April 11, 2023 Joint Meeting of Mountain View City Council and Shoreline Regional Park Community

Video

Transcript

[00:00:04] Unknown Speaker: You get the park? Yeah.

[00:01:40] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council in the Shoreline Regional Park community. Before we begin, Mayor Hicks, do you have a request that you would like to make?

[00:01:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: Uh, yes, I do have a request I'd like to make. Uh, I would like to request that pursuant to government code section 54953. I can participate in this meeting remotely through both audio and visual technology, an emergency circumstances provision, due to a contagious illness that prevents me from attending in person. Um, there are no other persons over 18 years of age present at this location with me, this remote location with me. Thank you.

[00:02:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Council members, we need to vote in favor, or vote on whether or not we're okay with Mayor Hicks, joining us remotely. So if you are okay with that, please raise your hand in support. Okay, that's unanimous. We're sorry you can't be with us in person, but we're very glad you can join us. virtually. All right. So, um, For those of us joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the Lectern. Request to show an audio or video presentation during a council meeting should be directed to city.clerk at mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishes to address the council in person, must complete a blue speaker card. Please indicate the name you would like to be called by when you turn in your card, and the item number, on which you'd like to speak, and you need to complete one blue speaker card for each item. And turn it into the clerk as soon as possible, please. It just makes life easier, but you can turn it in really until that item comes up. And then, of course, we will have people who will talk to us remotely, and they will raise their hands on Zoom. So now, I'd like to ask everyone to join me in the pledge of allegiance.

[00:04:23] Unknown Speaker: Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic, for which it stands. One nation, your God, invisible, liberty, and justice for all.

[00:04:36] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. City clerk, may we have a roll call?

[00:04:46] Unknown Speaker: Council member Abbe Koga?

[00:04:49] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here,

[00:04:49] Unknown Speaker: Council member Kamei.

[00:04:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here,

[00:04:51] Unknown Speaker: council member Matachek.

[00:04:52] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:04:53] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramirez.

[00:04:54] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:04:54] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramos.

[00:04:56] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here,

[00:04:56] Unknown Speaker: vice mayor, show Walter.

[00:04:57] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here?

[00:04:58] Unknown Speaker: Mayor Hicks.

[00:05:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.

[00:05:00] Unknown Speaker: You have a corn?

[00:05:01] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. All right. Well, the next item on the agenda is presentation. And I am going to go to the podium to do that. But, oh, first is, is there anyone who would like to speak on the presentation? Do you have any speaker cards for that? Okay. All right. So, I would like to ask, Dr. Martin Griss, from the association of the Mountain View Cert, to join me at the lecture. Usually you come around on this side, because then everybody can see us. That's in the audience anyway. Okay.. All right. Whereas every Mountain View residence, step up to volunteer and serve our community while creating social connections and uniting people from diverse backgrounds to work toward a common goal, and whereas the Mountain View community collectively volunteers thousands of hours annually to feed neighbors, tutor youth, prepare for emergencies, lead programs, improve local habitat for wildlife. Support the arts, care for livestock, and strive to enhance the livelihood of all residents, and, whereas, volunteering strengthens the community, promotes personal growth and self esteem, encourages civic responsibility, provides professional experiences, and creates profound joy, and, whereas, the spirit of volunteerism, remains to steady, constant, in the sphere of rising social, economic, and public health challenges, and, whereas, the city of Mountain View wishes to recognize and thank the individuals and organizations that have volunteered their time over the past year at Deer Hello Farm, the Mountain View Public Library, historic Ringsdorf House, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, our senior center, the View Teen Center, as well as programs such as junior leaders, the multicultural engagement program, police explorers, special events, and the community response team. And, whereas, National Volunteer Week is a 49 year national tradition, designated throughout our nation. for the purpose of recognizing and honoring those individuals who give themselves and to promote the encourage a sense of giving and serving to all citizens. Now, I, on behalf of our mayor, Alison Hicks, along with my counsel's colleagues, do hereby proclaim April 16th, through April 22nd, as National Volunteer Week. And, you know, I just like to say that volunteering really has a very, very old history in the United States. When Alex de Tocqueville visited America during colonial times, It was one of the things that he said distinguished us. from our, um, you know, from our, uh, colonial, uh, the mother countries. And, of course, we all know it continues to this day, and it adds tremendously to all of our lives. So, would you like to say a few words, Martin?

[00:08:28] Martin Griss: Sure. About the SIR program? I will. First of all, I'm honored to represent all of these volunteers. Hearing the list, I realize I'm only volunteering for a small number of them, uh, as a certain member, as at one of the local schools. When I retired as a professor, I said, What can I volunteer as? And I became involved with SURT. As a professor, I worked with emergency response. Insert, we organize our neighborhood, find a number of people who would like to help each other, neighbors helping neighbors, acquiring supplies and equipment, getting the training, organizing, and working with others, and that's what we do. Thank you.

[00:09:12] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: It's very important for our community. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, excuse me. Would any council members like to make a comment? Okay. Oh, Allison. Go ahead.

[00:09:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: I just wanted to thank Martin and all the other volunteers in the city, particularly right now, those who are working on CERT, uh, during our recent downwards, and atmospheric rivers. Uh, I think all of the council members got a lot of e mails from, uh, people who were concerned about emergency response, and, uh, grateful to people working on emergency response through CERT, and looking to see maybe that program evolved to include things like response to atmospheric rivers and flooding. So thank you again, Martin.

[00:10:34] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: It also looks like we have some people on remote, who would like to speak. So, um, Nazarene? Think you're muted. Okay, well. Okay. Well, unfortunately, that's not working this time, so we'll, um, and then another individual would like to speak, Muriel Lee? Well, we seem to be having a little technical. Oh, there's Muriel again. Mr. Jensen, can you, um, allow her to speak?

[00:12:01] Muriel Lee: Am I speaking now?

[00:12:02] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can hear you. Great. Go ahead, please.

[00:12:05] Muriel Lee: I'm not sure. I'm probably speaking out of line, actually. I don't think the agenda item has been called. Should I be waiting for that?

[00:12:13] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes.

[00:12:14] Muriel Lee: If this is to speak on the presentation for now? Volunteer week. Okay, I'm gonna put my hand down.

[00:12:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, great. Okay. Sorry about that.

[00:12:23] Muriel Lee: Okay. I'll...

[00:12:25] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Now, Nazarene, are you for?

[00:12:27] Unknown Speaker: She is for another item, as well.

[00:12:28] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. So... Now we are going to move on to item four, which is the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion, unless any member of the council wishes to remove an item for discussion. If you would like to speak on this item, or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. If you haven't already done so. Mayor Hicks, do you have an announcement to make?

[00:13:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: I do. I have yet another announcement to make. I will be recusing myself from item 4.3. The downtown priority to ferret the the development grant area application, downtown precise plan, due to the proximity of my residence to the downtown Size Plan era. Thank you.

[00:13:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Abi Koga?

[00:13:23] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I, too, will be accusing myself from item 4.3, downtown priority development area, Grant. application, downtown precise plan, due to the proximity of my residence to the downtown precise plan area. Thank you. Do I need to step up? Or am I?

[00:13:40] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: You don't need to step out unless this is not gonna be adopted with the consent. So you can stay unless it's pulled.

[00:13:48] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yeah. Okay.

[00:13:50] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Mattachek.

[00:13:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I would like to put item 4.3.

[00:13:57] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So you can step out when that item's discussed. You don't have to leave yet. Okay. Would any member of the public joining us virtually? Or in person, like to comment on this item, we will be discussing 4.3 separately. So this would be things other than 4.3. Okay. I think I'm seeing none. Is that correct?

[00:14:30] Unknown Speaker: Yeah.

[00:14:30] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. All right. So can I have a motion? Council member? Margaret, would you like to make a motion for the remainder?

[00:14:44] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: So, yes, I would be happy to make a motion, um, to approve the consent calendar, uh, which includes item 4.2, adopt a resolution, amending resolution number 18250, prohibiting and restricting parking on designated streets, or portions thereof to designate additional locations where vehicle parking in excess of 2 hours between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. is prohibited pursuant to Mountain View City code section. 1995A to be read entitled only for the reading waived. Item 4.4. Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View approving on appropriation amendment and appropriation amendment to the fiscal year 20223 General Non-operating Fund to increase expenditures by $38,000 for the purchase of one fast response ambulance vehicle to be read entitled only further reading waived in item 4.5 Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View to comply with state housing laws to be read entitled only further reading waived. So it's the balance of the consent calendar, excluding item 4.3. Thank you.

[00:15:57] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And do we have a seconder? Okay. You want to push the button? All right. So, um, Council member Abi Koga moved, and, uh, Council member Ramirez 2nd. there any discussion on this item? No? Seeing none? Okay. Because we have a member joining virtually, we have to take roll calls. So, Clerk, will you take a roll call?

[00:16:26] Unknown Speaker: Council member, Abbe Coca?

[00:16:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Aye.

[00:16:28] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramirez?

[00:16:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[00:16:30] Unknown Speaker: Council member Kameh?

[00:16:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[00:16:32] Unknown Speaker: Council member Matachek?

[00:16:33] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[00:16:34] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramos?

[00:16:35] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[00:16:36] Unknown Speaker: Vice Mayor Show Wilter?

[00:16:37] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes?

[00:16:38] Unknown Speaker: Mayor Hicks? Did you say yes? Sorry.

[00:16:44] Mayor Alison Hicks: I did say yes. Is my volume back?

[00:16:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: No, no, no, just broke up a little bit. Thank you so much. That motion carries 70. Okay. So now we will be discussing item 4.3. Is there any staff that would like to join us at the dais related to this? Um, Okay, I see, um, Artis Travastova and Eric Andrews coming forward to help with us. Help with this. And, um, so first, I think we should be taking, um, Public comment on this, is that right?

[00:17:28] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah, let's do council questions first. Council questions or comments, and then we'll have public comment. So who, um...

[00:17:37] Unknown Speaker: Thank you.

[00:17:38] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Do you want both questions and comments or just questions?

[00:17:44] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I do have a question. And that is, if we just left things as they were with the city funding, the update to the downtown precise plan that's currently scheduled in the CIP, would the scope be any different than what is proposed in the grant application?

[00:18:04] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: Uh, Council member, um, uh, Artisha Vastavas is in city manager, community development director. Well, the scope would be different in that we would at least study one option that would be consistent with the MTC grant, if we did move forward with the grant, in the other option, that wouldn't necessarily be that requirement.

[00:18:32] Unknown Speaker: Okay, thank you. Thank you, uh, Vice Mayor, I have a few questions, um, pertaining to the level of discretion that the city would retain or sacrifice in accepting the grant. Um, so, uh, the staff, uh, report, and several of the responses to council questions submitted in advance of the meeting, um, suggests that there is no penalty, uh, for deviating from the standards prescribed by MTC. Is that right?

[00:19:18] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: A lot of this has been discussion with the MTC because staff wanted to make sure that council preserved full flexibility in the final decision on the precise plan, and we asked MTC, well, we may study that as an option as part of the grant, but what if council decides on a different option, for example, lower density. And they gave the example of a priority development area grant that Santa Clara had accepted one time for the El Camino specific planned and said, Well, in that case, they didn't end up accepting, um, adopting a specific plan that adhered to those requirements. And so, they gave that as a comparison, and said, um, that once we made the decision, or the option was picked not to comply, then future funding would not be available. But at least up until the time we studied the options, we could, they wouldn't claw back the funding. That was the general discussion, based on past practice and experience.

[00:20:27] Unknown Speaker: Okay, um, I don't know if you happen to have the guidelines, uh, available at your fingertips, but does it explicitly state anywhere in in the, uh, in the application that we are committing to, adopting the development standards that are prescribed in the MTC policy.

[00:20:48] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: Well, the MTC application does say that you is this an intent, right? And so it's a requirement, if you apply for the grant, that you're at least intending to look at that. It doesn't commit the city, to adopt. The city always will have flexibility. It's just a question of funding. For example, the future one barrier grants, they are called the old backgrants, will be targeted towards areas that comply with those requirements. So future infrastructure funding, for example. It's not that the cities have to adopt the requirements.

[00:21:27] Unknown Speaker: Okay. So that's consistent with the response to council member Mattachak's question. We would be studying the MTC policy development standards anyway, because we would be required to adopt them if we want to benefit from some of the infrastructure grants that are available, that are tied to that policy. Is that right?

[00:21:49] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: Right, but again, we would not study that as the only option. As always, we will study several options. And the council will have the flexibility to adopt any one of them.

[00:22:00] Unknown Speaker: Right. Is there a functional equivalency? In pursuing the development, the downtown precise plan update, funding it entirely locally, as we had been planning, and funding it with the empty C grant. Are they basically the same thing?

[00:22:17] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: As I mentioned earlier, um, if the city used their own funding and chose not to look at the MTC criteria and chose not to be interested in future infrastructure funding for the OBAG grants, then they wouldn't have to even review it as an option. That's the functional difference. But if we accepted the grant, we would at least study it as an option. The council could weigh, whether this was important, whether, you know, it was something they wanted to do, but they would have full flexibility to adopt something entirely different.

[00:22:52] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um, Is there a problem? I mean, I want to be careful not to get too much into comments, right? But I think we've heard loud and clear. There is a concern from the community about, uh, predetermining the development standards with the acceptance of the grant. Is it okay for us to say, we're going to take the money, because it sounds like free money. It allows us to fund other things, knowing full well that we will almost certainly not adopt the development standards prescribed by MTC.

[00:23:27] Community Development Director Artisha Vastavas: I would say that what we talked to MTC about was we've always wanted counsel to have options, and we always develop options. What if the council didn't pick the option? You know, we were very frank. So, I believe we've been very honest with MTC about the process we intend to use, and the fact that council will have full flexibility to adopt whatever option they want to pick. Um, and that's been very, um, frankly discussed with MTC.

[00:23:57] Unknown Speaker: Okay, I think those are my questions for now. Thank you.

[00:24:06] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: The other council question? at this point? I don't see any. Okay, so we'll go, thank you. We'll go to, um, the public first that are, um, in the room. And the first individual on the list is Robert Cox. Welcome, Robert.

[00:24:22] Robert Cox: Hi, there. Vice Mayor. Before we get started, how long would you like to be?

[00:24:26] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I'd like to let everybody have, um, there's quite a few people who want to speak on this. So, whatever you have two minutes.

[00:24:31] Robert Cox: Okay.

[00:24:33] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay.

[00:24:41] Robert Cox: Okay. Members of the council, thank you for pulling this item for discussion. I've already talked to each of you, so I'll just repeat my key points. I don't believe that the city council should vote to approve the MTC grant. MTC has made its grant guidelines clear, and they are not right for the downtown. There is no carve out for our historic retail and restaurant district. Preserving its character has been a top council and community priority. Also, a large up zoning of both residential and office at the same time, threatens to worsen the job's housing imbalance, which is ripping apart the social fabric of our community. Staff has undertaken this grant application with no significant outreach to the affected residence. Policy decisions like whether to apply for this grant should be made by counsel, not staff. Please vote no, then engage the community to determine what the future of our downtown should be. Thank you.

[00:25:37] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And next is Marlene Blando. And after that, Howla, Al Shawani. Welcome, Marlene.

[00:25:51] Marlene Blando: Thank you. Thank you to the council and the city staff. I am, of course, here to express my concern about the application for the MTC grant, and just listening to what's evolved tonight. It's not clear to me, uh, the flexibility that we would have, and it is sort of apart from what I was going to say. I just wonder if we can't get some assurance and writing, that we do not have to adhere to their guidelines. With two concerns, I'm going to focus on one. I do wanna say, of course, in terms of office space. I have a concern about the overbuilding of office space, and the proportion of domestic space being built as well. But my real focus tonight is on a word that's already been used that I think is near and dear to all of us who love Mountain View, and that is character. And I think we have to work very hard to preserve the character of Mountain View. We all know what that means, the historic character, the small town atmosphere, the open spaces. It's not a street, that would bode, that could support this canyon look of high rise buildings on either side of the street, especially toward the transit, transit center end. Um, which is what I, that canyon feeling is what I dread. My request is to please move slowly. Please postpone accepting the grant, until there has been further public consideration. Thank you.

[00:27:20] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. This... Al Shawani? Welcome.

[00:27:30] Hala Al Shawani: Hello, good evening, council members, mayor, staff. Um, my name is Hala Al Shawani, and I'm a longtime resident of Mountain View. I just wanted to express my great concern about accepting this NTC grant. I'm hugely concern about it, because I think it will allow the increase of office and possibly residential, but mostly office space in our downtown. I think in the past, in many of the meetings we've had about preserving the characteristics of downtown, and how precious and important that is to all of us who live in mountain view, not just in old mountain view. This grant would tie us up, even though, it says that there's going to be some flexibility for the council to accept or reject. I fear that, without knowing all the details very clearly, and without having a transparency and discussion with the public and outreach, so we all understand what we might get into. I think it's not a good choice to make. I hear that the requests of the community in the last two or three years to preserve the downtown characteristics will be lost, basically. And the office buildings are, you know, coming and increasing here and there. And we also have an additional problem accommodating for housing for all these new people that will be coming to work in downtown. So I urge you to reject the MTC plan or the grant, and to continue to work on preservation of our downtown, with all the resources and the projects that you've already started. And I hope to stick that you would stick to that and satisfy the community and what they've asked for. Thank you so much.

[00:29:35] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Mr. Bill Cranston?

[00:29:41] Bill Cranston: Thank you, counsel. Bell Cranston, Mountain View Resident for 24 years. I don't live right near downtown. I live right on the Palo Alto border, but Mountain View is a small enough city. I can be in downtown in 10 minutes. Downtown is not just for the residents that are there, it's for the entire city. Whether you live over in Cuesta Park, or Sylvan, or whatever neighborhood. Downtown is where we come. I'm here every single weekend. We have listened to the community over the last year and a half, and the entire seven member council voted unanimously in December to make updates to the first part of the downtown precise plan. When a office project came forward. There wasn't a lot of, oh, we should think about it. It was outraged from the community, that something that size could happen in our area. And if you look at the MTC guidelines, what that's saying is more Serbrado projects could be okay. Council member Ramirez asked the question, what if we go into this knowing that we're not going to make this decision? To me, that would be an act of bad faith. MTC has been very clear. This is what we expect you to look at. This is our downtown. This is my downtown. I don't want MTC telling me what to do here. We have seen enough cases where the state has said, this is what you have to do. If we have to spend our time during this process analyzing a an approach that we don't believe will ever be approved, then it's going to distract us from doing what we need to do. What do we want downtown? What do we want it to be? Reject this. Let's do what we plan to do. And make sure that what we get going forward is what we want, not from somebody on the outside once. Thank you.

[00:31:26] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. That's the end of our list of people who've in the house, who want to speak, so we're going to go to people online. The first one is Bruce England, and then after that, it'll be Lisang.

[00:31:43] Bruce England: Uh, thank you. Council member Show Alter. I'll just say, I think it's really good that you're calling on the next person after the person speaking that just helps move things along when people are prepared to either step up to the podium or turn their headsets on, whatever's needed. Um, on this proposal here, like the other speakers who've talked already, I am concerned about adding more office space in a city where we already have a horrible jobs housing imbalance. And, um, Bill Cranston mentioned a Sobrano project, and that's correct. I'm sure everybody remembers that, whole discussion about not liking that project, and yet it was, um, uh, it complied with the precise plan, and so it went through. And so some of these things can really be problematic. I also am interested in seeing discussion about downtown. Start including Moffat Boulevard. You're talking about having a Moffat Boulevard precise plant, and you know there's all the work around the intersection of Central and Castro going on right now that will just physically tie the 2 stretches together. And anticipating that now through your grant applications and planning and all of that to just start thinking about those 2 stretches being part of one downtown would be great. And obviously Moffatt right now is very different from Castro and is going to need some attention. So, I don't know if that means that focus for the grant should be on that Moffat stretch. I know you're not planning on doing that, but I will just mention that. Thank you.

[00:33:23] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. The next speaker is Lee Zhang, and after that, it will be Carol Lewis.

[00:33:30] Lee Zhang: Hi, dear, members, mayor and staff, I have concerns about the potential impact of pursuing MTC grand funding, for updating the downtown Chris, plan currently, without a clear plan for revitalizing the downtown area and uncertainty around the future of business operations, post COVID-19. It might not be the best time to apply MTC grant for such use. In additionally, it is important to consider the potential unintended consequence of aligning with MTC grand goals, if it means creating more office based death zones in the downtown area. It's important to maintain the liveliness and vibrancy of the downtown, as these are all, we are all very enjoying and proud of as mountain view residents. Even these factors, it may be better to focus on the Moffat Boulevard MTC application at this time. And now to pursue MTC grand funding for updating the downtown precise plan. Thank you. This is all I have to say today.

[00:34:47] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh, and next, we can go to um, Carol Lewis.

[00:34:57] David Lewis: Yeah, this is actually David Lewis, but it's close, uh, with the old mountain good neighborhood association, I've been a resident here for 17 years. And, uh, with regard to the item, I I said, surely hope you vote against this. Once I think you start this, you're going to end up accepting the money and then it's going to go on and on from there. And I don't think that's a great thing. I don't even know why you would consider this. If you are not going to con- actually, consider what you're studying. If you want to study this, you know, MTC thing, But you have no intention of ever accepting it, why even do it? I would certainly hope the council, instead of this, chooses, preserve the nature of downtown Mountain View. Don't convert downtown Mountain View to an urban canyon with 5 or 6 story office buildings along it. We don't need more offices and more employees coming in here. We need more housing. We need more affordable housing for the folks we already have. And we need viable downtown retail. I would say why gift developers, more profit. From office buildings, that will we would be stuck with forever. There's a nice example downtown, a big white building. They'd probably be there another 50 years. Does the city really need? the $1200000 for this. Seems like an awfully low price, uh, for selling off the future of downtown Mountain View. The people, developers who don't live here, and really don't have any investment in the future of mountain view. Thank you.

[00:36:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, David. The next speaker is Louise Katz. And after Louise will be, um, Nazarene.

[00:37:07] Louise Katz: Yes, thank you, mayor and council members, also on Louisville Mountain View and long-term resident. I'm also wish to agree with the prior statements about the problems and the concerns with this grant. And I would like to also add that there is nothing that I'm aware of in this document that does in fact make any mention or effort to protect our historic core. And I believe that this is a purposeful omission, and we should take that as a warning. Um, yes, there could be a $1000000 that we have to use for other purposes, but at the same time, once we study this, I believe the ripple effect will show that any sort of compliance with these density numbers would create a ripple effect, in many, many, perhaps 100s of 1000000s of dollars, or increased students needing more schools, are changing updating our sewers, water, and mostly the loss of history, our city, and our loss of retail and restaurants that is simply irreplaceable. I would suggest we look for a minute at Sunnyvale, which has put up massive walls of offices with generic shops on the 1st floor, that people just go in and out of. There's no environment with which to welcome people to stay. And also the fantasy that putting in more housing would somehow accommodate these new offices, when, in fact, we know that there are outside pressures, such as Stanford, looking to mountain view, to provide the housing that Stanford is being required, to provide for its development. We simply cannot act as if we're this isolated community in the middle of nowhere. I don't believe there's any sort of housing that will actually magically house the office workers that these density plans would, um, propose. Thank you.

[00:38:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, um... Nazanine?

[00:39:04] Nazanine: Hello, council member, sorry about my previous, um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm at a network, uh, uh, and, uh, anyway, I'm glad to be back on. Um, so I do want to also emphasize what other members of the community have been talking about. Um, you know, I've been living in downtown Mountain View for 24 years since 1999 and I've been watching its character being chipped away. Um, and and now it's being chunked away. I've been seeing it chipped away. I've been seeing it chunked away. Um, and, uh, you know, it's it's a really big disappointment. Um, and uh, that, that the, you know, the historic character, the retail district, and this unlimited growth of office. I mean, there's so much office space that's empty everywhere, and I don't know why these developers want to build offices. I mean, it's just so counterintuitive. Um, and and now this this grant money. I mean, who is it easier on? Is it easier on the citizens of Mountain View or is it easier on, um, just receiving the money to be able to play and plan with the money? I mean, I'm just trying to think of the purpose and what's really important in the long run. Um, is it, in the long run, important to preserve what we have, what is kind of essential to the character of this town and what has brought people here in the 1st place. Otherwise tall buildings and offices don't bring people anywhere. Um, anyway, it has, it has been a disappointment and, um, you know, what mountain view is now is not the mountain view that has brought us here, um, Mount View that I've raised my children in. And uh, I just want to share that, you know, just not, let's not take care. Thank you very much.

[00:41:09] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, now, um, Rachio, from Catalyzed Sunnyvale, and after that, Jerry Steach. So, um, Rachio?

[00:41:23] Rochelle: How about Council Rochelle from Catalyzed SV here? We are a community-based organization that specializes in community engagement, particularly around development topics. We have seen similar concerns to what we're hearing here in Mountain View from various communities, in the Bay Area where residents want to see more housing, want to see development, but want assurances that it's going to be based in their community values, in the needs that they see on the ground, in the fabric of their communities, and they want to be heard. So, as we continue to reach out to communities and city councils, we want to encourage all of you to consider involving your nonprofit partners in the community engagement process. The grant application includes a lot of language about outreach, community workshops, but there is no mention of, you know, what type of consultant will be able to do that work. Overall, generally public affairs consultants and other consultants, um, have a very prescribed way of doing community engagement. So we definitely encourage you to consider some out of the box approaches to how to reach out to the community and really help them feel heard, help them inform the plans as they move forward, so that all of these concerns that you're hearing today are part of future proposals and future development plans, so that we can see more developments in our community that are really rooted in the, in the space where they are. The downtown mountain view area is a perfect example of something that the residents really value as part of their daily life. Some of them today said that they can walk there. And we wouldn't want to change that in the future. And we would want to work with a developer, public affairs firm who is amenable to that feedback. So definitely encourage you all to consider your CBO partners as you move forward. Thank you so much.

[00:43:19] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Mr. Jerry Steve?

[00:43:26] Jerry Steach: Hello, am I sufficiently unmuted?

[00:43:29] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Can hear you just fine.

[00:43:30] Jerry Steach: Thank you.

[00:43:31] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Terrific.

[00:43:32] Jerry Steach: Good evening, Madam Mayor. Madam Vice Mayor, council members. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this truly important matter. My name is Jerry Steach, and I've been a Mountain View residence since 1990. Uh, one of the reasons I moved here, one of the primary reasons I moved here was the vibrancy of our downtown. Um, I chair the historic preservation subcommittee of the old Mountain View, nearby Association, and thus, I pay close attention to matters that could impact our downtown's historic core. Tonight, however, I'm speaking on my own behalf and not that of the old Mountain View Neighborhood Association. What concerns me about this MTC grant, as Louise just pointed out, is that its conditions make no exception for our historic core, meaning any of our historic buildings, some dating back to the 1800s, could be in jeopardy. Now, 1200000 seems like a lot of money. That is, until you factor in the potential cost to our downtown, and the risk would pose to the downtown's architectural treasures, pedestrian appeal, and economic vibrancy, that have taken decades, in some cases, more than a century, to evolve. I'm sorry to evoke this idiom, but it does apply. There's a strong possibility we'd be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Let's not do that. Let's allow the goose slash downtown to continue to thrive and reject this grant application. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:45:02] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Our next speaker is Kelsey Bain.

[00:45:08] Kelsey Baines: There, my name is Kelsey Baines. I live in Mountain View, um, and I didn't know that a grant, um, to do planning in the downtown would be controversial. Um, so I didn't prepare this in advance, but I've just heard a lot of these comments now, so I thought I should speak up on, um, on the other side in favor of working with our regional partners to plan, um, for the future. Um, so I walk downtown most days. I usually don't bike because it's, um, It feels dangerous. Um, and the nice thing about walking is that you really get to notice what you're passing. Um, and what I notice is a lot of missed opportunities. Um, So with Mountain View Yimbi, we did a walking tour, um, for the housing element. Um, and on that tour, when we got to our destination, which was, um, right downtown, right by the train station, a stranger walked up and just kind of out of the blue was complaining about the the new apartments, um, right across from the train station that are pretty short. Um, and it was just like, that was a missed opportunity. Um, and I agree with the other speakers that that Serrado project was bad, but I think the solution is we need to do this planning process and we need to get support because it's going to be expensive. Um, so the downtown precise plan, I think, is a weakness of the housing element. Um, and I think it will look bad if we're turning down grant money to commit to, um, regionally agreed upon principles to reduce commutes. Like, these are good things. I don't understand why this is bad to get support from MTC. And finally, Mountain View is not a small town. It's home to Google, we're in the middle of Silicon Valley. People are dying on the streets. The people who serve you cannot live in your community. So, like, let's let's do this planning process. Thank you.

[00:47:14] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. The next speaker is, um, Muriel Lee. And after that, Leslie Friedman. Mural, go ahead.

[00:47:24] Muriel Severely: Yes. Can you hear me?

[00:47:26] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can.

[00:47:27] Muriel Severely: All right. Um, my name is Muriel Severely, and I've lived on Velardi Street for over 40 years now. In addition, I own a number of small rental properties also located in the downtown area. I raised my 3 adult children here. My eldest owns property here. My middle lives here with his 2 daughters, my 2 new granddaughters. And my youngest hopes to make his home here someday. In the 40 years that I have lived here, I have witnessed dramatic change, and not all of it good. My concern moving forward is that we are sensitive to maintaining the character and charm that makes our downtown as special as it is. In addition, every speaker I've heard here tonight, I absolutely agree with their concerns, as mine are exactly, are what they are. I don't want to live in a canyon. I don't want to walk downtown and be in a canyon. Downtown Sunnyvale with all their new apartments. It's awful. So, it's awful. So please, please do think. Think about that, Grant, and think about how little $1.2 million is when it comes to what it's taken to get this city, where it is today. Thank you for your time.

[00:48:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Next is Leslie Friedman. Mr. Leslie will have Daniel. Hulse, Hulse.

[00:49:03] Leslie Friedman: Hello? Mountain View has its own character. It is found in the downtown. The city must preserve the historic center of Mountain View. Its many and diverse restaurants. It was once called Food Street, and charming and useful retail. Intensifying the density in downtown will add to the imbalance of offices versus retail and places to live. These issues are important to me. I liked being able to walk downtown to eat, poke around in bookstores or buy something, clothing. Groceries. It had been a pleasant and interesting environment. Office buildings do not add to a city's character. Is this a question of corporate profits versus a livable city? In classes about grants, one learns not to go after money, when the purpose of the grant is different from your own mission. The disintegration of democracy in America is much in the news, from the January 6th attack on the nation's capital to suppressing voters' rights. In the Bay Area, I think many of us look down on states like Tennessee for kicking out elected representatives. In Mountain View, we cannot take that attitude because our own city government would allow the character of the city to be obliterated, and decisions made by unelected staff, without the citizens knowing about the effort or voting on it. Thank you.

[00:50:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Next speaker, Daniel Halsey. Daniel, are you there? We see the timer going, but I don't hear anything. Okay, well, go back to Daniel in a little bit.

[00:51:06] Daniel Halsey: How about, can you hear me now?

[00:51:08] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can hear you now.

[00:51:09] Daniel Halsey: Great. Sorry, it didn't come up. In any case, uh, A lot of people in this meeting, I, all, all I can do is really express some exasperation about some of the misinformation about this grant, and I'm not gonna go around and debunk all of it, but I will say that, uh, you know, uh, I've not a, uh, a, uh, longtime resident. I've been here about 2 years, but you know, I'll probably be here 30 years from now, which is, uh, something that a lot of people can't say. And I will say things that I want in my city in 30 years are good transit service. And the reason MTC funds grants like this is to encourage the development of cities, such that transit service, good transit service can be viable and maintained. And, you know, uh, we have this thing coming up on us called climate change that, uh, we want to prioritize green ways of getting places. And so I think that all requires a, uh, look at our land use. And so that's what I say is we need to stop looking towards the past. And a lot of the history, which is frankly boring around here, and think about the future, which is the world that I'm going to live in and all the other generations, and even the people here now who need housing and who need better infrastructure. So, uh, that's my comment. Thank you.

[00:53:01] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Now we'll go to David, and after David, Stephen Goldstein.

[00:53:14] David Watson: Uh, hi, so I got to get away from the uh, uh, screaming children, just one moment. Okay. Uh, hi, uh, I'm David Watson. I've lived in Mountain View. I've been a resident of Mountain View, uh, my whole life, uh, and, um, I, uh, I, I, I actually wrote uh, Mountain View Yambi's uh, letter, so I do have something similar prepared, but I, I wanted to start by saying that, I think uh, Kelsey uh, and Daniel's comments uh, were uh, very good as well. While our Mountain VMB's primary focus is housing, we think transit rich locations like downtown are the best places to put dense development, whether it's residential or commercial. Um, The, we believe the offices in many rich places, like our downtown, would hold a competitive advantage over those in single purpose office parks. The combination of accessibility, diverse amenities, and the vibrancy of mixed use environment could make downtown an attractive location for employers and employees, visitors, and residents. By incentivizing businesses to migrate to downtown from other areas non-View, we can create a more efficient use of urban space, foster a sense of community, and encourage pedestrian friendly environment. Additionally, this shift will open up opportunities to redevelop underutilized office parks into much needed housing for other valuable community resources, thereby contributing to the city's long term growth and prosperity. Finally, if there's an issue with the process around the selection of downtown versus Moffat for this planning, Uh, it seems reasonable, uh, to me, uh, to us, to merge those 2 zones into a single planning area, uh, if that's at all possible and if that is a solution to the question of which area we want to do planning of. Pick it.

[00:55:07] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, David, and the next speaker is Stephen Goldstein. And after that, we have Mike Smith.

[00:55:14] Stephen Goldstein: Testing, one, two. Okay. My only comment is this. Uh, when San Antonio was developed not too long ago, It was a mixed used environment, and it was basically assumed that Twitter, sorry, meta, or Facebook was going to be a long term resident of the office complexes. And as we now know, that is actually now gone through. And so the real problem that I'm trying to address is that this area's going through a significant shift. Ever since COVID hit, the corporate environment around here has finally learned that being in this environment is not as critical as people believe. And so, it's on the same, at the same note, we are now having increasingly high interest rates, and cost of borrowing that's going to make projects practically unfeasible. There are record numbers of projects that are being canceled at this time. as well as record numbers of properties going into foreclosure. I just read a report that, in Houston, that a apartment management company, just lost 3,200 units due to foreclosure. And so I'm thinking that...

[00:56:32] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you very much, Stephen, and now we'll go to Mike Smith.

[00:56:47] Mike Smith: Thank you. Good evening. I'm Mike Smith, I've been in Mountain View for 30 years. I'm, uh, retired from SAP as their CEO. What you have to understand is that developers are always two years in advance. If they can't get their way by dangling something at you, then they'll turn on the forces of pressure, you lose the city, you will not get it back. Very simple. My father built San Jose State, okay? That's the reason I came here when I was seven years old. I used to say to him, Wow, Dad, why are you going to see the council in the building thing again? Aren't you afraid of that? And he goes, No, no, no. Councils always want to mitigate everything. And I go, What do you mean? He goes, I'm 50% already to the goal. I only have to take a quarter of the next 50, and I can build what I want. That is the mentality. My father would have put a 10 story building on the size of a driveway, if you could. He doesn't care. He's not going to live there. So you understand that, that's where we're coming from here. If you want a cold, cold environment, then let the developers, what they've been doing. Hey, I promise you to put consorting businesses under the buildings. How many of those have been busy lately? Every building you go to has those underneath and are all empty. Because why? It was a dangle. Hey, follow me. The last time, I want to say this, is that... 15 years ago, I was here when Caltrain, okay, they wanted to change the zoning on Evelyn Avenue. All those second and third generation shops, and they said, and the government came in, said, You don't do that, we're gonna pull our $10 million year funding. They assist you. Of course, the council caved. And now what you have is all those businesses are gone, and you have instead this five story, 300 apartment...

[00:59:10] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Um, Um, I did. Um, Alex Zahn? And then Alex Brown.

[00:59:33] Alex Zahn: Hi, uh, sorry for not, uh, you know, putting in the card at time. I hadn't planned on speaking because I wasn't educated about the MTC grant or any of the details, and I'm still not, of course. But, um, I just wanted to say that downtown is a major transit note. It's sort of like, probably the best Caltrain stop along the entire corridor, one of the busiest until you get up until basically San Francisco. Um, that's where density does belong. That is, in fact, what places like this are for. That's why we have billions of dollars of transit infrastructure going into that transportation corridor, from the state and federal government, over the next 10 years. Like, this, like, that's what we're here to do. So, um, if there is any way to have a, a plan that brings people to downtown with, yes, taller buildings, ten story buildings belong on major, multi billion dollar transit corridors, um, to, you know, absolutely do it. And, uh, anyway, thanks.

[01:00:42] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. The next speaker is Alex Brown. Welcome.

[01:00:46] Alex Brown: Me. Yeah, uh, I also wasn't planning on speaking on this, but, oh, my God, I can't miss this. so much fun. Get the money. Just take it. Get the money, use it, do the study, get back whenever you don't use. I mean, come on. That's what planners are for. Uh, read the staff report. It talks about how there's no commitment that is working towards stuff. There are issues with the minimum required FAR, for the offices, but that residential can be preferred, that there are ways to kind of shift the balance and set things up. That's what that's what we our lovely planning department is for. They're good people. They're smart. They are engaged with the community. The community down here, tonight. Come on, have some faith in the city. But dad, take the money. $1200000 is not nothing. That's a good amount for planning. So take it. Use it. That's what it's there for. Thank you.

[01:01:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: I understand that Stephen Goldstein was cut off, we couldn't hear him. Uh, I'm assuming that you were finished, uh, Stephen, is that true?

[01:02:05] Stephen Goldstein: First of all, I want to say thank you very much. I think I can, uh, wrap that up, because I think, uh, you guys are trying to do your best. Thank you.

[01:02:15] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. All right. That's what we are going to continue. Okay, so I'm going to close the, um, public comment here on this and bring it back to council for, um, comments and, um, and emotion. So, the first person who clicked to add to speak was council member Ramirez.

[01:02:41] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, vice mayor. I will not be making a motion right now. But I did have a few additional questions of staff. Um, I think it would be helpful to better understand the trade-offs or sacrifices being made depending on how the vote goes. Um, I'm inclined to agree that $1200000 is not trivial. So if we decline the grant. What do we risk leaving unfunded? What projects would we not be able to proceed with?

[01:03:14] Unknown Speaker: I think it's hard to come up with exactly what projects, but, um, uh, it could fund something similar to the Moffatt precise plan, for example, the amount. Um, that's an example of, um, a project that could be funded, um, with 1200000 or something close to it.

[01:03:33] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so something equivalent to another precise plan. Okay. Um, yeah. And we received some public comments suggesting that we instead shift the grant to a Moffat oriented project, do we have the discretion to do that?

[01:03:52] Unknown Speaker: Um, there are a couple of concerns that we have. There aren't enough properties on Moffett that have the development potential, and we have some concerns about the densities that might have to be used to comply. The current densities in the journal plan are 70 to 75 units to the acre. And it's, it's not clear how it'll all lay out just because there aren't enough properties. Also, MTC said that, The potential in that area is not significant enough for us to be competitive and that downtown was better because of the area. So, yes, we could ask if the council's interested. Applications are due by Friday. The resolutions. So there isn't a whole lot of time.

[01:04:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: But it sounds like we do have the discretion tonight to shift to Moffat, presuming that there are the votes to do that. Is there actually time to make that change?

[01:04:56] Unknown Speaker: Right. I just want to confirm, because the preliminary applications were due in February, on the 23rd, and, um, I think we'd have to, it would be hard to say today. whether Moffatt would comply. I believe we did not apply for Moffett because we had concerns about the densities that would be required.

[01:05:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Um, but it sounds like there's a question mark there. Related to that, do we have the discretion to modify the boundaries, for instance, to protect the historic core? So, taking the grant, but recognizing from the get go that we're not gonna touch the most sensitive parts of downtown.

[01:05:43] Unknown Speaker: I think that was a given for us. It was never intended to apply to the historic, which is why we've provided the alternative tables, because what we want to, what I've been talking to MTC about is just, as they are carving out single family, they should be carving out historic buildings and districts, because that is a key component of downtown that we would never recommend developing.

[01:06:11] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. That would be helpful to understand a little bit better, I think. And then the last question I have is, uh, another risk that you identified is that, uh, and this is outside of just acceptance of the grant, but declining to adopt the development standards prescribed by MTC. It sounds like if we do that, then we would become ineligible for certain future funding opportunities and staff lists infrastructure projects. Can you help us better understand or at least me? I'll speak for myself. What does compliance with the transit oriented communities policy mean? Does it have to be downtown? Is there a different area that we could choose to adopt those development standards and is that funding citywide or is it specific to downtown and tied to the, to this precise plan update?

[01:07:11] Unknown Speaker: If you could just give me a minute, there were tears that were developed as part of the tables, and there were areas in Mountain View that qualified, and then each tier had a specific set of characteristics. So I might want to look at that before I can respond to it.

[01:07:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so I'll stop right now, and maybe if there's time to go through some of those questions, then I'll take another chance. Thank you.

[01:07:42] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Council member of Matachek.

[01:07:45] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Um, so I'm glad we had the opportunity to discuss this and have, um, public input. I do have concerns about accepting the grant. Um, I don't think the availability of a grant should be something that drives requirements, um, whether it be requirements for density, or requirements for anything else. There hasn't been a lot of public input yet on the actual precise plan. And, you know, we don't really know if people would support them, amount of density, they might. We just don't know. But tying it to the grant is troubling for me. I think what we do know is that a lot of people have concerns about accepting the grant. That came through loud and clear tonight, as well as the emails we received prior to the meeting tonight. Um, so, I share the concerns of residents about the impact on our historic core, about the character of downtown, about, um, more offices. I feel like I want the city to be the one driving this, and tying ourselves to MTC's requirements is, doesn't sit well with me. I don't think it would be good to head down the path with their grant, and then say, Oh, nope, we're gonna stop because we actually got a lot of public input, and the requirements are not ones that the public wants. And so we're going to stop using the grant funding. I just would rather for us to remain independent on this one. And use the money we've already allocated in the CIP for the update to the downtown precise plan. You know, we've had a lot of local control taken away. I don't think we need any more. So, um, I would like to make a motion that the city withdraws the grant application to MTC for the updates to the downtown precise plan, and that the city continues with the CIP project to update the downtown precise plan.

[01:09:59] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: So we have emotion, and we have a second, by council member, Kamai. And we have two more speakers. Would you like to speak on the motion? Council Amoramos?

[01:10:14] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Sure. I'm trying to figure out how to logistically add the discussion comments, along with them speaking on the motion. I think I'll just go. We'll see. Yeah, we'll just go like that. I totally understand that there was a lot of fear and concern. I think one of the things is always to ensure fears are valid. You can feel your feelings. One of the things, though, I think about is like one of the comments, we don't want to live in a canyon. That's valid here. We don't want to lose our historic core. That was a common fear that I heard. Um, But we haven't made our plans yet, and we can make plans to not live in a canyon, make plans to not lose our historic core. Um, that is what public input is all about. Um, the, the most important. I'm kind of sad because I was not the one that asked this question. I asked a number of questions that I felt addressed a lot of the concerns. Um, it should be in our council packets if you all have a chance to. But I question number 4 in the council questions, um, when we 1st got this pol-, uh, um, our agenda with this item. Um, We don't have a community input. We don't yet have community input on this policy. However, the grant would provide monetary resources to begin the project and spend funds and spent funds would not need to be returned if council provides different directions. The city can use the funds to prepare policy options and gather community input on the policy. I, I think it's worth 1200000 to ask the question. And if the community shots it down. It doesn't look like we're on the hook, but I was prepared to say, well, just give the money back. If 1200000 as we are looking at it now, I'm already looking at it as what we can do, we constantly ask staff to stretch, find creative ways to do all the things we want to do to make our city great. Um, and this was one of their ways that they stretch. They found grants. That's one of the things that they do. Um, no grant can create the whole policy for us. Um, there are a lot of grants that are given to cities so that, like, you have more people looking at a policy. Um, I've seen many policies fail where cities have gotten grants to study and look into. Um, it doesn't, Getting the money from the grant doesn't automatically say that the council is going to adopt this policy. And I, I want to give our community that option to consider the policy because transit orient, transit oriented community policies is a climate change policy. And it is our planet is dying. We have to deal with climate change. We have to deal with climate resiliency. I want to at least have the question. We have a lot of public comment now, and in opposition to this. And if that is the outcome of our downtown precise plan, so be it. that the community has spoken. But technically, we haven't gone through our formal process yet. And we're just taking the money so that we can do more to make our community great. Um, I, like I said before, I'm down to return it if we're so, uh, scared, but I, it looks like we're just, we're just required to ask the question to our community. And I want to give our community that opportunity. So I will not be supporting this motion.

[01:14:18] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Next speaker was, uh, council member of May.

[01:14:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you, vice mayor. Um, so, uh, I guess I'd like to sit to kind of take a step back and bifurcate the conversation. Um, and say, I've often heard my colleagues on the dais, talk about the personal experiences they bring to their policy making. For example, vice mayoress, civil engineer, and you talk about that background often, our mayor's a retired city planner. Um, and my background is in public administration. That's what I was a local government management fellow for the International City County Management Association. So tonight, to me, this is not even so much about the grant, but to me, a question of good governance and public policy. And, um, for me, my understanding, and in California, we practice a council manager form of government where the council sets the policy and staff implements. And it, when this came forward, as literally a footnote, in our council work plan development, talking about our priorities and our work plan projects, One of the things that was noted, it said, if council directs staff to include either or both of these projects in the work plan, then that staff would return, with a resolution of support. And at that time in February, there was little known about the grant requirements. And it was still a quite nebulous process. And I think that this is coming back as a consent item, not even a discussion item, we had to pull it so we could discuss it. And then, in my viewpoint, my perspective is that this should have been an opportunity for transparency and for the community to have given input prior to applying for a grant, on making a decision, on going forward, with instead of, at the time, it was the downtown precise plan, and the Moffat Boulevard precise plan. In the middle of that, staff made the decision to withdraw and move forward with a downtown precise plan. But council, at least myself, I can speak for myself, was not aware that these changes were being made. And I do feel that that merits and warrants council discussion, direction, discussion, and an opportunity for our community to be able to weigh in. The fact that we're even looking at the downtown precise plan was something that we as a council are coming back to. We had seen a lot of projects coming forward and made the conscientious efforts to be able to have the public input, to have a open and transparent process. And so, I think given that, for me, I cannot support a grant in which I feel like our community input, which there's much, both both tonight and in email and in person, the opportunity wasn't there. And so that's where I say it's not even about the grant, or how it will be used, or the requirements of what the grant will be. It's that council, at least the full council that can participate when discussing downtown, was not able to have a discussion on some of the questions. I know that our public cannot see this. There are nearly five pages of council questions about this item. And that, to me, also shows that this, again, should not have been a consent item. So all of that to say, I just want to make clear that it isn't necessarily about what will or will not happen. Should we accept the grant, but for me, it's a procedural and a process question. So that is why I seconded the motion. Thank you.

[01:18:27] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'm going back to my experience as a civil engineer, and having applied for many grants, and a couple situations, I even got to help give out grants, which was lots more fun than applying, let me tell you. But anyway, it is standard operating procedure for staff to recognize that we need funding for various things. and to go look for grants to do that. But one of the things that's odd about this one, or it seems a little odd about this one, is that embedded in it, are policies that, for, you know, densities, that, for the area we're considering, are outside what, you know, what we would probably jump to immediately. You know, it's not... So there is a sense that there is some policy direction in this grant. Now, that often happens, and when you, particularly, when I ran a nonprofit, it was the San Francisquito Creek Watershed Council, and San Francisquito Creek is a steelhead streaming. So we went after a lot of money that would help to make it a better steel headstream. But I found, as the director, that I had to be very, very careful to apply for things that fit into our goals and not drove our goals. And that's really, I think, what we're talking about here. You know, we all agree, I think, that we want to do a precise plan for the downtown, because it's out of, you know, it's out of date. It needs to be redone. And we also want to do one for Moffett, but we're not going to do that with this money, 'cause that syrup is sale. And we want to protect the historic blocks. I think everyone agrees with that. There's no dissension of that, but that's, that would require some fancy footwork with this grant, which we might be able to do. But it would. So, this one, I find to be a little bit, you know, rocky. This is a question, and I would also... But normally, we don't have the public, um, uh, discussion about going for the grant. That's what we're doing tonight. We're not accepting the money. We're saying, We're giving staff the permission to apply formally with this resolution. They might reject our grant. We might you know, we might not make the cut. That's also a real possibility. But, um, but anyway, so that's where we are. We're applying for the grant. We're not accepting money. We're applying for the grant. That's what we're going out. It seems like there's been a little confusion about that. So I wanted to talk, you know, I wanted to mention that. And I also wanted to mention the thing about, you know, we don't want grant applications to drive our policy. We want them to help our policy. And the question is, where would this one fall? I really think that's, you know, that's the intellectual question we're sort of faced with. So, council member Ramirez.

[01:21:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I don't have an answer to that question, Vice Merrick, but I do have some other questions. A procedural question are 4 votes required for approval of the staff recommendation?

[01:21:56] Unknown Speaker: Yes, to approve the resolution 4 votes are required.

[01:21:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I also think it might be helpful. You brought up a question earlier to RT about whether or not you could switch and move to the Moffatt grant application. And I just wanted to express concern about that. You could not swap tonight, to change this resolution, to approve the Moffat. One, there are noticing problems, what's been noticed as a resolution approving the downtown precise plan. So that would be problematic because, you know, had it been noticed differently, you might have other members of the public who have come out and spoken on that. The other concern that I have is, um, the council members that have been recused, may not be recused from discussing if this was gonna go forward on Moffatt, so it would be a little bit unfair to exclude them from that discussion and have this, these council members, you know, that are present, make that determination without their input. So while they're recused on voting on whether or not you do the grant application for the downtown precise plan. That may not be true for Moffatt. So there are two issues, and I think you run out of time, because this resolution has to be adopted by April 15th, in order for everything to move forward with the grant. So I just, if that helped inform the body...

[01:23:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: And you said four votes are required for it to pass?

[01:23:20] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes.

[01:23:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you.

[01:23:23] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, um, it seems like the only thing... Oh, Council member Ramirez?

[01:23:30] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I haven't provided comments yet, so I wanted to do that, as was a thank you. That's helpful. It speaks to the issue that, um, uh, Council member Kame and Vice Mayor Show Walter spoke to about, uh, the, the implicit, how the grant is driving policies. And I think that's that's sort of the, uh, the source of the consternation that we're hearing from the community. It's too bad we didn't have an option earlier to provide direction. knowing that there was going to be community concern about predetermining development standards, would it have been better, you know, to at least have the discussion about applying for a grant? this is where my commentary comes from. I don't like turning down free money, right? I am comfortable with the staff recommendation because we always have the opportunity to decline to adopt the development standards prescribed by MTC. The one thing that gives me pause, this is something I 1st heard from Robert Cox, and then reiterated it by Bill Cranston, I don't like the disingenuous action of saying, we're going to take the money, which has a prescription, knowing full well that we're not going to adopt the development standards. That's something I don't care to do. It doesn't feel right. Um, but I think that's where I'm, you know, and Steph, if you have a response to this, that might be helpful too. Is it really a predetermination, right? Is MTC actually giving us discretion based on what we learn from the community engagement process to say the development standards are right, right. Art right for us, right? Um, Because it does, is it a problem? Is it actually a problem for us to say, we have no intention from day one to adopt these development standards. Are we actually eligible for the grant knowing that we are declining from day one to adopt these development standards? If that's the case, I'm not sure I could support the grant either, because there is a question about integrity. But if what MTC is telling you is, The prescription is related to future eligibility for funding sources, right? You have to adopt these standards to be eligible for this funding. That a different question. If what MTC is saying is, you can use this money to have robust engagement process, and we totally understand that the community may conclude that these are not the right development standards for us. We know, as several members of the council have shared, that were not interested in obliterating the historic core. That's not a priority for anybody up here. And so I think that's partly why. There's great discomfort with predetermining development standards that are antithetical to our historic preservation goals for downtown. I don't know if you have an answer staff to that question, but that's the thing that I think weighs on me most. Is it, in fact, disingenuous to proclaim to our community right now that we have no intention of adopting the development standards according to this policy.

[01:26:52] Unknown Speaker: I'm not sure I can directly answer that question, but I can talk to you about what we said to MTC. We have talked to them about a historic core. In fact, we're working on a project right now to look at historic preservation. We have expressed concerns that the community might not end up. We may not end up accepting them, but that we would study it for the purposes of the grant as one of the options. And what they've said to us is, well, this has happened before. in a certain case, and this is what happened, and we would expect to do the same in this case. So that's what I can say to you. If, at all, MTC had said. No, you absolutely have to adopt these. Um, we would not have come forward with a recommendation we did. And I will say that if you look at the website, this is unusual, as Vice Mayor, Sher Walter has said, they are still developing the policies, they're still listening to staff, as they hear from them about the issues. And, you know, we've said to them, the historic core is important. You know we should be able to exclude it. These are examples of what is going on. It is unusual, and they expect the completed by the, they expect to go through this process for all of 2023. We have not been used to this. And it's new to us as well. But the deadlines are before the policies are fully implemented, which is kind of disconcerting, and we didn't want to close doors, but we did want the opportunity to study. So I have to apologize. It's different from what we've experienced, but we felt that we at least had to bring it forward, and we have not had the time to do the research, because it has been very, the feedback has been very generic to us.

[01:28:53] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I should be clear, I have no animosity towards staff for asking the question. I think, it's prudent to apply for grants. We have a very ambitious work plan. It's going to be expensive to do all of this planning work, and I think it was the right thing to apply. It's unfortunate that we don't have the definitive answers about some of the questions we've been talking about. There are not 4 votes to adopt this resolution. So I'll be supporting the motion.

[01:29:26] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Uh, Council member Manachek. Okay. So I think it's time to call for a vote, and then I have a suggestion. You want to say something?

[01:29:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I just wanted to state, like, there are just the comment that it's free money. To me, the cost is our staff time. So nothing is ever really free. It's like a free lunge, right? That's never really free. And so I, you know, we're putting in valuable resources in a department that is heavily impacted what's going on with our city. So I really want to stress that I don't see this as free money. Um, and that I do think that this is that it also, it's not necessarily simple to return something. It's not like a library book. It's a grant. And so to me, that is also where, you know, having the opportunity for the discussion is really important. Um, and I just kind of wanted to clarify that because I think that that was, it's getting a little.

[01:30:29] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well said. Okay, so time for the roll call.

[01:30:33] Unknown Speaker: Can't remember Mattachek?

[01:30:35] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yes.

[01:30:35] Unknown Speaker: Council member Kame?

[01:30:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[01:30:37] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramirez?

[01:30:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[01:30:39] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramos?

[01:30:42] Councilmember Emily Ramos: No.

[01:30:43] Unknown Speaker: And Vice Mayor Schoalter?

[01:30:45] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes.

[01:30:47] Unknown Speaker: Motion Carrie. Go ahead. Or one. Oh, sorry. The motion carries. 4 to one.

[01:30:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: And, um, I would like to suggest, um, I don't think we have to have a motion, but I would like to suggest that we submit a letter to MTC saying that we were uncomfortable with the, uh, the policy direction that is embedded in this. And, um, we would, you know, we would prefer, uh, I don't know, you listen to... RT and Eric, you listen to the, um, the conversation that we had. But I feel like it was pretty meaty, and that it would be good for MTC to hear our, you know, our qualms about this process, particularly if, you know, if they're going on and developing the policy. So, does that seem like a reasonable request to colleagues? Okay. All right. Thank you. All right, well, with that, I guess we will go, I think what I would like to suggest that we do. We have public comment, standard public comment to go, and then we have a long item, the housing element. So I'm going to suggest that we have public comment now, and then we have a break before the housing element. Does that sound right to everyone?

[01:32:11] Unknown Speaker: Sure. Okay.

[01:32:12] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right, so, um, let me find a section on the flow here. So now we'll move on to section item five, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for people who wish to address the council on any matter that is not on tonight's 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 agendized items. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue card to the city clerk now. And I think we have one blue card, Alex Ulenberg. Thank you, Alex. What happened to your ukulele?

[01:33:11] Alex Eulenberg: Oh, uh... I thought we were going to get a performance. Well, I, I, last time you limited me to two minutes, and I barely got in what I wanted to say, so...

[01:33:21] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Oh.

[01:33:22] Alex Eulenberg: All right. I have a song for everyone who wants to listen to after the... It's not on the... you can put me on the agenda for next time. All right. So I'm Alex Eulenberg, Mountain View resident since 1998, former PYT dad and volunteer. Last week, I came before the city council, together with a group of like minded members of the public, with a request that the council makes sure that the city of Mountain View, with its vision of community for all, is indeed a community for all people, regardless of their medical condition. I didn't like it that my city's Center for the Performing Arts had a policy of turning away patrons who are not up to date on their COVID 19 vaccinations. And I didn't like that the local youth theater had a policy of barring children from theater productions and summer camps taking place at that venue on the basis of their not having taken the latest COVID 19 booster. Policies, by the way, not supported by guidance from any health agency, not the California Department of Public Health, not the CDC. If you looked at the City of Mountain View and Peninsula Youth Theater websites that day, you would see that those policies were in full effect. Today, there is no trace of them. How did that happen? Now, it's against the law, as we just heard, for the council to act on an item, not on the agenda? But that rule does not hold for the city manager. So I would like to thank city manager, Kimber McCarthy. for stepping up and leading the way, right there and then, after public comment, was over, announcing that the city of Mountain View's vaccination requirement for employment at the city had already been dropped, and that, furthermore, she and her staff would be meeting with the performing arts center renter, PYT, to make sure they dropped their vaccination requirement, for performers and campers, in alignment with current health guidance, without even waiting for the city council to direct her to do so, as I had proposed. In addition. So, thank you, Kimber McCarthy. In addition, I would like to thank my parents. My father, Dr. John Eulenberg, Professor Emeritus at Michigan State University, who made it his life's work, starting way back in the 1970s, developing the speech synthesis technology that we today take for granted, adapting it to help give a voice to the speech impaired, to those with brain damage and other conditions who would otherwise be ignored. And my mother, Marcia Eulenberg, who put in countless volunteers hours at our local suicide hotline, being a listening ear when no one else would listen. Without their example, of unwavering love, honor, and support for, and friendship with, all people, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, political affiliation, or... Thank you so much.

[01:36:38] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. You're very close to the end of your notes. All right, then we have a few people online. John Eulenberg. There may be a connection. with Alex. John?

[01:36:58] John Eulenberg: Okay. Can you hear me now?

[01:37:00] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, we can. Thank you.

[01:37:02] John Eulenberg: I am John Eulenberg. My wife, Marcia, and I are communicating with you tonight from our home in Okamis, Michigan, where we now reside after over 50 years of continuous association with Mountain View and Peninsula Youth Theater, as parents and grandparents. I wish to commend the staff of the city of Mountain View for your recent actions to eliminate the barriers, to participation in the life of Mountain View and its institutions, on the basis of a person's COVID vaccination status. In my work over the years, at Stanford University and Michigan State University, I developed portable and wearable computer systems for persons who could not speak or are blind. Over and over again, I saw how easily people would be treated as unworthy of inclusion in daily life. As human beings, we need to be aware of how easy it is to brand people is less than human. In closing, I think, or son and daughter in law, Alex Eulenberg, and Ariadne Solovova, or standing up for people who face discrimination on the basis of medical status, and I thank you, the leaders of this great community of Mountain View, for restoring the civil rights of all who live here. Thank you very much. And I hope you do get to hear a little bit of music next time. Thank you.

[01:38:45] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Thank you, sir. I don't think we've ever had a comment from Michigan before, so thank you for stepping up and going to the trouble to do that. Um, I believe our next speaker is, uh, Stephen Goldstein.

[01:39:03] Stephen Goldstein: Okay, here I am again. Thank you very much for your time. First of all, I want to discuss one article I saw on The Daily Post on the weekend, uh, talking about fecal bacteria in Creek. A federal judge has ruled that City Mountain View released Stormwater, that was contaminated with beecle bacteria into the Stevens Creek. Test results from the anti pollution group, Baykeeper found concentrations of E. coli, 100s of times greater than the state's work while these standards, indicating that species were in the water. And following the favorable ruling, Baykeeper is asking the judge to find the city $56,000 per day since 2015. This is gonna be a very critical situation that obviously needs to be addressed. Another thing that needs to be addressed, is that I am now in a situation where I am dealing with the fact that, for some reason, the city of Mountain View has allowed a an apartment to continue operating, when it's in nonconformance with the land that it resides on. My particular art in billing, uh, 194th Center Street, is in an R3.1 zone. But the apartment is actually a R4 conforming structure. That means, somehow, some way, the city, either provided a certificate of occupancy or something that was invalid to the apartment owners. In the meantime, they also issued building permits to be done regarding this building, when, again, under the city municipal code, if you provide anything more than 400 square feet of any renovations done in any non conforming building, it automatically requires the building to be ceasing operation under the city municipal code. And so, in that regard, there's a major issue here going on. And so, again, now, I'm... for the longest time, I've been delaying my payment of rent, but now I was just given the notification, that the landlord is about to sell the building. And so now I'm in a situation where if I can, I have a deteriorating floor that is continuing to get worse, and sooner or later, it will fail. in my unit, and it's covering almost the entire unit at this point. And so I've now gotten to the point where I'm on a rent strike, and I've just been given a three day notice by the landlord saying that if I don't pay my rent, he's gonna try to evict me. Well, I forwarded this information to the city council and the city attorney, and I have proof of certain individuals that have read the e mail, because I instruct my computer to track it. And what I'm saying is that, on top of all of this, the apartment man owner took, uh, COVID rental assistance, and that would be a violation of the California Penal Code, Section 2, 424, and federal law, 18 USC 653. Thank you very much for your time.

[01:42:10] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Oh, I see another speaker, Tim Mackenzie. He's right here with us. Welcome, Tim.

[01:42:25] Tim Mackenzie: It wasn't actually planning on speaking, but hearing something from the previous speaker. Landlord selling a building is not an ideal situation. It happened to me, just in November, I suddenly got a thing on my front door. St. Jude's hospital is selling your property, the landlord at the front, the person who owned the place, must have donated it after they did. And, um, luckily, it just, it happened to transition to someone who is looking to, uh, continue being landlord not try to displace or anything, um, as we've seen lots of times. Um, but there was no community opportunity to purchase. I know that's something we're looking for, but Copa, Topa, some sort of thing like that. I just want to sort of re-emphasize that. And the destabilizing effect that that sort of thing can have, even if it turns out in a few months to, okay, you have a new landlord who will, for the 1st time in years, raise your rent because they're trying to extract value, um, just wanted to highlight that, that need for those uh, Copitopa things so that if someone does have a situation where their landlord is threatening to sell, we, as a community, can come together to provide housing as a human right, not as a source of speculative profit. Thank you.

[01:43:48] Mayor Alison Hicks: You. All right. One more person on the virtual list. Syria Hinderson?

[01:44:04] Kulzaria Henderson: Hello, thank you so much. My name is Kulzaria Henderson, and I have the pleasure of being the executive director at Nextdoor Solutions to Domestic Violence. Um, we are a large scale domestic violence service provider. We serve all of Santa Clara County. Um, and most recently have been looking at avenues, um, to serve a gap in Mountain View in the city of Mountain View. And so we just wanted to say that we would love the opportunity to work with the city and the council on housing options for survivors of violence, and their family, their children, and your city, but also supportive services. You know, what services can be provided and where are those gaps? We are, again, a large scale provider. We provide 1000s and 1000s of families, services, everything from housing, emergency housing to housing support, to housing prevention, to therapy, to legal, to court accompaniment, to safety planning, and case management, and youth, prevention services, and health prevention services. So we've been around for 52 years. And, um, we, on our crisis line alone, we serve about 14,000 to 15,000 folks. every year. So, we are a large skill provider, but would really love the opportunity to work in Mountain View and to ensure that, that folks and families in, that are experiencing violence in their homes and in their relationships in Mountain View have access to safe housing, to safe community support, to, um, to other options and ways to thrive in their lives. So, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your time. And we look forward to seeing you all soon. Thank you very much.

[01:46:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, that, um, brings our item five, oral communication to an end. So the council is going to take a, um, 10 minute break. Will... We'll be back at 8:25. Thank you.

[01:48:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, well, welcome back, everybody. We're back from the break. And we are about to start on, and welcome to our, um, back to, uh, Mayor Hicks online, and, uh, council member Ive Koga. We missed you, the last. I guess you were back. I guess you were back for the public comment. Anyway, we missed you on the 4.3. So, here we are at item 6.1. This is the housing element. The housing element, hopefully, approval. And, um, we, I am shuffling papers here because I'm getting to the right place in the agenda flow, sorry. But we are, we are really delighted to be at this point. As we start this, I just want to start off by thanking our staff. You have been on a long journey to get here. And you put in many hours and lots of brain power, and, um, it has been appreciated. And, um, I'd also like to thank all the stakeholder groups that have spent so much time and effort reading the drafts, investigating what happened in other jurisdictions, making suggestions, writing letters. This has truly been a community effort. So let's hope we're almost at the end here. This is certainly an important step. But I just wanted to make sure that, uh, I think we will probably all thank you, but to start out by thanking you. Okay, I'm joined on the dais tonight with Ellen Yao, and Eric Anderson of our planning staff, and in the audience is RT Stravasseva, and Sandy Lee. And I believe there are also, um, some consultants available on the phone if we need them. So with that, I would like to turn this presentation over to staff, and excuse me, buy some air. We do have announcements from our Chinese... We do have Spanish interpretation first. Oh, right. Recusals. I knew this was gonna cause problems. Yes. Okay. First, um, Margaret. Council member, Abby Koca, would you like to say anything? Oh, no. Interpretation. I'm sorry. I am on the wrong page. Okay, first of all, for this item, we have translation services available. So, we would like to have an announcement from the Chinese interpreter. And then from the Spanish interpreter. , thank you. Thank you, and now the Spanish interpretation announcement.

[01:51:47] Unknown Speaker: Oh, no, masa commentar. Español, por favor, o prima, el lobo, al inferior de supantaya, que dice interpretación, español. Gracias.

[01:52:07] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay. So the purpose of this public hearing is for the city council to consider and adopt the housing element, see attachment one to the council report, and given the complexity of this project, and the need for council member recusals due to conflicts of interest, this item will proceed in the following manner. We'll begin with a staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment. At the close of public comment. The council will ask questions, and then we will, um, deliberate and vote on the matters requiring council recusals first. So we're going to separate questions and comments as we talk about these issues. So, senior planner, Ellen Yao, will present the item.

[01:53:20] Senior Planner Ellen Yao: Good evening. Thank you. Um, good evening. Thank you, vice mayor, show Walter, Mayor Hicks, and council members. Before you this evening is the 6 Cycle Housing Element for the period of 2023 to 2031. Again, my name is Ellen Yao, and I'm joined by Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager, RT Shravastava, Assistant City Manager, and community development director, and we also have our consultants, Stephanie Hager from BAE, and Bev Troy from ESA. They'll be there virtually. Tonight, we will cover the timeline of the housing element project, highlighting council direction and HCD direction from December and January. The bulk of the presentation will cover changes to the December draft that was last seen by council. Um, and this includes direction and the latest public comments uh, to the revised December draft. So these changes are reflected in the March draft before you. This also includes changes in exhibit E of attachment one, and there are additional amendments being recommended by staff since the agenda was posted, and these are also before you. These comments are based on recent feedback from HCD and community groups and is uploaded online as an attachment to the agenda. So the recommended amendments, they mostly affect the site's inventory and the programs, and that's what I will highlight throughout the presentation. Lastly, at the end of the presentation, I'll conclude with next steps and recommendations. So the 6 cycle housing element is a result of 2 years of collaborative work with the community and builds on more than 8 years of city actions promoting housing and affordable housing in particular in the last cycle. The housing element update process started in early 2021 with data collection and community outreach, which included stakeholder interviews. We did tabling at city events. We had an online feedback survey. We held community meetings and more. Later in the year in 2021 and in early 2022. This is when the EPC and city council was able to review and received some of those updates and data collection that we did in the early part of the project. And the council and EPC provided direction on the housing goals and policies. With the initial data collection and direction from EPC and Council, the project team prepared and published the public review draft of the housing element on May 9th of 2022. During that time, we also received public comments and held additional study sessions with the EPC and city council. And this is where the city council provided direction on specific programs and site inventory refinements. And so then the project team incorporated those feedback into a revised July draft, and we've submitted our 1st draft to HCD on July 1st of 2022. So through the summer and fall of 22, when this was under review with HCD, staff continued to meet with various groups to discuss the housing element draft. Um, in September 29th, and that's when HCD provided formal comments of their 90 day review. And the project team met with HCD several times after that. And we use those meetings to get clarification and present draft responses for HDD to provide additional feedback. At that time, HCD recommended that cities submit subsequent drafts so that they could provide preliminary comments and that we can make use of the review times. So at the bottom part of the slide. You can see that, um, the schedule is summarized there where we, um, changed our hearings to study sessions and we did a 2nd HCD review. The EPC, uh, saw this item on March of this year. So I'm just gonna run us back to when the council last saw the draft back in December 13th. Council directed staff to make the following changes to the November draft before submitting to HDD. So the 3 major points was to reduce the number of total projected units, included in the site's inventory for the 1500 North Shoreline Boulevard property, to reflect what could be expected to be built during the 8 year housing element period. For AFFH consideration, the council directed staff to includes city-owned property to the site's inventory, if it was suitable for residential use, didn't have any other limitations or obligations, such as leases, et cetera. Um, specifically if HCD determined that the site's inventory uh, didn't meet our AFFH requirements. Lastly, council directed staff to put in the housing element to eliminate parking requirements for 100% affordable housing and to preserve retail in other shopping centers. So based on HD's preliminary comments in December and city council direction from that December study session, the November draft was revised and then made available to the public on December 2022nd, and then, um, we resubmitted this draft to HCD on January 4th. So this utilized the review time, efficiently by creating 2 rounds of review within 160 day review period, as HCD suggested. On January 17th, HCD provided a formal comment letter. This was to our draft. They provided written comments stating that the revised draft addressed most statutory requirements, but they provided a few remaining comments. The remaining comments were on the site's inventory. They said pipeline projects without any actual building plans should be categorized and moved to opportunity sites. This meant things like our master plans. There weren't physical building plans, so we had to move them to pipeline projects. Secondly, if a housing element relied on non-vacant sites to accommodate 50% or more of its rena for lower income household, the housing element would need to include what we call a non-vacant site analysis. This would demonstrate that existing uses on those non-vacant sites wouldn't impede residential development. So because we had to recategorize pipeline projects to opportunity sites, this pushed us to that threshold. So we also updated the housing element to include a vacant site analysis. Regarding affirmatively further fair housing, or known as AFFH, after the recategorization, the state said that we should reevaluate the site's inventory to ensure that the inventory met AFFH goals, and then to add necessary programs. Specifically, they said to add metric metrics to address disproportionate housing impacts, specifically related to RV dwellers on 87 East Evelyn, if the project were to redevelop, you can make sure we added that metric to and then also to add an additional program to one. which is our church sites program. And then lastly, very importantly, was outreach. HTD received comments from the public, and they told us to continue engaging with our community, to include all segments of the community, particularly members of our community that had limited English proficiency, and to make sure that the information to the different speaking languages and English were made available at the same time. So during this, uh, you know, staff met with HTD, um, you know, a few times in January, and they emphasized that their expectation for around public input was that the housing element would, um, housing element would continue to engage work with all segments of the community and to resolve housing concerns through direct engagement. Okay, so I'm gonna tell, walk us through all the various drafts that we've had. So for the last few months, the project team has met with many community groups to work through the public comments that we receive from December up until now. This is a very iterative process. We incorporate a lot of community input and feedback, included analysis and discussions with appropriate departments and divisions. And this also, you know, we had to do some balancing with logistics such as staffing and scheduling. to make sure that the programs that we included here were implementable and also based on the intent of the community goals. So these changes are reflecting the latest draft of the housing element. This was published on March 8th. There's also an addendum to that, which is known as exhibit E to attachment one. So most of these refinements were made to the housing programs. Some of the changes were also made to the site's inventory analysis. So I want to also highlight, at the end, is that with the March 8th draft and exhibit E, since that council agenda was posted, staff is adding 4 additional changes, recommended changes to the housing element. This is based on recent HCD guidance, new information and feedback from some of the other groups, um, and just other changes uh, that has come up recently. The 4 are emergency shelter location. We identified that in program one. Parkland fees, program one. Affordable housing streamlining program 4.one, and then additional non-vacant sites analysis. All of this will be highlighted in the bulk of the presentation when I go over those specific programs in the non-bacant sites section. I just want to highlight them for you. Okay, so here you'll see our inventory, and there's a lot more numbers than you've seen in our draft and in previous iterations, but I'll walk through it with you. So the main inventory changes that you see was, again, moving the pipeline projects, the site inventory, we also rezone back pocket sites, and there were other minor modifications to very specific sites based on new information. So the data here in this table reflects a range of potential outcomes based on several changes from HCD input, which are not captured in the March 8th document. Some of that would include 630 San Antonio, which is the old sprout site. This was discounted, in a manner similar to other shopping center sites. We also removed 325 East Middlefields. This was due to a lease that extended a little bit later in the housing element period. And then uh, 450 East Middle Float, also for the same reason. So these changes, since they don't affect compliance with the state or arena, and we also maintain adequate buffers, we are going to be including that. And so that's kind of reflected in this table. Um, so HTD informed staff that builders remedy projects can be included in the sites inventory as pipeline projects, but they are not included at this time or in this table. Mainly, you know, to maintain the current schedule that we're on and because they are not necessary for the site's inventory, staff recommends not adding these applications to the housing element unless additional changes to the site's inventory necessitate that. Again, just highlighting that, you know, if there's new information that rises during this approval and certification process, because after adoption, we still have to get certified for HCD, um, that may affect the inventory. There may be additional changes, and if they're non-substitance. We will work with HC to make those changes administratively. Now I'm going to go over the non-vacant side analysis because we had to move pipeline projects to opportunity sites. This brought us to the threshold and we had to include additional analysis. So the evidence usually is comprised of several different factors to build a case for the non-vacant sites, but typically they fall into these 3 main categories on the slide. First is market and development trends. So this will show that the existing use on that site wouldn't impede residential development because it has very similar characteristics of other development projects that have gone through. So this could be properties with older buildings, have existing low floor error ratio to the lot, um, and other, uh, conditions on the site. Then there's also very specific property information. This is when we did our outreach. We've done a lot of noticing and we've gotten common letters from people who are interested. So there are some sites that have been included due to owner interest. And lastly, programs. If the city can commit to facilitating, developing, um, you know, finding funding or uh, utilizing land that is dedicated for affordable housing, such as uh, the 87 East Evelyn site, the 1255 pair avenue, um, those could go towards the non-bacon site analysis to show that, um, it wouldn't impede development. I want to highlight at the bottom of the screen here, you'll see there's something noted as new. The city received a letter from the housing action coalition just before the EPC meeting, which questions several sites in our inventory. So we did prepare responses to each of the comments they made. And we provided to HCD for review and HD invite us to just include those responses in the housing element as another fortification for our vacant sites analysis. This has been included in one of the 4 amendments tonight. So over the last 3 months, staff has reached out to key community groups and have expressed ongoing concern during the process, and these substantial changes the programs have been made based on these discussions. The changes made to the programs are in direct response to that and HTD's January comment letter, which I will discuss in the next several slides. It will cover all the program changes. These programs are listed from, you know, one. all the way down to 4.7. So 1st under program one. Rezoning back pocket sites, such as areas along Lyon Drive, Fairchild Drive, Miramonte Avenue, Questa Drive, Moffat Boulevard, and the Mountain View Transit Center. We also added language about neighborhood commercial preservation standards for select sites to comply with council direction to preserve retail in those shopping centers. It's also included language on emergency shelters being consistent to AB2339. This required us to identify sites for emergency shelters and to also adopt zoning that would allow shelters in the zones by right. This new state law is only required for cities that are submitting drafts after the effective date, which was at the start of the year. So technically the city's not required to include this in the housing element, but we have nonetheless included it. So we have an analysis and identified a site as well. The only difference is that the item before you, you can see new site is listed on the slide. That's one of the desk items in front of you. The selected property, 860 Bay Street, recently submitted development approval project. And so we just want to modify the program language so that reflects this new status change. Um, so the change to the program is that uh, we will find another site that's concurrent with the rezoning of El Camino real precise plan. Under program one. 2 parking. We are, uh, this will require the city to eliminate minimum residential parking standards for transit oriented areas, such as the El Camino Real, San Antonio, downtown and East Wisman Precise Plans, and the Moffat Boulevard General Plan Change area. I want to highlight that assembly bill 2097 prohibits cities from imposing a minimum automobile parking requirement on most development projects that are located within a half mile of a major transit stops. So this covers most of our existing precise plans. This program change would just include additional areas outside of the half mile radius, but still within the precise plan. Under that program, we've also included exemptions to vehicular parking standards for projects that are outside of the precise plan areas, but if they provide enhanced transit demand management measures, this would offset some of the need for parking. Under one point, program one. 3 to review and update standards. The major one is the gatekeeper process. We will review exemptions of that process and commit to holding one gatekeeper meeting annually. Um, and then the other program will be to review and up zone our 2 sites for added residential capacity throughout the city, um, specifically focusing on high opportunity areas, uh, for AFFH reasons and areas near transit and services. So the major change here is that R2 could include up to 4 units per parcel. This would be similar to SB 9 that's applied to R1 properties, or to a maximum to include them in potentially the R3 zoning update. Under program one. on religious sites, the city will conduct a density analysis as part of the outreach to property owners to determine viable density. This was in response to some public comments about establishing a density. Since we haven't done outreach, the 1st step is to do the outreach with the density analysis before we determine what could be viable on sites. For AFFH purposes. We have identified a metric for 65 units proposed on these sites south of El Camino with a time frame of 2027. And then if this goal isn't met, then we'll do additional action for policy change. Under program one. 8 would develop a nexus study to adopt new park fees and find opportunities for lowing residential parkland dedication in loofes. And then upon adoption of the reduced fees, reevaluate the cumulative impact of all residential fees, and the specific target would be 20% in fee reduction. And this would be using a variety of creative methods. As part of the 4 recent amendments, staff is recommending a minor program change that states that the city will establish criteria when a project may pay all or partial payment of fees at project occupancy rather than at building permit issuance, which is what's currently required. Under programs 2.one, 2.4, and 2.5, they were revised to clarify that making housing available to households otherwise left out of the mountain view housing market, um, we would include deeper affordability levels for, um, ELI, extremely low income households, and reducing barriers where possible, specifically, um, the calculation of below market rate, BMR prices and rents are ca a barrier to qualifying for units. So as, as a BMR threshold is being increased based off of AMI, incomes may not be meeting that threshold. So, you know, we heard from many community groups that that's an issue. So accessibility, such as accessing application, having to apply multiple times for different locations, and requiring unique, requiring information like social security number. and concerns about knowing what their housing rights are. So therefore, we've added to these programs, some clarification. One, to increase outreach and technical assistance to facilitate access to affordable housing. We add a detail on removing barriers to application process, such as addressing language, technological barriers, and marketing concerns. Lastly, to help tenants and property owners, owners exercise their rights. For example, study ways to ensure that tenant had access to city resources and also, um, able to address any landlord retaliation issues. Program 2.6 focuses on AFFH. Most of these metrics are highlighted in separate programs. So we have under program one. 65 units of affordable housing on church sites south of El Camino, in program 4.5, 65 units of affordable housing on city owned sites downtown. And then overall, 100 additional affordable units south of the El Camino Real on underutilized sites based off of the city developing incentives and other standards to promote that. And then under program one. One, we would establish a separate no net loss of lower income capacity in areas south of El Camino Real in downtown. This would ensure that if new market rate development were to happen, and non-residential development. This wouldn't reduce the availability of, um, the land for lower income units in these areas, these areas being high opportunity areas. Under program 3.one, which focuses on homelessness prevention. We are looking at adding new and expanded partnerships to address the needs of domestic violence survivors. This was a comment that came up during the community input period. Under 3.2, our displacement prevention program. Again, these are based off of comments, evaluate the efficacy of the tenant relocation, assistance ordinance, Trao for the ability for residents to stay in the city, and to evaluate other goals of the ordinance. We develop local replacement requirements. We would study amendments to reduce the annual, allowable rent increases in the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance. This would be specifically to ensure that the AGA would be no greater than comparable cities. And then develop an action plan for community ownership models. specifically targeting 10000000 in funding through partnerships and acquire or preserve 50 housing units. Under program 4.one to further streamlining. We have included identifying thresholds for multifamily projects that can be eligible for ministerial approvals. This would streamline the review of compliant projects and precise plans so that they can be approved at the ZA level. We heard community input about how the approval process can take some time. So we've included that, and added key matrix study recommendations. This included things like, um, putting online our plan review systems, standardizing letters, and um, creating new dashboards for better tracking citywide. Within the new amendments that are recommended before you, um, We had a public comment with people wanting to target staff for affordable housing review. So we are specifying in that language that staff members will be trained in processes, requirements, timelines, and financing that is specific to affordable housing projects. So by training staff in each department, division involved in that process, we can utilize their expertise to streamline affordable housing development projects, which is a priority for the city. Under 4.5 affordable housing partnerships per HTD's guidance, we are doing a transition plan for existing RV dwellers at East Evelyn site so that when they start redevelopment, we have a transition plan for those dwellers. There's that program that I mentioned before, the 65 affordable units in downtown. If it isn't met by 2027, the city will issue an RFP for a city owned site to meet this requirement. And then, um, under this, we would create a priority list of amenities that be, that could be on site or nearby affordable housing developments, such as childcare establishment, which was an important criteria for people, um, living in affordable housing was a comment that we've heard many times in our outreach. And then under 4.7 neighborhood engagement. We are adding details about our tenant relocation efforts and additional translation and interpretation services. So that highlights all the program changes, and I'm going to go into the discussion brief discussion on the EIR. So the ERR was prepared to analyze and disclose potential environmental impacts that could be anticipated if the maximum scenario of the housing element is built out. We have done, as you know, many changes to the housing element since the final ER was certified on January 24th. But these changes are mainly program details, language changes, some background analysis, like the non-vacant site analysis. So overall, this doesn't affect the analysis of that certified, um, EIR. I just want to highlight again, the EIR was certified by the city council on January 24th as part of the related rezonings earlier this year. So staff recommends that the city council act on the housing element without receiving advanced HDD certification. There are several reasons, which I will go over. First, we've made revisions to the housing element. We've submitted multiple drafts to them. We've gone, um, direct response from HTD, and they've stated, um, that we, that we shouldn't need another formal round of draft review and that they supported this adoption schedule. The date of adoption would be the formal in-compliance state, um, and that affects things like, um, approval projects and funding opportunities. So the date of the adoption would be the formal compliance state once it's certified by HCD. So even if HCD has additional comments after adoption, you know, we've listed in the resolution, a small clause that states that, you know, the council would authorize staff to make certain non-subsitent changes to the housing element to comply with HCD direction. And other cities have carried out this approach as well. Um, Recently, uh, during the time between EPC and tonight's council meeting, we did submit, uh, we did show HCDR latest draft and HPC recommendations. So HCD did informally review our latest housing element, and they had, they said they had no additional comments to the revisions that the city made. Um, so these are the many reasons why we believe the council should adopt the housing ailment prior to HTD certification. Now, if the city does wait for formal HCD concurrence prior to adoption, this could mean that, you know, we would need to account for additional time, for the formal HCD formal review and to schedule EPC and council hearings in the future. This would mean that we'd have limited ability to deny certain residential projects that provide 20% low income units or 100% moderate income units, even if it is non-compliant with the general plan, land use designation or zoning requirements. And lastly, there could be a loss of eligibility for applying for housing and transportation grants. So the next steps, um, we would submit our adopted, if adopted tonight, we would submit the adopted housing element, A2CD, soon after tonight, we'd have to make the minor changes in the document reformat, um, HCD, standard, um, timeline is 60 days. So we'd anticipate that to be April to June of this year to hear back whether they've certified or have additional comments. So on the slide here is the recommended action for consideration tonight. This concludes the presentation and we look forward to answering any questions. Thank you.

[02:22:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Um, So would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide comments on this item? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. All right, I see some people are here locally. Alberto Luster. Here will be our first speaker, and then Alex Brown. Welcome, Alberto.

[02:23:30] Unknown Speaker: Vice mayor, how much time did you want to allocate?

[02:23:33] Alberto Lustro: Um, a minute and a half, please. My name is Alberto Lustro with the Northern California local 405 Union. It's great to see that we have a change adapted many changes to the city at the house and element. But, uh, we also gotta think about the workforce is gonna build these projects in the community. I'm here to speak about the area standards, implementation, implementation into the housing element. It is standard, including liberal wage, healthcare, apprenticeship, local hire. The importance of having livable wages, because it helps our working men and women, being able to balance our wages with recurring inflation. That has correct in the last few years, and able to enable to run a community. It also prevents wage theft and tax fraud. Healthcare. healthcare is necessary for all human beings. We cannot have our members or our community, not seek medical attention because our employers does not provide medical healthcare. Instead, they become a burden to the system. Apprenticeship, apprenticeship programs, is a provider, pathway, two minorities, women, and a risk youth into the construction industry. It gives the Chateau American to the American dream. I would like to ask the community and electro officials, what are we doing to ensure that we're including area standard laborers and the new housing elements. Are we gonna adopt the same area level standards as the city of Redwood City and Metal Park? Thank you. Thank you.

[02:25:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next is Alex Brown. And then after that will be Mike Smith.

[02:25:13] Alex Brown: All right. Hey, everybody. Okay, I'll keep it quick. Uh, I'm here. Is a mobile home resident? One of the programs is, uh, should I look at the AJA? We've heard a lot from our community that, with inflation, hitting people already, the 5% increase in rent is still too high, and it's unsustainable, especially for a lot of the seniors in the parks. Uh, so I would like to thank council staff, uh, EPC, uh, for recognizing the urgency and the harms that we can address. We have, as a city, we can make a difference and try to keep people in their homes as one of the programs of the housing element, which will hopefully be adopted tonight. So thank you. you very much.

[02:26:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Mike Smith, is he here? I don't see him. Okay, so we will move... move to, um, people, um, who are joining us virtually. Allie, Zapperman, will be first.

[02:26:24] Ali Superman: Hi, my name is Ali Superman. I'm speaking on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition. You should have received our letter from our attorneys laying out the concerns we have at the housing element, which we've discussed with staff. For context, we previously identified some concerns with site inventory, and based off our regular conversations with HED, would render the city out of legal compliance. We addressed these concerns with staff, and they requested we introduce some programs that would lack that would address the lack of buffer the city has in the site inventory. Our letter indicates a range of policy solutions, but I will indicate high areas of priority. First, in terms of builders remedy projects. We understand that from talking to stats, that there are a number of applications moving forward, but I want to be clear of the legal obligations. The city of Mountain View is currently out of compliance. And as such, is subject to builders remedy applications. It's critical that staff makes explicit commitments to comply with state law, and move these projects forward without delay. An explicit commitment can look like things like waving complex fees or streamlining permitting process. Second, we appreciate soft recognition of the barrier to the park fees, have on development. In our letters, we note that the fee, as well as the exaction structure in general, is a barrier to development. To be clear, the city is doing a nexus study in 2025, which is way too late in the cycle, as a response to the strategic park plan, we are asking, not if the city is legally justified in imposing these fees, but if these cumulative fees are impeding development, Specifically, the city should do a development, feasibility analysis, linked with the cost of the cumulative fees, and do this study as soon as possible, if these feeds are not a barrier, and that's the best case scenario, but we suspect that they are. We appreciate all the work the city has done. But there is more work to be done, and with these additional changes, we're willing to support the housing element, but we're not quite there yet. Thank you.

[02:28:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, Jesse Cupp, and then after Jesse, we'll be Peter Katz. Jesse, are you there? Jesse? Okay, we'll go on to Peter Katz, and we'll come back.

[02:28:43] Jesse Cupp: I've been unimmuted, I think.

[02:28:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Ah, there you are.

[02:28:46] Jesse Cupp: Okay, great. All right. So I wanted to, um, thank the city for working on the housing element. It's very important to a lot of people, and affordable housing is a big issue. Um, and I also wanted to advocate for, uh, the possibility of including artists, uh, live workspaces, um, for a loft, uh, artists in residence programs. I think we've seen in a lot of really artistic cities, a continual problem, which is, the artists make the city cool. They make it beautiful, and then they get driven out by rent increases. But in this case, we don't even have that artist community. And the first place to drive out. So recognizing that artists are often low income individuals, at least until, uh, their work catches on, while, while they're still in the beginning stages, uh, I would like to see that to make our community more vibrant. Okay, thank you very much, and keep up the good work.

[02:29:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Peter Katz, and after Peter, uh, Rocio, uh, of, uh, Catalyzed Sunnyvale.

[02:30:00] Peter Katz: Great, since there was a problem with mute, can you hear me?

[02:30:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can hear you, yes.

[02:30:04] Peter Katz: Great. Thank you, mayor, show Walter and his team members of the city council. This is Peter Katz, president and CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, and on behalf of the 750 members of the Chamber, who wish to commend the staff for their very hard work on the housing element, and are grateful for their continuously, including the Chamber in its revision process. In our letters to council, on June 7th, and on December 13th, We voiced a number of concerns that, as written, government constraints cause construction costs, not since allowed. So housing, although identified, could not be built. Today, we are pleased that all the recommendations made by the Chamber appear to have been addressed. Recommendations addressed include commitment to specific process improvements as contained in the Matrix study, leading to a wholesale process review and revision within the next two, three years. This is now addressed. Review and revised development fees and exactions that in totality pose constraints to housing development, with particular focus on park and loo fees, addressed. Modify the gatekeeper process so that housing projects anywhere in the city can be considered in timely manner. Addressed, modify the city's policies as to what counted against floor area ratio calculations, so that true living areas maximized, addressed, reduce the city's parking requirements, to be more consistent with current trends addressed. So with that, we are in favor of its submission to Sacramento. Thank you very much.

[02:31:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Now, Rocio from Catalyzed Sunnyvale. Well, Silicon Valley, sorry.

[02:31:34] Rocio: Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Rocio here from Catalanza SV. I'm the community engagement manager, and we run lots of educational and other engagement programs and events in order to create opportunities for conversations with the community around some of the features and development topics that they're interested in. Some of the things missing from the housing element, presentation that we received today, have already been mentioned by other community members today, things such as open space, community resources, and opportunities for the community to continue to be involved in discussions about development. We definitely encourage the council and, um, those giving today's report, to consider a more robust community engagement process long term, so that we can, for the next 5 years, continue this momentum and continue to implement good community engagement programs like what has already been done in order to create today's housing element draft. Thank you so much.

[02:32:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And next, we'll have April Webster, and then after April, um, Accusina, and then Tim McKenzie.

[02:32:51] April Webster: Hi, it's April Webster. Um, I just wanted to echo what Jesse Cupp had to say, um, live work projects have the potential to help check the box from our housing and more viable businesses and and introduce, um, another solution to our planning toolbox. They expand opportunities for new small businesses that might not otherwise be able to set up shop in our community by reducing their costs, in combining both operating and living expenses, and also reducing community costs. I wanted to give an example, my violent teacher has struggled to find affordable housing in Mountain View, and more importantly, affordable housing close to where she has space she can teach. She was lucky she found something, but she still struggles to make ends meet. She has a master's degree. My piano teacher, who has a PhD, is in a similar boat, and, um, I think just because it is so expensive to live in Mountain View, we are losing these sorts of smaller businesses and services that enrich our communities, all because we don't have the right housing that we need. And I want to point out one more important benefit, and that's, um, it helps create walkable, livable, and in an integrated community, um, with businesses at street level, people are drawn in. It reduces auto dependency and traffic and retail errors, and it promotes a sense of community, a sense of place, and helps protect against economic downturn. Thank you.

[02:34:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. As Usina?

[02:35:05] Susena Castaignon: encluillas en lactolización de lenguaje de housing element. que tempreridad a las peticiones enumeras en la carta que fondo de solidaridad envio austedes. Muchas gracias a todos ustedes. Por todo trabajo que asem, para continuaraciendo que mountain view se una ciudad unica. Gracias. Good evening, respected Mayor Hicks, and members of the council. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion this evening. My name is Susena Castaignon, and I am here representing solidary fund. We like to thank the environmental planning commissioner Wayne Chen and staff for listening to the needs of the community and for taking our recommendations into consideration, and including them in the housing element language update. We look forward to hearing from the council's approval of the housing element. And further, especially ask you to prioritize the request listed in the solitary fund letter sent to you. Thank you all for the work you do to continue to make Mountain View a unique city. Thank you.

[02:36:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And then next is Tim McKenzie.

[02:36:30] Tim McKenzie: Greetings, all. Tim McKenzie, Monteloma neighborhood. It was nice to join in the meat world earlier, and now as a disembodied voice. I really appreciate the hybrid options and opportunities to engage, and hope that will soon be standard for all the council advisory bodies as well. Um, I just really wanna, thanks staff for the, all the work that went into this, and the comprehensive report, uh, much appreciated, and wanna call attention. I forget the exact item, but it was somewhere in the threes, I think. Uh, it sounded like a little bit like, uh, a COPA community opportunity to purchase. So I look forward to seeing that unfold as the housing element is adopted, and we, as a community, make it a reality, and can have housing as a human right, that supports all the members of our community, including the sort of small businesses, as was mentioned by April, I think, the music music teachers, and commenter before talking about artist space. I think that's a great idea, too. So look forward to seeing this unfold over the next eight years or so. Thanks a lot.

[02:37:45] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And next, we have B. Hansen, and then David Watson. And then Skye Morland. So B?

[02:37:57] B. Hansen: Why, can you hear me?

[02:37:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, we can, thanks.

[02:38:00] B. Hansen: Um, I am, uh, here as a representative of the Mobile Home Alliance, uh, but I'm also a housing activist and, uh, documentation specialist. So I sent you two emails on this document, um, one, because I had an awful lot of trouble reviewing it, and, uh, it's just an enormous document that must have taken thousands of hours to create, and the content is impeccable. The exhibit E problem is something that I explained in one of the emails that I hope will help. It's not a complaint. I hope will help. The other thing is that there is a little item on page 49, uh, that, where the council report does not match, uh, exhibit E, and I put those two, two pieces together, uh, in a suggestion of how that might be integrated. Uh, I hope that helps, too. That's called subject matter, something like MBMHA review of housing element documentation. So I hope you'll take a look at those two emails, and I thank everyone who worked on this document. It's just extraordinary. Uh, I really appreciate it what you've done here, and thank you for supporting the mobile home alliance.

[02:39:25] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you.

[02:39:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you for working with us. Okay, so next is David Watson. And then, um, Sky Morland.

[02:39:36] David Watson: Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm David Watson. I'm a lead with Mountain View, Yambi, and I wanted to tell you that we're very pleased to strongly support the March draft of the housing element, and as long as it has the editions of the exhibit E, from exhibity in the resolution. With these dishes, the draft fully complies with state law and merits HDD's approval. The March Draft is a product of two years of community outreach, extensive stakeholder engagement, and data driven analysis. Uh, I, uh, would also like to thank staff for their, uh, really hard work on, uh, bringing this all together. I was going to, particularly, mention that I'm happy about the reduction in constraints, including a commitment to evaluate the totality of fees on an ongoing basis, and, uh, specifically a robust program about park in Luffy's. Uh, I'm also really pleased about the uh, goal of reducing parking requirements, uh, in the city. Thank you.

[02:40:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. And now, Skye Morland? Skye, are you there?

[02:41:13] Skye Morland: Yes. Hi, thank you. I'm requesting that the city wait to approve the housing element. HUT's Fair Housing Act ruling states that unlawful housing discrimination is established by a practices discriminatory effect, even if not motivated by discriminatory intent. I have sent data backed analysis, demonstrating how the proposed housing element, combined with the existing Mountain View legislation, work in a way that disproportionately harms low income earners and violates fair housing by harming people based on race and disability. Though there may not be discriminatory intent, the effect is easily demonstrated by looking at the data. When I was consulting with people at HUD, we found two main issues that need to be addressed, which include, one, the selection bias in the benefits allocated, and two, the city's fees, as well as the expensive to implement regulations that increased developer costs in total by approximately 500,000 per unit based on interviewing developers. In addition to these fair housing concerns, one of the main tenets of the fair housing element is addressing barriers to build, which includes those bees and additional, specific regulations. Before this can be approved, the proposal needs to be empirically examined on the basis of effect rather than just intent.

[02:42:49] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, everybody, thank you so much for your comments. Now, I will, I see no others. Oh, we have one more speaker online. Anna Marie.

[02:43:03] Anna Marie: Hello. Thank you so much. I'd like to start by thinking city council and staff for all of your hard work. Um, you really astound me. It's really great, everything you guys are doing. Um, I'm really incredibly grateful that council has taken community feedback to heart. Um, I'd like to stress that it is critical that city council modify the AGA as soon as possible to keep vulnerable mobile home residents housed. Something important to remember is that the mobile home community was not protected until 2021 with a passing of the MHRSO. Since 2015 when we were unjustly excluded from the CSF array. Many residents have had unsustainable rent increases, not to mention so much displacement. Thankfully the MHRSOs in place, but because of various factors, the current allowed AGA cap of 5% is simply not sustainable. This needs to be addressed as soon as possible to protect many people from being displaced and having to decide what they're going to pay that month, um, and how they're going to live and to live with dignity. I really would like to see this addressed December of 2023. Um, if that can, we can make that happen, I think that would really have a great effect on so many people's lives and just the fear of living in a place where they don't have, um, always the resource. Thank you.

[02:44:40] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Anna Marie. Okay. So, I do not see any more hands raised, and have you gotten any more blue cards? No? Okay. So, um, I'm gonna close this, um, part of the public comet, and... bring it back to, um, counsel for questions and discussion. So, um... So now, the housing element includes programs from the last draft that the council may wish to discuss, but the discussion topics related to the R2 zone sites for additional density under program 1.3, and elimination of minimum parking standards for residential and downtown precise plan under program 1.2, require one or more council members to recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. So could the council members with conflicts of interest related to these topics of discussion, please make their recusal statements now. Council member, Margaret, Abi Koga.

[02:45:47] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm recusing myself from discussions about one of the subsection H of Program 1.3 regarding whether to review an increased density on our 2 zone sites, due to my residence being located within an R 2 zone, and to subsection B of Program 1.2, regarding whether to eliminate minimum parking requirements for residential, development in transit oriented areas, including the downtown precise plan area, due to the proximity of my residence to the downtown, precise plan.

[02:46:23] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, Council member Matachek.

[02:46:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I am recusing myself from discussions about subsection H. of program 1.3 regarding whether to review an increased density on our 2 zone sites due to my residence being located within an R2 zone.

[02:46:43] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Hicks.

[02:46:46] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I will be recusing myself from discussions... from discussions about subsection B of program point 2, regarding whether to eliminate minimum parking requirements for residential development, in transit oriented areas, including the downtown precise plan area, due to the proximity of my residence, to the downtown precise plan.

[02:47:14] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. All right. So, do any council members wish to discuss subsection eight of Program 1.3 regarding whether to review and increase the density on R2 zoned? If not, subsection H of 1.3 will be included in the program 1.3 of the housing element, and there will be no further discussion on subsection H of program 1.3. Okay, I don't see anyone wanting to discuss that. So, then, do we need council members wish to discuss subsection B of program 1.2 regarding whether to eliminate minimum parking requirements for residential developments in transit oriented areas, including the downtown precise plan area? If not, subsection B of program 1.2 will be included in the housing element, and there will be no further discussion of subsection B of 1.2. Are there any council members that would like to discuss these parking requirements? All right, seeing none. So then... that... that means we've pretty much dealt with the recusal issues, and we can go on to the next sections. I think that given that this is such a complex issue, it would be better to have us do our questions separately from comments. So I'd like to ask people to do that, to start with. And then, well, you know, we'll have plenty of time for comments. So first, I'm going to go to Mayor Hicks, who is joining us virtually, to make sure that she gets her voice in. It's a little harder when you're online. Mayor Hicks.

[02:49:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, do you have a question about, we reviewed our buffer, given, um, a lot of inputs, and this would be the buffer over our housing, our rena requirement of 11,000 plus units. Now, we also separate, sort of separately, have a number of builders remedy proposals that have come in, uh, some very recently. So I'm wondering, how many builders remedy units have been proposed so far, um, and whether this brings us even further above the buffer that we were shown, um, earlier on the presentation. And if so, approximately how much?

[02:50:08] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thanks for the question, Mayor Hicks, Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager. So it appears, and we did just receive a new application, and I will say that several of these applications, we have not yet confirmed that they are complete applications yet. So just with that caveat, we have applications totaling 589 lower income units, and I assume that's the buffer that you care most about, it's the lower income buffer. So adding 589 units, if you'll just give me 12nd, I can probably do that math and get right back to you.

[02:50:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Sure. Yeah. And you're right. We have, I mean, I'm interested in both. The, the, uh, market rate units and the low income units, but, um, but particularly, I mean, we have never passed had trouble producing market rate units. I think we did almost four times our requirement less during the last cycle. So I am, you're right, most concerned about the affordable units, although I have some concern about both.

[02:51:35] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I'm sorry, this might take another second, if you have other questions, feel free to ask.

[02:51:41] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'm just wondering about the process is, um, I, I really, um, just to, um, add my thanks to staff for all the work they did with our community groups, and also, uh, you know, community groups that stepped up, and, uh, and, uh, voiced their input. I'm wondering if HCD looks it. I know there are also some, um, of non local groups that have been weighing in, and I'm wondering whether HCD looks at those differently than the community groups. Um, are they, uh, you know, how, how are groups, say, based in San Francisco or somewhere else? Are they, um, seen as community input, or how are those weighed by HCD?

[02:52:34] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, I can't speak for HCD directly, but it certainly seems as though that they have given us feedback based on both local comments and out of town comments.

[02:52:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Um, Okay. I'm just curious about how the process plays out because I know it's changed over the years.

[02:53:30] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Do you have another question, Mayor Hicks?

[02:53:33] Mayor Alison Hicks: Actually, those were my two questions.

[02:53:35] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Well, then we'll just go ahead to council member Ramos, and we can get back when staff has had time to do those calculations, they'll get back to us with them, the year answer.

[02:53:47] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, I did, I did just finish them.

[02:53:50] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: All right. Good timing.

[02:53:52] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, so, it would probably be inappropriate to use 100% of the 1,500 shoreline count, because they've told us that they don't intend to start construction in within 8 years on all 2,200 units. So if we apply, say, a 50% reduction to that project, our new buffers would be 22% low, 11% moderate. The moderate actually goes down because we'd be recategorizing the shoreline site. 95% above moderate and 52% total.

[02:54:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you so much, and I'm sorry I asked such a hard question.

[02:54:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, actually, that's really a good one. I mean, I think we all care about that. So thanks for doing that math on the fly. Um, Council member Ramos.

[02:55:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Um, so we've had lots of discussion about whether we choose to wait till we're deemed substantially compliant, although the no additional comments feels good to me. Um, But that gives me some questions. There's a scenario for things. And the 1st indication of it, if the council should adopt the housing element here, and what would happen if a developer still tries to, um, submit a builder's remedy, uh, project, what is what will staff do?

[02:55:42] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So, um, applicants are free to submit preliminary applications. And so we would take in preliminary applications and review them for completeness. The compliance question under state law actually comes later. We don't necessarily have to deem a project compliant with all of our codes at the time of application. And so the scenario that you bring up, so say, you know, council adopts, and later on, say, HCD says, uh, no, there are still issues, then anybody who would have submitted a, um, a preliminary application at this time that would be vested um, under the, scenario of city not having a compliant housing element. However, if uh, later the HCD does certify, uh, then they would not be vested, and the city would be able to deny the project if it doesn't comply with those standards.

[02:56:59] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Ramirez.

[02:57:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor. A member of the public pointed out that there were 1000s of hours of time put into the document, and several 1000 of those were responding to my questions. So I apologize for burdening you, but I have a few more. I uh, I'll start with the hack letter. Um, I actually feel like reading their letter, many of their comments have been incorporated into the draft, but I wanted to check with staff to see if that's true. So there's a request for, um, essentially a financial feasibility analysis, uh, that takes into consideration. the cumulative impact of all city fees. And I think that's a component of the work that we're committing to, isn't that right?

[02:58:03] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, it is, although I believe the letter requested it earlier than what's in the draft. We are committing to doing that financial feasibility analysis, though.

[02:58:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes, with the updates to the parkland dedication in Luffy. Temporally, we're proposing to complete the Parkland Dedication and Luffy work 1st and then doing the financial feasibility analysis. Is that right?

[02:58:31] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: They could be concurrent. to bring them to bring them forward concurrently.

[02:58:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Oh, okay, so we are we're doing both of them. It sounds like in a time frame. We're not waiting for the park fee to be adopted before beginning the financial feasibility analysis.

[02:58:50] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, the financial feasibility analysis can help counsel inform counsel on fees to adopt.

[02:58:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Right. Well, I just want to, I'm sorry to be very pedantic about this, right? So there's the financial feasibility analysis pertaining to park fees, and then there's a separate financial feasibility analysis pertaining to the cumulative impact of all fees.

[02:59:14] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, the cumulative impact of all fees, that analysis is intended to assist counsel in adopting modifications to the parkland fee.

[02:59:27] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, thank you. That's helpful. Um, there was a request to uh, consider payment of impact fees at project occupancy. That's part of the revision, that staff alluded to in the presentation, right?

[02:59:41] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's right, yes.

[02:59:42] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, um, that's helpful. Thank you. And then you're right. One of the asks that we're not responsive too is, um, moving up the deadline for the financial financial feasibility analyses. What would be the trade-off if we were to do that soon?

[03:00:06] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I would just say that it would be redundant with the analysis that we've already conducted in the housing element. There's an analysis that we did with stifle that looked at the major contributors, a fees, what was actually moving the needle for developers on fees, you know, and that informed where we prioritized our fee reduction programs in the housing element. So we looked at all kinds of sources of fees and requirements and project timelines and anything that could contribute to developer costs in that analysis. But the the fee modifications themselves aren't proposed to be done until end of year 2025. That's the deadline. So it would be by then.

[03:01:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, but we could do that work earlier. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then I have a separate set of questions related to the builder's remedy. And we talked about this in the briefing, the annual performance or progress reports. So, um, we, as you had explained to me, we can't include, um, the pipeline projects that have already received a building permit in the 6th cycle annual progress reports, right?

[03:01:40] Unknown Speaker: Uh, that appears to be the case at this time, although, um, HCD puts out new guidance about how to do APRs all the time. So it could change, but that appears to be the case.

[03:01:55] Unknown Speaker: Okay, at least for now. Um, and then uh, one component of or one consequence of uh, not meeting the milestones in the APRs is, it affects the inclusionary requirement that's part of SB 35. Um, if we don't meet the milestones for the above moderate units, then the inclusionary component is only 10%, for instance. And you shared with me a number of units we have to issue building permits for each year to meet that milestone. And can you share with us what that number is?

[03:02:39] Unknown Speaker: To meet the milestone for above moderate. It's 4880 divided by eight, which is 610. 610 units per year.

[03:02:49] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: per year.

[03:02:50] Unknown Speaker: In the 5th cycle, roughly how many above moderate units did we permit per year?

[03:03:02] Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, can you provide the total of the last cycle?

[03:03:05] Unknown Speaker: We're looking that up.

[03:03:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thanks.

[03:03:09] Unknown Speaker: Okay. Um, and part of why I think that might be helpful is, um, underst- I mean, if we've met that historically, then we're on track, and if we haven't, then it would be helpful to understand how we can reach that milestone because that's a significant impact to us if we have the 10% inclusionary requirement for SB 35.

[03:03:31] Unknown Speaker: So we do have the number. It's actually just 20 lower than the arena. So, for this next cycle, 4,860.

[03:03:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So that would be close to...

[03:03:45] Unknown Speaker: Very, very close.

[03:03:48] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: And are we on track to meet that for, sorry? Sorry. Oh, well...

[03:03:53] Unknown Speaker: Well, so that would be over the last 8 years. So that would be the total. That would be the total.

[03:04:00] Unknown Speaker: Right. There's optimism that we will meet it for this coming cycle, then. based on historical performance.

[03:04:11] Unknown Speaker: Yes, keep in mind that the cycle that we're coming out of, we didn't have, you know, the East Wisman precise plan. We didn't have the North Bay Shore precise plan helping to contribute to our housing supply. So there's a lot of optimism, about being able to increase our housing output, based on those new precise plans alone.

[03:04:37] Unknown Speaker: Right. We also didn't have the Palmer fix, right? And we didn't have high construction costs and labor costs, right?

[03:04:46] Unknown Speaker: So it's, I think hopefully a mix of these things will help us continue that performance.

[03:04:51] Unknown Speaker: Um, That's everything for now. Thank you.

[03:04:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Council member Mattachek.

[03:04:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thanks. Um, a couple questions. Um, I know you can't speak for HCD, but, um, do you have any indication or evidence of how they handle public input when it is, um, the opposite of other public input they've received?

[03:05:21] Unknown Speaker: We've definitely seen them respond more readily to some public input more than others. And I think the trend that we've seen is, if it's related to engagement or outreach, they are very quick to respond. So they were, they definitely responded very strongly to one comment that said that a, you know, Spanish speakers were, didn't have enough time to review the document and didn't have the, you know, staff exposing them to the document, you know, adequately enough to provide feedback. That was something that they definitely responded strongly too. They also respond to technical comments. So there, you know, they have a technical job, which is to ensure compliance with state law. And so they are they do tend to respond to those. Other than that, you know, certainly they have a, a, mandate from the legislature to increase housing supply and achieve other goals laid out in for housing elements in general. And so they do respond to those comments that provide that general direction. I think that's the best kind of general comments that I can provide about what we've seen.

[03:07:05] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And then, well, how does, like, staff incorporate public input, whether or not it goes directly to HCD. You know, because I'm assuming staff is getting input that HCD might not be getting. But you'd probably also gotten all the input HCD has. So are you incorporating, um, or considering input that HCD doesn't have? And then are they potentially commenting on that and pushing back or?

[03:07:33] Unknown Speaker: No, they don't push back on particular public comment. What we have heard from them is that, over the last 3 months, we were strongly encouraged by them to respond to and address public comment that they had received that concerned them regarding meeting the goals of housing element law. and outreach. So public comment that we have received that, as you said, goes in a different direction. Um, We certainly listen to and look for opportunities to integrate into the housing element without, um, uh, kind of interfering with that overall direction from HCD.

[03:08:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. Um, let's see. And then if it's, as we progress through this over the next 8 years, if there is a project that when we really get into it, it turns out that it's not feasible or it needs to be substantially different, but might accomplish the same thing, but or maybe it can't be accomplished. Um, what are the implications of that?

[03:09:11] Unknown Speaker: Assistant community development director, do you want to take this one?

[03:09:21] Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chan: Thank you, council member. Just so that I understand, you're asking, what if we're not able to specifically achieve certain programs? Or if it turns out the program is different than maybe what the details are in the housing element?

[03:09:37] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah.

[03:09:38] Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chan: You know, I think we're going to have to continue having a dialogue with ATD. Um, you know, there's no there's no preclusion from cities going back to ACD and saying, you know, we found a better way to do something and achieve a goal. We might want to amend something. Um, if it's non-substantive, they may let us do it, as long as it's a way to achieve the same thing. So I think we're gonna have to continue the dialogue. Um, I haven't personally done it as part of a housing element. I don't believe the city's done it in the past, but this is an ambitious program, and we know it's gonna be watched over the 8 years, and, uh, you know, we're gonna have to see what happens.

[03:10:23] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, so if and if it can't be achieved, you would follow the same process and contact HCD and have a discussion with them. Um,

[03:10:32] Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chan: you know, our goal is to work on it, but if for some reason, it doesn't happen, um, uh, then, yes, we would probably, there'll be guidance probably issued by ACD, because many cities will be asking that, and, um, we would, we would connect with ACD. But we also will be looking for guidance about, you know, what does new state law do? Currently, there's nothing specific that says, you know, if you don't specifically comply with every program, there's a punitive measure. SP 35 is an example. of if you don't achieve targets in the arena. But we do know that ACD has is a lot more vigilant now, and they respond to complaints. So we do expect a lot of attention on the programs.

[03:11:26] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. It's for me.

[03:11:33] Unknown Speaker: Well, I will take a turn. Mostly, I just want to confirm some things that, as I understand it, you have incorporated into the housing element. But we've got, we had con, you know, we had con, uh, comments about it, and I just want to make sure that, that, um, we have that straight. The first one is about the designated staff in each department that works on affordable housing. There was some confusion about what was meant, and... So, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how you expect that to work.

[03:12:13] Unknown Speaker: So we recognized that there was a little bit of confusion in that language, and so the document that we provided today, um, at, uh, here does include some minor text amendments, uh, to help clarify that, and we're really focusing on training. Uh, so we are, uh, our program, uh, stipulates that we will train staff that are, uh, involved in review of affordable housing projects, staff in all departments. That way, there's no confusion around the language around designating a particular person, what that means to their other workload or anything like that. It's really about training and making sure that the people who are working on these projects are well informed.

[03:13:03] Unknown Speaker: And also, I would hope that, you know, it would be made kind of clear to everybody in the department who had been trained.

[03:13:10] Unknown Speaker: Yes. So people wouldn't...

[03:13:12] Unknown Speaker: That would be be clear as well.

[03:13:13] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, okay, that's great. I think that that may be very helpful. Okay, and then another one, I just would like to kind of confirm, is, is the request for the Mountain View Solidarity Foundation, about, um, uh, the, um, explicitly naming ownership of housing and and community land trust as something we're going to be working on. And they had a goal of five buildings, 15. 50 units, and $10 million. And I under of affordable housing fees that would go toward that. And I understood that that had been included. Is that correct?

[03:13:50] Unknown Speaker: So a couple of things that you mentioned that are not included, the $10 million is not from affordable housing funds. It's funds that we will assist with in finding from foundation partnerships. I believe we have the, and maybe, I'll defer to the assistant community development director, on where we ended up on everything, but I believe we have the $10 million in the 50 units. We aren't specific about the number of buildings in the program. And then, of course, we have our community ownership action plan, which is a process that we're going to go through to develop the city's role in helping to get these community ownership models on their feet.

[03:14:51] Unknown Speaker: And generally, what's the time span on that?

[03:15:01] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, but so specifically for the community ownership action plan, that's the program that will kind of start everything else. Um, that is slated to be January uh, June 30th, uh, 2025.

[03:15:15] Unknown Speaker: So that would that would be when we had finished it or when we started?

[03:15:18] Unknown Speaker: When we finish. These are different.

[03:15:20] Unknown Speaker: Oh good. okay All right. And this is for the community ownership. action plan. All right. Thank you.

[03:15:28] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: You meant anything, Mr. Chen? Yeah, Mr. Chen, would you like to add something?

[03:15:35] Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chan: Good evening, thank you very much. Assistant Community Development Director Wayne Chan, I think Eric and Ellen covered it well. We are looking at $10 million in supporting funding partnerships. 50 units, not specific to buildings because we cannot predict what kind of buildings might be up for sale, but there is an inclusion of focusing on a variety of units. We have worked on getting the date down to a June 30th completion of a community ownership action plan, which would still have implementation items that would follow it, that would create the framework for a program that could allow for a variety of opportunities and organizations to participate, that could achieve the community ownership goals. So I think Eric and Ellen covered it well to some a bit of additional detail there.

[03:16:28] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think that's really very exciting. I mean, it seemed like we, well, it wasn't community ownership, but we haven't had many, um, as many projects where we rehabilitated existing structures. I know that Marcy Freeland was a huge one, many years ago, but that's kind of our landmark one, but that hasn't been as common since then. But it does seem like it's something that has a lot of promise. So I'm glad to see that. Okay. And then my other question was going to be, what's the downside of okaying the housing element tonight? But you've gone over that in detail? So thank you very much. And, um, just kind of last call for council questions.

[03:17:09] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, so then, I think that we'll move to, um, the deliberate, oh. Okay, we'll move to the discussion, and we're going to start with Mayor Hicks.

[03:17:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: That's a couple blocks away from us. Thank you. Uh, thank you. So, I am, I'm assuming that, um, we're gonna pass this tonight. And so, I would like to start our discussion off by start with that assumption. Um, can staff put up the, uh, gonna re make a motion, um, but can you put up the... I think the motion that I have in the agenda flow. I think the one you put up has been modified since then. So, um, you can put up the one that you would like us to actually pass that would be helpful. And while you're doing that, I'll say that, um, you know, there are things I love about this housing element and things that concern me. Um, but above all, I, you know, things I love are like the, the community controlled housing, the community opportunity to purchase, addressing some of the mobile home communities, concerns, um, and, um, and also the, the live work, opportunities. It's a small project in the housing element, but I like that one. And I'm a little concerned about, kind of, our park crisis, uh, that we have, uh, with, we have, um, threats to a number of art parks, and we are reducing park fees at the same time. But if we can figure that all out and some other things. So, overall, I think it's great, and I'm going to move to adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, amending the general plan to update the housing element of the general plan for the period of 2023 to 2031 in substantial compliance with state housing element law, with the recommended amendments regarding emergency shelters, parkland fees, paid at occupancy, affordable housing, Streamlining, and additional non vacant sites analysis. Thank you. And now I look for a second.

[03:20:06] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Can hear you Mayor Hicks, are you done with your comments?

[03:20:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, I am.

[03:20:12] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Very good. All right, so let's move on to council member Ramirez.

[03:20:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll start by saying, thank you to staff. I know this was very challenging work. And the evidence I'll share to demonstrate just how challenging it is. The deadline was January 31st. There are 109 jurisdictions in A Bag, the 9 County Bay Area, and 15 of those 109 have compliant housing elements. This is much more challenging than it ever has been. This cycle is just orders of magnitude, more difficult. And I think we've all struggled with that. We've had moving goalposts, changing guidance from HCD. Um, and I think, uh, uh, very ambitious community in council. And I'm grateful to you for doing the work to get us where we are. I'm very excited about the document. I think this is a terrific plan to address the housing needs of our community, and I'm looking forward to implementing it over the next 8 years. I'll share too. You know, uh, we're a little behind an A bag in this, uh, Skag jurisdiction, Southern California. There are 197 jurisdictions. Their deadline was October 2021. And of those 19797 are compliant. Not even 50%. Um, so every jurisdiction is struggling with this. And I'm optimistic that we'll be among the 1st to actually have a compliant document within the ABAG jurisdictions. So, thank you for your persistence. I also want to thank the members of the community who have been deeply engaged in this, and especially to those organizations that have sent letters of support to each CD. I continue to believe that that's going to be, uh, a secret to success, um, for our community, um, and something that I think other jurisdictions will discover soon enough that they actually have to work with their community groups and residents to build support. And once HCD has seen local support for those housing elements, especially from the community groups that represent the folks who are most acutely impacted by the housing, the housing crisis, I think, we'll start seeing greater compliance across the state of California. There are just a couple of other things I wanted to note or suggest, we had, in nonagenda public comment, a representative from next door solutions, suggesting that we might partner with them to provide housing options for survivors of domestic violence. That's already in the program. So I don't think there's a whole heck of a lot we'll need to do, but if we haven't engaged next door, it might be a good idea to see what they have in mind and if that's consistent with the work that we're already planning to do. Um, I did want to suggest a friendly amendment with the, um, support of the, the maker of the motion. I think the SB 9 and EDU program is very strong. One of the things I think we ought to explore if it's not already explicitly referenced in, in the language is something akin to what the city of San Jose has. It's an EDU ally program. And I use it all the time to provide constituent support, but essentially anybody can send an email to adu.ally at sanjoseca.gov with a request for a status update or some assistance. How do I comply with the regulations? And it's, they're very responsive, they're very helpful. I don't think we necessarily have the staff capacity to have a person dedicated to that role, and we probably don't have the volume of applications to justify it. But something like that. A simple email address that's an applicant, you know, trying to build an ADU or an SB9 development, can use as a resource, I think, would go along way in helping, most folks who are doing that kind of development are not terribly savvy. They don't have landese consultants. They don't have a lot of capital. So that kind of resource, I think, would be very valuable for our residents. So, Mayor Hicks, if you're comfortable with that as a friendly amendment, that would be what I would suggest.

[03:24:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: I will accept that friendly amendment.

[03:24:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. And then one thing for consideration of the full council. I asked the question about whether we can elevate the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance from its currently March 2025 to December 2024. I support doing that. But it does come with a trade-off, right? That means we're delaying some of the trail review. And so if I'm not going to support that, I'm not going to float that as a friendly amendment, but if there's support for that change, I just wanted to share, I would be comfortable with making that change. Thank you.

[03:25:37] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Very good. Um, I think, uh, council member Ramos is next. Excuse me, council member, Ramos, council member, Kamai, would like to ask a question.

[03:25:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Sorry. So, I just had a clarifying question about the friendly amendment and its adoption. So what does that truly mean? Do we have to change anything in the housing element? Is this just, like, would a... Can we clarify what that means? Because I think you acknowledge that we don't have the staff capacity to do that. You just want it to be called out? Some clarity on that would be great. And it moved swiftly. So I just want to make sure that I fully understand what I'm voting for.

[03:26:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure, yeah. I would suggest it be scoped by staff, but essentially, a resource like an email address for a resident who's struggling to get an ADU or SB9 development could send an email just saying, I need some help. And that way, we would be able to have a very easy resource that residents can access. I think In concept, I support the idea. I do know that I believe as part of our budget process, CDD will be splitting, and we will have our own called out housing division and department, and I wonder if in that shift, this could be something that they could work on and staff could give council feedback on, how they'd like to implement that. I see that as something that might kind of organically happen anyways. But I, you know, I just wanted to put that out there because we are going to see changes. But I wouldn't want anything else to hold up, how the element going forward, and I don't know if it's as simple as creating an email address, you know, I just was like trying to get a little clarity on that.

[03:27:35] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Could I comment on that? Vice mayor? Um, I, I, like the idea. Um, there's actually, um, through the cities association, we, uh, commissioned a planning collaborative that's been helping all the cities with some of the test technical aspects of the housing element. One of the programs that they are proposing is an ADU assistance program, and they're actually building a website where people can go and they can like even download already, um, uh, approve plans, you know, building plans and whatnot. So it's happening at that level and we're a part of that. Mountain View is a part of that. So I don't know if we need this, you know, I don't think I think we need to specify right now what that should be, but that, you know, there are options here and we're part of it. So I think continuing to support that would be, you know, what I would suggest we do. So I wouldn't necessarily want to decide to tonight what that should be because there are these programs that are being built right now.

[03:28:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: The city manager, uh, would like to say something. Go to that.

[03:28:59] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Yes, thank you, vice mayor and council members, Kamea and Ramirez. So right now, we are currently building a new development review website right now that's part of one of the things that we're doing with our new website launch. I think it's very, um, probably easy to create a web address, like a help customer service address where people could email any questions about whether it's ADUs or SB 90 applications, and we can create that sort of portal. It's similar, it sounds like to me, what you're talking about is an ask MV type of similar request, but more pointed to where it would go to someone who would receive those emails. So we do that very frequently with a lot of our projects. So I think that's something that I can speak with the community development director about, and we can incorporate that as part of our Matrix review. And we can see where it'll fit in with the new website for the development review process.

[03:30:05] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. So does that mean we don't really need to put it in here, or does that mean putting it in here is no problem? Or both?

[03:30:14] Unknown Speaker: I would ask our planning staff if adding this now is substantive enough to have a delay, or if it's something we can just incorporate administratively. It could be just direction to staff. We believe the way city manager McCarthy spoke about it can be implemented. So if it's included in your emotion, that we generally find a way to make it easier, we will also connect with planning collaborative, I think just creating a resource. That would make it generic enough and we would find a way to incorporate that. So you could leave it in the motion, but keep it generic. Does that sound good?

[03:31:02] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. I'm fine with that. And the maker of the friendly amendment is fine, I suppose.

[03:31:11] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, he he signaled his approval. Okay, so now I think we're back to Council member Ramos. Hooray.

[03:31:25] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So I'll start with thank you, staff, for your work in this very long process. Very, um, arduous process. Um, uh, this is, I'm actually super excited because this is my 1st time that I get to vote on the housing element stuff. Um, um, But I followed it very closely, and I followed, um, other cities very closely on how they have, um, uh, adopted or, uh, chose not to adopt or submitted, and certain bailings, certain winds, um, watched it all throughout our county. There is actually no jurisdiction in our county right now that has a compliant, like a, sorry, a certified housing element. We have one jurisdiction that got a letter from HCD saying that they were substantially compliant. I am super jealous. Um, I'm super jealous of some of the, um, the cities that got it the 1st time around. But I think we got to a great place in the end. We got to a place where our community pushed through, supported and really rallied around really strong programs. Um, I think, also, the fact that Mountain View is already working on so many wonderful programs and made so many decisions in the past, and it was the past leadership of this council, and even before most of us, some of these decisions, were, um, some of the decisions that affected this housing element, were made, when the general plan was adopted, uh, at least this one, back in 2012, and only one of us was here at the time. time So thank you for your forward thinking on that. Council member Robbie Koga. You're on there. back then, right?

[03:33:19] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Yes. So, um, uh, one of the things that that I encourage us as we look at, um, what goes into housing element, what doesn't go into the housing element. Um, is that take credit for the work that we are doing. So, like, if we are already doing something like the ADU project, put it in because that will bring us just one more bit closer to addressing our housing needs, which is the primary goal of the housing element, finding ways to address our housing needs, whether it's the arena goals, whether it's a firm really furthering for housing, whether it is finding ways to prevent displacement in our communities, those goals are aligned with our city and they are aligned with our housing element. Mountain View is a pro housing community. And I'm so excited to have a housing element that reflects that. I have a level, I've spoken to staff about this, the level of anxiety, of adopting the housing element before we get that official letter saying we're substantially compliant. The no additional comments makes me feel a little better. feel much better. Um, and then the answer is about how we handle builders remedy applications also. Makes me feel much better. Um, I am inclined to support our housing element and adopt it, and thank you to all the community groups who have really pushed and really, um, found ways to engage with our staff, engage with our neighbors, engage with the opportunities that staff have provided us, and and sought out opportunities of their own to engage, uh, which HED, with, uh, our city and HCD, to, to make the best housing element that we can put through. Um, So thank you very much to staff. I think those are all my comments on that.

[03:35:30] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Great. Thank you. Council member Kamei.

[03:35:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thanks so much. Um, I just want to thank staff. We received an email that said, um, that the housing element we see before us tonight was a Herculean effort, and I truly believe that I've ceded in the last 2 years in terms of the large community, um, input, kind of the widening and broadening of the of the stakeholder, um, groups. And I can see it even in how we received our staff report today, which was in 3 different languages. And it makes me so, um, it does make me feel like we embrace in Mountain View, the community for all, and you're seeing that in our housing element. And I know that staff did go above and beyond to engage with our different community groups, also reaching out to both our Spanish and our Mandarin leadership academies to also educate about the process. And I hope that we continue to do that as, hopefully, the housing element gets adopted so people can know what's going on in their community in language. I think that's been really critical. The only other thing that I'd like to call out that hasn't already been mentioned by my colleagues was one of the things we've talked about, maybe not as frequently as we've been focusing on the pandemic, but our middle income housing. And the numbers, I understand where they are, and I understand kind of the distribution. But one of the things that council had adopted, I believe, 4 years ago was, you know, a middle income housing program, we're looking at our displacement strategy. And I want to just continue to be able to kind of surface that dialogue and conversation. We were recently at the groundbreaking for 777. And I think we hear from our teachers and others who are above the 120% AMI, and I just want to make sure that they're still part of the conversation and we are thinking of them as well. And then in terms of the shelters, both for our own house and those that may be experiencing domestic violence. I know that there are a lot of different community partners and so wouldn't want to just limit ourselves to one that gave public comment today, but I do know, for example, my tree focuses on South Asian women. Um, and I think that there are many different, um, partners and so I would like to be able to incorporate all, um, as we move forward. So I'll be supporting the motion and appreciate the mayor and council member Ramirez, enabling me to ask the question. I know that staff is always a step ahead of counsel. So they're already doing it. And it's great to hear that city's association is putting together a program. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:38:24] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Um, Councilman member, Abbe Koka.

[03:38:27] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Um, I just want to echo the thanks, um, to, especially staff, for this incredible, um, effort, uh, I, you know, I definitely uh, want to thank uh, the community. It's been it's been a real collaborative effort on many friends. Um, but definitely just that staff. Thank you for your hard work for staying on this. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's been a process that has, um, evolved for time and I still don't know if HCD really knew what they were doing. I don't think they did. I think it's been iterative. And that's only half less than half of Southern California cities have been approved and we don't have. I think we have seven, I believe, that are in the process of getting certified up here. All I remember is that I think it's San Leandro that has one as a certified housing element. But I totally approve or support moving ahead and adopting this. I think that will speed up the process. And it's been interesting because I didn't really understand the different states, status, or states that cities were in. I, um, get where we get at my, the Bay Area housing finance authority meetings that I have monthly now is went from quarterly monthly. We do get updates on where cities are. And that's when I started understanding, you know, cities that have adopted versus cities that have been certified versus cities that have just submitted. And I did start hearing more cities that went ahead and adopted the elements without certification, but it seemed to be a good move to just try to speed things up. So I think this is a good approach. And then it does answer to the builder's remedy projects. I think, more, it gives us more clarity on that. I did want to mention that, um, you know, and this has come up at our Baffa meetings by other members, how the housing element, the arena process has been, um, you know, perhaps, uh, productive for, um, enabling market rate housing development. But the reality is, is that there isn't much that has been done through this process to enable how affordable housing development because the resources are what's needed. And I, you know, I fully acknowledge that we are working on that with this potential, no potential regional housing, um, ballot initiative measure that we've continued to work on. And there's a lot riding on that, frankly. Should that not pass? Um, that's gonna be a real, it's gonna, you know, really put this all into question, I believe. So, um, you know, the measure is looking at 10 to $15000000000, I believe, in in funding. Um, but frankly, even that maybe covers half of what is needed in the Bay Area, if that, if even that. So this is going to be a challenge, regardless, to actually build the affordable units. But at least at this point, we can say as a city that we've fulfilled our requirements, hopefully when we get certified. And then, you know, it will be up to, frankly, the state and the region to come up with the resources to make this all happen. Um, I, you know, I will mention in terms of the housing preservation, um, piece. There is a pilot project now that would allow for community land trust to apply for. There's a little bit of funding, $15 million, not a whole lot. And I thought it was really interesting because originally the staff had excluded public agencies like cities or school districts to apply for the funding, but we actually decided to recommend that publications in partnership with affordable housing developers could apply for these money. So, um, I think there was some question about whether public agencies would have the, um, the experience to do, to, you know, build to do these types of projects. And so that's why the requirement for partnership. Um, So, um, yeah, I just thought that was an interesting discussion that we had there. But, um, again, I think, um, you know, I just want to thank staff, thank everyone involved in this process. I'm excited that we will be able to adopt it this evening and we will stay tuned to see what happens next. Thanks.

[03:43:41] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. Council member Mattachek.

[03:43:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I will add my thanks, along with those of my colleagues, to staff, for the work on this document. Uh, I think, you know, on the, I guess this is my 7th year. Um, I think this is the biggest project that I can recall, um, staff working on, and I'm sure it was not easy and has been very time consuming. So thank you very much for all of the work you've put into it. I appreciate it. I do have concerns about this housing element, and I think I've shared, you know, with some of you. You know, I'm not convinced that this is really reflective of what the community is looking for. I've certainly heard from a lot of residents, had conversations with them. Um, and they are concerned about the, uh, Rina number that we've been given. They wanted to protest it. And they are not supportive of the, um, a lot of the programs that are in this housing element. You know, and they, and I guess I can't disagree with them. It feels like this is more reflective of, um, a group of incredibly organized, funded, um, advocacy groups that, um, either have members from Mountain View, or, in the case of some that we've heard about, don't have residents from Mountain View. And that's concerning to me because it feels like this should be really based upon, um, what our residents want and not what, um, other groups might want Mountain View to do. And, you know, as many have said, we are a leader in housing. It seems like we should have been able to do this without so much churn, because we are good players in this area. You know, I do have some specific concerns. I think one of the programs, by having projects administratively approved, or ministerially approved. That reduces public input. And that concerns me. The ZA meetings are held at a time when a lot of people can't attend, and, um, I think our residents frankly want the council to approve projects. They're used to this format, and it would be a change that would make it more challenging. I also have heard quite a bit about the change to include the back pocket sites and the inventory. And a lot of folks did not want to do that. I think it limits some of our future flexibility, which concerns me. Um, I'm very concerned about the workload of all of these programs on staff. We have had a challenge. We've had quite a few retirements. We've had people leave for other reasons, and it's very challenging to recruit folks in this current environment. And I feel like this is very... Well, this is a lot of work, and I don't know how staff is going to accomplish all of this. You know, even when you hire a lot of consultants, you still have to manage those consultants. It's not like you can just let them work on their own. Um, you know, it's not lost on me that, uh, there's a good reason to have a compliant housing element. We certainly, I certainly don't want to see a lot of builders remedy projects. Um, and, um, so I'm kind of conflicted here because, um, I have major concerns about this housing element, and I'm struggling to support it. But, um, I also see that there are some benefits um, of doing so. Thanks.

[03:48:07] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, well, I'll take a turn before we go to the vote. I'm really quite supportive of this housing element. I think that, as has been said, we've come to a good place. And we are a, um, you know, a housing supportive community. And I think that this housing element reflects it. I know when I worked on the housing element in the '90s when I was on the planning commission, it was a different animal. I mean, basically it was a paper exercise. There wasn't any teeth to it at all. You know, you got your inventory together. I mean, it was a lot of work, even then, because you had to think about, you know, where could the additional zoning take place? And we took it seriously. But even so, we knew that there were no real, you know, there were no penalties associated with not carrying it through. Well, you know, things have changed, and I think that the, um, the pretty much every, every day, we look at the newspaper, and there's another article about the housing crisis, either on the front page of the local news or the front page of the, you know, the front page. And it's just gotten to be a very huge problem in our society. And so this is a way, I think, that the state is responding, is basically, this is a way that they can reach every community in California, through their general plan. And so they are, you know, they are implementing this policy that has been very difficult for many local municipalities to implement. We have not been one of those municipalities. We have actually built a lot of housing, but, you know, we're kind of an outline. there. So, this is a very, very different process than what we've done before, and consequently, there's been a lot of learning required. And I think there's been learning on the part of, certainly, a lot of council members, and lots of learning and very deep knowledge on the part of the staff. And that is much appreciated. And I think the other message about this is that we don't really know how different the reporting is going to be. And that's something we're just, you know, we will evolve with that and respond as needed. So, um, uh, I'm, you know, I'm very proud that we're here, but I just don't want to think that because we pass this, and even if we are compliant, um, there's still a lot of work. As you mentioned, there's a lot of work related to this. There really is. And I would say that one of the concerns that I do have associated with this is with the ministerial approvals. And the reason I have some misgivings about that is because some of our precise plans are fairly up to date, and some of them are really outdated. And I think there could be instances where, you know, in an outdated precise plan, we, you know, we would be upset that something could go through ministerially. So I think what that says to me is not that we shouldn't pass this housing element tonight, but that it's something in the future, we need to really give serious thought to, is how do we keep our precise plans, you know, up to date. And, um, uh, I know the next one we're gonna be working on is the downtown plan. That's great. That's a very important one, but it's not the only one. So that's my only major misgiving, and I think we'll deal with it in the future as we go forward. So with that, I'd like to, you know, I think we've all had a chance to say our, you know, give our comments and our thanks, and, um, it's time for a vote. So, um, I would like to ask the clerk to do a roll call.

[03:52:39] Unknown Speaker: Mayor Hicks.

[03:52:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:52:43] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramirez?

[03:52:44] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[03:52:45] Unknown Speaker: Council member, Abbe Coca?

[03:52:47] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Hi.

[03:52:47] Unknown Speaker: Council member Kame?

[03:52:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:52:49] Unknown Speaker: Council member Mattachek?

[03:52:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: No.

[03:52:52] Unknown Speaker: Council member Ramos?

[03:52:54] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[03:52:55] Unknown Speaker: Vice Mayor Show Wilter?

[03:52:56] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: An enthusiastic, yes.

[03:52:58] Unknown Speaker: The amended motion carries 6 one.

[03:53:04] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Well, very good. Thanks, everybody. This is a really important, um, really important program. And, uh, we will all be chomping at the bit to hear any comments that you get from HCD. Please send out any good news instantaneously. We all want to hear. Well, bad news, too, yes. Okay. So that brings us to, what's usually item eight, but tonight, it's item seven. Uh, council and committee staff reports. And who would like to go first? Um, Council member Kameh.

[03:53:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. I just wanted to report that last night, we had our hybrid, um, council transportation committee meeting, um, and just want to thank staff for enabling us to do that. There's really exciting things that will be coming to council shortly. Thank you.

[03:54:04] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Excellent. Council member Abi Koga.

[03:54:07] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Last week, I had the opportunity I was invited to speak on our guaranteed basic income pilot program to a couple of groups, the livable Sunnyvale group, which is a grassroots organization and invited me, Sunnyvale, I guess, as considering a GBI pilot program as well. So they had asked about what our program was like. And then I participated in the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation, Community Conversation, and was on a panel there. And that was, actually, was on the piano with Alicia Barrigan, who is one of the administrators at CSA for the program. And it was very interesting because she was able to share some of the stories of the, um, some of the participants and how the funding is being used and how um, folks are able to improve their lives. So that was really exciting and interesting to hear. And then I wanted to, you know, I couldn't participate in the earlier consent item, but I thought I, if I could share some backstory on the transit oriented communities, policies that that PDA, the PDA grants are based on. That was a policy that we passed or MTC passed. I actually abstained from the vote. And the reason why was there are many... Oh, number one, I had some concerns because I felt that there was a lack of input from the cities. when I had asked what the process was. I was told they had one meeting with planning directors and then that was and then that was it. They went and they had published a newsletter monthly to keep cities updated. So there was no actual outreach to every single city, which, you know, 101 cities might be a lot, but I know our staff reached out to 11,000 businesses when we were doing our, I believe, the housing element. So there was that issue of just lack of public input. And then when the vote came up, you know, I just had concerns. The 1st one was that there's an, and I think you saw it, the FAR 88 FAR for commercial development was a big, you know, flag for me, and I had asked, well, what about cities like us that are jobs rich, and, you know, we have, and their response was that, well, some cities need the commercial development, and that's why they included that. And then when it came to the vote, Well, number one, I personally was not informed, like this had been going on for 2 years, but I'm not on the committee that goes through, looked at the policy, so it came to me, you know, a week prior when we got our agenda packet. And so I wasn't briefed on it, but the challenge, then I learned that there was a carve out, there is a carve out for cities, I think, of 30,000 people or less, are exempted from these policy requirements. And so what it ended up doing, my perspective was it put middle cities, medium-sized cities like us, lumped together with the larger cities. And the, you know, question, the concern I have is we just, you know, a city our size, we don't have this kind of land, and it's very different from, you know, Mountain View is very different from San Jose, Oakland or San Francisco. And so for many reasons, and, you know, staff had, has, it's interesting because I think after we passed the policy, staff was asked for input and staff heads provided input on some of the challenges that these policies pose. And so, um, for those reasons, um, when I could not support the policies, um, maybe in concept, but there are just too many issues. And so the PDA really is, I believe, to drive these policies to fruition. And so, um, they're very clear that they want to make sure that these policies happen, and the PDA grant funding is their way to try to attract or gain interest by cities. So, um, that's, I just wanted to share that background, um, and some of the politics around this in terms of how this policy was passed, um, especially in terms of the carve outs for smaller cities, which make up about 75% of the Bay Area cities. So by doing that, I think they were able to gain support. And, you know, I continue to bring up the issue of, you know, no, one size doesn't fit all in medium-sized cities like us. We have unique characteristics different from larger cities. So I just wanted to share that. Sorry for being a little long, but I thought it was important to share. Thanks.

[03:59:24] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. That was very interesting. Okay, Council member Mattachek.

[03:59:28] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: I also participated in the council transportation committee meeting last night, and, as council member Kumei said, there's lots of interesting projects coming our way, the CTC is actually going to have 4 meetings this year. Because as public works director Cameron said, We're back on track. We got things moving. And there's a lot of stuff coming our way. Thank you.

[03:59:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay, I see Mayor Hicks has her hands raise. And then I have some things to share.

[03:59:59] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah, so you may have noticed I, or inferred that I caught COVID a little while ago. I packed LOVID and got well, and then am now experiencing a rebound. But in that brief period of wellness, I was able to make a couple of talks as mayor. The 1st was with the Mountain View Los Altos Community Foundation. Um, I was on a panel along with Tom Myers of the community service. agency, and we talked about community vibrancy. which means different things to different people, but, uh, as a retired city planner, it's an important concept, um, talking about public places, and being able to get out and, uh, and, uh, meet each other and not be, um, sort of in our rooms all the time. Um, I also, uh, talked, spoke to, did a mayor's address to the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Um, uh, And, uh, in attendance was council member Knee. I talked about a number of things, but one of the things I talked about was, um, spending housing, how we serve housing vulnerable people, people living in vehicles, and, um, Mayor Lisa Gautier, um, who also attended that meeting, said, We have a lot in common. She's mayor of East Palo Alto. We have a lot in common, and we should talk. They also have a parking program. And I also attended the, uh, the council transportation committee for the 1st time, and, yes, thank you for allowing me to attend remotely.

[04:01:54] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Now, I have a few things I'd like to share too. I know it's getting late, but, um... So, I attended a BCDC meeting last Thursday, and, um, it was an all day BCDC meeting, um, but I'm not gonna talk to you all, you know, that long. The first part was we were briefed about the expected cost to provide sea level rise protections for the entire Bay Area. One of the things I'd kind of forgotten is that a third of the coast of California is inside San Francisco Bay. But two thirds of the cost of sea level rise protections will be need to be spent here in San Francisco Bay. The staggering cost, it's good we're all sitting down is $110 billion by 2050. That is a lot of money. In Santa Clara County, it was divided by county, and it's expected that we'll need to spend about $8 billion, and you've heard quite a bit about how we're working on that. At the same time, though, that we learned about how much it costs to protect ourselves, we also got a figure that I think is really interesting about what the expected damage is if we don't protect ourselves. And I think that's, you know, it's one of those things, you know, there are problems associated with not having the sea level rise protection, because flooding is very destructive. And the dollar amount that they have come up with damages expected, by 2050, is $230 billion. in the Bay area. So more than twice the amount of the cost of the protection methodology. So, bottom line, it's an investment we need to make, as a region, as a community, it's really a eustatic problem, but right now, we're gonna, you know, worry about our region. And of course, we don't know where all that funding is going to come from. But it certainly reinforce my view that we in Mountain View need to be responsible about funding our share of it here. So you know, I just wanted to mention that. And then in the afternoon, it was a little cheerier, we talked... We taught one of the things that we talked about was dredging. And you, you might not know that dredging is really something I'm, I get very excited about, and that's because it's a source of dirt that's used for restoration projects. And, um, we're going to need a lot of dirt to restore the marshes around the San Francisco Bay that really are our best natural protection against sea level rise. And right now, the way that the system works is the things that the dredging that is done to maintain the shipping channels that we'd like to have, we don't have too many, but we have a few. Most, over, 60 to 70% of that dirt is just barged out to the Farallon Islands and dumped. And that is not what anybody would call a beneficial use. So there has been a bit, you know, an uproar in the environmental community, really, over the last 15 years, that's finally coming to fruition to get the Army Corps of Engineers to really, uh, just, uh, concentrate on increasing the amount of beneficial reuse. And so there's going to be a pilot project that will start, hopefully, in September, that will use dredged materials will be deposited just off the shore of Hayward, and then the currents, and the tide will take that sediment in, hopefully, to the marsh that's adjacent to that. And the reason that's so important, to try this method is because most of the bay is really, really shallow. I mean, pretty much everything below the Dunbarton Bridge is everywhere less than 10 feet, and a lot of it's just 2 to 6 feet. So that means there are not very many boats or big barges you can get in here to bring that dredge material. So we would like to figure out ways to have Mother Nature help us to do that. So that's why I'm excited about that. Okay, next thing, I wanted to share that this is a follow up of our quarterly meeting, that we had at Moffat. We got an invitation today from Major General Miles A. Davis. He's the commanding general of the 63rd Readiness Division, and he cordially invites us to attend the 63rd Division's 80th birthday celebration, which is on Friday, the 9th of June at the 63rd Readiness Division headquarters. And hopefully, the clerk will help us respond, keep track of those invitations. And then the other thing I wanted to bring up is just that incredible windstorm we had a couple weeks ago. I was just floored by all the trees that went down. It seemed like, you know, there we were the weekend before, we'd had this great Arbor Day celebration where we were all excited about all of these additional trees. We were planting, and then we had the windstorm, and it knocked out. You know, I don't know how many more trees than we were planning. But I think that it's something that we should be looking into. So that's something I wanted to bring to everyone's attention. Could we ask the parks department, or, or the, to, um, make an assessment of how many trees were lost, and what we could do to, um, uh, uh, get more trees planted? I think this is a particularly good year to be planting trees, because we have a great water supply. So anyway, I just wondered what other people think about that. Is that something that you'd be interested in? Okay. I'm seeing noddingheads? Okay. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor.

[04:08:20] Unknown Speaker: We can prepare an off agenda memo. Let you all know what the storm impacts are, how many trees were lost, what we're doing to mitigate it, and just give a general update on what our community services staff is doing.

[04:08:32] Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, I know that we thank them the meeting afterwards. But there was so much debris all over the place. That staff has just been working diligently ever since then, the cleanup storm. So please pass along that we really appreciate that efforts.

[04:08:54] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah. Okay. Does anybody else have anything we want to share? Okay, well, with that, I will adjourn this... Uh, closed session report. Whoops. I should have looked at the. Do we have a closed session report?

[04:09:09] Unknown Speaker: Uh, no, thank you. There is no closed session report this evening.

[04:09:12] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, there was no closed sessions now. Okay. All right. So that does bring us to adjournment at, um, 1048. Thank you.

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