzales, Head of California Local Government Affairs and Public Policy; Nikki Lowy, Community Development Manager; Marla Weinstein, Urban Planner Transportation Infrastructure; Drew Wenzel, District Systems Lead, Mountain View.

[03:08:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: From Lendlease, we have Andrew Chappell, Head of Development; Charlene Matchniff, Development Director Entitlements; Faith Kirkpatrick, Affordable Housing Manager; Tiffany Lacey, Senior Development Manager. I think we will start with a staff presentation, followed by an applicant presentation.

[03:08:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So, I am not seeing staff over yet. Just moving staff over, thanks for your patience colleagues. Hi Ms. Pancholi, sorry about that. But I see you, I know we have quite the list today. Why don't you get started.

[03:09:05] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Thank you and I just wanted to make sure, can you see my uh presentation slides?

[03:09:10] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, I see your slides and sorry about that. I do see we have Associate Planner Krisha Penollar, Planning Manager Zoning Administrator Stephanie Williams, and Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava who will present the report as well as um Ms. Pancholi.

[03:09:33] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Well good evening Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner with the City's Planning Division. Tonight staff is seeking initial Council input on the key aspects of the Google North Bayshore Master Plan to guide further review of the project and the related development agreement.

[03:09:53] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The 127-acre Master Plan area is located north of uh US-101 in the North Bayshore Precise Plan area, and highlighted in yellow on your screen right here. In March 2021, City Council authorized uh requalification of 1.3 million square foot of non-residential floor area ratio uh to Google, uh subject to contribution of minimum 42 million in community benefits.

[03:10:22] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: At this meeting, Council also provided input uh on Google Preliminary Master Plan. In general, Council supported the Preliminary Master Plan proposal, and the majority Council input on various aspects of the Master Plan are highlighted on the slide above.

[03:10:38] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Based on the Council direction, the applicant Google Inc. has refined their proposal and submitted a formal Master Plan in September this year. Google is proposing to demolish uh existing structures in the Master Plan area in order to construct around 7,000 residential units, up to 300,000 square foot of ground floor active uses, um approximately 31 acres of open space, 1.3 million square foot of net new office, along with new public and private service streets, pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, district uh parking and utilities as well.

[03:11:13] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Staff and Environmental Planning Commission, EPC, generally support the land use plan, since it is consistent with the general plan and the precise plan as well. The Master Plan includes 15% affordable units through land dedication and 5% inclusionary units. The project's affordable housing proposal exceeds the 15% requirement in the North Bayshore Precise Plan.

[03:11:46] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Overall, staff and the Planning Commission are supportive of the land dedication and on-site BMR unit proposal since it is consistent with the Precise Plan. Additionally, the land dedication option provides the greatest flexibility to the City to target a specific affordable housing mix.

[03:12:04] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: A little bit about the open space strategy. The plan also includes public parks and open space uh spread across the Master Plan area. This includes 12 distinct open spaces, which accounts for 19 acres of public park space and 12 acres of privately owned and publicly accessible POPA areas.

[03:12:24] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The Master Plan proposal includes dedication of four acres of park land called Shorebird Yards to the City, which you can see outlined red on the slide here. At the March 2021 City Council study session, Council supported partnering with the Mountain View Whisman School District to provide a three-acre school site and one acre of joint use space open space.

[03:12:45] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Staff is continuing to research options to allow for this approach and will bring back a plan for Council consideration with the Master Plan. Overall, EPC and staff are supportive of the proposed open space plan uh since it's consistent with the Precise Plan and the previous Council direction.

[03:13:03] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: In compliance with the Precise Plan, the proposal also includes shared parking facilities for both office and residential uses, and a district parking um approach to help manage parking demand, which helps support vehicular trip reductions in the area.

[03:13:17] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The district office parking strategy includes a parking garage proposed at Shoreline Amphitheatre Lot C, consistent with the Council support at the March study session. Before the City can entertain a long-term lease or sale of Lot C to Google for parking purposes, the City will comply with the process set out in the state's Surplus Lands Act.

[03:13:40] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Google is requesting up to 30 years to construct the Master Plan in eight phases, to rebuild their existing office space, um uh and demolish some of the existing office space and make space for new residential development in the area. About 80% of the dedication uh of the park land dedication and 42% of the new housing units are proposed to be provided by Phase 2. Staff will work with the applicant to further refine the phasing in conjunction with the development agreement.

[03:14:15] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Staff and EPC are generally supportive of the phasing since it's consistent with the vision of the Precise Plan to create complete neighborhoods and prioritize early delivery of housing and creation of open space. Since the inception of uh, since the inception of North Bayshore in the 1970s, it has been a suburban office development with tree-lined streets that are primarily built for automobiles.

[03:14:46] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The Precise Plan lays out standards that envisions a transformation of the existing street network to create an integrated street network to support new land uses envisioned for the area, supported by infrastructure to support walking, biking, and transit. Google's Master Plan proposal complies with the conceptual street network prescribed in the Precise Plan.

[03:15:08] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Implementation of these new street configurations will require rebuilding existing streets to incorporate multimodal transportation infrastructure, removal of about 594 street trees, vacation or dedication of new easements, and planting new street trees and landscaping.

[03:15:25] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: This replanting and relandscaping of streetscapes will provide unique opportunity to achieve the biodiversity goals of Precise Plan, supporting the Council strategic priority as well. The Environmental Planning Commission supported, was supportive of the Master Plan proposal related to all these issues that I just summarized, and um the first question for the City Council is the same. If, you know, City Council have any additional input regarding land use, affordable housing, parks, open space, district parking, construction phasing, and implementation of the complete street network.

[03:16:09] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Moving on, the Master Plan area has approximately 3,700 existing trees with over 40% of the existing trees in poor health. A significant percentage of these trees are not native to the area, showing signs of stress due to drought conditions and are generally not suitable for the local climate.

[03:16:28] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: In compliance with achieving the vision of the Precise Plan of newly created neighborhoods and street infrastructure, the majority of the trees in the public right-of-way and private property would need to be removed and replaced with more biodiverse variety that are more suited to the climate.

[03:16:47] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: In order to create consistent approach and achieve the vision of the Precise Plan, staff is proposing a tree removal and replacement framework to help guide tree removal replacement requirements for future Planned Community Permits, PCPs, that are expected to follow the Master Plan.

[03:17:02] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The review framework is based on emphasis to retain and integrate existing healthy trees, explore opportunities to transplant healthy suitable trees, and tree replacements to meet goals of biodiversity and contribute to the tree canopy. The Planning Commission supported the proposed framework and the scale of transformation to achieve these goals.

[03:17:23] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Uh, the EPC also support was also supportive of the applicant's plan to plant um more mature trees in the Master Plan area. So the second question for the Council tonight is if Council supports the proposed framework that I just um explained.

[03:17:42] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The Precise Plan um prescribes that the City Council should determine at the time of Master Plan approval, the City's subsequent development review process for Planned Community Permits that will be required. Google is proposing a streamlined review process for the future permits so that the permits consistent with the Master Plan would be reviewed by DRC and approved by the Zoning Administrator.

[03:18:12] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: It is also consistent with the process which was recently adopted in the East Whisman Precise Plan, and also uh the approach supported by Council for the Middlefield Park Master Plan currently under review. Staff therefore recommends the proposed streamlined review process.

[03:18:29] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The Planning Commission was divided uh about the streamlining review approach. However, their concerns mostly related to the 30-year term for the Master Plan and the limited public outreach opportunity in the process. Staff notes that the timing of the phasing would be addressed in the development agreement, and that additional public outreach can be incorporated through neighborhood meetings and um other public hearings at DRC and the Zoning Administrative meetings.

[03:18:57] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: So the third question for tonight is if Council supports the proposed streamlined development review process for subsequent PCP permits. Moving on, and lastly, applicant is requesting a development agreement for the 30-year term in tandem with the Master Plan, noting that it is necessary for the build-out of their multi-phase project.

[03:19:29] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: In exchange of the substantial vesting rights of a development agreement, projects are expected to provide public benefits that exceed the community benefits required by the Precise Plan. Google's proposed development agreement benefits total over 15 million, through the provision of additional inclusionary housing, uh inclusionary affordable housing, people-centric benefits for small businesses, local artists within the project, and funding for the Sea Level Rise project, which is a key infrastructure project in North Bayshore.

[03:20:04] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Staff is supportive of the public benefits provided in the development agreement, since they are consistent with the goals of the affordable housing infrastructure needs and need to help small businesses. However, while staff believes that the large scale of project may merit the longer 30-year timeline, the phasing plan could be further refined to prioritize delivery of residential and open space components as early as possible, taking into consideration site planning, economic cycles, and other constraints.

[03:20:42] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: The Planning Commission supported the proposed DA benefits, but expressed concerns about the long timeline and was interested in early delivery of residential uses in the project area. So the fourth and the last question for Council tonight is if Council uh have any additional input on the DA term and the proposed public benefits.

[03:21:02] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: Following the City Council study session uh direction tonight, staff will begin project CEQA review, further review the project and uh DRC, and additional community outreach as well. Staff has also created a pub a project webpage as noted on this slide here. The webpage has information about the project and also allows people to sign up for future notification on the project updates. That concludes staff presentation. The applicant is present here tonight and has a brief presentation for the Council as well. Thank you.

[03:21:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you very much to staff. So we'll move on to the applicant presentation next.

[03:21:57] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Good evening Mayor Kamei. Uh, could you make Michael Tymoff a speaker as well? And I will share my screen here.

[03:22:04] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, I think Michael is moving over. Here he is.

[03:22:18] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Great, uh good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members. My name is Michael Tymoff, I am Google's District Development Director in Mountain View. Diana did a great job providing you with an overview of our plan and I'm going to share our perspective on the questions before you tonight.

[03:22:40] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: The city began planning for the transformation of North Bayshore many years ago. And in 2017, amended the Precise Plan to add up to 10,000 new homes. Much needed homes as we face a housing crisis across the region. This year the city took two more important steps. Last week you approved the city's own Gateway Master Plan, and in March you provided valuable feedback on our preliminary North Bayshore Master Plan.

[03:23:06] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Looking forward we now have the opportunity to start delivering on the promise of the Precise Plan together. The paths to solving the housing crisis and the climate crisis are intertwined and start by meeting the community's needs where they are needed the most. Our plan places much needed housing close to jobs, allowing people to walk or bike to work, and the opportunity for more people to be able to afford to live in Mountain View.

[03:23:34] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: In partnership with Lendlease, Google is committed to seeing that 7,000 new homes can be built on our land, 1,400 of which will be affordable to households across a wide range of income levels. I will now hand it back over to Jeff Hosea, our lead urban planner, to walk you through the Master Plan in more detail.

[03:23:54] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Thanks Michael. Good evening Council members. Uh as Michael said, my name is Jeff Hosea, I'm Google's Urban Planning Lead. The North Bayshore Precise Plan lays out a transformative vision for the district, not just in its land use and introduction of housing, but also in the focus on human scale and enhancement of natural habitat.

[03:24:18] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Our Master Plan is really driven by a philosophy of connecting people: to each other, to a place, and to nature. And that starts with a strong pedestrian and bicycle green loop. This is part of a new four-mile network of pedestrian and bicycle paths and a central foundation to the project. It stitches together residential and office, connectivity of the ecosystems, as well as providing connections to Permanente and Stevens Creek.

[03:24:39] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Anchored to that green loop is a 30-acre open space network that provides for a spectrum of experiences. Along Shoreline we're able to create more urban conditions focused on walkability and social experiences. As we move east or west, the project scale allows neighborhood open spaces with active and passive recreational opportunities. Further to the east, we're also building on ecology that already exists at the retention basin with the addition of the Shorebird Wilds and the EcoGem parks.

[03:25:07] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Vibrant places require the right amount and the mix of active uses, spatial comfort, and interest, as well as accessibility. It is also critical to meet the day-to-day needs of residents and workers in North Bayshore by providing a market, community spaces, dining, and entertainment. That mixing of uses while meeting the needs of residents describes the social spine. This is an intimate, pedestrian-only street lined with restaurants and shops, gathering spaces and art, that stretches from the intersection of Shoreline and Charleston south to Shorebird Way.

[03:25:42] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Our Master Plan aims to create a highly connected district where multi-functional spaces complement one another within a human-scaled network to create a vibrant neighborhood to live, work, and visit. But as we look to implement the Precise Plan, there are a great number of elements that need to be balanced. Our team, the city, and the community have been looking at these elements and many more as part of the larger transformational and sustainability story of North Bayshore.

[03:26:07] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: One example of that is the tree replacement strategy. Our plan affords the city and Google the opportunity to work together to create a sophisticated approach to urban forest management at the district scale. As we plan ahead over the next 20 years, we will replace existing non-native trees with a more diverse, more water-sensitive, and healthier ecosystem that is better suited for the new streetscape with wider sidewalks, cafe seating, and storefronts.

[03:26:33] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: This new ecosystem will also include the critically important understory that is largely unable to grow in today's redwood berms. This will attract butterflies and pollinators, and help manage our storm water more naturally, and it has already begun with the retention basin. Additionally, we are thinking ahead and growing thousands of trees on a farm so that the replacement trees and their canopies will be more mature at the time of planting.

[03:26:58] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: And finally, during this master planning process, we're also identifying healthy existing trees that can remain to add biodiversity as part of the complete neighborhoods. These tend to be at key corners, along the green loop, and in parks and open spaces. In the end, North Bayshore simply must evolve.

[03:27:14] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: However, projects of this scale are complex. It will be delivered over many years and in many phases. Even while we need to demolish existing fully occupied office buildings, we are committed to and our plan is designed around delivering housing as soon as possible and bringing forward parks and infrastructure that will benefit the broader community.

[03:27:35] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: For example, approximately 22 acres or 70% of our proposed parks and open space network will be delivered in the first two phases. This includes the Shorebird Wilds and EcoGem, which total about 15 acres of restored open space that can be delivered in Phase 2 once replacement office is delivered. Michael, back to you for the delivery of the housing.

[03:27:57] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Great, thanks Jeff. Our plan also looks to accelerate housing. With over 1,100 homes in Phase 1 and 3,000, or 42% of the total housing program by the end of Phase 2. 31% of the homes in Phase 1 will be affordable, more than doubling the 15% requirement. And by the end of Phase 2, 670 affordable homes would be built.

[03:28:21] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: In total, we will be dedicating 4.7 acres of land to the city to build 1,050 affordable homes. And as part of our community benefit package, Lendlease would build the other 350 as inclusionary units within market rate buildings. Phases 3 and 4 would see the completion of the office space in Shorebird, while Phases 5 and 6 would add another 1,500 homes in the Joaquin neighborhood, and another 1,800 homes in Phase 7, with the remaining 730 homes to be built in the Gateway in Phase 8.

[03:28:54] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: While the graph here shows these as discrete phases, in reality they will overlap in time. As an example, Phase 5 would start around the midpoint of Phase 2, and by the time Phase 2 is complete, nearly two-thirds of the total 7,000 homes would be under construction.

[03:29:12] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: To put this in perspective, an average of 310 new homes have been built in Mountain View per year over the past 10 years. Our plan would see an average of 250 homes being built each year just in North Bayshore alone. While many factors affect the pace of residential development, including the cost of capital, availability of labor and materials, economic cycles, and the city's development approval and permitting processes, we want to see this housing get built as fast as possible.

[03:29:45] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: And we want to continue to work together to change the landscape of North Bayshore to secure the city's position as a leader on housing and to unlock the value creation in the form of a robust community benefit package via the development agreement. The development agreement will provide certainty for the city, the community, as well as for Google and Lendlease. Certainty that the housing will get built, that the community benefits will be delivered, and that we will have sufficient time to complete all phases of the project.

[03:30:17] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: As part of the DA, we are asking for an expedited city review process that will allow homes to be built sooner. This is the same process City Council endorsed for our Middlefield Park project and that staff is supportive of here. We are also asking that in-kind improvements count as a credit towards our park and infrastructure fees. This would allow us to construct and deliver the EcoGem in Phase 2. And finally, we are also requesting full credit for the four-acre school site towards our park land dedication requirements, as well as needing certainty as to when the city will deliver its own district-wide transportation improvements that will enable the full build-out of North Bayshore.

[03:30:55] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Together, we can deliver on the full potential of the Precise Plan. We're grateful for everyone who has worked so hard to make tonight's conversation possible and we look forward to hearing all of your feedback. As mentioned earlier, I am joined by a number of my team members and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[03:31:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much. Appreciate the staff and applicant presentations. Since this is a study session, we're gonna move to public comment first. So um I will just ask if we can stop the screen share um so we can move on to our public comment. Um would any member on the line like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone and we'll display a two-minute timer on the screen. And as soon as I see that timer, I will call on our first public speaker. And that is uh let's see Juliana Pendleton.

[03:31:57] Juliana Pendleton: Good evening Mayor Kamei and Council members. My name is Juliana Pendleton and I am the Environmental Advocacy Assistant for Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. Audubon has engaged in planning in North Bayshore and with Google for over a decade now. Over the years we have been supportive of Google's plans and impressed with the way Google has embraced the egret colony, engaged in ecological planning, promoted native trees and habitat as well as biodiversity and sustainability.

[03:32:29] Juliana Pendleton: For today's study session, we have submitted a letter along with other environmental organizations focusing on these topics. Lighting is a primary concern for SCVAS. Artificial light at night is an increasing threat that affects the health of virtually all living organisms including humans. Lighting interferes with the behavior of plants and animals, disorients birds, and attracts insects to their demise.

[03:32:56] Juliana Pendleton: In North Bayshore and elsewhere, protecting our ecosystems and our night skies means that we should only use light where it's needed, when it's needed, and as little as feasibly possible. We ask the City of Mountain View and the Google team to address lighting standards for the Google Master Plan by setting maximum limits for lighting, not minimum requirements, for both the Google Master Plan and possibly for all of North Bayshore.

[03:33:27] Juliana Pendleton: The International Dark-Sky Association outlines outdoor lighting guidelines. The city can start with these guidelines and standards and strengthen them. We are available to help. Thank you.

[03:33:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Uh Salim Demerjiji

[03:33:48] Salim Demerjiji: Hi, yeah. Um, I'm Salim, I live and work in Mountain View. Um, I am really excited to see the city gets to this point where we have a Master Plan um, and a proposal to build 1,200 subsidized affordable homes and uh 7,000 homes all together. Um, Mountain View is a a city with a big heart, it's an inclusive city. There's nothing more inclusive than making space for thousands of families.

[03:34:18] Salim Demerjiji: Um, the Master Plan is great. Uh the bike, pedestrian infrastructure is great. The different mix of uh avenues of getting to affordable units is great, it allows us to target uh different levels of affordability. Um, the only thing I hope that Council agrees on tonight uh is that the applicant can use streamlined PCP review.

[03:34:39] Salim Demerjiji: Um, it's already part of the plan that was approved. Uh so it is an option and it was included in the plan for a reason. Um, because so much time has been spent into creating this Master Plan, I hope we can get these homes built as quickly as we can. Uh, the housing crisis won't wait for us, um and we need these homes as quickly as we can. So I hope you support the Master Plan with streamlined PCP review. Um, and thank you.

[03:35:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. David Meyer.

[03:35:15] David Meyer: Thank you Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and members of the Mountain View City Council. My name is David Meyer, I work for SV@Home, an affordable housing advocacy organization that works across the county. Tonight, I'm really happy to stand in support of Google's North Bayshore Master Plan proposal, and wanted to thank the Council and staff for all of your efforts to move the implementation of the Precise Plan forward.

[03:35:39] David Meyer: Um you know, there's really a lot to like about Google's proposal and in particular the 7,000 new homes, 20% of which will be affordable through a combination of on-site inclusionary and land dedications. Not just that, but the homes will be integrated into new neighborhoods with new parks, ecological improvements, bike/ped infrastructure, and new businesses.

[03:35:57] David Meyer: Um I really wanted to highlight a couple of pieces I think are critical to ensuring that the proposed affordable housing is actually built. First, we support Google's front-loading of residential development in Phases 1 and 2, alongside their development streamline proposals. Let's get the housing moving right away.

[03:36:14] David Meyer: Second, we believe it's crucial for the city and Google to collaborate to develop an affordable housing implementation plan that lays out a clear path to development of the stand-alone affordable housing. This should include a process that allows the city to move quickly to finalize requirements and identify potential non-profit development partners for the dedicated parcels as soon as they're made available.

[03:36:33] David Meyer: It should also assess the resources needed to finance all the affordable developments, alongside strategies for securing these funds, such as making sure that uh maybe Google's commercial linkage fees are being directed to support uh these affordable uh stand-alone affordable developments. So, overall, we certainly support the Master Plan and urge the Council to move it forward uh while instructing staff to begin working on an affordable housing implementation plan that will prioritize the development of the much-needed affordable housing. Thank you very much.

[03:37:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Vince Rocha.

[03:37:11] Vince Rocha: Good evening Mayor and Council. My name is Vince Rocha, I'm the Senior Director of Housing and Community Development with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, representing the largest employers in the region. And one of the top issues we hear from our member companies, from start-ups to our large employers, is the urgent need for housing, especially housing near jobs.

[03:37:30] Vince Rocha: The Council should be commended for their admirable work so far in creating the North Bayshore Precise Plan. It's got a vibrant mixed-use community, but the ambitious housing vision that will be implemented by this Master Plan is really important. With this plan, we can realize the creation of 7,000 homes, 20% of them affordable, that's 1,400 homes.

[03:37:51] Vince Rocha: That said, we respectfully ask you to support a streamlined PCP process in conjunction with continued collaboration from the city in reviewing and approving the Master Plan. So we can deliver the needed housing as soon as possible. Thank you for your consideration.

[03:38:07] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Cliff Chambers.

[03:38:12] Cliff Chambers: Thank you uh Mayor, my name is Cliff Chambers and I'm representing the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning. After 10 years of advocacy for transforming North Bayshore to a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use place, MVCSP strongly supports the Google North Bayshore Master Plan and urges City Council to expeditiously move forward to implementation as soon as possible.

[03:38:41] Cliff Chambers: I have to really compliment Google and the city staff. Really have done an exemplary job of community outreach over a very long period of time. Uh, MVCSP really appreciates the numerous opportunities we've had to review and comment on the various iterations of this Master Plan. And our comments along with those of our affiliated organizations have been responded to and and are often incorporated into the product before you tonight.

[03:39:14] Cliff Chambers: Um, we really feel this planning process has exceeded the vision of the North Bayshore Precise Plan. And Google planners have done such an outstanding job of blending urbanism urbanism and ecology into a strong sense of place.

[03:39:32] Cliff Chambers: David Meyer touched a great deal on what I was going to say about uh the whole housing and affordability so I won't repeat that. I think the active transportation network is really well thought out and residents and employees can really easily walk or ride a bike to the many exciting destinations.

[03:39:48] Cliff Chambers: I really believe the social spine when completed will be a an award-winning feature of the plan, and we really support the development agreement and and hopefully we can turn when we replace the trees into a green street network with significant uh biodiversity. Thank you very much.

[03:40:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Eileen McLaughlin.

[03:40:20] Eileen McLaughlin: Good evening uh City Council. I am uh Eileen McLaughlin, representing Citizens Committee to Complete the Refuge and a co-signer of a letter that came from multiple environmental groups. I want to start off by saying I want to say thank you to Google for the many conversations we have had the opportunity to have with them and the persistence of their uh response in designing in uh ecological features that are extraordinary for wildlife, uh biodiversity, and and uh and actually water features.

[03:40:55] Eileen McLaughlin: I only want to speak to two particular uh topics here, focused on the EcoGem. The EcoGem has, although it's in very early conceptual you know stages as far as what the design is, it's located very strategically by the retention basin and by the edges of the PG&E corridor and then Stevens Creek. It is uniquely placed for future uh service as a floodplain, as a natural adaptation as sea level rises in the creek and in that PG&E you know uh right of way. So it it has service that it can provide.

[03:41:35] Eileen McLaughlin: Uh I and that's something we look forward to there as well as it being just open space. So we hope that that's developed earlier than later so that vegetation takes time to establish. Uh and another thing I wanted to speak about was something on the sea level rise itself.

[03:41:55] Eileen McLaughlin: Uh the city has, and we complimented recently, an excellent sea level rise forward-looking plan and we would like to see that the plans for Google or other developers also have to parallel the five-year review of sea level rise data uh that that is in the CIP. And that should be parallel and complementary. And finally that there should be studies of how rising groundwater can affect the spread of uh toxic materials that are underneath the ground. Thank you.

[03:42:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Albert Jeans.

[03:42:42] Albert Jeans: Albert, do you have a presentation or is this...

[03:42:46] Albert Jeans: Of course.

[03:42:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. I just wanted to set myself up here. Alright.

[03:42:51] Albert Jeans: Hey Albert Jeans, Sterling Estates resident, near Shoreline Boulevard. I'll start my timer. Um, yeah of course the Master Plan is really great, looks like a really nice community. But I'm really surprised and dismayed at how little uh attention is being paid to the traffic congestion that this project will bring. Next slide please.

[03:43:09] Albert Jeans: Uh last uh last week's uh circulation study showed that traffic will be worse. Even with best case SOV reductions and all infrastructure improvements. And in fact, rush hour will spill over past the three-hour morning and evening rush hours. Next slide please. So I thought I'd show you what this might look like. For lucky, you're going down Shoreline, you know you start lining up around Safeway as you make your way to Middlefield, two cycles later, next slide please.

[03:43:39] Albert Jeans: You know you're at Middlefield but there's a long line of cars waiting to make a right turn there, they're trying to squeeze in as well. Once you get on Shoreline, next slide please. You know you have another trek over to Terra Bella, probably take another two cycles. Next slide please.

[03:43:54] Albert Jeans: And once you get to Terra Bella, there's another long line of cars trying to squeeze in. Maybe these are people that tried to avoid the Middlefield Shoreline intersection by cutting through Linda Vista and our neighborhood. Next slide please.

[03:44:07] Albert Jeans: So you get on Shoreline, go over the overpass. You know another long line, another two cycles to get to the next light. If you look to your left, next slide please. You see the long line of cars coming off the southbound 101 off-ramp into Shoreline. If you look to your right, next slide. You see the long line of cars from the 85-101 off-ramp coming onto Shoreline as well. And next slide please.

[03:44:31] Albert Jeans: Finally, you're within sight of your destination, you still have maybe another two blocks to go, another 5 or 10 minutes. But you might have finally made it to your destination. And this is, you know, this is likely to happen every day, not only on this gateway but Rengstorff and San Antonio as well when uh North Bayshore is fully built out. And that's what the traffic analysis tell us. You know we should do something about it. Thank you.

[03:44:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Daniel Halsey.

Segment 6

[03:45:00] Public Speaker: would remove thousands, you know, of stressful, carbon polluting, dangerous commutes from all those people. In this way it also reduces traffic. The second point is, you know, we kind of have to do something like this in order to meet the next RHNA cycle. So, you know, if not this, it's going to need to be something else. And then three, you know, this community looks very nice in all the conceptual drawings. I like all the bike infrastructure and transit infrastructure. It looks like a very nice place to live and work. That's why you see a lot of support for it, I think. So, to close it off, I'm in favor of the project and I'm in favor of a streamlined review process for it also to make it get through quicker. Thank you.

Segment 5

[03:45:02] Daniel Halsey: Hi, can you hear me? All right. Um so hi, I'm really uh excited to uh support the the Gateway project. Um I have a few points that I'd like to uh say in support of it. Uh first is that you know a lot of people like to talk about these projects being as for for Google you know but really they're going to benefit the community as a whole. Uh you know Google isn't the only large organization with a lot of employees in the North Bayshore. Um you can think of some of the others. Uh so it's going to be good for those employees, it's going to be good for a lot of renters, you know more supply lowers rent. Plus we have some affordable units in here. Uh a lot of employees you know live up there uh and would prefer living there uh in addition to working there. Uh and so creating this housing...

Segment 6

[03:45:56] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Allende Rudoff. Hi Dr. Rudoff...

[03:46:04] Allende Rudoff: Oh, happy holidays City Council members, Mayor, it's great to be here as usual. Um, just wanted to first start off by thanking staff for their thorough report as well as the work that they've done thus far. And we look forward to hearing their solution for a dedication for a school. Just to be quick, for the past six years, I've been working on this project and it has definitely undergone many changes over time. But obviously the 7,000 units that are being planned signal the impending growth in the North Bayshore area. Creating a robust and vibrant community requires all of us to work together, not only to create a space for a school, but also for affordable housing as well as open space. It also requires your continued leadership, for which we are grateful. And together, I believe that we can create a community that will serve as a model for urban planning. We still have a lot of work to do, and under your leadership, as well as with the work of staff and Google, I remain ecstatic as well as hopeful that we will be able to solve the problem for not only open space, affordable housing, but also a new urban school in the North Bayshore area. Thank you.

[03:47:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Laura Blakely

[03:47:26] Laura Blakely: Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council members. I'm Laura Blakely, president of the Mountain View Whisman School Board. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening. As you know, as you just heard from Dr. Rudoff, Mountain View Whisman is very interested in making sure that there is at least one elementary school located in the North Bayshore communities that are being developed. We're grateful the 4-acre Shorebird yard site is potentially designated for the development of a school and shared park space. Without significant contributions from our partners such as Google providing land, and the city helping with tax revenue streams, the school district would be forced to resort to other forms of financing such as the creation of a Mello-Roos district to finance land acquisition and school construction. But we much prefer to work with partners to help put our land and financing package together. Please give the school district permanent assurances that the space will be dedicated to construction of a school and a joint park with the city and direct staff to identify a mechanism that will guarantee this site will be available for a joint school park use at the appropriate time and that it cannot be revoked by a future council that may be less interested in partnering with the schools. So long as thousands of new housing units are being constructed in North Bayshore, the students who live there deserve to be able to attend neighborhood schools just as the children living today in our existing neighborhoods can. This is an equity issue for the students living in the new communities. We need to make sure Shorebird yards is permanently available for a school and park and ask you to direct staff to complete its research to confirm the best way to make this a shared reality. We appreciate the city's and business community's partnership with our schools. Thank you.

[03:49:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Kalisha Webster.

[03:49:26] Kalisha Webster: Good evening, Council. Thank you for taking my comment. My name is Kalisha Webster. I'm a housing advocate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities with Housing Choices. Just wanted to call in support of this project. Um, really appreciate the developer proposing land dedication for up to 15% of the required affordable housing, which would allow for deeper levels of affordability than would typically be seen in inclusionary properties. Um, also really appreciate that they are promising to have housing in early phases, with up to 700 affordable, almost, sorry, nearly 700 affordable housing units in the first two phases of the development. Um, and I really wanted to also thank Mountain View for being a leader in Santa Clara County for creating inclusive communities. Particularly, Mountain View has created three inclusive housing projects that created a total of 44 units for IDD housing at San Antonio Place, 1585 Studios, and Luna Vista. These are highly successful inclusive housing communities, but all of these units are studio apartments. Really see this project being proposed here, a walkable, bikeable mixed-use community with improved public transit as a prime location to meet a housing, the unmet need for affordable one and two-bedroom apartments for those who need live-in support either from family members or supported living staff, as well as for those who have started families of their own. Um, and hope that the city remains committed to creating housing for people with developmental disabilities. Thank you.

[03:51:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. And then I think, um, this is you Steve Nelson.

[03:51:17] Steven Nelson: You're right. Um, I want to say I really support this development. It looks like it's been worth the years that it's taken and the council changes and all the community input. I also wanted to say the woman who first spoke about the issue of illumination. Um, for some project I think it was maybe downtown, put in a comment about using the International Dark-Sky, uh, suggested lighting schedule. This is good for wildlife areas also. So I'm glad she brought it up and I hope it's considered in the terms of how this development works. I also wanted to remind you about schools, since I'm a former school board member. Um, there are acres of permanent park use land that the school district owns that would be ripe for acre for acre swapping if the Mountain View district wants more space. There's tennis courts at Whisman on Easy Street that's actually on district land. There are part of the tennis courts at Sylvan Park, Sylvan Park has nine acres dedicated for a school, which some of it might be swapped. And Cooper School near the city park also has, uh, maybe one or two acres that could be swapped. All of these are ripe for deed trades if the school district is really, really serious about more than the four acres or the shared or the three acres that they might put a school on. Uh, school boards has really no members who have professional development experience like Councilmembers Hicks and Ramirez. The school district staff is also very inexperienced about complex land development. Um, I, as many other people, rely on the council majority, not the school board majority, for these complex community development land use decisions. So I hope you support this. I think it's a very good well-run development. Thank you.

[03:53:27] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Erica Valentine.

[03:53:34] Erica Valentine: Good evening, City Council and Mayor and Vice Mayor. I present to you on a dual role. My name is Erica Valentine. I represent Local 393, which we have 3,000 members in Santa Clara and San Benito County. I also am speaking and representing over 16,000 construction workers, a part of the MEPS coalition, whom work and live in also Mountain View. These are electricians, plumbers, sprinkler fitters, and sheet metal workers. They are active in their communities supporting projects that are sustainable and promote equity. Over the past years, many of our Mountain View members have spoken in this chamber. We are excited about the potential of the plan proposed by Google. We certainly need the workforce housing that will come with the buildout of this project. We are also hoping to see that a construction workforce drawn from the area will be employed to build the project. We understand the importance of housing and coming out of the pandemic, local families need the certainty of this work to be more economically secure. Our local small business community needs the millions in construction wages to be paid to construction workforce to be spent here, should be spent here locally. The use of apprentices on a residential project is not guaranteed. This project could mean hundreds of new opportunities for our youth or at-risk workers to gain a career pathway to the middle class if there's a commitment to use apprentices by the developer. Your North Bayshore specific plan calls for these types of community benefits to be part of outcomes when it is built out. We look forward to future discussions with Google and Lendlease regarding the use of apprentices to see that our community gains all the benefits this proposed plan has to offer. Thank you.

[03:55:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Laura Berman.

[03:55:30] Laura Ramirez Berman: Hi, good evening. Good evening Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and honorable council members. My name is Laura Ramirez Berman, Vice President of the Mountain View Whisman School District. The importance of schools in city planning is well understood. As the Center for Cities and Schools at UC Berkeley notes, beyond helping to ensure our economic competitiveness, California schools are also public infrastructure and their location, design, and physical condition may well be one of the most important determinants of neighborhood quality, regional growth and change, and the quality of life. The planning of school infrastructure thus needs to be integrated with the planning of other infrastructure and development at all levels. Dr. Rudoff, our school superintendent, submitted a letter to the council that outlines some of the challenges and opportunities we face related to the roughly 20,000 additional housing units that will be built in Mountain View in the next two decades, with 7,000 of those units coming as a result of Google's plan development. I encourage all members of the community to read his letter. The school district has been working with demographers to anticipate the increase in student enrollment that will be generated by the massive influx of new housing. It's not surprising that the largest development project in our city's history will require new schools. Simply put, we cannot address this challenge alone. We need the support and participation across our community to ensure that Mountain View has the kinds of schools that we all expect and our children deserve. The topic of this evening's study session is Google's North Bayshore master plan, but it's also about our shared vision for growth in our city that is more equitable, sustainable, and prosperous. It's about signaling clearly that our community's leaders expect that new developments in our city require us to think and plan holistically about housing, transportation, and yes, education. I look forward to working hand-in-hand with you, our city council, to secure a bright future for our community, especially our children and families. Thank you for your service and leadership to the city of Mountain View.

[03:57:26] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. John Dalrymple.

[03:57:47] John Dalrymple: Thank you so much Mayor Kamei. I'm going to pass on making any comments. Thank you.

[03:57:54] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. All right. So we'll just lower John's hand since he's not going to give a comment. Um, Kevin Ma.

[03:58:08] Kevin Ma: Evening Council. My name is Kevin Ma, resident in the San Antonio neighborhood. I'm not going to say very much except that this project probably needs to get fast-tracked than it ever has been. We are still suffering housing issues. Environmental groups are on support of this project, especially as it spends money on trying to mitigate sea level rise as well as providing the park space and bird safe design that is necessary for this city. Um, it provides an amount of housing that is proportional that would be useful to address our housing crisis. Though obviously it needs to move faster, in particular I do echo the concerns that we should be making a plan to deal with the affordable housing land dedication because it inherently takes a while to make those action projects. And um, let's just get it over with. Thank you.

[03:58:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Raiza Singh.

[03:59:15] Raiza Singh: Thank you, Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and honorable City Council members. My name is Raiza Singh and I live and work in Mountain View. Thank you for your hard work in considering the North Bayshore master plan. I encourage you to approve the master plan and do everything you can to implement streamlined plan community permit review and stacked plan community permit review to speed up the 30-year timeframe. Time is of the essence. Please consider where both our planet and our society will be 30 years from now. In the past six years, more than half the people in my department at work have left the Bay Area and each year's wildfire season has gotten steadily worse. We needed this housing yesterday, so I again encourage you to look into streamlined plan community permit review and stacked plan community permit review. Thank you for your time.

[04:00:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Gita Dev.

[04:00:17] Gita Dev: Good evening. Mayor Kamei and City Council members. My name is Gita Dev and I'm speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club, Loma Prieta chapter. The Sierra Club is, has been involved in the development of this master plan over several years and we are supportive of it. Uh, we do have some observations about it that we'd like the Council to consider and staff as well. The one of them is the phasing. It's a 30-year master plan which is very, very long. And phase one and phase two, it came out in the Planning Commission meeting, phase one and phase two are anticipated to take approximately 15 years, maybe 10, 15, possibly more depending on market conditions. Therefore, we would like you to think about putting some milestones, as others have mentioned earlier. And maybe five-year milestones in coordination with the CIP and the sea level rise studies metrics would be a useful time to keep track of both the housing metrics as to the mix of affordable housing as well as the EcoGem. We'd like to suggest that the EcoGem is very key in this very vulnerable area because it's not only open space, it's biodiversity, but it's also flood resilience. And we would like to see the EcoGem in possibly the end of what is phase one or potentially the beginning of phase two, so that there is open space during this huge construction period of 10, 15 years for the residents who are living here. Thank you.

[04:02:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. B.

[04:02:30] B: Hi. Um, yeah, I'm speaking on behalf of the Santiago Villa Neighborhood Association. Uh, we are the only community of residents in North Bayshore as you know. Um, we are concerned about traffic and we are concerned about the construction, uh, that is going to go on for a very long time. However, um, we have been supportive of this project since 2017. We worked with Google and Lendlease, um, and we trust their, um, their determination to support the neighborhood association and the neighbors in North Bayshore, as well as all of the organizations that are concerned about the future here, such as Sierra Club and Audubon and those folks. Um, we'd like you to move forward with this project as well as you can, give your input and, um, on the land use and all of these things that have to be decided before the project moves ahead. Um, I feel really positive about this considering what Google and Lendlease have already done, especially for the bike and ped traffic. Uh, even yesterday they opened another leg of the bike path from between Shorebird and Space Park. That was very nice to see. Uh, they've done a wonderful job on the Charleston corridor. Uh, so I'd like this to move along and I think other people agree with the reservations about traffic and construction. But I feel that we're lucky to have Google rather than Apple in our neighborhood. Thanks.

[04:04:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Hala.

[04:04:35] Hala: Uh, good evening, Mayor, City Council, and City staff. Uh, thank you for much, so much for the opportunity to speak on this, uh, big project. Um, as a member of the Environmental Sustainability Task Force, uh, the second one, uh, I would like to, uh, give, uh, commend, uh, the project for designating 19 acres of parks and open space. Um, I was very impressed to see the EcoGem area design. However, I am really concerned about the number of the trees, mature heritage trees that are planned to be removed. 2,586 trees, uh, are planned to be removed and that's roughly about one, about two-thirds of the total trees in that area. Um, I urge the council and Google to try harder to perhaps preserve more of these trees, especially if there are any native ones. I did not see a breakdown, uh, in their data to see, um, if there are any of those trees that are native, and if so, I urge them to retain those. Uh, the city released earlier this month, a project, uh, bimonthly current planning project list. And in that list there are more than 1,760 heritage mature trees that are to be removed. We're losing a significant resource, natural resource that we have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, providing shade, uh, clean air. So, uh, we need to be careful about how much we take out and consider the time that it would take for the new saplings to replace them. Thank you.

[04:06:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Alex Brown.

[04:06:44] Alex Brown: Hey all. Alex Brown, Santiago Villa, North Bayshore resident. First, can we reopen Gold's Gym while we're waiting for all this to be built? The building is just sitting right there. It's empty. Uh, second, I agree with what our Queen B said. Uh, I'd also like to echo the Audubon Society's request for strong light standards to keep the night dark. I want to see more stars. I'm excited to have all the new wildlife up here, especially the human wildlife. Uh, I wouldn't mind some peafowl either. Uh, I'd love to have a nice little park by the school in which us neighbors can promenade. Uh, can we make sure that said park isn't eventually fenced off and surrounded with spotlights? Uh, I also would like to agree with Albert Jeans and Daniel Halsey. We should add robust, frequent public transit with extended hours to provide good alternatives to SOVs. Uh, I'd also like a nice grocery store and for you to bring back Gold's Gym so that us North Bayshore residents can have more amenities in walking distance. I'm patient. You know how patient I am. I'm waiting. I've been waiting. Patiently. But come on. Let's go. Uh, it's great to see this proceeding. Uh, please help it along faster. Let's do some PCP, all right? Thanks and, uh, bring back Gold's Gym please.

[04:07:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sandy Sommer.

[04:07:58] Sandy Sommer: Hi, thank you Mayor Kamei and, uh, good evening City Council members. My name is Sandy Sommer. I'm a landscape architect and urban planner and a member of the city's Park and Recreation Commission and Urban Forestry Board. Thank you for this opportunity to share my personal opinion. There's a lot to like about the North Bayshore master plan, but I would like to highlight three details I feel still need attention. The first one: a school site is not the same as a public park. I support a school site within North Bayshore, but a school site isn't a substitute and the school acreage should not be counted toward, uh, North Bayshore's parkland dedication requirement. And that's because, as you know, school sites throughout the city are closed to general public use on weekdays between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. And security fencing is being added to other elementary schools right now, so I expect it would be added to this one. Please ensure that Google meets their full requirements per the recently updated parkland dedication ordinance, either by direct land dedication, privately owned public accessible parkland, or payment of in-lieu fees. My second thought: the tree removal and replacement framework lacks accountability. I support the biodiversity afforded by the proposed native oak and willow and sycamore tree plantings. However, the language of the proposed framework lacks accountability. What happens if few existing trees are preserved? Please modify the language to be actionable. Words like 'strive' and 'explore' need to be stronger if they're to be consistent with what the standard that we hold other parts of the city to. And the framework should express the bias toward tree preservation that is already found within the municipal code, Chapter 32. And my final thought... Oh, I ran out of time. Thank you very much for consideration of my comments.

[04:10:00] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, I'm not seeing any other hands. Just want to do a last call in case anybody missed it. All right, I'm not seeing any other hands so I'm gonna close the public comment and bring the item back to council. We'll start first with council questions of either staff or the applicant and then we have four questions that we will be answering for staff. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[04:10:33] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you staff and Google for your presentations and to the public for your input. I have a handful of questions to start with. The first two relate to questions submitted in advance of the meeting, which staff responded to, but just to get a little bit more information. If the council chooses to review individual development projects consistent with the master plan after approval, what level of discretion do we actually have to make modifications?

[04:11:16] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Vice Mayor I'll respond to that. Aarti Shrivastava, Assistant City Manager Community Development Director. Um, for projects that have an approved master plan and are consistent with the North Bayshore Precise Plan and development agreement, um, there isn't a whole lot of discretion because they've already been, the framework has been adopted and if they're consistent with it, then, um, you know, they would receive the same level of review as, you know, projects in regular zoning districts that comply with the zoning and all the objective standards. Um, so that's essentially the level of review we're talking about. I'm happy to explain further if you want more explanation.

[04:12:10] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: To just parroting back what you've said, we wouldn't be able to change very much at all because they would still be subject to SB 330, Housing Accountability Act, um, and and state protections.

[04:12:26] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes. You're right.

[04:12:30] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. Um, and then this one might take a a little bit longer to explain but the the CEQA mitigation one I think is important for us to understand and I think I understand staff's response, um, but for for my benefit, uh, can staff explain which mitigations identified in the EIR are solely Google's responsibility to address and which ones would require other sources of funding? So community benefits, impact fees, um, I guess the the mitigations that are the city's responsibility and not solely the applicants.

[04:13:20] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Thank you, Vice Mayor. This is Dawn Cameron, Public Works Director. I will take that one on. So, um, in terms of what's city's responsibility and how this relates to mitigations, primarily we're talking about the primary transportation improvements. And the primary transportation improvements, of which the Charleston transit corridor is one, are a suite of projects that were designed to provide a circulation system to help promote transit, walking, and bicycling in North Bayshore. But they also serve as mitigation for the Precise Plan and they were identified as mitigation measures related to the CEQA document for the Precise Plan to help address some of the transportation impacts. The city prepared a nexus study after adopting the Precise Plan to establish the North Bayshore impact fee that is applied to all new commercial development to help pay for these projects. This impact fee represents each development's share for the priority transportation improvements. When the council adopted the impact fees, it was acknowledged that the impact fees would not cover the full costs for the improvements and that funding from community benefits, provided by developers in return for bonus FAR, and the Shoreline Fund, provided by the increased property taxes paid due to the developments, would also be used to help fund the priority transportation improvements. If the master plan is approved, Google will be required to pay the impact fees that were established through the nexus study, which covers their share of the priority transportation improvements as mitigation under the Precise Plan. The 35 million in community benefits that have been proposed for the Charleston transit corridor is a further contribution that helps fill the funding gap for the priority transportation improvements and ensures that the Charleston transit corridor can be delivered sooner. So I hope that helps answer your questions about the mitigations and the responsibilities for the priority transportation improvements.

[04:15:39] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: So I guess let me ask a follow-up question to that. So there's going to be some additional environmental review for the master plan. And then I'm guessing with each individual development proposal that follows approval, um, there will be an initial study or something. So will that environmental review, uh, tell us what mitigations would be fully Google's responsibility? Is that sort of one way for us to gauge, here are the mitigations that the applicant is fully responsible for? We wouldn't use impact fees unless that's an acceptable alternative mitigation for whatever reason. They would have to either construct it or, you know, provide sort of the full 100% share of the cost.

[04:16:31] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Okay, thank you. So this is where we have to start defining now what we mean by mitigation. There is a CEQA environmental review being done related to the Google master plan tiering off the North Bayshore Precise Plan environmental document. But now under CEQA, when you talk transportation, the primary impact you look at is Vehicle Miles Traveled, and that is a determination of whether there would be a significant impact related to transportation. Should there be a significant impact related to Vehicle Miles Traveled, uh, the odds are, you know, the mitigations that are going to be proposed are very similar to what's already being planned as part of the Precise Plan, which is the TDM programs to help achieve a very low rate of SOV use or single occupant vehicle use and contributing towards the priority transportation plans as previously identified in the Precise Plan. Now, what we are also doing is preparing a Multi-Modal Transportation Analysis, also known as an MTA, where we're doing that for all major developments in the city now, to look at development's potential impacts on the local circulation network. Is an intersection more affected by the proposed development and therefore needs some level of intersection improvements? Are there other types of improvements necessary to help the more localized transportation circulation network needs? So through that process, if it is determined that there are additional more local transportation improvements, this is this is not to the scale of the priority transportation improvements that are needed, uh, due to this level of development, then those would be identified in the MTA and yes, we would be requiring the developer to help make those improvements because it is directly related to effects of their development on the local system, but this is this is not the priority transportation improvements. This is other more smaller, localized transportation circulation improvements. Uh, we are open minded to see what the results of that are, but frankly the level of study that was done for the Precise Plan and then for the circulation study, and achieving the really ambitious goals and targets related to single occupant vehicle use, uh, we're going, we don't really expect to see that there's gonna be a more and new localized transportation improvements needed over what's already been identified. But we will see the results of that.

[04:19:34] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. That's that's helpful. So, so not mitigations under CEQA, but operational improvements that would be identified through this different transportation impact analysis. Okay, um, that's helpful. A couple of questions about schools. The first is staff had mentioned in the report and it was referenced in public comment, there's some additional analysis that will need to be done to discern to what extent we're able to use land dedication through the park dedication ordinance for school facilities. Um, and I I am it might be helpful for us to understand when do you expect to have answers for us? Are you involving school administration, you know, what will be the process for how you conduct that analysis and some of the when will the options come back to council?

[04:20:39] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Vice Mayor, I'll I'll respond to that. Um, the the assumption of 20,000 units that that we have been discussing with the school district is again a long-term buildout over 30 years. Um, you saw that even the proposed phasing of this master plan is proposed to be about 30 years because it takes a long time to to build out that much housing. Um, so that, we wanted to kind of give an idea of the timeframe. Um, also much of the proposed housing will be one bedroom or studios, since that is essentially the mix proposed in both of our large precise plans, um, and we wanted to also convey that. We did have discussions with the school district staff and mentioned this to them. Um, and so we do need plans in the short term, medium term and long term to identify the best way to manage this buildout. And we talked about some strategies. The city adopted a school strategy that recognized sort of the three-part responsibilities that existed with the city taking on probably a role in the bulk of the land strategy in two ways: identifying sites with the help of developers, such as this project to look at where schools might be located. And another option that we brought up with the school district several times is the one that LASD used, which is to look at a TDR program in order to finance the purchase of a site. Um, you know, we have encouraged them to keep us in the loop as they're looking for land, areas where they might want to look for land, so that we can start identifying some of those strategies. It also recognizes the role of the schools in getting state funding and or bonding for some of it. And then finally, we are sharing the gap with developers as part of this strategy so that they can make choices to contribute to the schools. Um, and so I think we will be staying in continued involvement with the schools, understanding that this is a 30-year strategy. We don't quite know exactly how enrollments are going to work out. We understand they're declining right now and we're going to have to keep track and monitor some of this progress in order to stay ahead of the curve.

[04:23:44] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. I have two more questions and then I'm done. Um, the first... I think there's a lot of community interest in the timing of the EcoGem delivery. Um, I don't know if we have a lot of detail about how each phase will be delivered. Um, but for my benefit, is the expectation that the EcoGem would be dedicated to the city with building permits getting pulled for a particular project within Phase 2? What's sort of the technical mechanism for triggering that dedication requirement?

[04:24:33] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Vice Mayor, you sort of hit upon some of those milestones that we can create in the DA that can help sort of look at a long term roll out of some of the benefits of this project. We haven't identified the specific timeframe in terms of which building permit it would be associated with. Part of this is to look at where does demolition have to occur, what needs to happen as they build, as they're building buildings, um, you know, when can the EcoGem area be vacated and made available? So some of that we still have to work out, but we're hoping to hear more from the council as we develop that milestone plan.

[04:25:19] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then the last question... To what extent will the applicant include the types of lighting standards that members of the public have described and to what extent can we hardcode some kind of lighting regulations within the Master Plan itself?

[04:25:50] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I don't know if the applicant is here to respond to how they might have been thinking about it, but...

[04:26:04] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Yeah, I mean the brief answer to that is that we also believe in quality lighting standards, but we're too early in the design process right now. So we will definitely take that into account as we move forward. But similar best practices are always what we're aiming for and exceeding them when we can. So, we'll have to come back to you at the PCP level when we have actual architecture.

[04:26:40] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so that...

[04:26:43] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Sorry, Vice Mayor. I'll follow up by saying I think we're listening very hard to the council and if there's interest we can come back with with some kind of guidelines that PCPs can follow. Even though the city doesn't have an ordinance, there are best practices out there.

[04:27:01] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Right. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

[04:27:05] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter.

[04:27:12] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you. Yes, I have two questions. One is is really for the city. Could you explain a little bit more about the PCP plan and how it relates to the Master Plan that we're talking about now and there's going to be a DA developed. So could you tell us a little more about the chronology of the steps involved in this?

[04:27:50] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes. So the Master Plan is is you you've seen some of the some of the deliverables of the Master Plan, the land use...

Segment 7

[04:30:00] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: plan, the parking plan, the affordable housing sites, the locations and the configurations of open space, you know, where the private and public streets will be located. So it lays out the entire framework. What it doesn't have is sort of the outline of the individual buildings and exactly where those are located. So uh part of it would be to lay out the framework um in the master plan. The master plan will also contain a phasing plan. It will um there will be a DA that looks at sort of monitoring progress and milestones. And then the planned community permits have to come in consistent with not just the master plan and DA but also the precise plan that lays out the height and the setbacks. So by the time the projects come in, there is a very tight framework of what can be built on the site. Um and so the the planned community permits would would have to fit into that already developed framework. And examples of that would be, you know, just the individual buildings or groups of buildings um uh showing the design and or the setbacks, all complying with the with the precise plan. Um the the open space would already have been laid out, the parks would have been laid out.

[04:31:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, but what about the time frame for the development of these um planned community um permits? Would that be done sequentially? Like, you know, one, there might be three or four done immediately and then 10 years from now there might be five or six, or how how would that work?

[04:31:42] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: You know, some of this depends on on how the the applicants or the developers want to progress. Um I think I think part of this would be set in the milestones for the DA where we want to have some some deliverables at various milestones um for the city um in terms of housing units or affordable housing parcels or for example park space, the ecogem for example. Um and then maybe the the developer or the applicant can answer a little bit about how they go about planning for um for building out some of these projects.

[04:32:23] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you.

[04:32:24] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Sure. So so I'll take that um from Google's perspective and you know Andrew if you want to jump in on the on the residential but just to give you a a quick understanding or or sketch of Phase 1, so there's about 8 to 10 PCPs planned for Phase 1. We haven't got into the exact sequencing of those, but our intention is to start vertical design sometime mid 2022 um so that we could submit shortly after the master plan was was approved. And then on the you know on the residential end I'll just um say there are 1, 2, there are six office buildings planned in that first phase which is around a million square feet of office. Um around 400 units of residential on R1 and R2, the hotel site and ground floor retail. So that's really the focus of the area around the social spine that Jeff was speaking to earlier. Um and then shortly thereafter there may be additional residential sites that would come forward in individual PCPs but Andrew I don't know if you want to chime in here. He may not be designated as a speaker.

[04:33:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I was just looking for him. I see his hand raised. Hold on just one moment. I've moved him over. Hi Andrew.

[04:33:58] Andrew Chappell: Good evening. Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers and uh members of the community. Um thanks for having me here tonight uh to answer this question. I think it's helpful just to provide a bit of background from a from a housing standpoint uh a bit about the rationale and the reason for asking the city to consider an expedited PCP. I think primarily it's because the planning uncertainty and the associated time delay that comes with this can end housing projects before they've even begun. And I think I heard earlier tonight on one of the agenda items, you know, there's a real difficulty raising capital during a downturn or even a recovery for that matter. And that's often a consequence of the uncertainty associated with the planning process and the funder's decision to place their capital or lend money to faster moving, you know, less risky projects. So you know a housing project's ability to be nimble, to move fast, and to minimize the upfront cost burden associated with a protracted planning process, it's really critical to housing feasibility. And and that's why we're respectfully asking the city to help us accelerate the planning process and to deliver housing faster. Thanks.

[04:35:18] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well I'm not objecting to that necessarily. I'm just trying to understand. So the ones for phase eight, when are you going to put in the ones for phase eight? Is that going to be five years from now, 10 years from now? I mean what what what action would it be associated with?

[04:35:36] Andrew Chappell: The well I mean we're really working towards getting these projects delivered as soon as we possibly can. The action required of course will be first of all decanting Google existing Google office buildings where they have existing operations. So that's that's quite a process. Um and then of course once we've managed to do that, we need to demolish that area and and make way for housing. Then we embark on on the housing process in the planning and designing process and that can take a year plus in terms of the design and then going through the planning process.

[04:36:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. So so these the so these these documents will will be developed over time as they're needed. That's essentially what you're saying, right?

[04:36:22] Andrew Chappell: That's right, yeah.

[04:36:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. That that's what I was wanted to get the answer to. All right. And then um Aarti, I also wanted to talk about um uh milestones, milestones is another way to say it in the um in the uh uh development agreement. But also what are the things that we can do to speed this process up? What are the incentives um or you know or structure that we can provide to help this. I mean we I don't think there was anybody that we heard and we probably heard 30 people speak who said oh let's do it slower. You know, I mean everybody would like this to move as quickly as possible. So what what are milestones that you think might be helpful and or incentives things that we might you know work out.

[04:37:15] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Well, I think I think um as you can see the the master plan is is is generally consistent with both the general plan and as well as the precise plan. And and I think the two things that the city can do to speed up the process is to create a very strong master plan framework so that permits under the master plan are are are very easy to understand and administer the rules for. So that's important and that's what staff aims to do when we bring the master plan back so that Council, the community and the developer um completely understand all all the requirements for for um the the subsequent permits. Um the other way again is is what the applicant is proposing and um is is creating a development agreement that provides that certainty to the to the developer that if they do deliver some of the residential and the and the open space and some of the the benefits up front, they have the ability to build out the rest of the plan. Um so as as as um Andrew was saying um certainty is is very important and is probably the best incentive for any developer. And I I think it's also important for staff um and the community so that we know how to process permits.

[04:38:48] Councilmember Pat Showalter: And and um Google, does that make sense to you and or do you have other things that you would like to suggest that might be helpful?

[04:38:58] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Yeah, I think um thank you for the question. I think Aarti did a great job of of answering it, particularly around the certainty and the DA and you know we are as discussed certainly open to to milestones um and hopefully as uh it came across in our presentation that we do take seriously um you know the delivery of infrastructure up front, through the delivery of the Charleston corridor phase 2 and 3, um we're going to deliver the ecogem as soon as practically possible. We're front-loading the delivery of affordable housing sites and advancing as much housing as is feasibly possible in the early phases. Um so we are doing everything from a um from a project standpoint to bring on as many of those components as possible to set up a critical mass of of development to enable the retail to be commercially viable and successful, right, to so we really need to get it right in the first phase and we hopefully have have done that just in terms of the mix of uses and again um the delivery of the community benefits and and the housing that then the development agreement gives us enough certainty to make those up front investments to know that we can build out the last phases of the project and recoup our investments. So I think those are the two things the PCP and getting a a fair DA um with a 30-year term that provides enough milestones, certainty to the city to the community and to us that the full project will be realized.

[04:40:34] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you. That's that's my questions.

[04:40:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Hicks.

[04:40:42] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thankfully I I think I only have one question left and um so I I definitely support on on the subject of schools I support directing staff to identify a mechanism for um you know school site delivery when that's timely. I kind of want a benchmark if the of um student generation based on uh past uh housing unit production in Mountain View. I think and correct me, staff should correct me if I'm wrong, over the past RHNA cycle the one we're at the end of now, have we done like 4,000 new units? I'm wondering what student growth has been over that um period.

[04:41:30] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, Councilmember Hicks, I don't have that number um but we can certainly reach out to the schools and and and get some of that information.

[04:41:39] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, so you don't know at this time what student growth has been as we've grown. Okay, well thank you then.

[04:41:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Lieber.

[04:41:50] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Um, well I I also share Councilmember Hicks's um questioning in that regard and and I think that it seems logical that it would be tied to the type of units that are being produced at at the time that there would be fewer students um uh in a in studio and one bedroom um units if those are the among the first to be produced. But I I would like to see more information on that and make sure that um we have a logical rollout of things. Uh a question that I have is about the current tree population. It sounds like it's really suffered from uh the water situation and and not having the right not having trees that were well matched with the the water supply. And I did read in the staff report that we can expect a lower level of salts in the recycled water um going forward. But my question is um who would be monitoring the tree situation on an ongoing basis to make sure that we don't uh end up in a very similar situation um that would uh disappoint the public that if we're planting new trees and going through all the effort that they would actually uh live for a long time and flourish. Who who would be monitoring that?

[04:43:27] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, I can um answer um just just give you the basics. Um on private property, it would be the applicant who would be required to maintain the trees and I'm I'm not entirely sure if they're planning to use recycled water, many do for landscaping purposes, but the city will be holding them to that standard. Um on public property, uh it will be the city in our parks and our and our streets.

[04:43:56] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And relative to the questions about the timing of the ecogem, I I think I read in the staff report that it could be at the end of Phase 2 that the ecogem would be delivered and it sounded like it would just uh uh potentially just be in a scraped um type of a situation at that point. So if we're interested in seeing that accelerated and seeing it be a um a thing that would uh an area that would attract use, uh would we have the opportunity to give that input and um see a a usable space earlier on?

[04:44:45] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I I would say yes in responding to the questions that staff has asked, um Council can um give us that input and we will be incorporating all of the majority Council comments as we as we develop the milestones for the um for the uh plan, master plan and the development agreement.

[04:45:09] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And then um in terms of the the letter I think it was also in the um comments um from the uh committee on the the refuge, um about the current trees that um egrets are nesting in, and um how would we deal with that type of a situation?

[04:45:40] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I don't have the specifics on that Councilmember Lieber, and I don't know if the applicants have um a more detailed proposal but um that that would also be one of the comments we would address if um Council majority directed us to.

[04:45:58] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Yeah. Um, Councilmember Lieber, could you repeat your question on the egrets? I'm sorry.

[04:46:03] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Well, there was a a comment that we got that um a certain subset of the existing trees are are used um for egret nesting um currently and I I just wanted to see how um how that will be dealt with through the the transition and things.

[04:46:30] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Correct. So yeah, so we're well aware of the egret rookery. They they exist next to 1201 Charleston, in in an area that that's part of the Shorebird Wilds um park that we want to create is the preservation of that egret rookery. So there are some London planes on one side of what is currently Shorebird Way and um then they actually nest in a few of the redwoods on the other side of the street. So we're planning on retaining all of those trees that the egret rookery is a part of. And then the road will go away um in between those, so we'll demo that road that will happen during their non non-nesting season, right. Um and then um that becomes a more natural park space below them. Um you know and we're working with various consultants um HT Harvey and SFEI and and others to help us make sure we do all that correctly for the egrets.

[04:47:25] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay, great. And um on page 18 of the staff report in the diagram of the street, um it shows uh I guess it's technically loading um it's not parking per se, but loading and then a bike lane on the outside of the loading um nearer to the traffic lanes of the the street. I'm wondering what was the thinking behind that of not um doing a protected uh bike lane where uh there it appears that there is a peanut strip um protecting the bike lane um from the traffic lanes, um but uh the the loading area it seems like would still um be opening into the bike lane.

[04:48:34] Public Works Director Dawn Cameron: Thank you. Dawn Cameron, Public Works Director. So Figure 8 is a um a street design out of the precise plan and this was the original concept being looked at which was what you're calling buffered bike lanes which is just a striped area between the bike lane and the traffic lane. Um I will say that in our preliminary discussions with Google and some items they propose which we are looking at is for some of these streets where possible, we are looking at protected bikeways where the bike lane would be between the sidewalk and the um the curb zone. So we are exploring to see where where it's possible to do that.

[04:49:19] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay, fantastic. Thank you so much.

[04:49:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Uh, Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[04:49:28] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you Mayor. Um, I just had a couple of questions. Um, first one has to do with schools and the school strategy. Um, I know that um Ms. Shrivastava mentioned um the school strategy that includes um various components, one um being the TDR program. And um my question is um like for with the LASD example, um what it seemed to enable that was that they were purchasing land that had TDRs attached to it. Um I guess I'm trying to un see understand like how that scenario could play out in North Bayshore. If you could...

[04:50:14] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I think I think for the North Bayshore three-acre site, we wouldn't be looking for a TDR strategy. We would be looking at a different strategy. But the school district has identified um needs in other parts of the city for schools and that's where the TDR strategy would likely apply. Where if you purchase land that can hold a certain amount of development and you don't use it, those that square footage could be sold to purchase the use of a site for a school.

[04:50:49] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So then are we expecting the school to because they would need you know the funding to purchase land to either bond or they brought up the CFD um strategy um to do you know the financing um first to enab to be able to purchase land?

[04:51:11] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Do you mean for, in other parts of the city? Yes. I think I think again we're we're gonna have to sit down and talk about what's possible um and and what can be done um and and maybe even talk to the LASD about the approach they used. So um I think it's gonna require a lot more discussion in order to sort of have the schools develop a kind of what we call that a long-term strategy um of site acquisition.

[04:51:41] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. And then I guess I'm trying to understand the legal aspects of this um issue of uh Google dedicating the land to the city as and us accepting it as open space but then turning it around and giving it to the school district to build a school. Um what so what are we, what is the legal I guess hiccup there? Is it the fact that um by doing that we're not actually taking in open space to meet our ratio of of of open space um or is there something else that...

[04:52:25] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I think it's what you said which is if if the land is required to satisfy park land dedication requirements, then it can't be turned over for school purposes. So we have to find a way to carve out those three acres and make the park land fund whole, either in the form of money or land so that those three acres can be turned over to the school in the future for a school site. So we're just trying to work out options to do that and and we feel that we can probably bring at least one option for the Council to consider.

[04:53:04] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Great. Thank you for that clarification. Um, in terms of housing we uh it's been mentioned that some will be rental, some will be ownership. Do we have a sense of um what that ratio might be between rental and ownership housing?

[04:53:20] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Um, I might let Jeff or Michael answer that question.

[04:53:30] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Yeah. Thank you. I might actually let Andrew answer that since he's since Lendlease is doing the residential development if he's still able to jump on here.

[04:53:44] Andrew Chappell: Can you would you mind repeating the question?

[04:53:47] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Um, do you have an idea of what the ratio of rental units versus ownership units might be?

[04:53:53] Andrew Chappell: It's a good question Councilmember, and that is not something that we have yet determined um first and foremost we're looking at delivering you know a feasible housing product. So we will we will be starting with rental product. But the hope is that in the future as we establish the place and this becomes a really compelling place to live that um ownership models will start to be delivered in those in those later stages. So we don't yet have the exact proportion, but it is something that we're contemplating in the future stages.

[04:54:32] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Thank you. Um, and then finally regarding phasing, um, I'm looking at the page 15 of the staff report under construction phasing. So um, in each phase, and each phase is a little different in terms of office building versus residential. But um Phase 1 for instance has it looks like their the idea is to just rebuild existing office buildings. So um I'm trying to think of how to say this, I guess you know we we want the balance, so we want office to equal so many residential units or approximately so many residential units. So do does staff have a sense of how that is gonna play out? So and and with that question is um, you know, I've seen DAs that we've granted that have never actually been built out. And that would be my concern is we could grant this and 30 years nothing could be built, right? Because I don't think we are I guess the question is do we have a mechanism to require, you know, some at least so so much build out to happen? Or and that's my biggest fear is that 30 years from now nothing is, you know, built, right? So how do we ensure that we get something built? And then can we phase this in a way that and this has been my concern from the beginning that I don't want half like half-built neighborhoods or phases. So how can we can we ensure that if let's say only four phases or three phases get built that it has complete neighborhoods that can be self-sustaining as a neighborhood?

[04:56:29] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: You know, I think that's essentially what we need to do, you know, take your comments from the Council and then sit down and work through the actual phasing of the project. You could see that the first phase is basically um a lot of demolition to clear sites for future parks and residential and and rebuilding of of it on um so that so that the land can be cleared. Um and and what we see here is that at least 40% of over 40% of the residential is going to be um developed within the first phase, a second phase, with no net new office being built. So I think we are going to be looking at some milestones that assure the city of of the delivery of what the city wants to see. Um uh and we can put that in the DA. In terms of forcing a developer to build something, I think um the the one way we do force it is by sort of getting some of the goodies up front, which is the parks and the so so at least the financial burdens have been sort of met up front, which makes it easier to build out the rest of the phases of the project. Um I I don don't think a city can force a developer to to build but what we can do is create the incentives through through the framework and make sure that the phasing is realistic and like you said it it kind of encompasses a neighborhood so that it's not scattered. And if you can look at the phasing plan it actually is trying to sort of hold um the build out of neighborhoods together so that the street infrastructure can be built at the same time and staff will be looking at that as well um to make sure that it's a um it the neighborhoods are built out together and and by the time the first few phases are built an entire neighborhood can be built with the open space and and the services. So those are things we can we can certainly develop in the phasing, but I I haven't yet found um a way to force a builder to build something they don't want to build. Um I think the only way we can do it is by requiring some of the benefits up front which which we will be doing um and and that way it incentivizes a developer to to continue on.

[04:58:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So is there something where because we are phasing this, they're creating milestones that if um, you know, things aren't moving along um at a timely pace um looking if iffy as to whether this is going to get built out, that we take back the bonus FAR?

[04:59:22] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I think that's that's going to be kind of the... that's going to encompass some of the milestones, right? That we're we're laying out. Um which is I think the city at this point is certainly interested in seeing the residential get developed in earlier phases but not all at once so that Dawn can build out her infrastructure. Right. Um so we're gonna look at pacing our not just the the developer but also the city in delivering the services. Um but yes it it basically has some of those milestones to make sure that the rest of the the plan will get built out and the DA will depend on achieving those milestones.

[05:00:02] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay, and I would add in addition to the housing would be the the amenities, the retail, um open space to support whatever neighborhood ends up being developed if not the entire master plan.

[05:00:16] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, and if you can see each neighborhood has some of that neighborhood services um attached to it. And so we're definitely going to be requiring the build out of that and I think the the small business plan that's being provided as part of the the DA will will ensure that um there is some subsidy that that will be provided to incentivize tenants in those spaces.

[05:00:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Okay. Great. Thank you.

[05:00:47] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[05:00:50] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Uh, boy a lot of my questions have already been asked, which is great. Um, I was wondering, close to lot C, there is a burrowing owl habitat and I think it's a protected area. And I was wondering how that um would impact the development of lot C, if it does.

[05:01:24] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I don't know if Dawn or Jeff have responses to this?

[05:01:31] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: Sure. Um, so we've taken into account the HOZ that we've extended from that protected area. And so the parking structure that we've um nominally put in in a design on that site um stays away from the it's outside of that HOZ area for the habitat.

[05:01:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So, if I recall correctly, um, let's see, can you build right up to the HOZ or was there a space beyond the habitat area that you have to stay?

[05:02:05] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: No, the habitat overlay zone is a a distance outside of where they actually burrow. So they they burrow off to the west and then there's a I I'm going to not remember the exact distance, 150 feet, 200 feet of an of an overlay zone that you cannot build within.

[05:02:24] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Actually I think I just found it. 250 feet is measured from the edge of the burrowing owl habitat.

[05:02:30] Jeff Hosea, Urban Planning Lead: There you go. And so then the parking structure is further to the east as we've, you know, got it in concept today. Yeah.

[05:02:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, and that's it. Thanks.

[05:02:44] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Okay, so does anyone else have any other questions for our applicant? Or staff? All right. I am not seeing any. So um we can move forward with some questions. So we have four questions tonight, if there are any decision points, we can also do straw polls um that we can take to provide feedback to staff. So um I'd like to suggest we have four questions and I'd like to suggest taking them two at a time. So we'll do question one and question two first. So question one, does the City Council have any additional input regarding land use, affordable housing, parks and open space, district parking, construction phasing, and implementation of the complete streets network? And question two, does City Council support the proposed framework of tree removal and replacement necessary for implementation of the Master Plan consistent with the Precise Plan vision? And then once uh colleagues we go through those two questions, then we'll do question three, does the City Council support the proposed streamlined development review process for subsequent projects that adhere to the Master Plan framework? And question four, does the City Council have input on the DA term and proposed public benefits? All right. And uh once we answer those four questions, uh I'll work with staff to provide a summary of the majority Council direction and the Council majority is four. Um, so would anyone like to start with question one and two? Great. And I think if you don't mind we can take the screen down so we can see colleagues. Thank you so much. Councilmember Hicks.

[05:04:45] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I can start, maybe we have to circle back or do a straw poll to see if I agree with what when I agree with what uh people after me think or say. Um, so in...

[05:04:58] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sorry Councilmember Hicks, we'll thank we'll thank our applicants um and they can leave our virtual stage while we deliberate. Thank you. It just reduces the jeopardy screens. Thank you Mr. Tymoff and team.

[05:05:10] Michael Tymoff, Director Real Estate District Development: Thank you. Goodbye and thank you.

[05:05:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, thank you. Great. All right. Go ahead Councilmember Hicks. Question one and two. Sorry about that.

[05:05:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So I assume I won't read the questions that you have them in front of you. Um, so question number one, um in terms of affordable housing, uh I would of course I would I would like this to happen as soon as possible. I would like us to consider community land trusts uh for standalone affordable housing because I think our there are members of our low-income community who are very um who it's less institutional, it's an ownership form and there are members of our uh of our low-income community who who are very um active and thoughtful as you can tell from our solidarity fund and I think that's something that um they may be interested in. Um, I'm interested in the the new lighting standards that have been talked about. I think that that's an since this is a lot of habitat area I think that's particularly important and uh other people have mentioned that well as well. Um, I also think there's a um when we talk about parks and open space, I think they're somewhat different in this area, they're they're they may be a different kind of park than in the the rest of the city. So um emphasizing habitat more and you know lawns and so forth less. So I I would like Google to if possible design the parks and I would like I'm also hoping that um in terms of the ecogem and so forth which I would like to be done as soon as possible, that um that there be enough parks for recreation developed that I think there's a conflict between habitat and recreational parks and I would like enough recreational parks that we're not using habitat um as a place to um that's too people-dominated. Um, I would like to strengthen ways to make this area car-light. Um in particular looking at some of the the streetscaping like the figure 8 that um that uh was pictured in the staff report. I found that figure to be um well there there was a large part of it was loading zones and I thought it could be uh greener and have more protected bike lanes so that it so that it would appear to people that this is a place where you want to walk and bike. Um I think that's something we could work on and I I think um SFEI, uh the San Francisco Estuary Institute has done some work around that and maybe would be good people to consult with. Um, let's see if I have anything else. Uh and and I guess some of the environmental groups also mentioned that uh they said things like all the new private streets should be designed for shared mixed modes, slow streets, curved if possible with narrow lanes to ensure uh safety with slow traffic sharing the right of way with pedestrians, children and micromobility devices. So take some of those measures to strengthen the alternative modes of transportation. Um, and I would like us to take quick interim methods to make it a complete neighborhoods as soon as possible if needed like um micro grocery convenience stores or CSA drop off areas, anything we can do to get those complete neighborhoods going as soon as possible. So question two is about tree removal and replacement uh etc. Um so I like very much what the environmental groups suggested on this, that uh we ask for long-term monitoring plans for trees and canopy to ensure that new and transplanted trees thrive uh and that canopy predictions are met, and that the quality of irrigation or groundwater meets the needs of the trees. Uh also revise the tree palette uh occasionally uh if need be due to climate change. Um and I'm not going to read the rest of their letter but uh also attention paid to the shorebird egret colony retention um some steps to take to do that. So I think those were most of my comments on the the trees.

[05:10:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[05:10:24] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor. Uh, the short answer to both questions is I am comfortable with the proposal. Um, I I always struggle with these kinds of study sessions because we're providing very high-level and conceptual ideas that I feel like are difficult to um to distill into concrete policy outcomes. Um and sometimes it feels like we're asked questions a little too early and there's a lot more investigation and exploration that has to be done. Um but appreciating that there's still a lot more work that has to be done, I guess my high priorities are uh are pertain to the affordable housing delivery. Um I I think I know more work will have to be done on this but I do worry that there won't be enough funding in the end to deliver affordable housing on the sites that are dedic on the parcels that are dedicated to the city. Um I think there's I'm I'm anticipating that there will be uh environmental review that's completed and um I I don't know if you can uh how how much work you can do on sort of the entitlement review uh concurrently um with the the balance of the master plan. Um I think that's that's probably something that you'd have to share with the Council later but um I I do have some concerns about the expeditious delivery of affordable housing. Um so uh I I'm hoping that as staff and the applicant continue to work on this, we could come up with creative ideas to make sure that we have a list of affordable housing developers who are ready to go, you know, who don't have to go through two years of design review um and then you know have to sit around for a while, you know, while we cobble up some funding to uh uh to address any funding shortages that arise because there just won't be enough in in the way of housing impact fees or commercial linkage fees, whatever we want to call them, to to actually construct housing there. Um so that that's probably my greatest concern um and uh you know the land use configuration I'm largely comfortable with, I'm very comfortable with uh the district parking and phasing and the complete streets networks. I think the only other outstanding question that we will have to figure out relatively quickly is um the the disposition of any land intended for uh a new school campus. Um and working with the school district to um understand whatever constraints and you know legal obligations they may have, um you know working with them also so they understand what our legal obligations and constraints may be. Um but but working in tandem with them to the extent um you know there are there are still outstanding questions about how do we get a school out there.

[05:13:35] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Can you hear me? No. Okay. So we lost, okay bye. We've lost the Vice Mayor, I think he's going to try to dial back in to uh to have us connect because I'm not sure he can hear me and we definitely can't hear him, right? Okay. Um all right. Councilmember Lieber, we'll jump over to you for questions one and two. Vice Mayor, we'll come back to you once you can... okay. Go ahead Councilmember Lieber.

[05:14:19] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Great. Well, I very much concur with all the items that have been raised by my two colleagues that have already spoken and um I'm very heartened to hear that that staff is anticipating um the need for more bicycle/pedestrian safety um in terms of potential loading areas um and etc. Um, I'm very eager to see some more evolved lighting standards. It's critical throughout the city but it's...

Segment 8

[05:15:00] Councilmember Sally Lieber: especially critical in this area. And I'd like to pay special attention, and I know that staff is, to opportunities going forward for the public to comment and be involved where there are handholds around various benchmarks and there's an opportunity for accountability there. I would love to, as we're in the future looking at the affordable housing mix here, to really provide some housing in this area for individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities. I think that this is a perfect neighborhood for that kind of specialized housing to be provided. And maybe Google can work that into their small business plan to include small businesses that are targeted to employing people with developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities, and I think that they could set a really beautiful new standard for that. I don't know how to judge if the 500,000 contribution towards sea level rise is an adequate amount to be helpful in terms of our overall spend on sea level rise and groundwater rise. I think I heard somewhere that we were projecting around 122 million of total spend, and so I don't know how to judge if 500,000 is a significant amount, but I'm very eager to see strong participation there. And in terms of the trees, you know, it's hard to be asked the question, do you support or not support decimating this number of trees? But I do recognize that, you know, this wasn't a wilderness area. In many cases, the trees were not apt for their location, and I do appreciate the efforts that Google has detailed about the biodiversity and urban forestry concepts that they're going to bring into it. And so I just want to make sure that we have some ways to look at that going forward and to make sure that it is a reality. And I was very pleased to hear from Google about the connectivity of the areas that are used by the egrets. I think that's really, really important. That's what people go to Shoreline to see. And those are just my comments on these first two initial items.

[05:18:23] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Okay, Vice Mayor, I see you back. Are you, are your comments done or... Oh no. We still don't hear you. I'm sorry. Yeah, we still don't hear you. Okay. Councilmember Matichak.

[05:18:40] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. For question one, in general at a high level, I'm okay with the proposed land use, but of course, you know, when you get into the details, I do have some comments. When it comes to the affordable housing, I am concerned about some of the parcels. I want to make sure they really are good for housing. I would say some of them are kind of odd shapes. Like the parcel that was just added to the gateway master plan area. It's very, it looks, at least on a map, it's very thin. And I'm not sure that's an ideal place for housing, let alone affordable housing. So I want to make sure we've got parcels that are comparable to the parcels where we have market rate housing. Parks and open space, I do have some concerns in this area. Probably the biggest one is that I still feel like the parks and open space are a little bit removed from the residential area. And while they've been moved a little bit to be closer, I think more could be done. And then I'm also concerned about the Green Loop cutting through the middle of some of the areas. It looks like it makes the area on the sides of the Green Loop less usable when it comes to recreation or other activities that residents might want to do other than use the Green Loop. So I did try to do a... an analysis in Appendix, I think it was Appendix 4, where it had for each park or open space area, what might be programmed there. And it seems like there's a whole lot of terraces and I wasn't sure how useful they would be. And not enough area where you could have a pickup game of soccer or something else on a field. And so I actually would like to see the Green Loop not cut through the middle of the area, but be along the edge, so that the space that is available for recreation is larger, like a more traditional park would be. And actually I sort of even wondered why do we need the Green Loop when there are bike lanes, protected bike lanes on, I think, all of the streets. And so I was kind of wondering what really is the purpose of the Green Loop, especially when it's having an impact, I think, on the usability of the parks and open space. District parking, when we originally talked about this, I think I had in mind that it would be open to everyone in North Bayshore and it wouldn't be exclusive to whoever built it or one company. And so I really do think we need to think about the district parking at Lot C. And I think it should be open to others besides one employer, during the day as well as in the evenings and weekends. To me, that's the true meaning of district parking. I'm okay with the phasing of the construction, but as others have mentioned, I would like to see the EcoGem sooner rather than later. And I wasn't sure who was actually going to do the building of that. Well, it looks like the $7 million contribution would go a long ways toward the cost of the development. I wasn't really sure if the city was developing that or Google was developing that. But I would like to see it done sooner rather than later. And I'm okay with the complete street plan. The tree removal, you know, I think the comment about, you know, it's kind of hard to say you support removing so many trees, but you know, I also get the big picture of what we're trying to do. And I think having trees that are more suitable for the area that have the biodiversity that we're looking for is the way to go. I also will say that updating the tree palette from time to time over 30 years, because that's a long time, is something I'm interested in. I think, you know, when it comes to a later topic, it's things like tree palettes and lighting and circulation and those things that... and others that we can't predict right now are the things that are going to change over time, and they're things that I want to be able to change over time, because as we learn more, we'll want to tweak, change, whatever you want to call it, some of the plans. I think that's it on question one and two. Thanks.

[05:24:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Okay. Shall we try you once more, Vice Mayor?

[05:24:28] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: I'm trying computer audio.

[05:24:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yay! We hear you.

[05:24:33] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. I've been told that the audio through my laptop is not very good, which is why I typically call in. But if that doesn't work, this is the only other alternative I have. I don't remember exactly where I cut out, but I think I was largely done with my comments.

[05:24:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So I think we got your comments for one and two, or one. Did you answer the question about two? Maybe that's where you were getting cut off, the tree question, the framework?

[05:25:04] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: I'm largely comfortable with the proposal.

[05:25:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Perfect. Great, thank you. All right. Yes, and I know I hear it now. You cut in and out with your computer audio, so it's like you hear you and then it gets crackly. But we will get through this meeting. All right, Councilmember Showalter.

[05:25:27] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay. Yeah, I coming this far along, a lot's already been said. I guess I'm primarily in Lucas's camp here. Making a chart. I'm okay with staff recommendations and have affordable housing, developers want to have affordable housing or developers who are ready to go. I think that's really important to me is having the affordable housing ready to go. I also think that these requests for lighting standards are a good idea. And we want to, of course, get complete neighborhoods as soon as possible. I think that from a parks point of view, I'm interested more in these being kind of urban parks. It seems like since this area is on the edge of Shoreline Park, which is our big preserve, the people who live here are going to have great access to habitat areas, especially when you add in the EcoGem. But they are going to need to have, you know, recreational areas, areas to sit. There's going to need to be playgrounds for kids. So I think that we're going to need to think carefully about what are the park needs here. And it won't be quite the same as in the rest of the community. Over the tree... the tree replacement framework, one of the things that makes me very happy is the thought that those trees are already starting to grow. You know, Google has established a native plant nursery in Gilroy and they're, they're... so theyre growing trees that will be, you know, fairly large when they're put in. That's a good thing. And I just concur with the staff's, you know, our standard thing of we want to reduce the reduction of healthy trees as much as possible. But it is sometimes necessary. And so I'm glad that they're, you know, they're growing these trees and we're going to have fairly big ones to put in. And then, as Lisa mentioned, Councilmember Matichak mentioned, I think it's really important to have the trees suited to the environment. And we have projections now of what trees we think will be well suited to our environment 10 or 20 years from now. But we might be wrong. So it'll be important to revisit that from time to time to make sure that the plant palette keeps up. And I think that's it for these two questions. Thank you.

[05:28:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[05:28:39] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. A lot's already been said, and I concur with a lot that has been said. I'll start with land use. I just want to thank staff for all the hard work that they put into this project. And I'd like to thank Google and Mr. Timehoff. I think this plan is an improvement from the previous plans, draft plans we've seen. I appreciate that there have been things that have moved and changed that I think make it a better plan. You know, personally, like, I remember there was a garage at the end of Shorebird Way near the creek, and I just, you know, that made no sense to me to let all these cars go to the end of that street and by our, you know, a sensitive wildlife habitat, and so the fact that they've moved that made that open space, moved the residential more closer to Shoreline Boulevard and away from the habitat is a big improvement, and I appreciate Mr. Timehoff's willingness to make those changes and make this a better plan. So overall, again at a high level, I support the land uses that are being proposed. Affordable housing, so... I appreciate the land dedication and the BMR units. But in light of our recent presentations on our RHNA numbers and our increased requirements on housing and really the emphasis on affordable housing, I would like to see, and this is really tied to question four, some of the DA terms, but if we can actually get more land dedication, because I believe that's the way to get more affordable housing units. In regards to how to fund that, you know, I'm actually optimistic. I believe the federal government in their Build Back Better plan, or whatever, one of their recent bills has included increased tax credits for affordable housing. As I've mentioned, at the state level there's a big effort now to look at ways to fund affordable housing, so... As Vice Mayor said, yes, we should have a list of affordable housing developers ready to go. I've been often told, you know, they're ready to go. They just need land. So if there is a way to get more land dedication, that's where I would like for us to move. You know, a long time ago, I wanted to do 25% affordable in North Bayshore. I was told it was unfeasible, but San Jose has that in their plan, Google plan. So I just think that we should try. At least we should try to get as much as we can. Especially because the more land we give away for market rate housing, that's less land for affordable housing. So you know, we really need to be careful about how we plan and what kind of land uses we allow in the future because our land is getting scarcer by the day. Open space, agree with the comments made. Definitely want the EcoGem as soon as we can. I appreciate the comments that I think Councilmember Matichak made, making sure that the Green Loop doesn't cut through the open space parcels so that the open space parcels can be used to its fullest. And then District Parking, yes, I agree again with Councilmember Matichak. My vision was that it would be district parking for everyone in North Bayshore. That's the whole point of it. A long time ago, you know, people thought it was a little out there, extreme about having no cars in North Bayshore, but I think that is becoming more possible a reality. At least, you know, having them park in one place and then being able to walk or bike through North Bayshore is what I've always hoped for and my vision. So I just don't think it makes sense to allow one employer to have it and not others. And it should be a benefit for everyone out in North Bayshore. Agree with the comments about lighting standards, making sure that the egrets and the burrowing owls are protected. I go back to the vision of North Bayshore and it's very distinctly mentioned that wildlife protection and habitat is a priority. So I want to ensure that that is played out as we develop. And I also want to ask staff, I know staff, you are working on this, but we really do need to get a determination on the school site as soon as possible and get the school district's assurance that they're going to be able to do what they need to do. So I would like to put a priority on that task. Let's see. Going to trees, yes, I don't think I... I was really quite alarmed actually at the number of trees that are going to be taken out. I understand it, but it is a lot. And I agree with what other council members have said about a monitoring plan and a changing palette, and just ensuring that whatever changes are sustainable. And I think that's the overall... and maybe I'll save this till question four, but the overall concern is that we do have a way to monitor this, and as things progress, and adjust accordingly because not everything will work out, and we need to be, and things will change, and we need to be able to change with it. So I hope that we can include some flexibility as we move forward. Thanks.

[05:35:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter, did you have more to add?

[05:35:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I'm not sure whether it's appropriate with this one or with the other ones, but this is more just in terms of making it clear to the school district that we are very serious about using an area for a school site. I think it's very important that that be depicted on the maps. And I know that we may, we need to come up with a good disclaimer. You know, it's a possibility right now, we haven't completely figured it out, but I think it's very important from a political point of view that that site be shown on the maps. Because it's been my experience that people don't respect the text that goes along with maps and figures. They just snip out the map and plop it into whatever they're using it for and go on. And so the explanation that's outside of the figures goes away. So I just would really like to see that school site on the map, on a regular basis. Thank you.

[05:36:29] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Okay. Anything else for questions one and two? Okay. All right. So I'll add my comments. So I want to thank my colleagues for their robust questions. And I know we had the opportunity to get our council briefing with city staff as well as our briefings with Google. So lots of opportunity to kind of ask a bunch of different questions. And I want to echo the thanks that colleagues have mentioned for our applicant as well as city staff. It's exciting to be at this point in the process and go forward, although I do hear what the Vice Mayor was saying in terms of you want to provide as high level as possible because things can change, but you also want to be specific so people know the direction that you're going in. So it's a delicate balance. So I think what I'll just add for questions one and two, I am supportive of the direction that city staff is headed in, along with our applicant. Regarding the land use, I think interesting to see all the different eight phases and the parcels that go along with that. I echo the concerns about the prioritization of the eight phases. And I think for myself, what's rising to the top is how do we reach a complete community as quick as possible. So there's existing office, as well as an existing neighborhood, some of which we heard from tonight, Santiago Villa. So for myself, I'm most interested in some of the comments my colleagues have made, which is prioritizing affordable housing, the delivery of the EcoGem, making sure that we have the complete streets, the walkable, bikeable elements to start creating, I think, a sense of community. Those are the items that I would like to see first. Access to the parks and open space network. I appreciate the comments colleagues have made about the district parking. You know, I think the model makes sense, but the model needs to include everyone. And I think that to me is the most important part is how is this a community for everyone and integrating. So, you know, I think whether it's building our affordable housing or our market rate housing, as well as the construction of the school site, having a vision and a real understanding of who's going to be living out there. What is our community going to look like? How are we going to target entry way into the affordable housing? And I think some people mentioned some potential partnerships, but I'd also like to see it be people who work at the North Bayshore at all spectrums, right, be able to live in that community because wouldn't it be great for them to be able to live and work in the area, have their children go to the schools, be able to visit those parks. And I think it'd really be a way for us to kind of target those single occupancy vehicle rates that we've been talking about. So I think kind of those are just like my high level comments, and I hear unanimous concern about how we prioritize a school district site. And you know, I echo those and I do feel like having amenities for our community are important, and a big part of that is a place for our youth to be able to go to school. For question two, I think I can't say it better than colleagues already have in terms of the tree removal kind of processes. You know, I feel like anything is better than what it was prior, which is a dump yard, right? But there wasn't that foresight and thought about a community when these existing trees are planted. And so what I really like about what I've seen from the applicant is some actual thought, along with the city, in terms of, as people were saying, the expected tree canopy, being able to monitor the trees that are planted there as well as, I like this, the changing tree palette. I'd love to be able to incorporate, I think I heard at least four, if not, hopefully I'll be the fourth in terms of wanting to prioritize the lighting standards as well as concern about the habitat related to our burrowing owls and egrets. So I think for purposes of just being able to summarize most clearly, I'll turn to staff about where we are on questions one and two. And then we can go on to questions three and four. So, Ms. Pancholi, do you have what you heard, Council majority, which is four or more, for question one?

[05:42:01] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: If I may summarize, and I might need a little help with... I've been trying to look at the other comments as well. So yes, there is council support for both question one and question two. In addition, there were some comments made by council members that received majority support, and that is, the first one is affordable housing, to try to prioritize as soon as possible. Try to introduce new lighting standards that are compatible with a dark sky. Look at delivery of the EcoGem as early as possible in the build-out. Let me see, make sure that the staff identifies a strategy for the new school site and communicates that. And in terms of the trees, look at a long-term monitoring plan for the maintenance and the canopy, and continually revise the palette to be consistent with climate change needs. Let me see if there's... those were the main comments that received majority council support, at least four council members supporting them. I don't know, Diana or Kimbra, if you have any additional...

[05:43:38] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: No, I concur, Aarti. I have the same summary.

[05:43:44] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: There's one... excuse me, there's one element that I would like some clarity on as related to the parks and the biodiversity, which is the Green Loop. So, is there council consensus to look at the Green Loop not cutting through the open space area? No? Can we take a straw poll on that just so I can see... I can make sure.

[05:44:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Sure, I heard two people... Oh, their hands already went up. Yeah, I heard two people mention the Green Loop, but I do see a hand. So, colleagues, do you mind if we go to the Vice Mayor, who looks like he has a question?

[05:44:24] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I guess just to clarify. I feel like it's a little premature to make this determination because we don't know what the park will be, right? I feel like it may be natural to go through the middle if the community process produces a park where that's appropriate. But if we see that there's community support for a use that requires that a transportation element go around it, then it makes sense to not bisect that area. Is this something that we can revisit later? Because I feel like I don't have enough information to make a determination right now.

[05:45:09] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: If I may interject, some of the Green Loop goes through parkland that will be dedicated to the city. So the city has control over the design of it. Some of them are through POPOS that will be decided as part of the planned community permits. And maybe give us a chance to just work through and kind of develop a strategy around it. I think the idea really is to make the POPOS as usable as possible, and we'll consider that a nice to have, even though it's not a majority council comment, to make them as usable as possible, and that could be a framework.

[05:45:53] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Maybe that receives majority council... Colleagues, are you comfortable with the suggestion from Ms. Shrivastava?

[05:46:07] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Okay, we'll take that and add that to the framework so that as POPOS come in, there is the understanding that they may have to be relocated based on the final design.

[05:46:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. City Manager McCarthy.

[05:46:22] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. So there was one other item that I believe had at least four mentions, which was the district parking. So, confirming that.

[05:46:34] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: For public, my notes don't show that for all members of the public.

[05:46:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I think there was comments about accessibility for open accessibility, which I guess we could say public, for the district parking. Colleagues, maybe just for clarity, do you mind just raising your hand? I do. Do you have a question, Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[05:47:04] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: I'm not sure I understand. So this is different from the current proposal as I understand it is open to the public outside of business hours, right? So, evenings, weekends, that's already the case. So would this be in addition to that? And then, the totality of the structure? A portion of it?

[05:47:31] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I didn't hear anyone give percentages or a number, Vice Mayor. I think there was like some general interest from colleagues to see if maybe we could go beyond. I would suggest perhaps the suggestion from Council was looking into seeing if it can go beyond just after business hours. That was kind of the direction or vibe I heard.

[05:47:58] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: I think it received three mentions in three different council members' comments, and one of them mentioned during the day and the evening both, which is different than what is proposed right now.

[05:48:12] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you. So my intention was going back to a couple... the last meeting, I think it was, there was a smaller developer who had expressed interest in participating in district parking to satisfy their parking requirements, and I can't remember why we said no or what the answer was, but I guess I think we should... it's city land, it's up to us to decide who should get to utilize that land for parking. And I believe that we should have it open to all entities out in North Bayshore. I just don't believe that it should be just restricted to one, one company or entity. So that's what I was envisioning, but I... the after hours, yes, that would just become public parking for everyone after hours.

[05:49:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, Councilmember Abe-Koga, for sharing your viewpoint. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[05:49:30] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: For whatever it's worth, so my understanding is the city is not paying for the structure. If we were paying for it and it were our structure, then absolutely. But because my understanding is Google's paying for it and it's designed to meet that primary need, then I don't know if I'm comfortable imposing that constraint.

[05:49:54] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Well, we are essentially paying for it because it's our land. I mean, we... it's our land. We have some skin in the game here. So whether if we were to take parking fees to help pay for the structure, I mean, I'd be fine with that, but you know, it's our land, so we should be able to determine how it gets used.

[05:50:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: So might I make a suggestion? So, and I see Ms. Cameron has joined us. You know, perhaps it's, does a Council majority interested in maybe in exploring the opportunity? I would say I, I don't feel comfortable getting so prescriptive as to saying it's going to be this much percent and it's going to happen. But I would be open to city staff exploring the opportunity and just seeing if it's feasible and if it's possible as we're talking about this via a study session and doing a straw poll. So if people are okay with that being added as, you know, staff exploring public access to the district parking, then I would feel more comfortable. And then it gives them the opportunity to come back to us and let us know after the analysis and the discussion with the applicant. Are people okay with that? Can I just see hands? Okay. Okay. That looks unanimous. Is that clear for staff?

[05:51:17] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, exploring the opportunity and coming back and reporting to Council about options.

[05:51:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you so much. City Manager McCarthy, did we miss anything else? Or was that the last outstanding item? Great. All right, thanks colleagues. Appreciate it. That's why I thought it'd be easier to summarize one and two while it was still fresh. And now why don't we go into questions three and four? So question three, does a City Council support the proposed streamlined development review process for subsequent projects that adhere to the master plan framework? And question four is, does the City Council have input on the DA term and proposed public benefits? Councilmember Matichak.

[05:52:00] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So I think I've been pretty outspoken in my concerns about a streamline development review process, and I think I need to clarify more. I'm not so concerned about like the buildings. The master plan defines basically, you know, where they're going to go. I'm not interested in providing tons of input on the architecture. What I am concerned about is that over a 30-year timespan, things that are part of a development or part of a community are going to change. And I want us to have the opportunity to respond to those changes that we want to make. Two weeks ago we talked about we need to be able to change the requirements when it comes to the single occupancy vehicle rate and ratchet it down over time. We talked tonight about we want to potentially change the lighting standards. I'm interested in doing that. We want to change the plant palette, maybe. So I don't know how we do this. But I'm interested in making sure we will have the ability, as we learn more, as time goes on, as things change, to make changes and whatever you want to call it. Tweaks, changes, updates to certain things as part of that development agreement or as part of this whole planning development review process. I would like to maybe revisit the community benefits for the development agreement. You know, I've heard that perhaps what goes along with those development agreements in other cities is a lot more than what's being looked at here. So I think I'd like to revisit that and make sure that what we're getting is comparable to what other cities are getting. Thanks.

[05:56:24] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[05:56:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate Councilmember Matichak's comments. I largely agree with what she has said. Originally, I thought, well, I could go along with the streamlined development review process. I'd be okay with, sorry, my dog is drying to death... I'd be okay with, you know, the longer DA terms. But you know, things have changed. Things change, things have changed. 30 years is a really long time. I keep saying I'm going to be 81 by the time this whole thing, if it does get developed fully, it does. And you know, a lot changes in 30 years and we've seen, I've seen a lot change in half that time in 15 years, starting my time on council. And then, you know, with COVID, I mean, things have, it's a brand new world. So, I appreciate and I understand Google's interest in trying to lock in as much as possible to have predictability, but I think on the other side of it is that because change is a reality, we have to have flexibility. And so the question for me is, can we do some kind of check-ins with council? And then if things are going, you know, well and timely, then maybe we can loosen the review requirements. And then the question that Councilmember Matichak asked is how do we build in changes that can occur, whether it's the tree palette or I was thinking the same thing, the discussion we had the other night about caps and even TDMs, like we've had to increase our TDM requirements over time in that last, you know, several years, I imagine it's going to continue that we're going to have to ratchet up to really meet our trip cap and SOV targets. So how do we build that in? I think what we've discovered, right, is that, you know, moving forward, we can require these things, but we can't... we've grandfathered in a lot already. And that's what's making it difficult for us to reach our targets. So that's my real concern about locking something in for 30 years. And so that's my question, I guess, to staff is that how do we maintain some flexibility to be able to adjust to the changes? Like I think it has to be a balance of some predictability, but some flexibility. So that's what I would ask or look for. In terms of community benefits, you know, it's been mentioned, and I think it's hard to say if this is enough or not in terms of what's being offered, because... and what I would like to ask staff to do, and I think staff is planning to do this, is to do some analysis. And I think we have some comparison projects that we can look at. I know Google had mentioned some of their other projects in the Bay Area that...

Segment 9

[06:00:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: have 30 year DAs, I would like to compare, like do a comparison of this project with those. And um in addition to that, do a comparison of the community benefits that are being offered. Um, you know, I've heard the argument that um, you know, it's different based on community and land prices and I understand that. Um but I think that um, you know, we've been very clear from the very beginning and you know this was my hesitancy with moving forward with all this housing is we knew it was going to be expensive. So this, you know, isn't un- this wasn't, this isn't a surprise. So it should have been built into the developer's um you know, pro forma. And um, you know, other developers if they have other projects or they're national developers, they'll move money around to make things happen. And I guess I would have, I would expect the same. So I can't, I'm not going to, you know, I I can- I want to make sure that this is going to work and it's going to be beneficial for the community and improve our quality of life. And I'm not shur- certain yet that the community benefits that we are being offered is going to achieve that. So I would like for us to one, compare with other communities, but also really make sure that we are getting what we need to make this development work and work well for our community.

[06:01:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter?

[06:01:39] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, generally I'm, I'm supportive of the uh, of the council, I mean the the staff's suggestion for the uh, um, for the streamlined development process. But I think that with some caveats. We do need to have um, in in the DA, we need to have a very good um amendment process. As um as Councilmember Abe-Koga and Matichak have said and I think we all know, things do change over time. And there should be a way for the applicant to request an amendment and for us to request an amendment. And um, I'm not sure exactly what that should be, but I know that normally there are amendment processes in in these things and and it's really going to be important that we have one. Another thing I think is um, and that it's clear. Another thing I think that that I'm interested in is is some sort of um time frames on the uh, the um the PCPs. I don't think we should say, okay, say three years from now we, we um uh we okay a PCP. And then nothing happens for 15 years. Well, that wouldn't still be a good PCP from my point of view. I'm not sure what the timeframe should be, but I mean for instance like an EIR, you typically say, well it gets stale after five, five years usually, sometimes 10. And and I just think that there should be some sort of a um, uh you know, an expectation built in about how long the PCPs would um, you know, would would be appropriate. Um, and then another thing that I I wanted to add into the the DA, I I'm really interested in supporting um for-sale housing. Uh we've talked a lot about how it's good to you know, it's it's a great way for people to build wealth and um, uh, uh we have- we haven't had nearly as much condo development as we would have liked. So I don't know what incentives we can build in for condos, but I I really would like to see incentives for condos. Um, uh incentives for condo mapping, um, structures even if they are going to be rented for the foreseeable future, at least then they could you know, there's different some different um architectural me- uh standards they have to meet, that they could possibly meet. Um, and uh, let's see. I guess that's it. Incentives for for um for-sale housing, um, encouraging condo mapping, a good amendment process, and um uh, and then some length of time that a that a PCP is good for. Thank you.

[06:04:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[06:04:44] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. A couple of uh questions for staff. So um I I think this was covered in the in the presentation, but um we are having a consultant uh analyze both the community benefit component and the public benefit component proposed for the DA. Is that right?

[06:05:08] Diana Pancholi, Senior Planner: That's correct.

[06:05:11] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: And do you have a sense of when the council will be able to benefit from that information?

[06:05:16] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Vice Mayor, we're we're gonna bring that all back with the with the master plan. And some of the things we are going to look at um uh is is the economic feasibility of the project, comparing it with um some of the other projects um that we've heard about. Um again, it you can't do a complete apples-to-apples comparison because projects are different, but we will do our best to provide a comparison so that we can come back and say, you know, this is generally comparable or we believe this is a good set of benefits. So we'll come back with the analysis.

[06:05:55] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. And then is it typical for our—maybe better way of asking the question, what uh in a in development agreements that we have approved, uh what has the amendment process looked like?

[06:06:13] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: You know, I think we we um, the amendment process is is usually laid out um and it depends on what they're asking for. Um sometimes it means opening up the DA depending on how big it is, right? Sometimes it might just look at the master plan framework. So it all depends on what the amendment is for. Um, what I haven't seen is if the city wants to amend it, I guess they could they could come back, ultimately a development agreement is a negotiated agreement between two parties. And both parties have to agree to that. So it does open up the negotiation process. Um, I do have some ideas about some of the items that were brought up by council and maybe I could respond to them either now or a little bit later if more questions come up in terms of some of the things we're hearing like lighting standards or SOV or, you know, how do we anticipate some of that future need? Um, and and maybe we can suggest some ideas.

[06:07:20] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. I I uh for for question three, I think I agree with Councilmember Showalter. Having that amendment process clearly defined will be very valuable because as everyone has said, things change. Um, things will change for both the applicant and for the city. And having an opportunity to uh renegotiate, you know, a development standard or um something down the road will be very valuable. So that's something that I hope staff can come back with, you know, a clear and defined process for for amendments. Um, and then for question, but but generally speaking, I support uh the expedited development review process. I also don't feel there's a lot of value in having the council approve uh permits especially if we don't actually have any meaningful discretion. Um and this is what we've seen with a lot of residential developments in conventional zoning districts. So um I'm very comfortable, especially since we have a very robust regulatory framework with the precise plan and the master plan and the DA, I think ZA approval for the PCPs is is fine. Um and then the fourth question is hard to answer because we don't have the benefit of that um uh third-party uh analysis. So I'm okay with what's proposed for now. But I my opinion may change depending on what our consultant concludes. Thank you.

[06:09:03] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Lieber.

[06:09:05] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Well, I I agree with so much of uh what my colleagues have said. I I think that um the community on an ongoing forward basis needs to have some some opportunity to um have their voices heard in a meaningful way. And um I know that it's a real trade-off of um stability for the community benefits and so I wouldn't want to make sure that we are getting at least as much in community benefits as as other uh communities are. As Councilmember Abe-Koga really um uh emphasized and um I think that that's key. But um some opportunity to make changes, uh to uh make amendments going forward to respond to current um conditions in this this very long period of time uh that that we would be engaged here uh I think is really critical and um I don't have a lot of other comments about towards towards question uh question four. Uh I I think that uh a streamlined approach uh for subsequent projects probably uh makes sense if we have the ability to uh to make some changes um over time when when we need to initiate those.

[06:10:49] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Councilmember Hicks.

[06:10:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Sorry, I didn't mean to turn off my video. Trouble with the cursor. Um, but at least not with the sound. So I I feel like I'm hearing people come towards more or less of a consensus that we're talking about to some degree a streamlined process with check-ins with council. The exact mechanisms I'm not quite as sure. So we're also talking about some amendment process and possible time frames on PCPs. And then uh I'm just echoing the things I'm kind of hearing a consensus and that I agree with as well. Um, and also that we compare with other 30-year development agreements and community benefits in similar situations if we can. And also that there would be incentives for for-sale housing. So those are the main things I'm I'm agreeing with that I've heard. And the one thing I'm not quite sure of is I I don't understand how all these processes may work. Um like in terms of a streamlined process with check-ins. Can the city modify a DA or how would that, how would those check-ins work? Is it the amendment process? Is there some commentary from um staff that I can get that will tell me all these things that seem like we're coming to a consensus on, are they actually feasible or how do you see them happening?

[06:12:37] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Well, the amendment process can lay out a process, and most DAs have that. But ultimately no one party can change the DA. It is a negotiated agreement, and both parties are going to have to agree. So that's that's key to a development agreement. And and we can lay out a process, but but that's that's the key. Um, so at the end I think I I might suggest some things um and and then the council can decide if they're appropriate.

[06:13:13] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Okay, well I've kind of um, you know, said said the things that I thought we were coming to consensus on and, you know, said what I think, and then I'd love to hear what you might modify at the end. Thank you.

[06:13:28] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[06:13:30] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Um, just circling back on the ability to update, change, tweak things. I I was hoping that that wouldn't have to be an amendment to the DA every time you want to do something like that. I would hope we could build it into the DA at the beginning, um if that's the route we go. That we do have the right to do that every once in a while during a check-in process or something. Now that's not to say you don't still need um the process for an amendment because there might be something else you need to amend it for. But I was hoping we could at the beginning build that in to say we have the opportunity to change it. Thanks.

[06:14:15] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Okay, so I think we've heard from all of council. Um, and I'm not sure, Ms. Shrivastava, should we, it sounds like you wanted to address a couple of the comments that council has um given for items three and four. So should I add mine or would you like to-

[06:14:38] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yeah, I think that would be good then.

[06:14:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. So um for question three, you know, I... I I feel a little torn. Um you know, I certainly I I think staff suggested- the idea of doing a streamline sounds good. And, you know, I think we'll keep things on track, especially as we talk- talked about in questions one and two about wanting to see certain things faster, right? Um, you know in that way I want to be supportive of that and and streamline yes as much as possible so we can get all of the wonderful things that we gave staff earlier and get them online faster. Um, but I do, you know, hear and agree with my colleagues that um it's nice to have some sort of flexibility. And so how do we weave that together with streamlining while also um you know, making sure that there's a predictability that the applicant wants while also remaining flexible to the sign of the times, right? I mean who would have thought that we would be in a pandemic, right? So I think there's all these um zigzags that can happen. So, you know, interested to hear staff's response on how we might be able to you know pursue streamlining while also remaining flexible for both parties, right? Um, and then for item four, um input on—oh, and the streamlining. This is the one comment I did want to make sure that I made. Um, you know, as part of the the streamlined process, um, you know, I think part of it was that it would go to the the ZA for the hearing. And one of the things I just wanted to comment on was those ZA hearings tend to be at 4:00 in the afternoon, I believe. And many people are working during those times. So wanting to make sure that maybe for if we go the streamlining route with the ZA, um having some flexibility on that timing so that more people can attend the the public meeting and have their their voices heard. I'd also hope that the applicant would work with us in terms of doing the outreach for those meetings um and making sure not just the kind of maybe people who fall into the surrounding radius are notified, but maybe the the neighborhoods just beyond, um, you know, specifically thinking about like Tarabella, Monta Loma, North Whisman, right, who who may want to give input on on certain parts um that are happening with the development. So I think it's really important that not only do we have predictability, flexibility, and streamlining, but as we do that we're making sure that we're bringing the community along, um and making sure that there's still that opportunity for them to give that input. Because it does exist but maybe, you know, not as accessible as a as a council meeting where people have a little bit more predictability on knowing that those meetings happen. Um, and then for question four, um, you know I think I mean colleagues have have summed up their their thoughts on it. I you know... I think that the the length is is something that may seem daunting but I also feel like we have a true vision of building a complete and holistic community that has many different puzzle pieces and it's gonna take quite a bit of time. So I think the term of the DA doesn't concern me as much as I liked the idea of milestones or or kind of touch points so that council and the community stay up to date on what's going on. Um, and I think I'll just leave it there. All right, Ms. Shrivastava. What did you hear? What did we miss?

[06:18:40] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: So let me, let me try to summarize the the bulk of the comments. I think generally the council was supportive of the streamlining with caveats. Um, what we heard was um, definitely the DA needs an amendment process so that we know um if either party wants to change, um how we can request amendments. Um beyond that, um and then again, for the fourth question, um I think I think there was general discussion about making sure we did the analysis and the comparison to make sure that the public benefits um were at least um you know, what other communities were getting. Um, so we will be doing that, for sure. Um, there was a general I think want to make sure that as the as things change over time, we we were able to address some of those changes. And I think we as staff need to sort of maybe confer internally to look at how that might be done. Um examples of those include changing the palette of trees over time. We can build that into the master plan. Uh, because we know science is showing us how biodiversity is going to work and we can build that in. Um lighting standards for example, right? As they change over time, you know the buildings can incorporate those exterior lighting standards. I I don't believe those would be insurmountable obstacles. I think the key need for the developer would be to make sure that they can build the program that they had intended to build, because they're delivering a lot of the community benefits ahead of time. And so maybe we can take that back as homework and see what items can be built into the master plan and the agreement so that the council has the um the knowledge that as things change over time, some of these elements can change with it. And I gave you a couple of examples of that, you know lighting standards and trees. Um, the one thing that I think, the good news about this is that the city has, the precise plan is fairly recent. Where we've gone in and looked at a 30-year vision, knowing that it's going to take 30 years to build out. And the city has truly been visionary. We've laid out street networks. We've laid out, um, you know, the the multi-modal goals and and and we're doing some of these studies to achieve what we call success. And so I think this plan has already built in a lot of the forward thinking, um in in terms of the big elements, in terms of the housing and the open space. In fact, we even have lighting and and plant palette standards in our base order, but we can certainly refine and improve on them. So the big picture is already sort of created in the in the precise plan. So I don don't think the city has to worry about oh my goodness, are we going to need 10 more priority transportation projects? Um, I think we're looking at trying to do this for the next 30 years. Um, and so we've built a lot of it. But do we have room for improvement to try to sort of tweak things? Let us as staff take some of that back and come back with some ideas, um to build some of it in. Um, in terms of check-ins, um, it's it's kind of unclear about what's intended. Was the idea to to say that um, they will come to council or is it a reporting or I I wasn't quite sure about what that was meant, although I would say that that didn't get the majority council um support. I think the the interest was in supporting the streamline, but making sure that the city was able to incorporate tweaks, giving the examples of lighting standards and plant palettes, and we build that into the master plan and the DA.

[06:23:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um, I see some hands so I think we have some questions. And then I'll also make sure to incorporate um City Manager McCarthy into the conversation to see if we missed anything. Councilmember Showalter.

[06:23:22] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, um, just a couple things. One, one that wasn't mentioned in the um, your summary but it didn't necessary- wasn't excluded because you said some general things, was the idea that the PCPs uh would have a time period associated with them. I'm not sure what that should be but you know that you could work on what was an appropriate one. Um, I I feel pretty strongly about that. That that they, you know we shouldn't be able to we wouldn't want a PCP to to work for 20 years for instance, because it just it just wouldn't be fresh anymore. Um, so I'm I'm not sure what the appropriate time is for this streamlining, but that's important to me and I heard at least um Councilmember Hicks agree, so that that's something I'd, you know, I'm interested in other people's comments about. Um, I I think that'll be good to take a straw vote on, so that we could build that in if the there's majority council support for that.

[06:24:16] Mayor Ellen Kamei: I saw four just now. Five. So.

[06:24:30] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, thank you. And then um, and then touching about, talking about the um, the uh, the touch um, the touch points or the reporting periods. It seems like um, there's often in in agreements that I've worked on, you know a like a a five-year report or you know a report every five years of the between the um the parties of where we are in in the whole thing. And um it seems like that that might be an an appropriate model. Maybe five years isn't the right time frame, I'm not sure. But that you would it seems like you that they're typically either done in time periods, so it's like every five years or every ten years, or it's you know okay we finish Phase One and then we have a report about how did this work and should we move, you know, are are we okay moving forward. Um, those are the two um kind of uh, a time one or an episodic one that I've I've experienced, and I think those those work pretty well. But you know either either can work.

[06:25:40] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: So what I hear is building in a reporting requirement into the into the DA?

[06:25:48] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I mean you I mean I mean literally, you know you would get together with Google and say and report to each other and say how how and develop a joint report. And it I mean you would decide on how extensive that had to be. Was it, you know, a couple pages or if things weren't working well it might be quite extensive.

[06:26:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Can we take a straw vote on that one as well?

[06:26:15] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: I think it will help us if it if there was a straw poll on it and then we can summarize everything then.

[06:26:19] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yeah, sorry, I'm I'm talking to my colleagues asking them if they're comfortable looking for the yeah, okay. So um, I think the straw poll would be if you're comfortable incorporating into the DA a a reporting requirement. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. So all those... okay. Unanimous. Thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[06:27:03] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I had a question about um, the comment about um, permits having like an expiration kind of a date. Isn't that already built into our current processes?

[06:27:14] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes. Typically permits have two-year expiration dates. Um, but then with a DA, I think we, what I'm what we're hearing is each PCP that comes in would have its own little expiration date where they would have to reapply if it went beyond a certain amount of time.

[06:27:38] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, so um my vision of the check-ins um in addition to the reporting that we talked about was um that if we do want to make a change to something, um talk about something to see if we should make a change to something, to me that's a good time for a check-in. Um, and I appreciate the comment um about um, you know, it's hard for the public to participate at the ZA meetings at the time they're held. Um, and what my concern about that is, is often times we hear about things that have changed from members of the public. And so I want to make sure that that information is coming forth in a way that the council hears it as well, um so that we can act on it. So I kind of feel like that's why I'm interested in having the check-ins, so the new information comes to us um and not just the ZA. Thanks.

[06:28:43] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Okay, anything else um staff needs a a straw poll from us on? City Manager McCarthy, is there anything that you heard that um staff could use further clarity on? No? Okay. Perfect. All right. Ms. Shrivastava, Ms. Pencholi, did you get everything you need for three and four?

[06:29:08] Assistant City Manager Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, I think with that last one, um there was a reporting requirement that was supported by all council members and we will add that.

[06:29:18] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. Great. All right. So we had um items one and two we worked on that summary already. Does anyone need three and four to be re-summarized or are we comfortable with where we are? Good. Okay. All right. I'm seeing thumbs up. All right. All right. Thanks everyone. I think that this uh concludes um, oh, uh concludes item six. Um, so we will um move on to the Vice Mayor so we can keep going.

[06:29:54] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor, I'll move to continue the meeting past 10 o'clock. I suppose I have to do that.

[06:29:59] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Well past it, huh. Okay, so does that have a second to move past 10:00 p.m.? Okay, I'll second it for purposes of just keeping things going. All right, so um, we will just do a a roll call vote.

[06:30:17] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[06:30:24] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[06:30:26] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Oh, I don't think- sorry, I unmuted like exactly the wrong time. Okay. Mayor Kamei?

[06:30:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[06:30:35] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[06:30:37] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[06:30:38] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[06:30:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[06:30:41] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber?

[06:30:42] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Aye.

[06:30:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Matichak?

[06:30:44] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No.

[06:30:47] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[06:30:48] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[06:30:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries 6-1.

[06:30:52] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Yes, we need to keep our John McAlister tradition alive of someone voting no. All right colleagues, so we have um item um seven. Um do do folks need a five minute break? Do you just want me to keep powering through? Okay I see a head nod. All right, so why don't we give ourselves um five minutes. Um I'll see you all at what is, what would that be, like 11:37? Sorry, is that five minutes? Okay. I'll see everyone at 11:37. Thank you.

[06:36:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay. 1, 2, 3, 4, okay, perfect. I'm gonna keep us moving. Um, item seven is our public hearing, item 7.1 is our commercial development at 747 West Dana Street. Do any council members have any disclosures that they would like to make? All right, I am not seeing any hands. Associate Planner Krisha Penollar, Planning Manager Zoning Administrator Stephanie Williams, and Assistant City Manager and Community Development Director Aarti Shrivastava will present the report. Applicant Ken Rodrigues from KPR Architects will present following staff's presentation. So we'll turn it over to staff.

[06:37:21] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: Good evening Council members, Krisha Penollar, Associate Planner, and I'm joined by Stephanie Williams, Planning Manager, Zoning Administrator. The item before you is a commercial project located at 747 West Dana Street. The proposed project site is located south of West Dana Street between Castro Street and Hope Street. The site is 0.07 acres in size and located in the Downtown Precise Plan Area H Historic Retail District. The site is primarily surrounded by one- to two-story commercial buildings with a city-owned parking lot to the south of the site. The applicant is proposing to construct a three-story commercial building with upper story office uses and ground floor retail. The retail tenant can be accessed via West Dana Street. The office lobby is tucked behind the retail tenant and can be accessed via Blossom Lane. Landscape planters are proposed along the building frontage with an outdoor deck located on the roof and second floor. And here is a rendering of the project from West Dana Street. The architecture includes traditional roof forms with contemporary detailing. High quality materials are used on the building such as terracotta columns, metal planters, ultra smooth plaster, and glass and metal awnings. The project is located in the parking district Area H, which allows up to 100% of the required parking to be paid through with an in-lieu fee. The project does not include any on-site parking. However, the applicant is proposing to pay an in-lieu fee for the required 21 parking spaces. The applicant is also proposing a transportation demand management plan to reduce the number of on-site vehicle trips. Prior meetings for the project include a neighborhood meeting which was held on July 29th. A Development Review Committee meeting was held on August 18th. At that meeting DRC recommended conditional approval of the project. The project and associated lot line adjustment was reviewed at a combined Administrative Zoning and Subdivision Committee meeting. At that meeting the project was approved with conditions. Staff concludes that the project complies with the General Plan, zoning and Precise Plan goals and policies. Staff has reviewed the proposal and based on this analysis and the findings and conditions, recommends conditional approval of the project. This concludes staff presentation. The applicant, Ken Rodrigues, is here tonight and he will follow up with a brief presentation.

[06:40:08] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks so much Krisha. So we will um move over to the applicant presentation.

[06:40:15] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Thank you uh Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council. Um, Ken Rodrigues, local Mountain View architect. Um, about two and a half years ago, uh, a few partners and I um bought 301 Castro Street to do a very sensitive uh restoration of the building, which many of you know. Um, we are just finishing up that original project, uh, where our our latest retail tenant is about ready to be completed, um, their interior improvements and moving in um within the next week or so. Um, which will finish 301 Castro Street. In the back section of the property, um, there is a one-story uh block building that was built in the 70s as an additional tool building if you can believe it of all things that for that to support the hardware store that was in the building after Bank of America. And we would demolish that building and build this new um what we hope and you'll hopefully you'll agree is a um a nice jewel box of a building with strong retail exposure to Dana Street, a strong creative tenant um mix like we've uh we've done at 301 Castro Street, and then um some smaller footprints up above for uh or floor plates for uh office space. Um, I think the project from our standpoint, um, we have uh some experience with other buildings, we are um very excited about bringing this project forward. We're excited about the work that the council and staff has done on the revisions to the Precise Plan and the new parking plan, and uh many of which uh um, all of which actually, we've incorporated into this project. Um, and um and we have also been doing in some of our other projects for um, uh, in the same in the 300 block with other buildings. So, so from our standpoint, um I'm here to answer any questions that you might have and um and encourage you to support our project. Uh staff's recommendation uh for approval. Thank you very much, Mayor Kamei.

[06:42:41] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So um, we will stop this the presentation here and turn it to council. Does council have any questions? Vice Mayor Ramirez.

[06:42:58] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor, just one question. Um, can the uh applicant share how many rounds of design review did you have?

[06:43:12] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Uh, yes. Um, we've had quite a few meetings. Um, I'm not sure the quantity. Krisha, maybe maybe you want to to answer that question. It's been a few.

[06:43:25] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: Yeah, we've had one uh formal Development Review Committee meeting and we are on our fifth uh submittal.

[06:43:34] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you.

[06:43:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Hicks.

[06:43:40] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I don't know if you as the architect will know this, but uh I wonder if there are any, if you have any ideas as to the tenant or you know if you designed it with any particular kind of retail tenants or ground floor tenants in mind.

[06:43:56] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes, thank you, good question. Um, we did. We've had uh a lot of experience in that 300 block. You may know another building that we own and manage uh that Rootstock is in prior to that it was a a beautiful bakery. uh office space in the back end. Um, certainly at 301 Castro Street we're taking all of that um uh experience and re- we've really been trying to do a unique retail tenant mix. Um, um that was a commitment I made to the city when we first purchased 301 Castro Street. I think the floral shop that we are um that will be opening in that is ver- is going to be very unique and new to to Mountain View. We're looking for the same type of tenant I think in 747 Dana Street. Um, not to say that we wouldn't do a unique food use, but I think we want to bring some foot traffic and some retail sale uh tenants to downtown. And that's been my commitment uh on these other projects and um so I I think that's...

Segment 10

[06:45:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: what we're looking for here.

[06:45:02] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so you don't have a line out your door, but you have ideas like the ones you just described.

[06:45:08] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: We do, and we did talk to uh certain tenants uh at 301 Castro Street. So it was very nice. We picked one and now we have some options to maybe uh enter into some negotiations if this was to get approved with those other tenants.

[06:45:24] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Oh, okay. Great. So you do have a possible shortlist. Okay, well thank you.

[06:45:27] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: We do. Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't say that exact to your question. Uh the only other thing I would add is we've we've uh created a retail space that I think is very unique, very high, tall windows, lots of glass, um a street presence with the planters and um um access right on Dana Street that I think will really bring a high-quality tenant to this space.

[06:45:52] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you.

[06:45:54] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes.

[06:45:55] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[06:45:59] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Um, so I was wondering if the neighborhood meeting you had, was that just the immediate neighbors, or was that the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association, or who was the meeting with?

[06:46:10] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: Yeah, so the Old Mountain View Neighborhood Association, a representative showed up, as well as um the surrounding neighborhood.

[06:46:18] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And um, what changes did you make based upon their feedback?

[06:46:24] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Uh, we we looked at uh adding some additional landscaping um in for in terms of a street tree. We added the additional landscaping to the uh roof decks. We um increased the openings in the windows to to be more prominent, more retail-oriented. We added additional uh bike stalls and bike parking, uh which was a a really great comment from a couple of members of the public. Um, staff might help me if there was more. I know uh actually, we softened the colors and materials that were were proposed uh differently. Um, I think that's pretty much it.

[06:47:09] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: Yeah, a lot of it was primarily opening up the storefront so that there's more glazing that faces the street.

[06:47:14] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes.

[06:47:15] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, so I'm curious what it looked like before um and currently opened up more.

[06:47:24] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: I I'm sorry, you're asking if it could be opened up even more? Do you feel that um it uh can we go back maybe to the rendering or or would that um is that possible? Yeah, the um the design uh also takes its cue from uh 301 Castro, which this is a great view to show that. Um, we have the columns that sort of match uh and um and and sort of pay respect to the the uh historical building at 301. And um and I think that that rhythm and form was kind of what what uh uh expressed this current design. So your your specific question might be to um uh add more glass. Is that what you were suggesting, uh Councilmember?

[06:48:22] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Well, to open it up a little more, to me it seems like the glass is pretty recessed, um and that the front is not as um open and inviting as you might want a retail establishment to be.

[06:48:38] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Well, I I think um the the planters do a lot, I think, to soften and create more landscaping along Dana Street. I know that was some comments that members of the public made. We've uh peeled away one of the trees and not shown it, which actually is in front of the building as well. The the planters themselves, I think, want to soften and promote more of a of a uh a traditional historical downtown storefront. And I think the this glazing uh is taller than even our 301 Castro Street building, which you can see on the right-hand side. So, they're very tall windows, they're wide showcase windows, and then we continue the glass completely down Blossom Lane toward the public parking. So um, I I think it's going to have a lot of uh airiness to it and a lot of lightness and open space uh because of the north light.

[06:49:41] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks.

[06:49:42] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Thank you.

[06:49:46] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, uh Councilmember Lieber.

[06:49:48] Councilmember Sally Lieber: I I just had a question. Where was the addition of the street tree?

[06:49:54] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yeah, it it's not shown in this rendering. It's um it's roughly where the uh that yeah, right where the cursor is there. It's located right in that area. In fact, you have a landscape plan in your presentation um that staff did. Maybe show that and you can see that additional tree. Ah, there it is, right there on the right-hand side.

[06:50:22] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And...

[06:50:24] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: We just we we want to be able to show the building without the tree in front of it that might be blocking it.

[06:50:29] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Okay. And was there any thought about um making the two planters that face on Dana um be benches instead?

[06:50:41] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: That was not suggested. Um certainly I would be open to that suggestion. I think that's a a good one. Um or a combination of benches and planters. Um yes.

[06:50:57] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Yeah, I I think that um even just from the rendering, um it it feels like those people need a place to sit down for a minute, and um uh I I think that that would kind of take away some of the bulk that comes from the heaviness of the planter right there.

[06:51:22] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: That would be a certainly that'd be a great condition to add.

[06:51:26] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you.

[06:51:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um I'm sorry, does staff mind if we um take the PowerPoint down? Wonderful. Thank you so much. Does any we do any other uh colleagues have questions on this item? Okay, I have a couple questions for the applicant. So you've mentioned 301 quite a bit. How long has 301 been vacant?

[06:51:53] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Um, we've been under remodel for a year and a half, and uh we finished it uh about five months ago. And uh we immediately started uh the TI for our tenant called Bloom's Giving. And we built out that tenant over the last four or five months. And um and so I think that's a total of about two years of construction work. Um so we're very happy to be having these type of retail tenants being able to lease this building during COVID. It it's just been great.

[06:52:32] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great. Well, I know of Bloom's Giving, so it's it's nice to hear that that that's where they've landed. But I think um you know one of the things I heard that came out of the community meeting was wanting to make sure that the retail space is is utilized. And while I know Rootstock is very much utilized, I know that that corner has been under construction for a while, so wanted to ask that question to make sure. Um, and then for, you know, in the in the rendering, I appreciate Councilmember Lieber's suggestion of maybe some seated and some planters on the Blossom Lane as well. Are you thinking of doing some sort of planters or something to kind of make it a little bit more inviting to go, I mean as inviting as a walkway alley can be?

[06:53:18] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes, yeah, to to answer your question specifically, there are smaller planters along Blossom Hill uh Blossom Lane. And then we've also widened the walkway from what it is today. So it's much wider and much more comfortable to walk down it to the public parking lot.

[06:53:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: And then I think just to follow up, Councilmember Matichak was asking if there's any way to maybe open up the frontage a little bit for, it sounds like you've been speaking to quite a few tenants when you were answering Councilmember Hicks's question. So is is that design something that the tenant likes or would you be amenable to trying to see if you could kind of open it up a little bit more or...

[06:54:03] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes, of course, I think it was a good suggestion as I said. Um I think I'd feel comfortable trying to make the glass showcase windows even larger. I think the tenants would uh that we've been talking to would like that. Um so, a good suggestion.

[06:54:20] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks so much. Appreciate um being able to ask you a few questions. All right, I will um move this um 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 nine on your phone. It will display a a two-minute timer, and I do see a hand. Robert Cox.

[06:54:48] Robert Cox: Can you hear me?

[06:54:50] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes, we hear you.

[06:54:52] Robert Cox: Okay. Uh Honorable Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramirez, and members of the City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you as Livable Mountain View's representative tonight on this item. First, we appreciate the time the applicant and his representatives took in presenting his proposal to members of our steering committee and other Mountain View residents. During the meeting, we had an opportunity to raise our two main concerns about the proposal. Uh the starkness of the design and the columns that block much of the visibility into the ground floor retail area. While we acknowledge that the applicant has made some modifications to the design, adding a terra cotta facing to the columns, his design appears to be largely unchanged, hence our concerns remain. In particular, having columns that block the visibility into the ground floor retail area could make retail an unprofitable use for this location. We are concerned that the applicant may then come back to the city and ask for a conditional use permit that allows office to be substituted for retail on the ground floor. In a downtown precise plan study session earlier this year, staff stated and Council unanimously agreed that ground floor retail presence must be preserved to retain the vibrant downtown which is the heart of our city. We therefore advocate for the removal of the columns from the front window of the proposed building. Thank you for listening to our views and thank you, uh Mayor Kamei and Councilmember Matichak for uh echoing these concerns.

[06:56:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thank you for hanging in with us, Robert. I know it's late.

[06:56:38] Robert Cox: Yep.

[06:56:39] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Late night. Yes. All right. Well that concludes public comment. I don't see any other hands raised. So I'll bring the item back for Council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. Councilmember Matichak.

[06:57:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: So I guess I have a follow-up question based upon um Mr. Cox's uh comments, and that is um while you could open up the front a little bit more, um what would it look like if you removed those columns from the front? To open up the retail more. I'm not, I don't want to redesign the project here, but did you consider that?

[06:57:33] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Um I'll take are you addressing that to me, um Councilmember?

[06:57:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Whoever wants to answer.

[06:57:39] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Oh, thank you. Uh well, I'll I'll try to take it quickly. Uh we did. uh and Mr. Cox is correct. They asked for that uh to um to to make sure that this building um uh works for retail. I I've been designing retail for for 35 years now. Um and I'm very familiar with what tenants are looking for, and I think the success of the tenants and the buildings I just talked about that we've done on the 300 block alone say that. Um we've had good response for this building design. They love the high-quality materials, they actually love the colonnade, columns that are there, but more so they like the showcase feel of the windows. Um the planter, like the suggestion of some bench seating uh included in those, and and your suggestion of maybe thinning up the column. I would not want to eliminate them. I think that would make the building look very modern. I don't think it would be as historical as uh it needs to be next to 301 Castro and and of course in the 300 block as well, uh which are re which are historic buildings. So, I think a little bit of of uh of work on on this design to um um to again make the windows larger as you suggested, make the columns uh a bit thinner and lighter. I'm I'm in favor of that.

[06:59:07] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you.

[06:59:08] Applicant Ken Rodrigues: Yes.

[06:59:12] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Lieber.

[06:59:15] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'm I'm a little bit uncomfortable with redesigning a building because it's something I have absolutely no ability or expertise in. Um, but I am prepared to make a motion when the time is right. Um, and and I do, the sum total of what I think about the architecture related to this is that it does have a a nice echo with the um 301 Castro, which is a building that is very important to the community and and has the the very broad uh vertical elements to it. And and those kind of broad elements are also present in the next block down, um going down to where the Red Rock is and and etc. So I I think it's something that fits with our community, and um uh it's it's different than just a a plate glass approach. Um, but again I don't want to fiddle with the design uh overly much, but I I'd be prepared to make a a motion when the time is right.

[07:00:30] Mayor Ellen Kamei: For I mean I I think that um the time could be now, Councilmember Lieber, if you'd like. And I think the applicant has just heard comments from Council, so I don't think it's there's a hearing any kind of conditionals of approval. He sounds applicant sounds open to the feedback from Council, sounds like there might be some tweaks involved, but I think um the motion can stand as is if you feel comfortable making it.

[07:00:56] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Great. Uh then I'd like to move that we adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View conditionally approving a planned community permit and development review permit to construct a new three-story building with 7,000 square feet of office above 1,600 square feet of ground floor retail space, and finding the project to be categorically exempt pursuant to Section 15332, infill development projects, of the California Environmental Quality Act at 747 West Dana Street, to be read in title only, further reading waived.

[07:01:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you Councilmember Lieber. Councilmember Abe-Koga.

[07:01:35] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: I'm happy to second the motion and just um add comments that um I I appreciate the um the concerns. Um I actually really like the architecture. I think it's very high quality um and it works well with the 301 Castro building. Um in terms of retail viability, um my thought was um doing um quality signage probably to would help with that. Um but I I actually think that the style it's, you know, something we haven't really seen in downtown um, and the uniqueness of the building will be it could be an attraction in itself, and so um I I appreciate the applicant's willingness to look at thinning the columns. But I um when I just wasn't sure structurally if that was possible to remove them completely. Um, but you know if if you're able to do that, that's great, but I I'm fine with the way it looks right now too. Thank you.

[07:02:45] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So we have a motion by Councilmember Lieber, seconded by Councilmember Abe-Koga. But I see a few hands before we um call the vote. So Councilmember Hicks.

[07:02:58] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so I um will be supporting the motion, um but and I agree with the the tweaks that people have, I basically I like the way it echoes the historic building next door. I like the suggestions people have made to see if thinning the columns will work. And I think the benches, I think the um the flower pots at the bottom can sometimes, I know on other buildings like the Sobrato building downtown, it kind of tends to distance people from the windows, you know, and make it less permeable so that so that passersby can't engage with the ground floor retail as much. So I think switching to benches might be a great idea to kind of work through that. Um, and then I just at the same time that I'll be supporting the motion, I wanted to say that I really appreciate, I I think we're moving in the right direction in in terms of what folks from Livable Mountain View had said, but I really appreciate their comments because I think a lot of the the things that they brought up are exactly some of the problems that we've had with other buildings downtown, namely like I said the Sobrato building where um large planters do do keep people away from the building. And also the large repetitive like, I'm supporting this motion, but if if your building took up half the block, I would not be supporting it. So I think I think that um we should take heed of the things that leave the list of things that Livable Mountain View brought up because I think in other projects downtown I think those those uh sorts of features may be may be a problem. So, thank you.

[07:04:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Showalter.

[07:04:50] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I just wanted to um I'm going to be supporting the motion too. I just wanted to ask about what's happening on the roof. Um, it is there a a balcony up there or is that all just equipment or what's going on up there?

[07:05:09] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: So there's a roof roof deck proposed on the roof, with some PV panels.

[07:05:15] Councilmember Pat Showalter: A roof deck with some what?

[07:05:18] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: Uh, photovoltaic panels.

[07:05:20] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Ah, okay. So there wouldn't be any access for anybody to go up there and spend time up there.

[07:05:25] Associate Planner Krisha Penollar: There there is a roof deck though. So it has both.

[07:05:30] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Oh good. Thank you.

[07:05:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. All right. Uh we had a motion, um Councilmember Lieber, seconded by Councilmember Abe-Koga. Just want to thank um staff and the applicant um for um joining us tonight and staying with us so late. So, City Clerk Glaser.

[07:05:51] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber?

[07:05:53] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Aye.

[07:05:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[07:05:56] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[07:05:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[07:05:59] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[07:06:00] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Matichak?

[07:06:02] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[07:06:03] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[07:06:04] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[07:06:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[07:06:07] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[07:06:08] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Kamei?

[07:06:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[07:06:11] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries unanimously.

[07:06:13] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thanks Mr. Rodrigues, appreciate your openness. Okay, we'll move on to item 8, new business. Item 8.1 is a resolution appointing a retired annuitant as interim city attorney under Government Code section 21221(h). Human Resources Director Sue Rush will present the report. Hi Ms. Rush.

[07:06:38] Sue Rush: Hi. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the City Council. The next item before you this evening is a resolution appointing Jannie Quinn as interim city attorney. Um earlier this evening, Council recognized current city attorney Krishan Chopra for his service as he is retiring at the end of the month. The city is working with Teri Black & Company to fill the position, which is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022. But until the position is filled, the city needs to appoint an interim city attorney. And so Jannie Quinn retired in 2019 after 24 years of service with the City of Mountain View. Um Ms. Quinn is available and has the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to serve as interim city attorney until Council can fill the position on a regular basis. Um Government Code number 21221(h) permits City Council to appoint a CalPERS retired annuitant, um which Ms. Quinn is, to a vacant position during a recruitment with several restrictions, which includes uh two of the following: the interim assignment is required to be a single appointment and does not exceed 960 hours in a fiscal year. And the proposed interim assignment meets this CalPERS requirement. I recommend appointing Ms. Quinn as interim city attorney with an hourly rate of $144.23 effective January 3rd, 2022. And this concludes my presentation, and I'm available for questions.

[07:08:14] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much. Does any member of the Council have any questions? All right, not seeing any, I'll open it up for 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 nine on your phone. All right, we'll display the two-minute timer. Alex Brown.

[07:08:43] Alex Brown: Welcome back, Jannie. Missed you.

[07:08:48] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you. And I think that is it for public comment. So I'll close public comment and bring the item back for Council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. Councilmember Showalter.

[07:09:07] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I would like to um move the staff recommendation um that we adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View appointing Jannie Quinn as an interim city attorney under Government Code section 21221(h) to be read in title only, further reading waived, Attachment 1 to the Council report.

[07:09:33] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Hicks.

[07:09:35] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I second that.

[07:09:37] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. So we have a motion by Councilmember Showalter, um seconded by Councilmember Hicks. Um, not seeing any other hands, I'll just call for the roll call vote from City Clerk Glaser.

[07:09:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[07:09:52] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[07:09:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[07:09:54] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[07:09:55] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[07:09:56] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[07:09:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lieber?

[07:09:59] Councilmember Sally Lieber: Aye.

[07:10:00] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Matichak?

[07:10:01] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[07:10:02] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramirez?

[07:10:04] Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[07:10:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Kamei?

[07:10:06] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[07:10:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries unanimously.

[07:10:09] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rush. We'll move on to item 9, which are our Council, staff, committee reports. Does anyone have anything to report? Councilmember Showalter.

[07:10:29] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I just wanted to um to uh share that we had a community bike ride out in the baylands to talk about sea level rise and restoration last Saturday, and 40 members of the public came along, which I thought was amazing because it was really cold, but it was beautiful. And I just want to um to to thank John Marchand, um Raymond Wong, and um Brandon White of our staff for coming along and sharing their expertise, as well as um Dave Halsing from the um South, who's the executive director of the South Bay Salt Pond uh uh program. It was it was really a a great fun and and a good learning experience. Thank you.

[07:11:17] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Councilmember Matichak.

[07:11:20] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. So I think um I was going to bring up the topic we talked about earlier, um which is the bond refinancing, uh a series of the shoreline bonds. And so I'm not sure what um staff needs. Do we need to um make a motion at this point um and direct staff to come back with um when you think you can do this, or what kind what do we need to do at this point to move it forward?

[07:11:54] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Councilmember Matichak. Yes, that we would be looking for a straw poll vote on having staff bring it back to you uh with the potential timeline, and then we would add it to the work plan that we'll be bringing to you all in February.

[07:12:11] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. So um I'll move that we ask staff to come back back to us with um proposed timing for refinancing the uh callable shoreline bonds um and consider adding it to the work plan when we review that work plan in February.

[07:12:34] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Uh Councilmember Showalter.

[07:12:36] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Second.

[07:12:38] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, so we have a motion by Councilmember Matichak, seconded by Councilmember Showalter. And for those um colleagues, it's just a straw poll motion, so we'll just, we can raise our hands if we're interested. All right, and that looks uh unanimous. Great. Does staff need anything else from us for this item? No. Okay, does anyone have else have anything to report? I would like to do a quick report, which is we had our last TRAAC board meeting of the year um last Wednesday on the 8th. And then on Thursday, we had our VTA Policy Advisory Committee meeting. Um and let's see, and I think those are my two. Yes, those are my two items. Perfect. Great. All right, well then I'll close item nine. Oh, uh, and I'll move to item 10, which is our closed session report. City Attorney Chopra, do you have a closed session report?

[07:13:38] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: There's no closed session report tonight.

[07:13:40] Mayor Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. Thank you. Nice and sweet for your last report for for us. Thank you, City Attorney Chopra. Okay, and that means that we can move on to item 11, which is our adjournment. Um thank you so much for joining us. Our next City Council meeting will be held on January 11th, 2022. So I want to wish everyone a a very happy holidays, a great new year, and we'll see you uh yeah, we'll see you in 2022. All right, thanks everyone. Our meeting is adjourned at 12:15 AM.

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