May 23, 2023 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

[00:01:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our closed session. City Attorney Logue will make a closed session announcement, and then the city council welcomes public comment on the items listed for closed session.

[00:01:15] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you, good evening, council members. There are 3 items on this evening's closed session agenda. Item 2.one is a conference with legal counsel regarding a liability claim, pursuant to government code section 54956.9. The name of the claimant is Ella, Cobzanitz. Item 2.2 is a conference with legal counsel regarding a liability claim, pursuant to government code section 549 56.9. The name of the claimant is Elizabeth Rough. Item 2.3 is a conference with real property negotiators, pursuant to government code section 54956.8. The property is 1 Amphitheater Parkway, Lot C, the agency negotiators are Angela Lamonica, real property program administrator, and public works director, Don Cameron. The negotiating party is Google LLC. Under negotiation are price in terms of lease. Thank you.

[00:02:14] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session items listed on tonight's agenda. If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take in person speakers first. And I see no in person speakers, so we'll now take virtual speakers, raise your hand if you want to speak. I see no virtual speakers. So we will go into closed session. Thank you.

[00:03:26] Unknown Speaker: to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.

[00:03:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Now, the city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[00:03:54] City Clerk: Council member, Abi Koga?

[00:03:55] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Here?

[00:03:55] City Clerk: Council member, can I?

[00:03:56] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[00:03:56] City Clerk: Council member Metachek?

[00:03:58] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Here.

[00:03:58] City Clerk: Council member Ramirez.

[00:03:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[00:03:59] City Clerk: Council member Ramos.

[00:04:01] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here.

[00:04:01] City Clerk: Vice Mayor Sholalter?

[00:04:02] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Here?

[00:04:03] City Clerk: Mayor Hicks?

[00:04:03] Mayor Alison Hicks: Here.? We're now on item number three on our agenda, presentations. Please note, these are presentations only. The city council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after presentation items. If you'd like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. So, first, we're going to have, we're going to recognize Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a proclamation, and we're happy to be joined this evening by Nancy G to accept this proclamation. And so, Nancy, will you please join me at the lectern? So thank you, Nancy. It's good to see you. Um, I'm going to read a little bit of the proclamation, but not the entire thing, because they get fairly bureaucratic, and more, I want to talk about your family and your father's contribution to the city. But to give a little background on what the proclamation says, it says, Whereas the month of May was chosen, chosen, as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, to commemorate two important historic milestones. One, the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in the U.S. on May 7, 1843. And the contributions of Chinese workers to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad completed May 10th, 1869, neither of which your father was involved with, and whereas the city of Mountain View and the entire nation are enriched by the diverse cultural contributions made by residents from the Asian continent, and the Pacific Islands, and whereas Asian American and Pacific Islanders have had a profound impact on the nation, and the Mountain View community, which is home to a number of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who serve as excellent representatives of both the Mountain View, Asian American and Pacific Islander community, and the Mountain View community at large, including members of the city council, council advisory boards, and the school district board of trustees. Now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of May, 2023, as Asian American, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Now, Nancy, I wanted to present this to you in particular because I'm a lifelong member of our historic association, and I've read history books of mountain, you like milestones, and there's some stories that they leave out. And one of the stories, I think, was your father's and your family's contribution to our downtown, and to Mountain View's economy as a whole, at a time when we were frankly struggling economically, and the city was in the red. So with that context, can you, you can come around and face the audience? And, um, say a little bit. Oh, you've prepared? Okay, great. Yes, say a little bit about the contributions of your father and your family.

[00:07:39] Nancy: All right, thank you, Mayor Hicks, and thank you, city council members. I appreciate the being able to accept this on behalf of the Chinese Americans and the Asian Americans in the Mountain View community. As far as my family was concerned, we actually came to Mountain View in the early, or, no, excuse me, late '60s, and back then, it was around the time when, um, I believe Mayfield Mall, if for those of you that have been around long enough, Mayfield Mall had just opened, and that was kind of the end thing for businesses, so all of the downtown stores moved over to Mayfield Mall, and so Castro Street was pretty vacant at the time that we arrived. There was a couple of Chinese restaurants, if you remember them. One was Kwi Heng Mo, and there was one that's called Andes. And that was basically it, as far as Chinese restaurants. Like I said, a lot of vacancies. And when we first came, it was actually my mother was a California girl, but was from San Francisco, but my dad did not like living in San Francisco because it was too foggy and too cold. So he came down here, and he saw that there was an opportunity. We actually were told by some other people that says, Maybe you shouldn't go down outside of San Francisco, because there's hardly no Asians, and hardly no Chinese there, you're gonna be discriminated against, and, you know, not treat it right. But luckily, my dad didn't listen to them. And he was actually of the one that, you know, took that as an opportunity, and as a chance to do something different. So, he was in the real estate business. And with all the vacancies, he went around and asked the other property owners, if they wanted to rent their place. And of course, they said, Oh, yeah, we'll rent. And what he did was he advertised in the Chinese newspapers. And so he put in ads that there's vacancies in Mountain View, and, you know, there's opportunities for opening any type of business that you want. And he actually got quite a few people interested, because, comparably, the people that were in San Francisco, the ransom were much higher, much lower here, and so they saw that as an opportunity. And so that kind of started with, you know, one Chinese restaurant coming down, and then pretty soon, another Chinese restaurant coming down. And then it actually expanded from the restaurants to the grocery store, easy foods that's there, you know, was, I think, one of the first grocery stores in mountain view that had the Chinese goods outside of San Francisco. And then there was another grocery store called Wing Yun that was now where Ava's is. And then, of course, there's the herb store that's still there. And so, you know, one by one, the Chinese entrepreneurs came down, and the restaurant business grew, and then, of course, as the restaurant owners, over time, decided to sell their restaurants in it, diversified from just Chinese, to Italian, or whatever, in Indian, and as it is, now, it's all diversified. But, you know, I like to think that maybe my dad might have been, uh, responsible for, sort of making Mountain View and Castro Street what it is to not uh, right now. And, in fact, my dad served on the a number of boards, the downtown committee, the revitalization committee, he was chair for a number of years, there was also the Chamber of Commerce, and he was also the first, I think, Chinese American president of the Mountain View Border Realtors, which now no longer exists. The Border Realtors kind of consolidated, and now it's Silicon Valley Order Realtors, but each city used to have one at one time. So, anyways, that's kind of a brief synopsis of what... the community that I remember as we grew up, and, um, I hope it continues in it, and I know it will continue, and on behalf of... the Chinese Americans and my family, I want to thank you for this proclamation. Thank you very much.

[00:12:53] Mayor Alison Hicks: Well, thank you, Nancy. I know you have a busy evening tonight with multiple events. So thank you for coming in and telling your story. I think that it's, I think, when I read Mountain View history. history. That's one of the missing chapters of the revival of the downtown, and exactly how that happened when we were in hard times. So thank you again for showing up and telling your story. Okay, next. We have our 3.2 on our agenda, which is our Affordable Housing Month proclamation. We're happy to be joined this evening by representatives from the Mountain View Tenants Coalition, the Community Action Team, Project Sentinel, Community Legal Services of East Palo Alto, Nova Works, the Santa Clara County Office of Supportive Housing, the Community Health Awareness Council, and Olga Mello, and Paula Perez, on behalf of the solid... Oh, and Asusenda, Castanen, I think I mangled your name, on behalf of the solid, Fund to accept this proclamation. Will you please join me at the lectern? Sure, everybody, come on up. Hi, come on over. Okay, so this one is a very long proclamation, and I really don't. Now, I did read all of the last one. Um, but this one says, uh, whereas each year May is designated as affordable housing month, and whereas the theme for 2023 is building community, and whereas housing is a basic human right, and yet, each year, thousands of Silicon Valley families and individuals struggle to find a home they can afford in one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation, um, and, whereas our communities thrive when they're inclusive and everyone has a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home. And whereas Mountain View is committed to putting the ongoing need for new affordable housing development, preservation of existing affordable homes, and protection of its most vulnerable residents as top priorities as demonstrated in the council's strategic priorities, as well as the city's housing element, consolidated plan, and affordable housing strategic plan. And, whereas the city has a race, equity, and inclusion initiative, which includes efforts to reduce barriers and increase access to housing, engage with the community, and facilitate community participation in the development of city housing policies. And whereas the Solidarity Fund was formed in 2020 as a grassroots organization to connect families who have not been able to access funds, or programs, from safety net providers, community based organizations, or state and federal programs. such as undocumented residents, those with limited English proficiency, and extremely low income residents, with flexible cash assistance for an array of needs. including paying rent, utility, and medical bills, and buying food with funding allocated by the city council, from the American Rescue Plan Act, also known as ARPA Funds, and support from the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation. And whereas members of the Solidarity Fund Support, and are part of other community groups, including the Mountain View Tenants Coalition, and the community action team, who actively engage with the city on developing affordable housing policies, including through the housing element process, and who work with members of the multicultural community, and those with limited English proficiency, to connect with housing resources and the city's participatory process. Okay, it goes on more, but I'm not gonna read every word. So, in the end, now, therefore, I, Alison Hicks, mayor, on behalf of the city of Mountain View, do hereby proclaim the month of May as affordable housing month. And now, I want to, if I can find you all. I want to present this. to the three of you so that you can come up and, um, and say some words. We're going to start this.

[00:18:12] Public Speaker: Mayor Alison Hicks. To translate, she'd like to think, first of all, mayor and vice mayor, and say, she's Olga Melo, and she's here both as part of Cat and the Solidarity Fund, and those are two very important things to her, because she is part of both of those. This might be those of us. The community action team is where they were all born from, and the solidarity fund is what's also come out of that, and that's what they've been able to give back. Um, I... We thank the city of Mountain View for all the work they've been doing to help all of us in the long term. And again, I want to thank you all as for helping us as a working community, and it's something that's very personal to me. And I want to thank you all for listening to all our comments and for taking action on everything that we say. esperamos, seguier en el compromiso de trabajar juntos comunidad, ustedes como concilio, para lograr que llano mas familia cien desplasadas. And we hope to continue working with you as his community, and you as our council, and we hope that we are all able to be in that picture, not only today, but in many years, to come working together. Por el grant trabajo que estedes estan realisandos sobre vibienda assequible y por la associación de la ciudad y el consejo municipal y otro socios de la communidad, mi entra trabajamos, para llevara cabo, el modelo de fe de commiso de tierras aquím montebio. Yeah, que somos. Ya que sabemos que fide commiso de tira communitarias una es una buena solución para responderi prevenier el desplacamiento de los enquilinos de montebio. Una vez mas, gracias por escucharla necessitades de la communidad, y por el compromiso de seier trabajando en y quipo, para en contrar so luciones que satisfagan la necessitades de bibienda, as quible segura al larvo plazon. Para conservarla diversidad, enquilino de esta hermosa ciudad. Muchisima gracias pors attención.

[00:22:33] Public Speaker: Respectable mayor, Alison Hicks, and respectable council members. We appreciate and are grateful for the great work that you are doing regarding affordable housing, and for the partnership of the city staff, city council, and the other community partners as we work to bring the land trust model to life here in Mountain View. Since we know that community land trust is a good solution to respond and prevent the displacement of Mountain View tenants. Once again, thank you very much for listening to the needs of the community, and working as a team to find solutions that meet the needs for safe, long term affordable housing to preserve the diversity of renters in this beautiful city. Thank you very much for your attention.

[00:23:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Hi, Miss... Asoseno, did you have some words?

[00:23:21] Asusenda Castanen: No.

[00:23:21] Mayor Alison Hicks: No. Okay, you're just here. Okay.

[00:23:25] Asusenda Castanen: I just want to thank you also, Echo, the words of my colleagues and partners in crime, because we did it, and we will continue doing it. So the words in the proclamation really was very well chose. So explain a lot why we are here and what we continue. And this struggle, everybody has been very great contributor to this success, or at least, the way that we are now. But to my mind came in this moment, many people who is not here, who is not able to be here with us, is no few people, really remarkable absence in this group. And one of them, everybody knows him and miss him tremendously. And all of you know him. And I, maybe, when I said these words, you will know who I'm talking about, we have the moral responsibility. Do you remember Job Lopez? Well, he is with us, and he will be with us, and he's the spirit. We give us energy to continue this struggle and success. Thank you so much for your recognition, we'll take it from all the tennis and mountain view, as a mountain view tennis coalition member founder. So we really appreciate your thought most. Thank you very much.

[00:24:50] Mayor Alison Hicks: Next. That's it? No, that's not it. So now, thank you so much. So, now we have an opportunity for council comments, and after that, public comments, so, anybody else who has something they want to say, both, uh, from the audience here and also, uh, virtually. So, are there any council comments on either of these presentations? Well, you've left them speechless. Yes. Yes. Okay. And, um, and so now, are there, is there anyone in the room who wants to make an additional comment, you would have up to one minute? She's considering. Okay. You your mom is social. Your mom? Oh, you? Okay, okay, he's getting ready. Okay. We'll give you a moment, and I'll also ask, while you're thinking about it, other people, other shy people can think about it, too. And then I will look and see whether there's anybody, there are people here on Zoom as well. So I'll look and see whether anyone on Zoom wants to speak. I actually don't see anyone on Zoom. So if you... do you have a word to say? Can someone adjust the microphone?

[00:26:45] Public Speaker: I want to say that thank you for everything you have done for us. It's because we have nothing that we could do, and we have to help the community.

[00:27:08] Public Speaker: I just want to resonate and thank you for the recognition, and we hope to continue to work together in the community to help the Mountain View community. Thank you.

[00:27:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Well, I think that's going to be hard to talk, but if there's anyone else who wants to say a word or two, This is the last call, is there someone else who wants to say a word or two? No. Okay, so then we will close public comment on this item. Thank you all for coming, and you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, if you'd like to. So, we're now moving to item four on our agenda, 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'd like to on this item or the next item, which is oral communications on nonagenda items, in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the council like to pull an item? I see the vice mayor.

[00:28:30] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I would like to pull 4.5 just for comment. Um, I um, I really want, this is, this is the item to rescind the stage to water shortage emergency condition. We have been suffering for a number of years under drought conditions. Some people think that we really are in, except for this last year, you know, a 12 year mega drought. So that has meant that all of us have had to step up to the plate as personal water users and managers or managers of our own water to do what we could to reduce our usage so that there would be enough for us all to share. And indeed, the members of our community heard that call and did that. And I just really think it's important that we, you know, to thank you all, to thank everybody, all of us together, really, for doing that. But now we have had this kind of gangbuster water year. We've had almost, I think, about 150% of our average annual rainfall, depending on how you measure it. Some people think it's almost 200%. And so this year, we're in good, you know, in good stead. And we don't want to, um, we don't want, even though we live in a water, um, sort of a water scarce environment. We have, you know, we have six dry months and six wet months, all the time that we have to work around. We don't want people to be taken advantage of and feel like they're asked to do things when we're not having a drought, that they shouldn't be. So that's why when we rescind this water shortage, We're not saying, you know, we have all the water in the world, let your faucets run, nonstop. Not that. It's just that we're not in a crisis situation anymore, and we can all breathe a little bit. And that's really good. But the message still is use water wisely. It's just that fortunately, what's wise to do this year is much better than what was wise to you last year. So that's just what I wanted to say. And particularly, we should thank the public works department and the water department for doing all the things that they need to do needed to do to make sure that our system worked properly. So thank you.

[00:31:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: So it sounds like you are not pulling that item. No, you're just commenting. Any other council members who want to either pull or comment on an item? Saying none, would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide comment on these items? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom, or I hope you've submitted a blue speaker card to the city clerk. Do we have any in person speakers? I don't see any. Any virtual speakers? I don't see any. So, I will now bring the item back for council action, and note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinances attached to item 4.2, and the resolutions attached to items 4.3. through 4.7. I see Council member Ramos. Making a motion. And would you like to make the motion?

[00:32:17] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes, please. Thank you, Mayor. I move the consent calendar, including item 4.2. Adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, repealing article, um, 15 of chapter 36, zoning of Mountain View City code, to repeal sidewalk cafes in the downtown area, amending section 364465. Development review procedures related to outdoor dining and merchandise displays, and amending other sections of chapters 36 for consistency and minor amendments, and to be read entitled only further reading waived, and adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View repealing article 3, merchant vendors in downtown area, of chapter 15 and adding a new section to chapter 27 streets and sidewalks to repeal the sidewalk cafe and merchant vendor provisions and replace them with a new In the downtown area, an amending chapter 25 neighborhood preservation, chapter 26 public amusements, and chapter 27, streets and sidewalks for consistency, to be read in title only further being waived. Item 4.3, adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, approving the annual engineers report for the downtown parking maintenance and operation assessment district. Number 2 and approving the levying of assessments for fiscal year 2023, 24 to be read in title only, further reading wave, item 4.4, Adopt the resolution of the city council of the city amount of view, approving the final map of track number 10395 in 1958 Latham Street, accepting dedications and making findings as required by the city code to be read in title only further reading waived. Item 4.5 Adopt the resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, finding that a stage 2 water shortage emergency no longer exists. Rescinding the June 2022 stage 2 water shortage emergency condition and reinstating normal water supply conditions to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.6 Adopt the resolution of the city council, the city and mountain view, amending the city's records retention schedules, and rescinding resolution number 18179 resolution 17500 and resolution number 17804 to be read in title only, further reading waived. And finally, item 4.7, adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View, amending resolution number 18722, approving a mixed use residential development and resolution number 18723 for besting tentative map for a condominium purposes at 334 San Antonio Road to make corrections to the conditions of approval and other minor corrections to be read in title only further reading waived.

[00:35:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, council member Ramos, and we have a 2nd by council member Ramirez, so we can now vote. Passes unanimously. We're now on item 5, oral communications, this portion of the meeting is reserved for people wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to 3 minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non agenda items. If you'd like to speak on this item in person, or the next item, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment? If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We'll take in person speakers first, um, and I see Alberto Lustic, and you will have three minutes.

[00:36:33] Alberto Lucia: Good evening, CD council members. My name is Alberto Lucia, with the Carpenter Local 405. And it's great to see, uh, new Debellum coming to our city. It's great that we see this price coming up, but we also want to have a responsible general contractor. The general contractor that promotes apprenticeship. Local hire and a liberal wage. Earning a livable wage, ensure the construction workers, as myself, can afford rent inner city, being able to support family with all the basic needs, and not living check by check. It gives the congressional workers the opportunity for a higher education to their children. and promote a better future for the family, and not just a dream. Also, having a general contractor, family wages, it prevents wage death and tax fraud, which happens more than often. Having a responsible contractor ensures that construction workers have healthcare, for workers and his family, and now become a rental system, since 80% of the construction workers, depending on some government assistance. Apprenticeship programs promotes training, and education for rich youth, minorities, and women, into a four apprenticeship program. For some of us, is the only opportunity to be successful. And getting training and development, the training centers. And be able to have a shot to the American Dream. This provides these provides college credits, apprenticeship... These financial programs provide college credits into a higher education. You can earn a college degree. Local hire promotes quality of life with a construction worker, by being able to spend more time with the loved ones, and being part of the community. It also benefits the environment, by losing pollution, and by not pushing our local workforce away from our city. I would like to ask our elected officials, please promote a responsible contractor on all projects coming to our city, and also, let's think about this. Everywhere we go, a construction will build something. Whatever we sit down, a construction worker did it. When we're in the building, the construction building, the construction worker did it. Just make sure we take care of our local work, our local work force, and not promote people making people outside of town, or outside of state. Thank you.

[00:38:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Are there any other in person speakers? Not seeing any virtual speakers. Please raise your hands. I do not see any more public speakers. So, we'll now move on to item six on our agenda, which is new business. The item here is 6.1, adopt a resolution governing in compensation related to Calper's cost share for all unrepresented safety PEPRA employees. And senior human resources analysts, Ada Chen, will present the item.

[00:39:35] Ada Chen: Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Ada Chang, Senior Human Resources Analyst, and with me, in the audience is Su Rash, Human Resources Director. I'm bringing forward a resolution to amend the cost share for unrepresented safety, public employee Pension Reform Act, Pepper Employees. I'm returning to council regarding this item to correct the percentages presented in the resolution and council report from the April 25th, 2023 meeting. Helpers published their yearly actuarial which showed that the employee normal contribution for safety pepper members is increasing from 11.25% to 12% in fiscal year 2023 to 24. In order to keep the total agreed upon contribution paid by safety Pepper employees the same. The employees share of the employer contribution, otherwise known as a cost share, needs to be reduced by 0.75%. For this change to go into effect, for safety members that are not represented by a memorandum of understanding, the city needs to request a contract amendment process be started with cow purse. The 1st step being that cowpers requires that current resolutions pertaining to the cause share for unrepresented safety employees to reflect the appropriate amounts. The resolution presented includes the key components required by cow purse. Once counsel passes the resolution, staff will submit the remaining documents to help hers for approval to begin the contract amendment. Pending Calper's approval, staff anticipates bringing the contract amendment to counsel within the next few months. Thank you.

[00:41:06] Mayor Alison Hicks: Is that the end of the presentation?

[00:41:08] Ada Chen: Yes, it is.

[00:41:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you very much, Sam. Do any members of the council have questions? Seeing none? Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click raise hand button and zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. And seeing none. Uh, I'll bring the item back for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. Uh, council member command?

[00:41:52] Unknown Speaker: Uh, I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View to modify Cowper's cost share contributions for an all unrepresented, did safety public employees pension reform act employees to be read entitle only for the reading waived.

[00:42:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: And I see a 2nd by council member Ramirez, so we can vote. Passes unanimously. We will now move on to item 6.2, which is North Bayshore Precise Plan, Bonus Office, floor area ratio authorization. Would any council members like to make disclosures? Council member Ramirez.

[00:42:46] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I will disclose that I had an opportunity to speak with the applicant.

[00:42:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Mattachek.

[00:42:54] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. I also have spoken with the applicant several times.

[00:42:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member, Abby Koga.

[00:43:01] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I, too, have spoken with the applicant.

[00:43:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos.

[00:43:06] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. I've also spoken to the applicant or the representative, I guess.

[00:43:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Kameh.

[00:43:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I'll disclose I met with the applicant's representative.

[00:43:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor.

[00:43:20] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, I met with the applicant's representative a couple times about this.

[00:43:23] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. And I also met with the applicant and his representative. So, uh, senior planner Ellen Yao will now present the item.

[00:43:52] Ellen Yao: Hello, good evening, counsel. My name is Ellen Yao, senior planner, and before you tonight is the North Bay, your precise plan bonus FAR ratio request. And we'll go over the North Bay Shore Precise Plan history to start off the presentation. The city identified North Bay Shore as a change area in the city's 2030 general plan, and then adopted the North Bay Shore precise plan in 2014 to establish those policies and standards for the transformation of the area consistent with that general plan. The precise plan also included an overall cap on office development and the bonus floor area ratio program was created and designed as a competitive process, which allows project proponents to request that additional office square footage in exchange for providing more community benefits. In May 2015, the city council considered 10 bonus office FAR applications, and they allocated 2200000 square feet of bonus FAR to 4 office projects and one hotel. Since then, 3 of the projects are completed or under construction. The other 2 office projects did not obtain entitlements, and therefore their authorizations have expired, and the previously allocated floor area was returned to the available pool. Then in 2017, the city council adopted a comprehensive update to that precise plan, which allowed up to 9850 residential units, and 2.2270000 unapproved net new square feet. So at that time, the bonus residential FAR review guidelines were also revised, and it added the provision of new residential uses as a criterion when evaluating bonus FAR applications. On March 23rd, 2021, the city council authorized a bonus FAR requalification request for approximately 1300000 square feet of net new office floor area. This is included in Google's North Bay Shore master plan. And on December 7th, 2021, the city council adopted revisions to the bonus FAR review guidelines, which included new criteria and thresholds. Council also directed staff to initiate another process to solicit applications for the remaining 2500 square feet of office floor area. So the city issued a request for proposal last year in October, and we accepted applications until January of this year. So the city was contacted by only one applicant, the Jeffrey A. Morris Group, Inc., who was interested in applying for the bonus office FAR. And they are the, um, who submitted the only application. The project is located at 1808 North Shoreline Boulevard. The applicant proposes a 6 story office building that is comprised of 108,856 square feet of office, 4000 square feet of ground floor retail that fronts North Shoreline, 3 levels of above ground parking, and outdoor rooftop terraces proposed on the top 3 levels. The site is currently built with about 22,000 square feet, office building, and they're proposing net new office floor area about 87,000 square feet. This is an increase of one.0 FAR floor area ratio. The project also proposes public benefits, which I will discuss in the following slides. So this is the proposed project site. It is located between Charleston Road and Plymouth Street on the west side of North Shoreline. It is shown red on the map. The property is located within the Joaquin complete neighborhood area and the core character area of the precise plan. The site is currently surrounded by office and research and development uses, and it is surrounded on all sides by the proposed Google North Bay Shore master plan as seen on the image. So I'll go over the bonus FAR tiers. The precise plan allows a base base FAR of up to 0.45. Applicants can request FAR up to one. 5 FAR in the core character area. Request for the bonus FAR must meet requirements based on each tier of additional FAR requested. Tier one requires both a lead platinum building and public benefit or district improvement project, specifically focusing on transportation. The tier 2 and tier 3s require providing higher performance screen building, 0 net new green building, or public benefit or district improvement projects. Shown in the 2nd column here. You could see the project requests up to the one. 125 FAR, meaning the tier 3. And so they're proposing a lead platinum building with a public benefit funding contribution of $1900000 towards transportation and affordable housing to qualify for the tier shown on the slide. Unlike other precise plans that have established community benefit contribution values per square feet requested. North Bay Shore does not have a minimum dollar amount. Instead, projects are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and in comparison to other projects that have applied. So the applicant is proposing a public benefit value of $27.27 per square foot. This is similar to the East Wisman precise plan, which has a requirement of $27.25 per square foot. The bonus FAR reviewed guidelines, which is shown in Appendix F of the precise plan, states that proposals must meet the following 3 thresholds to be considered for a bonus FAR allocation. So, the 1st, the project is located in the Joaquin complete neighborhood area and meets this 1st requirement, and then the other 2 I will discuss in the following slides. First, this qualifying threshold has 2 parts. It's underlined on the screen for you to see. First is providing units on site or offsite and or through partnerships. And the 2nd part is achieving the housing targets in the precise plan. In reviewing part one, the project provides funding for affordable housing instead of providing constructed units. The provision of the funding may not be a direct partnership. However, it does facilitate a city partnership with affordable housing developers to be used on dedicated sites, expected in the area or land purchased by affordable housing developers. This meets the spirit and intent of the guidelines as the funding does facilitate the city to partner with affordable housing developers. However, for the 2nd part of this threshold, there's no clear quantitative metric that is outlined in the guidelines. So it doesn't define how a project actually achieves the housing targets. So unlike, again, unlike East Wisman, precise plan, which requires 3 units per 1000 square feet of office requested. So therefore, the project, shown in the green column, is being compared to the size plant targets, shown in blue, and extend to how the proposal helps to achieve the plan wide targets. So the 2nd column here shows the current status of units and employment based on approved or submitted projects, such as the Google North Bay Shore Master Plan, Si West Proposal, Sobrado, and Eating Housing Project. In the 3rd column, you'll see the balance that has yet to be met with those projects. This includes 268 units needing land and 1162 where land has been dedicated, but construction funds are needed. And then you can see in the last column, the project is requesting about 3.9% of the employment targets and is proposing to provide the city with funding to facilitate 2.9% of the affordable housing target. This slide shows their proposal. So by using an estimated city subsidy of about of $125,000 per unit, the proposed amount of funding would result in approximately 57.6 units, which is the 20, the 2.9% I mentioned before, of the precise plan target of 1970 affordable units, and the project is requesting 3.9% of the net new square feet of office. So therefore, council and its discretion may make the determination whether or not the proposal meets that 2nd part of the threshold of achieving the targets in the precise plan. Since there is a range of possible interpretations of the language of this qualifying threshold. Staff is recommending updates to the language of the FAR guidelines, to add clarity to the process, which will be covered later in the presentation. And then the 3rd threshold, in addition to receiving bonus office FAR, the projects must demonstrate substantial compliance with the 14 guiding principles that are identified in the precise plan to support the plan's vision and the development standards in the precise plan. Of these 14, 13 are relevant to the project's site and scope. Overall, the project is generally in compliance with these principles. However, compliance with one principle, the 1st one, create complete neighborhoods, is based on staff's conclusion in the previous section, I showed you early before, by providing funding to the city and is helping to meet the complete neighborhood targets. Some additional information. The project's adherence to the precise plan standard isn't required at this stage, but the review will be conducted after the application is authorized. In December 2021, the city council approved the 2021 circulation study and directed staff to amend the precise plan with the studies recommendation, which included a 35 to 40% single occupancy vehicle rate to maintain compliance with a gateway trip cap. So if the project is authorized, the trip reduction standards based on those amendments to the precise plan pursuant to the 2021 circulation study will be applied and enforced through a condition of approval for this project. In addition, the applicant will be required to escalate the proposed funding based on inflation. It will be increased by the construction costs index, CCI each year until the payment is made. Additionally, housing impact fees, counted in the project's housing funding will be based on the rates applicable on the date they are paid. And this is the slide where I go over the clarity and changes in the North, the bonus FAR review guidelines. So based on the experience that we've taken this project through the bonus FAR application process, there is a range of possible interpretations of the guideline language. And staff recommends updating the bonus FAR review guidelines. Specifically, the North Bay Shore guidelines could be updated to provide more clarity to applicants and staff, similar to language in the East Wisman Precise Plan, which requires a direct quantitative jobs and housing linkage. Other language can be added to provide more clarity regarding flexibility within the guidelines and other procedural revisions. So if the council authorized the application of the applicant to submit an application for the bonus office FAR, the next steps include the applicant submitting a complete planned community permit or master plan no later than one year from the date of authorization, with the possibility of a 6 month extension, if granted by the city council. A staff additionally recommends that the planned community permit be submitted within one year of the master plan or approval, if that's the route the applicant chooses. The applicant has also stated interest in pursuing a development agreement with this master plan to allow for a longer entitlement period. So when they do submit for the planned community permit, when they submit for the development agreement, we will also include an assessment of the time period and the public benefits provided by the project, which will require adoption by the city council. If city council denies the authorization request, there's no further action on this project. So staff has the following 3 recommendations. The 1st is the California Environmental Quality Act, Sequa doesn't apply, since the city council's action is not a project as defined by Sequa. Number two, consider the request, and if authorized, staff will return with a resolution for adoption, and number three, direct staff to update the North Bay sure precise plan bonus FAR review guidelines to provide clarity. That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

[00:57:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you, Ms. Yao. Now we'll have a presentation from the applicants, Jeff Morris, principal Jeffrey A. Morris group, and Bob Perry, design director from Gensler. You supposed to get the slides up?

[00:57:57] Unknown Speaker: Yes, I will be coming there. Thank you.

[00:58:13] Jeff Morris: Mayor Hicks and members of the city council. My name is Jeff Morris, and I own a property at 1808 North Shoreline Boulevard. My family purchased a property in the early 1980s and built the existing one story building. We've been working with staff over the past several years, in hopes of having an opportunity to participate in the city's vision for the redevelopment of the North Bay Shore. We're excited to present this proposal tonight. We are asking for authorization of 69,668 square feet of bonus FAR, not the net new number of 87,000 square feet, to allow for the development of a new six story office building of 108,856 square feet. Our goal is to create a boutique building with exceptional design, center around worker well being, and sustainability. We work with Google's design team, and we'll make sure that our building fits contextually within their plan. The project also includes 4,000 square feet of retail active uses on the ground floor. In terms of community benefits and housing, We appreciate the flexibility. Council has provided for smaller property owners to meet the housing threshold. The idea of partnering with the city, through the contribution of funding, to support your affordable housing needs, makes sense for smaller properties, like myself, that do not have the ability to dedicate land or build housing on site. The city will be getting seven acres from Google, and additional land from Subrado, and we'll need funding to subsidize these affordable projects. In total, the project will contribute $9,760,000 of community benefit funds and impact fees for housing and transportation, which will be increased by an index of the CCI. Over the past few weeks, we've been working collaborately with the city staff. over the funding package for the project. Based on these discussions, we increase our offer for fundable, the funding the affordable housing by $1 million. The project will contribute $7.2 million for affordable housing, which includes $4.7 million in community benefit funds and $2.5 million housing impact fees. The funding will help subsidize construction of 58 new affordable housing units. The project will also contribute $2,560,000 to transportation improvements, including $200,000 in community benefits for transportation. I'm very proud of the project. The community benefits proposal is robust, and in line with other bonus FAR projects on a per square foot basis, with more than double the community benefits of city's other precise plans. The project's 4.9 million contribution and community benefits for housing, and transportation is $70.33 per square foot of bonus of AR, which is more than double Google's community benefits of $32.99 per square foot of bonus of AR. Their suggestion, the staff report, that the project should be required to contribute even more for housing. up to maybe $9.6 million, based upon a methodology of using that new square footage, as opposed to my request for bonus FAR, that is not in the bonus of AR guidelines, nor was it in the culpable proposals. The value of office's currency for housing has shifted dramatically post COVID. This is a very expensive project, with lead platinum, and other design requirements, and the economics are extremely tight. We feel that our proposal is strong, meets the bonus of they are guidelines and is fair, and equitable. The staff references a 20% target for affordable housing, which is probably not achievable, since Google's now only committing 15%, under the staff's methodology, and assuming a 15% affordable housing target instead of 20 percent, our projects, 58 units, would be 3.9% of the 1,478 units, and therefore equal to the 3.9% of new office square footage. If we receive an authorization tonight, we will work. We'll start work immediately on the preparation of a master plan and development agreement. As part of the development agreement, we'll also offer additional public benefits, such as public art and active use, assistance program, which would include the funding for the retail, subsidized tenants, improvements, and rent. Since 2015, the city has allocated almost all of the bonus of the Art of Google and other large landowners, and only 250,000 square feet remain. We're asking for a very small amount, 69,668 square feet, or just 1.99% of the original 3.5 million square feet of bonus of FR. We support the city's vision and hope the council will allow us to be part of it. I want to introduce a team from Gensler to share our vision.

[01:02:52] Bob Perry: Thank you, Jeff. Good evening, counselors. My name is Bob Perry. Architect with Gensler. Here tonight, representing larger and more broad, diverse team of design professionals. So we're excited to be here tonight to share our proposal, and our point of view about how we're amplifying and dreaming into the precise plan, as well as the Google Master plan. I think I understand I should prompt slides. Yeah. So next slide, please. So as we started our design process, we really leaned into the guiding principles of the North Shore, precise plan. Among many goals, we actively sought to complete the neighborhood and create walkable and active streets next. And so, this is kind of starting large picture, right? Looking at how do we fit into the context? We find ourselves at 1808, as a significant site within the Google Master Plan, a great contributor to the vision. Specifically within the vision, there's some key features, right? The key corners. We find ourselves sitting between that, right? A great contributor to the master plan itself, along with the active edges and frontages that are planned. Throughout our process, we did, in fact, work with the Google Design team to make sure that our outcomes were fulfilling the vision that had been set up. Next. So not only are we in between representing an opportunity of active frontage and key corners, we also find ourselves between two significant outdoor spaces and open spaces that are part of the plan. On the next slide. Taking a closer look. We've been very sensitive to how we're designing and fitting into the plan, and particularly the public realm. We represent the opportunity to make significant connection, not only along shoreline, but also the Western Edge. So we find ourselves a critical link within the greater planning of the work done so far. On the next slide, What we do now is, with all of that in mind, our building starts to take shape. So, again, we're paying great attention to the edges, not only shoreline, but also the Western Edge, thinking about how people move. Thinking about the building form, the building, above level two, sets back, that draws people outside, brings them to the edges, brings people out to engage with the street. Those setbacks also bring daylight, deeper into the building, create a more sustainable workplace. And what's more on the upper right, you can see we've set back to create more terrorists on the Joaquin Grove side, further activating that space with the tenant activity. Next, please. So I'm taking a closer look at the ground floor, thinking about the specific plan goals of active frontage. We find ourselves proposing active uses on the ground floor along shoreline, creating a landscape that's active with use and spaces for people to linger and take respite. The Western Edge is a very intentional connection from Joaquin Grove down to the portal. And again, along Walking Grove on the upper right, you can start to see how the building represents and has a relationship to that open space and the public realm. Next, please. And the master plan has evolved a little bit through our process, but we're flexible. So in particular, this is a zoom in looking at the southwest corner of our site. We've expanded our landscape. We've expanded the opportunity for the public to engage, as the portal has evolved. So all of this is wrapped up into kind of a warm modernism architecture, right? We're intentionally moving away from an all glass, cold office building. This is rich in material. It's rich in texture. That texture provides sunshading and glare reduction for the workplace. So everything is working together to create a holistic design solution. On the next slide, we start to zoom in a little bit and we start to appreciate how our building defines the edges. It starts to contribute and fulfill all of the landscape and open space requirements. On the next slide, we sort of continue to come down. Now we're at eye level and start to appreciate how the architecture defines the street wall. You can start to see how, in this corner, the building sweeps away, people are able to come out and activate the frontage, there's public art, there's well defined walkways, cycling routes. There's different spaces of scale for people to engage. The ground floor retail is highly transparent. It's very inviting. It's warm, it's cafes, it's cultural, it's community opportunities. It also bends around the corner to engage the open space. Next slide please. And all of this, again, is wrapped up in sustainable concepts, both big and large, small and large, as well as indoor and outdoors. So all of this is bundled together as a highly sustainable design proposal. The workplace features are not only there to attract a world class tenant, but these building features following the Google master plan guidelines, these building features help to engage and make a connection to the adjacent spaces, primarily the public realm. We're considering doing this out of mass timber. Again, we're moving toward a highly sustainable design solution, a world class building that attracts a world class tenant. So, we're thrilled here to be here tonight to show our design proposal. We believe all of this is wrapped up in a sustainable design solution that amplifies the specific plan goals and look forward to hearing your feedback. Thank you so much.

[01:09:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Thank you so much. Do any members of the council have questions? I'm not seeing a lot of questions yet. Council member Ramirez.

[01:09:24] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I have a few questions. So the 1st is staff shared that the typical subsidy provided for affordable housing by the city. It's around $125,000 a unit. I asked this question in the briefing, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but does that apply also to subsidies provided for affordable housing on land owned by the city?

[01:09:54] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I'll defer to that to the assistant city manager. Thank you.

[01:10:00] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Thank you for that question, council member. Assistant City Manager and Community Devault and Director Archie Shravastva. As we discussed at our meeting, the city's typical subsidy has been 125,000, and that has not been on dedicated sites, but at that time, we had the advantage of having measure a funding that almost replicated city funding. In cases where, previous to measure a funding, the city has provided over $250,000 a unit, when sites have not been included. So our estimate was, we don't have an alternative to measure A, we have dedicated sites, so we expect a city funding of approximately 125,000 until another funding source is found.

[01:10:57] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Do you know offhand what the subsidy provided for Lot 12 was?

[01:11:02] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: I believe they actually provided a certain amount of about 10 million, and then there was a subsidy of a total of 10.4, I think, 8 million from Senator Becker, and 2.4 from the city. So it was a wash at the time, but it also had Measure funding.

[01:11:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, so 125 should be, that's the expectation for the land dedication that we're anticipating.

[01:11:29] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: That's still what we would be providing. That's what we're expecting. It would take the place of what Measure funding would have provided.

[01:11:36] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Since we don't have another funding source at this time. Okay, thank you. Thats helpful. A similar question about the flexibility of the community benefit contribution. It's not a housing impact fee, right? There isn't a nexus study, so there's some flexibility with the funds. Could a future council elect to use that funding for something other than housing?

[01:12:02] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Typically, when the council approves community benefits for a certain category, they're used in that category, I would imagine if they had to be revised, a council could revise them in the future. They're not restricted funds.

[01:12:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Pardon?

[01:12:18] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: They're not restricted funds. Community benefits funds are not restricted. They're required. The bonus tiers, for example, require some combination of funding for transportation and other funds, so they're not restricted in that regard.

[01:12:32] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Responses to the questions submitted in advance to the meeting indicated that I think there were around 10 eligible property owners who could participate in the bonus FAR program. Do we have a sense of how many of them actually are interested in participating? Have any of them ever expressed interest in any iteration of the bonus FER program?

[01:13:01] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Not this time. I know that there was some interest a long time ago, but it's pretty clear with this round that we did not have any other interested parties.

[01:13:09] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. When we... If the majority of the council directs staff to update the guidelines, could that include outreach to the property owners to see what types of guidelines might be attractive to them, to make sure that the program itself is still operational?

[01:13:36] Assistant City Manager Aarti Shrivastava: Yes, we certainly would want to reach out to property owners in the complete neighborhoods areas who would qualify for this bonus FAR.

[01:13:45] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I've got for now.

[01:13:49] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member show Walter.

[01:13:52] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'm a little confused by the description of the, or the money, the dollar value given for the community benefit for square foot. I thought I heard, um, you say that it was $27.27 a square foot. And I thought I heard Mr. Morris say that it was $70.30 a square foot. That's quite a discrepancy. So, can you explain how they were calculated differently? Come up with different numbers like that?

[01:14:30] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: Sure. The $27 per square foot is based on the bonus FAR tiers in the precise plan. So in their application, they have prescribed this $one900000 to the bonus FAR tiers in the precise plan. That is the purpose for that one. 1900000 dollars. And so in the precise plan, the bonus FAR is a threshold above which that there's contributions, the public benefits, and other, um, uh, community benefits, and other requirements, and so that is related to the 64, I think, 1000 square feet of bonus FAR to get to the 1.9 million. I believe the applicant in coming up with the $70 is looking at all of the affordable housing funds, including the $3 million that they are offering in order to address the housing qualification threshold.

[01:15:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. That's, thank you. That clears it up. So basically, what we're talking about is a difference in the denominator. You are using just the FAR square footage, the bonus FAR square footage, and they are using the total square footage.

[01:15:55] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: No, it's a difference in the numerator. It's both is over the bonus FAR, but they are adding all of the affordable housing funds that they're providing, which includes both $1.9 million for bonus to meet the bonus FAR requirements, as well as the $3 million, that they are proposing to meet the housing requirement qualification threshold.

[01:16:22] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. So, the staff number is only using the money that's related to the bonus FAR itself.

[01:16:30] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: That's right.

[01:16:31] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you so much. I really needed that clarified.

[01:16:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, more questions from council members? Council member committee.

[01:16:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So I think, if staff could clarify, counsel received a letter from the applicant kind of discussing, basically, I would say, like, which numbers to use, is it the bonus, FAR, is it Net New? And so perhaps, um, staff could share because one of the things that I know that's, um, that the 2.9% of the affordable housing target, while the new office is about 3.9% and just, I think one of the things that we are hearing is, you know, without the jobs linkage, um, fee here, we're we're seeing, um, a little bit of, I guess, discrepancy. And so staff can maybe expand upon the the letter we received and that would be helpful. Thank you.

[01:17:41] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: Sure, no problem. Again, Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager. So, in the letter, they are comparing the, feel free to give me a wave or something like that, if I get anything wrong, I don't want to misrepresent, but they are comparing the affordable housing provision in terms of to the total square footage envisioned in the complete neighborhood area, which was 5000000 square feet. Um, and so, um, the, if you go back to the language in the, uh, the qualifying guidelines, it's uh, providing housing to meet the targets in the precise plan. And the, because that 5000000 square feet includes a significant amount of already existing office, if you, if you use that number, then we cannot meet the targets in the precise plan, because the, only the net new is going to get us to meet the targets in the precise plan, if it goes up consistently with the, um, with the affordable housing. So that's the distinction, that's staff's response to the letter. Although, the purpose of those complete neighborhood targets and the totals is valuable to understand how we are doing in meeting the envisioned land use mix. And so that is important information when we're reviewing the projects. But it doesn't show how we are doing in terms of meeting the targets.

[01:19:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And then, I guess a follow-up question on that. I think that, um, part of what I've been hearing is a kind of, um, correlation or comparison to the Google Master plan, which we have yet to see. So I feel for myself personally, it's apples to oranges because I don't know what we're going to see on June the 13th. Um, but if we were to go forward and one of the recommendations was um, potentially looking at um, a master plan um, with the applicant, is that something where we could um, have maybe a discussion on, um, the, the precise plan and how the proposed master plan of the applicant would fit in their puzzle piece versus comparing master plans with which we have not seen yet. Um, if that. Thank you.

[01:20:33] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: I was I was gonna ask to clarify, but go ahead.

[01:20:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah. Maybe it would help if you were asking for clarification.

[01:20:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, I... So, we have the North Bay Shore precise plan. We have an applicant that it wants to go forward and is saying that they'd like to propose a master plan, which we have yet to see, comparing themselves to another master plan with which we have yet to see. And so for myself, I'm trying to provide, trying to, as we're discussing potentially looking at guidelines and talking about potential authorization, trying to find a way to bring maybe some proportionality to the discussion, and so I'm looking to staff on, should authorization go forward tonight? Is that what we can have that type of discussion, so that we are not drawing incomparable comparisons?

[01:21:26] Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager: Thank you, that that was very helpful, Council member Kumei. Um, I think one of our responses um, to the questions kind of hit upon that fact. Comparing this project to the Google Master Plan is like comparing Apple's to oranges because this project is proposing an office building. And in order to meet the qualifying thresholds, they're providing funds to the city, not units, but just funds. The Google Master Plan is coming in, providing housing, open space, affordable housing sites, which really meets a lot of the community targets. And so they honestly can't be compared. But we did provide just basic comparison when you compare the net new square feet for each project with the actual amount under the community benefit to meet those bonus FAR tiers. The Google Master Plan does provide close to 37 square dollars per square foot. When you compare this project at 27. And we also wanted to say that they achieved different levels of affordable housing targets and open space targets that can't be compared. They actually provide 7000 units for 1300000 square feet of net new office. Whereas this project is providing $3000000 towards that. And when you combine the impact fees, the $3000000 and the bonus FAR tiers, that's when you get the number of units this project is helping to fund. So you have to compare. We're not actually calculating the impact fees provided by Google versus everything else when we're putting that together. So it's a little bit different. And that's why we say apples and oranges. So when you compare this project and how it helps to achieve targets. Um, you saw in the staff report and the slide that the city has received enough um, number of applications to achieve the market rate targets. And so the only target that remains to be met is the 20% affordable housing target. In fact, these projects were required or were meant to help us get to that 20% because the projects that provided units and open space were only required to provide 15%. And that's why we're comparing it to the 20% target. And the 15% really wouldn't apply here unless they provided units, in which case they would be required to provide 15% affordable housing. So that sort of tells you why we're using the 20% affordable housing target. Then deriving from that, what we're telling council is, they're asking for 3.9% of the new square feet, the currency that was left to be able to create the complete community when the precise pen was adopted, and they meet 2.9% of the affordable housing target. When you consider that the city would use funds to partner with affordable housing developers. So, because this precise plan doesn't have specific requirements, we have used this process to help the council weigh to what extent this project helps to meet the targets.

[01:24:53] Unknown Speaker: Great, perfect. And that answered a whole myriad of other questions that I had. So that's it, Mayor. you.

[01:24:58] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Matachek.

[01:25:01] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, um, I recognize tonight that we are only discussing or deciding on whether or not to allocate some of the remaining bonus FAR. Um, but it would help me to know if staff has had any discussions with the applicant about, uh, the rough timing of when they would want to actually do this project, like the length of a DA, um, or if they have a tenant, um, already for this building.

[01:25:34] Unknown Speaker: We haven't talked specifically about the length of the DA. Obviously, the council would be able to approve any duration of a DA, and we didn't want to kind of get out ahead of any negotiation process or council decision on that at this stage. I'm not aware of any tenets at this point in the, you know, looking that far ahead. But you may possibly ask the applicant.

[01:26:10] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, if you could respond to those 2 questions. I would appreciate it.

[01:26:18] Public Speaker: Could you repeat the question, please?

[01:26:19] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Yeah, the first one is, um, if you have a tenant or not.

[01:26:25] Public Speaker: Uh, do not have a tenant, uh, this time for the new project. Google's leasing, uh, the existing building. Uh, it's leases up next year, and we're gonna, if we get approval, we'll start marketing the project as soon as possible.

[01:26:39] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: And then I was wondering, um, the length of the DA, you might be looking to have.

[01:26:44] Public Speaker: Uh... That's a good question. We want to start working on the master plan right away. I don't have an answer to that. I don't care.

[01:26:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Do you have any...

[01:26:52] Public Speaker: I don't have an answer to that right now. We're taking it one step at a time.

[01:26:56] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you.

[01:26:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay. Other council members, I'll ask my questions, seeing no other council member questions. So, I have a couple questions for the applicant and then some for staff. Um, again, as council member Matachek said, I I realize that we're, uh, talking about bonus FAR right now. But I do have, and that what you're seeing here is only a rendering. But I do have a couple questions. But I actually like the architecture. And I do have a couple questions about... You said there was cross laminated timber on the inside. What's, I know it's a rendering. But what do you envision on the outside?

[01:27:45] Public Speaker: On the outside. Yeah, we've talked about a few things. Could be a terracotta material. This, again, it's kind of something that brings that authentic materiality and warmth to a building facade. There's alternatives to that. Highly sustainable, ultra high performance concrete material. That also brings kind of robust character, allows us to really dial the color and warmth of the building as well. So we've got a couple options that we'd like to explore.

[01:28:16] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. And then the second thing, you may be answering this, too. I'm not sure. Okay. The second thing is that I, when I talked to the applicant's representative, she told me that there may be various kinds of tenants. It may not be a typical office tenant. It could be biotech or something else. Do you know if it were a different type of tenant than a typical office tenant? What kind of changes would you have to make in this conceptual design? Like, what sort of, just the big picture kind of changes?

[01:28:51] Public Speaker: You want me to take a shot at that?

[01:28:53] Public Speaker: Okay. I think I would venture guess, I don't anticipate any significant changes to the building infrastructure is how it's drawn. So, um, you know, if, if, for example, if it became some sort of dry lab use, might, might be some, uh, loading that, that happens. Um, but I don't see a big change from what's drawn today in the, in the, uh, kind of operational side of the plans.

[01:29:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. But it's all speculation, to be fair. Yes, yeah, I know that, and I have to, that's one of the things I want to draw attention to to myself, and to other people that, you know, I actually like the architecture. Everybody can have their opinion, but it may change. is what I'm thinking.

[01:29:43] Public Speaker: Oh, or may not change, I've seen... Um, I don't think it's a change too significantly. I happen to like it as well. We spent a long time working on this project. I think we're in a good position for a design point of view, and I'm pretty excited about it. So, you know, depending upon the needs of the tenant, but the look and feel is not gonna change.

[01:30:01] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah. Okay. We agree with that. And then, um, for staff, um, so, kind of a follow up on, uh, council member Ramirez question about the flexibility of the community benefit funds. I just want to make sure they can also be used outside of North Bay Shore if it were affordable housing. You know, we have a need for affordable housing in North Bay Shore, but, you know, if an opportunity arose somewhere else.

[01:30:32] Unknown Speaker: I'll let the assistant community. Thank you.

[01:30:38] Unknown Speaker: I remember this question coming up when we looked at the changes to the bonus FAR review guidelines. It was pretty clear that the funding would have to be allocated to units in the precise plan.

[01:30:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Exactly what I want to know. you. And then, I have to say, so my major concern about this project, well, I guess I'll say it in two parts, about bonus FAR projects, any, any, trying to take advantage of this program, is that it provide enough infrastructure, you know, every time we develop office, there's a whole set of other infrastructure, that we need to accompany it. And that would be housing, which used to be, when I was in planning school, kind of optional, because we didn't listen to HCD. But it's no longer optional. And then, also schools, transportation, parks, and so forth. So, my main question, you've been answering this in different ways tonight. And also when I got my briefing, but do you think that this amount provides the infrastructure that the jobs generated would demand, basically?

[01:32:06] Unknown Speaker: Well, we did conduct a nexus study for transportation and utilities. And so they would be providing fees to address the impact for that infrastructure. The additional 200,000 that they would provide, is for transportation, could go to other similar projects in the North Bay Shore area. We don't have a in the guidelines. We don't have a clear, you know, established, um, kind of quantity of for every job we need such and such open space or for every job we need such and such school space. Uh, so, um, obviously they are, they aren't providing, uh, you know, towards the schools, um, they are providing some, uh, kind of uh, public network space, you know, uh, path, path space that could be, um, uh, uh, considered part of the open space network in the area. But we don't have any specific standards for evaluating those.

[01:33:17] Mayor Alison Hicks: And that's why you're asking us whether you should develop guidelines for that.

[01:33:21] Unknown Speaker: Exactly, yes.

[01:33:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. Let's see if I had another question. Oh, so my last question is, um, you know, this is not the largest office project we will have in this precise plan. So, but would it set precedent for other users of the program before we've done the guidelines that we would somehow be more married to than we might like to be?

[01:33:53] Unknown Speaker: I don't think so. What's typically been the process for council is that we only open up the process at council's request? And so if we don't open up, if council doesn't want us to open up the process before we update the guidelines, which we wouldn't recommend, but if you don't want us to open up the process before we update the guidelines, then it wouldn't establish any precedent. Because the guidelines would set the new standard, the new precedence.

[01:34:28] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then I guess I'll ask the applicant, because they're unsure of, because we're unsure of whether this would cover all infrastructure costs, if you could do a little better. Could you offer a little more than what you're now offering?

[01:35:02] Public Speaker: May I speak?

[01:35:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes. Yeah,

[01:35:06] Public Speaker: um, I think the way this works right now and, you know, legally. I think that council needs to consider the project as proposed, and it's kind of a thumbs up or thumbs down on the project as proposed. We would need to go back and, you know, work with staff and the city attorney's office to consider whether or not, you know, anything else could be added to this project. But tonight, I think that what's proposed and what's presented to council is the only thing that could be considered at this time.

[01:35:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Um, and I also see a question from the vice mayor.

[01:35:47] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes. This is just being a little repetitive, but I really would like to understand better about what would be included in the guideline update. What are the specific things? I mean, you mentioned, um, some things that are analogous to what's in the East Whisman plan? Could you go over that in a little more detail, please?

[01:36:11] Mayor Alison Hicks: I think we all think that's a great idea.

[01:36:13] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I'd be happy to kind of say a few things, but given that, you know, we haven't really started the process of diving in, and, like, council member Ramirez said, we haven't reached out to other property owners and had this conversation. I don't know how much specificity I can provide. But certainly, we are interested in providing clear quantitative metrics and thresholds. So there's not this question around, you know, do we use bonus FAR? Do we use net new floor area or, you know, which target are we trying to reach or anything like that? Which did cause a lot of discussion and obviously a lot of questions by council? So we want to make sure that that's clear from the outset to any applicant. Um, there were also, uh, there's also some kind of overly specific procedural language around timelines for And, um, uh, the, uh, kind of master plan submittal process, which we should probably update, uh, to provide more clarity around turnaround, from master plan to, um, planned community permit. And then further, they are guidelines, as it says in the title. But there isn't really any information in the guidelines themselves about how that discretion or flexibility should be interpreted or used, either in terms of meeting specific thresholds or alternate kind of additional criteria that may be that the applicant may want to offer and to sweeten the pot, as it were.

[01:38:06] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you. That helps. So it seems to me that what you're saying is that you've identified a gap, but you haven't had the opportunity to explore the details of what that gap is, yet, sufficiently to say, you know, this is exactly what we're gonna do. It's just that you know that this process needs to be undertaken. Exactly.

[01:38:28] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Got it. Thanks.

[01:38:31] Mayor Alison Hicks: Councilman Bradley Coca.

[01:38:34] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So, um, I guess along, along those lines regarding guidelines, going back to what the mayor was asking, like traditionally, we have not required park fees and schools, well, we can't require school fees on commercial developments. But are you suggesting or that we would explore those types of, um, asks or requirements, and future developments in this area?

[01:39:11] Unknown Speaker: That would be, I think, a larger discussion around the bonus FAR tiers. Um, I think this process would be more narrowly focused around uh, specifically the housing um, linkage. And so it would be a much larger and more complex discussion to bring it to the larger range of infrastructure that the mayor brought up. But that's not to say that if the council is interested in some future date, allocating staff time or direction to look at that in the bonus FAR tiers, that would be the process to do so.

[01:39:52] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Eric.

[01:39:53] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: If I may add some more information. I just wanted to clarify, even non-residential projects do pay school linkage fees, albeit lower, the city cannot require anything over and above that for residential or commercial. But really, when you link, for example, in the East Wisman precise plan, certain number of jobs to a certain amount of housing, you get all the other benefits, you get the open space, you get the affordable housing. And so that's a very clear way to link, and that's probably a best practice that we have learned from and would want to apply here. And then, um, in addition to that, the East Wisman Precise Plan actually has private open space requirements for commercial that we could apply. Not necessarily parkland, but just, you know, areas that are available to the public to use. So there are a lot of good best practices in East Wisman that we could look at bringing over, to the extent feasible.

[01:40:59] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Great. Thank you. And then going to the fact that this is a bonus of AR allocation, it's just diving a little deeper in terms of timeline. I think if we were to do this this evening, we wouldn't have about 170,000 square feet left. is the plan to wait till we hear of interest or will you bring it back to council at some time to ask council whether or when to open it up or what is the next steps planned for the remaining amount.

[01:41:38] Unknown Speaker: Uh, so I, uh, as uh, the uh, council member Ramirez suggested, we will go out and talk to other property owners, uh, we will gauge interest, do that process, uh, and we will report back uh, on, on, through that process, what we uh, recommend the next steps.

[01:41:58] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: And Um, I'm trying to remember because I know we picked this number, the 2 million so much. So somewhat square footage based on some studies, but I remember there was a range and there was a possibility, should we expend all of it to look at more if there was an interest or need. So, am I correct in recalling that? Do you remember?

[01:42:31] Unknown Speaker: The floor area? So that came from several studies during the, um, during the general plan process, and it was updated during the 2017 um, precise plan update process. Um, and those studies were based both on, um, kind of uh, uh, just a very rough, you know, 2030 buildout number, uh, as well as uh, some transportation analyses that happened. And so we've been further refining and updating those transportation requirements consistent with the envision buildout of this, what was in 2017, the 2.227 million.

[01:43:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Council member Kameh.

[01:43:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. So I just had a question in the guidelines, under the criteria, one of the bullets talks about an amount of affordable housing that exceeds the requirements listed in the North Bayshore precise plan. So, since the applicant is not proposing any units, instead, we're evaluating the proposed fee that would go towards it, correct? And so, um, the calculation that we're given um, equals the, you know, 58 affordable units. And so, um, part of the guideline discussion that we council could potentially have is kind of how to address maybe, um, the proportionality going forward in the in the North Bay Shore area, correct?

[01:44:16] Unknown Speaker: Yes.

[01:44:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Perfect. All right, thanks. Thats it, Mayor.

[01:44:22] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm not seeing any other council questions. So I'm going to move on to, uh, do any members of the public joining us either virtually or in person. Would anybody like to provide comment on this item?

[01:44:37] Unknown Speaker: I don't think we have any in person speakers. But we do have, virtually, we have Peter Katz.

[01:44:54] Peter Katz: Thank you, Mayor. Can hear me?

[01:44:56] Mayor Alison Hicks: We can.

[01:44:57] Peter Katz: Great. Thank you, Mayor Hicks, and estee members of the city council. I'm Peter Kapp, CEO of the Boundary Chamber of Commerce, and the Chamber has consistently voiced its support of intelligent growth in the North Bay Shore region, but directly supports housing, the environment, and community benefits, as well as offices, as these are all essential to health and well being of our economy and our lifestyle. We've also been strong supporters of local engagement, especially by small businesses. For these reasons, we support the 1808 North Shoreline Project and its North Bay Shore Precise Plan Office Bonus FAR proposal. In particular, we support giving smaller property owners like Jeff Morris, whose family, as you heard, has been here since the 80s. The opportunity to contribute and to participate in the Vision for North Bay Shore. We believe the Morris groups for project, and their request for a bonus 69,000 square feet of bonus FAR is compelling. You heard the numbers. It provides the construction of 58 units of affordable housing, which the city needs now, over 9700000 in funding to the city with 4.7 specifically for community benefits, 2.500000 for transportation. It also provides 4000 square feet of retail and active use space, and keep pedestrian and bike improvements along North Shoreline. As important, the project has been drawn up in consideration about the design and the standards set forth in both the precise plan and the Google Master plan. The chamber urges city council to support staff's recommendation to authorize the bonus FAR request from the Morris for the Morris group. It'll mean more affordable housing and use, in accordance to city guidelines, while supporting smaller property owners active participation in achieving our development vision. Thank you very much.

[01:46:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So this is the last call for public comments. Either raise your hand, uh, via Zoom, or submit a card, or come up to the microphone, seeing no other public comments. I'll bring the item back for counsel deliberation and action. Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:47:15] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. Since I don't see other hands. I went ahead and we'll make the motion as well, but I just want to say that I will be supporting this project. I appreciate the hard work that has been put into the project. Thank you, staff, as always, um, and appreciate the applicant's, um, uh, work on this as well. I do like the architecture. Hopefully it stays. But given that we are doing the bonus allocation tonight, I'll try to just focus on that. And as Mr. Katz had mentioned, I do think it is important to have a diversification of businesses and to be able to support big and small businesses. And so this project, I believe, does both. Um, I think that in terms of the housing piece, um, where, you know, things change over time, for a long time we had funding and not land. Now we're getting more land, but we don't have as much funding. And so I think that it's important for us to be flexible. and to adjust accordingly to what we need at the time. And also recognizing that there is an issue, the difference in terms of sizes of projects and what can and can what can be feasible based on size or even just physically possible. And in light of the precise plan, the way it is. And, you know, I think we've learned over time as we've done different precise plans. I think we learned something new and continue to improve on each precise plan. So, um, that's where it's, um, I think it's good to review these plans once in a while and then try to implement what we may have learned um, earlier. So I think that establishment of guidelines moving forward will be very helpful and important to do. So with that, um, if it's okay to keep the motion. I know there's some other hands, but I will continue to keep the motion live. Thanks.

[01:49:35] Mayor Alison Hicks: So, I see, so, uh, council member Abbe Kogo's made a motion. I see a 2nd by council member, Mattachek, and I don't see that she wants to make a comment. So, uh, but uh, council member Ramos would like to make a comment.

[01:49:52] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, mayor. I have been actually struggling with this project for a while. So, like, item one and 3 and the recommendations I'm relatively fine with. But I... It sits with me. Um, I had to, I had a recent vote where I had to explain to the community, well, I supported office space, and it was difficult for me. Um, and I get, we set aside this bonus FAR. I actually remembered it was my 1st council meeting when, uh, that we did the FAO, I say we, but when the city did their FAR bonus, I was sitting, pretty much where RT is, but like on the floor because there wasn't enough seats because there was a lot of interest in it. Um, I, I struggle largely, uh, because of the staff report saying how much this office space meets the office space goals, but not as much for our housing goals. Um, I got involved for the housing. I got involved to ensure that people are housed, and we do have a job's housing imbalance, and so I struggle with this a lot. I really am grateful for my council colleagues for the questions that they have asked. Um, But I still struggle with this project and defending more office space. Um, fully knowing that are we getting what we want out of this office space, which is literally the currency of North Bay Shore. And that's why I struggle. I'm not entirely sure if I feel comfortable supporting the motion, and I feel like I'm an audible out, unfortunately, but it's strange. I really do struggle with this project and this allocation. I asked staff before, when we were having our briefing, um, like, why did we knew the economic conditions aren't that great right now. Why did we bring it out now, and, um, it was my understanding that the applicant really wanted to. And so there's that feeling of maybe we should strike iron while it's hot. But if we're not getting the, an equal, it doesn't feel like we're getting an equal amount for the office space we're getting, the equal amount of housing for it. Um, which is why the item 3 and the recommendation is really important so that we can figure out how to do that linkage. But I really do struggle with supporting this. Thank you.

[01:52:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So I'll say, I also struggle with this one for the exact same reason, that, um, you know, I I like the architecture. Um, and, but I, I, um, don't know whether it offers enough of the infrastructure that we need along with the, the office. Um, I was, though, uh, you know, I was encouraged to hear that we, um, that it doesn't set a precedent for future applicants, and it's, uh, frankly, fairly tiny project. So, that's something that I'm mulling over as well. And I think that, as you said, the 3rd staff recommendation that we need guidelines that really, as much as we can, make sure that each office project is providing the various kinds of infrastructure we need, including housing, and affordable housing, that that's really important. So council member Kameh?

[01:53:45] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So thanks to the mayor and council member Ramos, I too, I think, have been, um, thinking a lot about the, um, the proposal, and one of the things that I was trying to ask about in, um, was, could we move forward with authorization and have the flexibility with which applicants are always asking us for, to perhaps discuss the affordable housing contribution, or component a little bit more, or the infrastructure that has been discussed. I think that, um, I felt that the discrepancies in terms of what, or what the city head and staff has put forward, and then the applicant's numbers, they were not, um, similar. And so I felt like we had gone forward with the North Bay Shore precise plan with these guidelines with the idea that if we did, we wanted to optimize the flexibility. But yet I see something in the guidelines, and this one is the bullet that has gotten me, which I had read earlier, you know, the amount of affordable housing that exceeds the requirements listed in the North Bay Shore precise plan. And in a way, I feel like the bonus FAR allocation is almost like a gatekeeper. It needs to go above and beyond. And so, um, I really want to see redevelopment in the North Bay Shore, see redevelopment on this parcel. I feel like every iteration of the project has gotten better on the site. And I think they're really trying to work with the overall vision for the area. Um, but I do, I am concerned about meeting the housing that our community has um, asked us to provide. And so I don't know if this is something that we would take a straw motion on or if it's just something that I could say, we'll move forward with the authorization. But as it stands, there's no timeline given, and some of my colleagues are asking about timeline, and I feel concerned about the length with which we might see something come forward. Um, But if we move forward with the authorization, could there be more ongoing discussions on how to meet the needs of our affordable housing in the North Bay Shore? So, I see the city attorney raised her hand, so I'm going to stop talking now.

[01:56:26] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: You don't have to stop. I was just going to address some of your questions and see if I could maybe provide counsel some options if you're struggling with a decision tonight. One, you could continue this item, um, and give staff in the city attorney's office an opportunity to, you know, work with the applicant and to work through a few things to see if we can come up with some additional options for council's consideration. Um, The other thing that you could do is you could direct staff to amend the guidelines and go back out and issue a new request for proposal that provides more clarity on what you are seeking in proportionality, if that is, if that is the struggle here this evening. So I just wanted to let you know that you have options, but, you know, one, maybe simpler one might be just to continue this, and give us a little opportunity to work with staff and the applicant to see if we can come back with more for you.

[01:57:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And just to clarify, that would require a substitute motion to continue. Is that?

[01:57:33] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes.

[01:57:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I don't feel prepared to make a substitute motion or to go in that direction, but more to just share with my colleagues the things that I'm thinking about, and just truly trying to dig into the 2nd recommendation and explore, you know, the authorization, you know, if the applicants hearing some concern about the affordable housing contribution, um, you know, is that shared with other colleagues, I don't know. So at this point, I don't feel prepared to make anything else, but just wanted to vocalize. Thanks.

[01:58:09] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Abbe Koga.

[01:58:13] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. So, um, I appreciate my colleagues' concerns and comments. I do believe, though, that there is an issue here of size. And when we have bigger projects, There's more flexibility to frankly offer more. This is a very small project in the big picture of 2200000 or whatever we allotted. And I think that needs to be taken into consideration. I question why we didn't have other applicants. Part, I wondered if it is because what's left is so minimal. And frankly, you know, on a small parcel of two acres. You can't build housing on there too. So, we have to be very realistic, and I, you know, I understand how much we need housing, but we just, please be mindful that, you know, we do need businesses. We need to diversify our businesses. You know, we're kind of, I'm concerned about our becoming dependent on one entity, and even that project is starting to change and morph, and we're not getting what we were told we were gonna get. So I just want to be very mindful of that moving forward that we continue to create and foster an environment that is conducive to businesses wanting to come here and grow. So in light of that, I believe we should move forward with this tonight. And I will say that as we move forward with the guidelines, and the reason why I asked about the 2.2 million was that, you know, at that time, 12, however long, when we did that, we had said that, but given how things are moving. Um, we may have to revisit that too, um, because I don't know if the 170,000 square feet is really gonna be, you know, frankly, that exciting for any other business to want to come in and use that. So, you know, this will probably be beyond my time here. But I think those are things that we really need to be thinking of. And, you know, I don't want it, us to become cost prohibitive that businesses just aren't going to be interested in coming in. So with that, I think we should just continue and move forward with this motion. Thanks.

[02:00:37] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yeah, um, I, uh, I think this is a good project, and, um, so I'm going to be supporting it, but of course, this discrepancy with the affordable housing is, um, is of concern. But as we've talked about, tonight, we're talking about the bonus FAR. There will be additional times for us to talk about components of this project moving forward. So I'm hoping that the developer has heard, loud and clear, that this council really cares about affordable housing. And I hope that you will work with staff to maximize the amount you can contribute to affordable housing. You are long term members of the community, you know how important this is. And, you know, for instance, one of the things we talked about, uh, when I talked to Carrie a couple days ago, was the possibility of paying the affordable housing fees early, you know, that can be valuable, too, as well as, so I hope that you and staff will work together to maximize the value of the affordable housing that, um, that comes forward for this, because it does. It does matter just a huge amount to all of us. Thank you. So, we have one more comment. I think, and then we'll vote.

[02:02:04] Unknown Speaker: Thank you, Mary. Ill be quick. I'll be supporting the motion as well. Um, I'll share, you know, I'm also not terribly enthusiastic about office generally. It's not something I campaigned to advance, but I feel like there are some circumstances that help me evaluate the project and come to the conclusion that it's worthy of support. And one is the bonus FAR program, was established to allow the city to capture value in North Bay Shore, right? At the time, Office was immensely desirable. And so what the city did, appropriately, was, say, we're going to provide a cap, a limit on the amount of office space, and then, essentially, maybe these are strong words, but sort of apportion it based on the benefit that the city can get in return, right? So there's a quid pro quo, right? You get off the space, but in doing so, you must provide something to the city in return. And I'm very sensitive to what council member Kume was saying. I think part of the challenge is, we don't have a standard by which we could evaluate projects against each other. At the time in 2014. It may have made sense to do it this way because we were anticipating a lot of applicants who would have to put their best foot forward, right? And so we can pick and choose based on the value that each applicant was presenting. When you only have one applicant, the beauty passion process doesn't work anymore. And I think it's in a time like this where it would be really helpful to have an established value, like every other precise plant has, a dollar value per square foot, for instance. And I think the applicant chose a comparable precise plan as a reference point. Um, you know, another way of thinking about it is how much is, uh, is an applicant going before us in a substantially similar period of time proposing on a dollar per square foot value. Um, I'm comfortable with what you've come up with. But I think the challenge here is we don't have a standard to apply for an appropriate evaluation. But I think what you have shared council member Ramos is compelling to a point, if we're seeing, office to cease to be as valuable as it once was. I think we have to recalibrate our expectations accordingly. And unfortunately, it may mean not getting as much as we had hoped 10 years ago. But what is being provided, I think, is appropriate. It will help us. We're getting a lot of land, and land is great, except we don't have enough money to build the housing on that land that we're getting. This is, I think, a good start given the size of the project. So I'm comfortable with what's being proposed. Thank you.

[02:04:55] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, because this has been controversial. I'll let everybody add comments.

[02:05:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member command, did you have another comment?

[02:05:02] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I just wanted to thank my colleagues. I mean, part of this is a public policy discussion and we have it in an open and public meeting. And when I leaned forward, it wasn't to do a substitute motion. It was more to just kind of talk it out with you all as colleagues and to discuss maybe the things that what vice mayor brought up in terms of the prepayment. That was not something that was brought up to me, um, in my meeting with the applicant's representative. And I think items like that could be things where, um, I don't think in this climate we're going to see projects that are perfect. I think that that's, you know, we're gonna see a lot of imperfect, perfect. And so I think it's to brainstorm with all of you about some of the things that we struggle with as a community. And so I feel comfortable in the direction that we're going with, which is amending our guidelines to provide the clarity that's necessary nearly a decade later after the North Bay Shore precise plan, number one, and to maybe explore the prepayment process as well for the affordable housing or the community benefit contribution that makes me comfortable to move forward with the authorization. So I just want to thank colleagues because I think it's when we brainstorm together that it's helpful.

[02:06:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Mystery Vastova.

[02:06:21] Unknown Speaker: Thank you for indulging me. The proposal before counsel is the proposal that was made by the applicant. I would like to give the applicant, maybe, and I, a chance to, consider what counsel has talked about, which is maximizing affordable housing, or, um, repayment, because, um, that won't come after, after authorization, because what counsel is approving is the project before you. So I just wanted to make it clear that if counsel wish to see early payment or more funding, that would have to voluntarily come from the applicant.

[02:07:05] Mayor Alison Hicks: So are you saying the applicant should be invited now, or?

[02:07:09] Unknown Speaker: They should be invited before the council makes the decision. on the project because we can't make this authorization conditional based on my discussion with the city attorney.

[02:07:26] Mayor Alison Hicks: So you're I want to make sure I'm clear on what you're asking. You're asking the applicant to respond to our request to maximize affordable housing through pay prepayment or some other means.

[02:07:44] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think, if I can clarify, I think she's, uh, um... The applicant should be offered an opportunity to speak again if they wish to speak again. If they don't wish to speak again, then I think that it would be fine.

[02:08:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Does the applicant wish to speak again, in particular, about affordable housing? Or anything else.

[02:08:10] Carrie Williams: Hi, I'm Carrie Williams. I'm representing Jeff Morris, and, um, this was a really helpful discussion, and so I appreciate everybody's comments. I mean, it was really, really helpful to hear this. And, um, you know, this is just a bonus FAR authorization. It's not an entitlement to build a project. We still have to come forward with or without a development agreement. We have to come forward and be compelling. And so I think we've heard very clearly what, you know, the priorities are, and that's really helpful for us. And we, you know, we took that to heart, and we look forward to bringing back, if you authorize us tonight, a really, really exciting, you know, project you can be excited about, everyone.

[02:08:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, thank you. And Council member Abekoga?

[02:09:00] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mary. So I was going to suggest that perhaps that discussion could be incorporated if when a development agreement is being discussed. So no need to do anything this evening, but I think that's going to be the expectation, right?

[02:09:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Ms. Logan, did you have a comment or no? You looked like you were going for the button.

[02:09:29] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: No, I was just making sure I understood, but I think I understand. Okay.

[02:09:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, great. So we'll be moving towards a vote. I'm going to support the motion I was on the fence before, but I think various factors, the fact that we've had sort of a debate about how important the supplying various kinds of infrastructure, particularly affordable housing, and ways of encouraging that further. Also, the fact that this is a small project, but it will, I think, even throughout today, I've felt more and more the need to diversify the businesses that we have in our city. So that's another element, another element of my support for this project, that was not present when I read the staff report originally. So I will be supporting the motion. I see no other comments, so we can all vote. Passes unanimously. Okay, would council members like a short break? Are you ready to plow on? Uh, Okay, I hear. Going on? Okay. The majority wants to go on. Okay. Time will tell. Okay. So, we are now on the item 7.one, a public hearing regarding 189 North Bernardo Avenue Office Project. Would any council members like to make disclosures? I see no council members wishing to make disclosures, so associate planner Brittany Whitehall, an assistant community development director, Lindsay Hagen, will present the item.

[02:11:43] Associate Planner Brittany Whitehill: Good evening, mayor, and members of the city council. My name is Brittany Whitehill, and tonight I am joined by Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan. The item for your consideration this evening is an office development located at 189 North Bernardo Avenue. This project is located on an approximately 3.8 acre site on the southeast corner of North Bernardo Avenue and Central Expressway in the East Wisman Precise Plan Employment Character Area South. The site has a general planned land use designation of high-intensity office, and surrounding land uses include office and R&D uses to the north and west of the site. To the south and east of the site is Central Expressway, multifamily and mobile home uses, and the Caltrain tracks. The site is currently developed with an existing 2 story office building, which will remain with this project and surface level parking. In January of 2018, the city in Los Altos school district, or LASD, established a transfer of development rights, TDR program. This project received authorization from city council to utilize up to 28,000 square feet of TDR floor area at that meeting. The applicant hosted a community meeting in January of 2022, property owners within 750 feet of the project site, as well as the Wagon Wheel Neighborhood Association, were notified about the meeting, however no members of the public attended. In March of 2022, the project was considered by the EPC at a study session. The EPC expressed support for the project and directed the applicant and staff to study refinements, which focus largely on tree preservation, landscaping, and amenity areas. The project was initially reviewed by the DRC in February of 2022 and subsequently received a recommendation of conditional approval in October of 2022. And most recently in March of 2020, 2023. The project received a unanimous recommendation of approval by the environmental planning commission. During this EPC meeting, the project received one public comment, requesting that the proposed exterior lighting be upgraded to comply with Dark Sky International Standards, and the applicant has voluntarily agreed to work with staff to implement this where feasible through the building permit process. The project proposes to renovate the existing 2 story office building, which is shown in Blue on the Slide, construct a new 4 story office building, shown in gold, and a 6 level parking garage with 2 levels below grade, shown in pale yellow. Access to the site will remain off of North Bernardo Avenue. In addition to the 28,000 square feet of TDR floor area from the LASD TDR program, the project requests to utilize approximately 48,000 square feet of bonus FAR as part of the East Wisman precise plan bonus FAR program. The new office has been designed to appear as a floating glass building, with sweeping curvilinear facades, and building canopies with entries incorporating warm accent materials. The building facade incorporates frittered glass for bird safety and is non-reflective to prevent glare. Minor renovations to the existing building are proposed, and these focus on entries which will complement the entries of the new office building. The new garage incorporates a printed flex screen facade treatment for the 1st 2 levels with vertical fins accenting the top 2 floors. And as previously noted, the project was reviewed by the DRC and received a recommendation of approval with design conditions. These conditions focus on enhancing the pedestrian and bicycle improvements and minor refinements to the office and garage designs. 111 trees, including 61 heritage trees, are proposed to be removed to construct the project, primarily due to their conflict with the proposed building footprint underground garage or multi-use path. Additionally, a small number of shaml ash trees are proposed to be removed due to their condition. The applicant has worked extensively with city staff to develop the optimal site design to achieve tree preservation wherever possible while providing public access envisioned in the East Wisman precise planned complete streets network. The replanting plan features 220 new trees, including 46 coast live oaks and 36 valley oaks and key locations throughout the site. The project will result in a net increase and tree canopy at full maturity. And the proposed plant palette provides varied robust landscaping, featuring 85% native plants. In compliance with the East Wisman Precise Plan, the project proposes a multi-use path with bicycle facilities and a north to south pedestrian Paseo. Additionally, the project will provide approximately 23,000 square feet of privately owned publicly accessible open space as required in the East Wisman precise plan, which would feature bike fixit stations, sport and games courts, pedestrian scale lighting, seating, and barbecues. As previously noted, the project requests approximately 48,000 square feet of bonus FAR, in exchange for a community benefits contribution of approximately $1.3 million. And staff suggest that these funds be allocated to the Bernardo Undercrossing CIP project. Lastly, in exchange for 28,000 square feet of floor area through the LASD TDR program, the applicant has committed approximately $360000 to LASD to support their acquisition of a new school site in the San Antonio precise plan area. The project substantially complies with the East Wisdom and Precise Plan, employment character area standards, and requests minor exceptions to the required number of loading space, loading spaces, and to multi-use in north to south Paseo standards. These exceptions allow for additional landscaping within the surface parking area and preservation of 9 additional existing heritage trees. The project advances several guiding principles of the precise plan, which relate to minimizing vehicle trips, building a complete streets network, and creating a highly sustainable community. The project also complies with the general plan, high intensity, office land use designation standards. An initial study of environmental significance was prepared for the project and concluded that with implementation of city standard conditions of approval and certain mitigation measures from the previous precise plan EIR. The project would not result in any new or more significant impacts over those previously identified. In conclusion, staff recommends that the city council adopt the initial study and approve the planned community permit, development review permit and heritage tree removal permit, as shown in the staff report. City staff is available for questions and the applicant team is also present and has a brief or brief presentation to share.

[02:19:19] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, thank you. We'll now have a presentation from the applicants, Steve Lynch, Sandhill Property Company, and Ken Rodriguez, architect for Kenneth Rodriguez, and partners.

[02:19:34] Steve Lynch: Thank you, counsel. Good evening. My name is Steve Lynch with Samuel Property Company, and we've owned this property since approximately 2017. We do have a short presentation. Ken Rodriguez with Ken Rodriguez and Partners, and Gary Lehman from Guzzardo Partners is here tonight.

[02:19:53] Ken Rodriguez: Good evening, Mary Hicks, members of the council, Ken Rodriguez. Good to be back in front of you again with an exciting project. Moving forward. I want to be very brief, 'cause staff's report was very thorough, but if we could go to a couple of the renderings, I wanted to just share some images with the council. Let's go to the next slide. Keep going, please. Okay. So this gives an overview of the existing area, and our site, which shows the new proposed building in the center of the site there, the parking garage to the left, and then the existing building, which has a currently has a lease in it, that will run for a ways, but looking at a master plan, we really try to develop the ability to center the building, and then also have the ability to, at some point, either remodel the building, the existing two story building, or create a new building on the corner. So, I wanted to just assure the council that we have some flexibility with both of those, let's go to the next slide. This shows the existing 189 building. We are doing a remodel to the building, enhancing it with some new exterior skin materials, glass, and a major entry. Let's go to the next slide. This is a view from central expressway. And I think, you know, really shows the building can be, and will be a really interesting sculptural piece. The materials, Brittany mentioned very thoroughly. But I think this particular building will have a pedestrian connection to Central Expressway, which will really activate the city's desire for the new trail system along Central, a real positive piece versus an auto oriented expressway, both auto and pedestrian and bicycle today. Let's go to the next slide, if we could. And this just shows a close up of the two buildings, the connector that will connect that multiused path with adjacent sites. You can see it right in the middle there with the textured pavement. And an enhancement of landscaping, and as staff mentioned, we are asking for an exception to remove just five loading spaces in front for more additional landscaping, which was suggestion by the EPC. So I think that concludes my presentation. We have more slides. If you have specific questions, I'd be happy to answer those for you, or Gary Lehman or the ownership team. Thank you.

[02:22:55] Steve Lynch: And so, I'll only... Actually, can we see... They have one more slide showing our total community benefits. But I don't have a whole lot to add to that. We've read staff's reports. Fantastic. We agree with all the recommendations and conditions in the report, and happy to answer any questions you may have. I think it might have been the last one, Brittany, if it's still there. If not, that's okay. It's not a critical bit of information, so... Thanks. I did just want to highlight that. So, because it's taken a while to get to this point, agreeing on community benefits, so... Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

[02:23:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yep. Do any members of the council have questions? Uh, Vice Mayor.

[02:23:51] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I was wondering, um, if you, you know, you, one of the things, the exceptions you've asked for is five loading spaces. And, um, I know that you're going to do regular transportation evaluations as to how this works. So if you find over time that 5 isn't enough, will you be able to convert some of the landscaping to another space, or, I know I've been in parking lots before where that was done, and it seems it's way better to have it as landscaping, if you possibly can, but if you find out it doesn't work, Is that a possibility there?

[02:24:27] Unknown Speaker: It sure is. I mean, we can also convert standard spaces to loading where needed. That's a fairly easy operational piece. Part of the reason we are short on spaces is we've walked the site with the city arborist, literally looking at every tree, sort of making sure that we're saving the trees that are healthy because they're are quite a few trees that are being removed for this development. So that's sort of how we backed into those spaces, just sort of at this point, looking at trees having a little more importance on that side of the project. We certainly can. We can go back and remove more trees if need to. We can put some in the landscaping. We do have some areas up front. Um, I'd be pretty cautious about recommending that because I think the landscaping on this project's actually landed in a project. No, I'm not recommending that. I'm just saying that as part of as part of the TDM plan, things like that are possible.

[02:25:18] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. And then the other question I had was, I understand that the increase, there will be an increase in canopy at maturity, what will the canopy be at maturity? What do you expect it to be? And how much better is that than the current situation?

[02:25:37] Unknown Speaker: I can look that up momentarily.

[02:25:39] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Sure, that's fine. Thanks so much.

[02:25:42] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Matt.

[02:25:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. Um, I apologize when you ask about disclosures. I did not meet with the applicant, but, um, I did visit the site on my own this past weekend. Um... I had a question about the, um, Dark Sky, um, principles, and, um, while I appreciate that the applicant would work with staff on implementing those. Um, is it possible to, you know, I also heard where feasible? Like, what would not be feasible?

[02:26:21] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan: Thank you for the question, council member. This is assistant community development director, Lindsay Hagan. Um, So I think because the city hasn't really dived into the detailed process of really looking at Dark Sky, uh, regulations and all the kind of nuances to it, um, we use the terminology where feasible simply because we don't know all the details until we kind of get through it. And I think, during the, as mentioned by Planner White Hill, I think, once we get to the building permit phase, is really when we'd have a lot of those details of what, you know, we can dive into the sign, excuse me, the lighting standards, and looking at the types of lighting that contribute towards, you know, meeting the requirements of dark sky. And there are other resources we can rely on in looking at that. It's just that we were being cautious as we haven't really dove deep into that as far as city staff and city regulations.

[02:27:16] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay. And I just want to check with our city attorney. Is it possible to make that a condition rather than, uh, an offer to work with staff?

[02:27:28] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yeah, I think it would be okay if the applicant was agreeable to add that as a condition that they commit to working with staff as opposed to, you know, the more looser voluntarily, I think that would be fine.

[02:27:43] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Okay, thank you. Let's see. I guess my other my other things to say or comments, I'll hold off. Thanks.

[02:27:53] Unknown Speaker: I do have those canopy coverage numbers. So the existing canopy coverage is 32.one% and at maturity, the estimated canopy coverage would be 39.7%.

[02:28:08] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Thank you, and that's and that's good because it's a big building. So that, thank you. Appreciate that.

[02:28:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos.

[02:28:20] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Just a quick follow-up to the canopy coverage. So at maturity 39.7%. How long till maturity?

[02:28:28] Unknown Speaker: Maturity was estimated at 15 years.

[02:28:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'll ask a, oh, council member Ramos, did you have more?

[02:28:39] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. I'll ask a couple of questions. First, the really easy one. I realize I don't understand bike parking stalls. It said there would be 80 bike parking stalls, is that 80 space to park 80 bikes, or is it 80 racks for multiple banks? Exactly, what does that mean?

[02:29:00] Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so that's bike parking to accommodate 80 bytes. 80 bikes.

[02:29:04] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. Um, and then my, uh, probably maybe more difficult question. I liked a lot of the pop of spaces and the uses, I didn't memorize them, but they sounded exciting. I'm wondering, though, because we've had this situation with other entities we've worked with, that there is open space, and then there's security concerns, and that space gets cordoned off from public use. So I'm wondering, and I actually talked to a planner a week or 2 ago on another project about this. And she said, there'd been a security review so that, hopefully, that wouldn't happen. I was wondering whether you had gone over that with the applicant, um, you know, something to make sure that the Popas are not fenced off in the future.

[02:30:01] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan: Yeah, thank you for the question. So as part of the conditions of approval, there's a requirement to record a public access covenant where we would outline sort of what can and can't happen. So future, any consideration of a future fencing would be something that would have to review and look at. as part of a future improvement, if that's what they were offering. But I think as part of this project, the discussions with the applicant have been talking about it being an open and accessible and not secured space for all these different, the 3 main areas that were highlighted.

[02:30:36] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. Council member Ramirez?

[02:30:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor, quick, follow up to that. So does that mean we could count these POPA spaces towards our 3 acres per 1000 people obligation?

[02:30:51] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsay Hagan: Another great question. Unfortunately, based on how our current regulations are written, it's only subject for residential development, so it wouldn't be able to count formally towards the city's parkland requirements, but I think hopefully we can all agree it's still a great benefit.

[02:31:06] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: That's a strange distinction that we make. Thank you.

[02:31:13] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay. See, this is a last call for questions from council members, seeing no more. Would any member of the public, joining us virtually or in person, like to provide comment on this item. If so, please click the raised hand button in Zoom. Or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. I'll take in-person speakers first. And each speaker, not seeing a tremendous number of speakers, each speaker will have 3 minutes.

[02:31:48] Unknown Speaker: Alex Brown.

[02:31:52] Alex Brown: 85 or 6 again? Oh, A5 or 6, the renderings with the. For the audience at home, I'm waiting for the slide to be brought up. Hi, guys. How you feeling? Yeah? Hmm? Okay. So same as usual. Yeah, okay. Uh, love that you're able to keep all the trees. Very nice. And then this. In the middle of all the trees and open space. Yuck. All right, thank you.

[02:32:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. So, I do not see any other public speakers. So, we, uh, yes, no more public speakers. So I'll now bring the item back for council deliberation and act.

[02:32:56] Unknown Speaker: I just wanted to point out, um, Bruce England has his hand.

[02:33:00] Mayor Alison Hicks: Oh, does he? He does, and he's way down the list. Okay. Usually, the hands rise to the top. Okay, Bruce England.

[02:33:12] Bruce England: Thank you, Mayor. Bruce England here. I will call you tomorrow, Madam Mayor. Um, so a few comments on this project. So, um, recently on the Whisman Station Drive. I managed 3 local groups, Moundview Coalition for Sustainable Planning, Green Spaces Mountain View. and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, Mountain View, local team. We talk a lot about this project and the undercross thing at Bernardo's shared project between Mountain View and Sunnyvale. And one thing that we've been bringing up all along, um, but it doesn't seem to show up in the reports is, uh, inclusion of public facing restrooms and water fountains at the location, partly in the interest of serving those who are using undercrossing. So there's, that's going to be a commuter path between um, parts of Sunnyvale Mountain View and the North Park. Um, There was interest expressed in at least exploring that early on, but it seems to have dropped off. And I'd sure like to hear a commitment to either doing it or saying, no way we're going to do that. Um, the Dark Sky issue, There's a lot of good advice from organizations like the International Dark Sky Association, and Google and Lend Lease, and the school district boundary was in school district have already committed to applying those standards to their lighting policy. So it seems to me that that's set a precedent, that the developer can take advantage of. Lastly, hate to see a loss of so many trees. It's great to see there will be an increase in canopy. But it's, I'll just say, it's hard to take the idea that we have to cut down a whole lot of trees in order to realize an increase in canopy and with, uh, native trees. So try to take the good with the bat, I guess, but it's partly discouraging. And that's it for me. Thank you.

[02:34:57] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Okay. Okay, now I took a careful look, and I do not see. any more hands raise virtually. So, um, we'll bring the item back for, um, we'll bring the item back for council deliberation and action, and note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the resolution attached to the report. Uh, council member committee. Oh, no. Okay. So, uh, council member Mattachek.

[02:35:51] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So I said I had some comments before. Um, I live within the boundaries of the Wagon Whale Neighborhood Association, and so I checked my email to see if I had any notices from a year ago. Uh, and I didn't, and I contacted the board members, and, um, they all searched their email, and they didn't have any notices. So, clearly, something went wrong. The Wagon Well Neighborhood Association, as far as we can tell, didn't get notified. So sorry nobody showed up for the meeting. We weren't notified. So I think we need to go back and figure out what happened, what went arise so that that doesn't happen again, um, because that neighborhood is very interested in what's going on, um, in the area. Let's see. I, um... I was glad to see that staff is gonna work with the applicant on, um... the design. I personally feel like it is too much glass. And it doesn't fit well, even though they might redo other buildings. And, you know, we saw a building earlier today that seemed warmer, and more inviting from my perspective, than one that is pretty much all glass. So, um, I appreciate that staff is going to work with them on changing some things, and I'm hoping that can be at least some warmer elements, um, so it's not just all glass. Um... Let's see. I mentioned that I would like to make it a condition of approval, to follow the dark sky, lighting regulations or policies. Um, and I'm hoping that the maker of the motion in the second door will include that. And, um, I will say, I appreciate the public art, but I would like to see something, um, and I can't figure out a way of describing this other than something other than twisted metal. Um, There are lots of examples of public art, um, I take pictures, every place I go. I send a lot to the city manager. as ideas on what we could have in Mountain View. And it's things like, you know, people and objects you recognize. Um, you know, I someone recently that, um, you know, was a stack of books, um, very large books, things that, you know, are objects that people will recognize as opposed to. What is that? Um, you know, there's one, and I think it is, um, Denver, that's a big blue bear looking into a building. That's creative. I'd like to see something creative for the art that's at this location. And I'm happy to send the applicant, lots of ideas if they're looking for some. Um, but that one's really important to me, that it's something other than twisted metal. Um, and I'd also like to stay away from birds, um, because we have so many. Sorry to be so detailed, but this is my only opportunity. Um, we have so many birds. as public art throughout the city. We need something different. We need some diversity in our public art. But, um, let's see. I guess that's it. Thank you.

[02:39:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member, Matt. Oh, you work, Council member, Metachech Council member Committee.

[02:39:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Yes, I'm happy to include Dark Skies into the motion. However, we should add that. I'll look to the city attorney for that. And I'm making the motion. I do know that it's gone through quite a few iterations of design with staff and feel like it's getting closer in the right direction. Um, I echo council member Mattachek's, um, um, call to expanding the radius of notification. Not only do I feel like it's wagon wheel, but Wisman Station, East Wisman. It's really right there. So I'm really hopeful. Or as we heard the mountain view, sainable planning coalition, Mr. England Wright lives right there on Wisman Station Drive. So hopefully we can expand the radius when we know that it's going to be near other office parks. And then excited that I believe this will, this is part of the LASD transfer development rights. And so I'm excited to kind of be moving forward with that. Um, and I feel like, um, Council member Matachek, we need to trademark plop art. Um, as your as your coin to phrase, um, really appreciate that you're always looking out for that. One thing I wanted to highlight for council that I don't know that we've looked at yet is, um, this is part of their Bernardo Avenue undercrossing, which we just looked at at Council Transportation Committee. Um, and it's an exciting opportunity connect to Bernardo and Evelyn over to this side. Um, and we have been looking at it and exploring, I think, um, feedback on the design of that crossing as well as the public art that could be in that space. And so perhaps that's going forward. There could maybe be some understanding of what that public art in the undercrossing might be or the color scheme. That would be nice. I think it'd be a nice experience as a, you know, scooter, bicyclist, walker, um, to be able to see. And so just wanted to highlight that. And for those reasons, I've made the motion. So I don't know if other colleagues have comments, but I let me know when I need to read the motion or if I need to include anything about Dark Skies into the reading of the recommendation. Thank you.

[02:42:04] Mayor Alison Hicks: So does the city attorney have any comments on what should be included in the reading?

[02:42:09] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: I think if you just accept, you know, the friendly amendment and then go ahead and read it, that's fine. Unless City Clerk, do you need clarity on what the okay.

[02:42:24] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so I see a motion by council member commit, a 2nd by council member Ramirez. I see no additional comments. Oh, you're, oh, you're back in the queue. Okay. I thought that you hadn't removed yourself. Okay, can we?

[02:42:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: No, I just wanted to clarify, it was the visual arts committee who used the term plot art, but I loved it, so I use it a lot. I don't want to take credit for it. Thank you.

[02:42:52] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, now, not to skip anyone, are there any other comments? See any?

[02:42:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So, the motion. Yes, to adopt the initial study of environmental significance for the 189 North Bernardo Avenue office project and determine that the project is consistent with the East Wisman Precise Plan, Final Environmental Impact Report, and Mountain View 2030 General Plan, and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program, Final Environmental Impact Report. Pursuant to sections 15162 and 15183 of the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines at 189 North Bernardo Avenue, attachment one to the council report. To adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, approving a planned community permit and development review permit to construct a 4 story, 88D2, 856 square foot office building, a parking structure with 4 levels above grade, and 2 levels below, building modifications to existing 2 story office building to remain on site, a transfer of development rights of 28,000 square feet from 2535 California Street, 506 Showers Drive, and 350 Showers Drive, to the project site in relation to the Los Altos School District TDR program. And a heritage tree removal permit to remove 61 heritage trees on a 3.8 acre site located at 189 North Bernardo Avenue, to be right in title only for the reading wave detachment to the council report.

[02:44:25] Mayor Alison Hicks: Okay, so we have a motion and a 2nd and we can all vote.

[02:44:33] Unknown Speaker: Can I just clarify? So that does include they will implement dark skies.

[02:44:38] Mayor Alison Hicks: Yes, and the friendly amendment from council member management. Okay, thank you. Passes unanimously. We'll now move to item 8 on our agenda, which is council staff committee reports. Council member Abbe Koga.

[02:45:08] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to report that the city's association selection committee chose members for the recycling waste reduction committee in the emergency operations council. Um, and we also had a board meeting where we had, um, we're trying to, we have guest speakers who were coming in and we had 2 from the county. When was from the gun violence prevention task force, and they did a great presentation that focused on something that has come up in our city, the gun violence restraining order, and the task force is encouraging all cities to adopt those types of policies. as part of a way to promote gun safety. And the other presentation was on the healthy cities dashboard. So we've had this in the past. I think it was put on hold during COVID, but there's like a list of different items and they will rate each city on each item. And one actually is on gun violence. And another one was on sustainability. Um, and um, and they're planning for a summit later in the fall, uh, focused on these 2 items. So I can't remember, but I think maybe we were doing pretty well. There's some areas that we could focus on, I think one, actually the vaping issue is on there too. But overall, I think we're in a good place. I also wanted to remind folks that on June 15th Thursday. We will have the city's association annual membership dinner. And this is with partnership with Silicon Valley Clean Energy and the Joint Venture Silicon Valley, focuses on sustainability, clean energy. We will be having cooking demonstrations, using induction, cooking techniques, and then dinner and some speakers, and then a dessert food truck. So, um, and it'll be at the Los Altos Community Center, um, it's actually free of charge, we receive sponsorship from SVCE. So please, I encourage all of you to sign up and join us that evening. Thank you.

[02:47:43] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. Vice mayor?

[02:47:46] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yes, thank you. I wanted to share that I attended the Leadership Mountain View Sustainability Day on Friday, gave a little talk on sea level rise, and recycled water, and went to their graduation. People went to graduation. It was great fun, and I think that we're going to have another great group of leaders coming forward to help us in all sorts of civic activities. And I also wanted to share that this morning, the mayor and myself, and Raymond, spent the morning at the South Bay Salt Pond program stakeholder meeting. They have one about every year to sort of bring everybody up to speed, and I put together some slides about it, but... Anyway, it's not too late. Should I go through with them now or just share them with everybody? I'll just share them with everybody later. But anyway, put through a couple, there were like 115 slides in this slideshow. So I kind of knew you didn't want to shit. You didn't want me to share that. So I took, I took out. I took out about, I don't know, six or seven. Oh, to show us. to show you. to show you. Yeah. I thought that would, you know, you might actually look at that. So we will share that tomorrow. But the, um, you know, the real, uh, take home message, I think, is that, that at the end of phase two, which is what our, the restoration in Mountain View is part of, um, we, the, um, the program will have reached the, the 50/50, um, goal of having 50% of the marshes in the South Bay restored, I mean, 50% of the salt ponds restored to marsh, and 50% of them will be, um, uh, still ponds. And when, you know, when this salt pun project started, that was the idea was that we would get at least to 50%. And then, depending on how things were, in terms of sea level rise, and particularly in terms of how the birds and, you know, the endangered species were responding, we may someday go to as high as 90% restoration. So, we are, you know, on a trajectory to that, and they also showed about, I think it was about a $3.6 million gap in finishing the restoration in the Mountain View area. And we have heard about that from other, you know, we've heard about that from the city directly. So just wanted to share that. And you'll be seeing this great slideshow. Thank you.

[02:50:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Mattachek.

[02:50:42] Councilmember Lisa Matichak: Thank you. So, we had a council transportation committee meeting on May 15th, and there will be 2 projects coming forward to council. Um, a road diet on Meramonte between Castro and Cuesta. And the El Monte Corridor, Road Diet, between, and there's two intersections, um, Escuela, uh, and El Camino. So, El Monte, and El Camino, and Escuela, and El Camino, where they go together, and it goes up to the Mountain View border at Springer. So that'll be coming forward to the council. And then I participated in a Bosca Bay Area water supply and conservation agency, board meeting on May 18th. And as a reminder, I feel like I say this every time, but in case somebody doesn't know. Um, this is the 26 agencies that buy water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, that is the owner of the Hetch Hetchy system. And, um, actually, the SFPUC had a celebration at the O'Shaughnessy Dam, which is the dam that created the Hetchechy Reservoir. It is 100 years old. Which is kind of surprising. When I was first appointed to Bosco, they took us, all of the new board members up to, we toured different segments of the system, and then ended up at the Hedge Hetchy Water, sorry, Reservoir, and we had an opportunity to go into the O'Shaughnessy Dam. which was really pretty interesting, I must say. Um, but getting to our water supply situation, um, you heard a little bit about it from Vice Mayor Shal Walter earlier, but, um, looking at just the Hetch Hetchy system, they are expecting the system to be filled by July one. They have to, um, there's a gentleman who just loves math, and, uh, we met him on our tour, and he does all the calculations on the snow pack, and how it's gonna melt, and, um, therefore, how much space you have to have in the system, at the different points. And so there is space in the reservoir to hold the snow melt. But they're expecting it to fail by July 1. And water consumption, we look at that at every meeting, and it's kind of shocking that our, as a system, the consumption is below the 2015 levels, even though the population has grown quite a bit. The per capita usage of water is really depressed, so to speak, which is great news, in general. It's great news. Um, and let's see, that's it. Thank you.

[02:53:47] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Kmei.

[02:53:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: As council member Mattachek mentioned, we had a council transportation committee meeting on the 15th, and on the 16th, we had a council use services committee meeting. So I'll highlight that, which is we had the largest amount of participants of our youth in the teen art showcase, which was in the rotunda area with 68 participants. And so they had a really successful teen week. And so I've asked staff to share that in our council connection. Um, so we can see who the teen friendly businesses were and, um, all the other, um, events that took place for our youth. Thank you.

[02:54:34] Mayor Alison Hicks: Vice mayor, you have more comments.

[02:54:37] Vice Mayor Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you all about the council neighborhood committee meeting. We had the first in person one in three years, and I really think it was a great success, both because the staff members, you know, I don't think they get that many opportunities to talk to people who aren't in their departments. And since they're people from, you know, each department there, they, you know, they spend three or four hours at that meeting together, and particularly before and after the meeting, they get to talk to folks that aren't in this. People, really, seem to enjoy that. And we had a fairly robust group of people in the audience. I think there were about 40 members of the audience. And they just kept the questions coming. They were primarily about transportation. Um, so, uh, Lorenzo Lopez got the prize for the most questions answered. And, um, anyway, I think that, uh, um, everyone was just, uh, very, really pleased to be back together face to face. It's, you know, it's, this is something that the city of Mountain View does that's pretty unique. And when, you know, when the members of the community have an opportunity in a less formal setting to come up and talk to individuals from the departments with their questions, it's really much less intimidating. And, you know, I think it's really appreciated. So I just wanted to share that we had that, and thank all the staff who took part. There were, I think there were probably 25 staff members there.

[02:56:18] Mayor Alison Hicks: Council member Ramos.

[02:56:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Council member Kame and Vice Mayor Show, Walter. I was also in the Council Youth Services Committee and the CNC. It was wonderful. It was my 1st time as a committee member in either of those. Thank you so much for this opportunity. It was great. Thank you.

[02:56:40] Mayor Alison Hicks: So I'll just seeing no other commenters. I'll just add that I um, I guess it was Monday. I, uh, greeted, uh, vice president Kamala Harris, along with, uh, Mayor Gilmore from Santa Clara, and and Mayor Klein from Sunnyvale, uh, on the tarmac, which was fun because she's from my hometown of Berkeley. Um, and I think there were other council members in the, uh, well, welcoming group, uh, as well, uh, council member Kamet and Abbe Koga, and she was here, uh, in, then we went off to Sunnyvale for a presentation, she was here, uh, to talk about the Federal Chips Act, um, which was inspired in part, passed in Washington, uh, in part because, for national security reasons, because of the, supply chain issues, sometimes ago, where there were not enough chips available to get to manufacturers some of the things people wanted. To purchase. And in order that that not be a problem in the future. Also, she was there to announce in Sunnyvale at the applied materials location, the world's largest semiconductor, R&D facility. So, um, sort of underlining some of the discussion that we've had about what's the future of jobs and offices in the area. You know, it was a little added a little more food for thought on that subject. And with that, I see no additional comments. So we will move to item nine, the closed session report, city attorney lobe, do you have a closed session report?

[02:58:31] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes, I do. Thank you. This is City Attorney Jennifer Logue. In close session this evening. City council took final action on item 2.1 on the closed session agenda, which was a conference with legal council regarding a liability claim filed by Ella Kobzanitz, against the city of Mountain View, Ms. Kobzanitz, claim, sought $703,796 in damages for injuries she sustained as a result of a trip and fall, accident on West Dana Street in Mountain View, council voted with seven eyes, zero nose, and zero abstensions to deny the claim. In closed session this evening, City council also took final action on item 2.2 on the closed session agenda, which was a conference with legal council regarding a liability claim filed by Elizabeth Rough against the city of Mountain View. Ms. Ruff's claim sought $10 million in damages for injuries she sustained during a surgery performed at El Camino Hospital. Council voted with seven eyes, zero nose, and zero abstensions to deny the claim. Thank you.

[02:59:39] Mayor Alison Hicks: Thank you. We're now on item 10, which is adjournment, and the city council meeting is adjourned at 9.43 p.m. Our next meeting will be held on June 13th of 2023.

• ← Previous
• Next →