March 25, 2025 Regular Meeting of Mountain View City Council

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:00:31] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for closed session. City Attorney Logue will make a closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the item listed for closed session.

[00:00:43] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you. Good evening, Councilmembers. This is City Attorney Jennifer Logue. There is one item on this evening's closed session agenda.

[00:00:49] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Item 2.1 is a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to Government Code 54956.8. The property at issue is City of Mountain View Lot 12, which has no street address.

[00:01:02] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: The agency negotiators are Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg, Housing Director Wayne Chen, and Senior Housing Officer Diana Talavera.

[00:01:10] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: The negotiating party is MV Lot 12 Housing Partners LP, and under negotiation are price and terms of lease.

[00:01:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. I am not seeing any hands raised virtually and no public comment.

[00:01:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I'll close public comment and the Council will now recess to the Plaza Conference Room for closed session and return to the Council Chambers at the close to continue to the regular session.

Segment 3

[01:40:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right everyone, thank you for your patience. Okay, good evening everyone, welcome to the regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council of March 25, 2025. Please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance.

[01:41:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. The city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

[01:41:23] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Do you want the close session report, Mayor?

[01:41:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh, um, I... we'll now take the close session report.

[01:41:39] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you. Good evening Councilmembers and members of the public. Jennifer Logue, City Attorney. Um, no final reportable action was taken in closed session this evening.

[01:41:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. And now we'll move on to roll call.

[01:41:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Clark?

[01:41:55] Councilmember Chris Clark: Here.

[01:41:56] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[01:41:56] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:41:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember McAlister?

[01:41:58] Councilmember John McAlister: Yes.

[01:41:59] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Ramirez?

[01:42:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:42:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[01:42:01] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.

[01:42:02] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Ramos?

[01:42:03] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[01:42:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Kamei?

[01:42:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here. You have a quorum.

[01:42:06] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So we'll start with item 3, presentations. Please note, these are presentations only. The City Council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you'd like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk now. We'll start with item 3.1, which is our Red Cross proclamation. We're happy to be joined this evening by Neil Mehta, Red Cross Board Leader, to accept this proclamation. Neil, will you join me at the lectern?

[01:43:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, so we're excited to celebrate Red Cross month, and we'll hear from you in just a second. I just want to briefly touch on some highlights of the proclamation, which says: whereas, during Red Cross month in March, we recognize the compassionate acts of people in Mountain View and renew our commitment to lending a helping hand to our neighbors in need. And whereas, this generous spirit is woven into the fabric of our community and advances the humanitarian legacy of the American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, one of the most honored women in our country's history—yay Women's History Month—who notably dedicated herself to alleviating suffering. And whereas, Red Cross workers help perform heroic acts of service. Their voluntary and selfless contributions shine a beacon of hope in people's darkest hours, whether it's delivering shelter, food, and comfort during disasters, providing critical blood donations for hospital patients, supporting service members, veterans, and their families, saving lives with first aid, CPR, AED, and other skills, or delivering international aid and connecting loved ones separated by global crises. Now, therefore, I, Ellen Kamei, Mayor of Mountain View, and my colleagues of the City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of March as Red Cross month.

[01:44:15] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here's your proclamation and you're welcome to say a few words.

[01:44:22] Neil Mehta, Red Cross Board Leader: Thank you, Mayor. Hello everyone. Good evening. My name is Neil Mehta. I have the privilege of serving on the Silicon Valley Red Cross board. It's an honor to accept this proclamation from the City of Mountain View recognizing March as Red Cross month. So thank you for that. Just a little bit of context here, this is an annual tradition that began nearly 80 years ago when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the first national Red Cross month proclamation. Since then, every US President has continued to highlight the vital work of the Red Cross and its volunteers, everyday heroes who step up to help individuals and families in their times of crisis. At the heart of our mission are dedicated volunteers who make up 90% of our workforce, and their commitment ensures that on someone's darkest day, the Red Cross is there as a beacon of hope. Alongside them are generous blood and financial donors, community partners, and people trained in life-saving skills, all working together to make a difference. I'm proud to serve on the board and to share just a few ways we've made an impact over the past year in this community. So, when emergencies strike and help can't wait, Red Cross volunteers and donors step forward to provide relief and care. Every eight minutes, our teams respond to a disaster somewhere in the United States. As major disasters like hurricanes, wildfires, floods increase in frequency and intensity, and home fires continue to disrupt lives daily, our work has never been more critical. In Santa Clara County in 2024 alone, the Red Cross responded to more than 100 disasters, both large and small, provided over 2100 services to military members and their families, collected more than 16,900 blood donations, engaged the support of nearly 2000 local volunteers to help our community. Beyond disaster response, we proudly serve this community year-round through preparedness programs, health and safety training, and services for military families, all made possible by dedicated volunteers, donors, and supporters like you. If you're interested in our life-saving mission, we always need more hands, and there are a lot of ways to get involved, and we encourage you to visit redcross.org/volunteer today or contact a local community member to learn more about the most needed volunteer opportunities. So, on behalf of the American Red Cross, thank you for this proclamation and thank you to the City of Mountain View and your staff for your ongoing collaboration with the Red Cross. Thank you.

[01:47:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I didn't look super short at all when I just did that today did I? Um, so we'd like to keep the celebration going. We'll move on to item 3.2, Women's History Month. So I'm very honored that I get to serve on the League of California Cities Women's Caucus Board of Directors, and each year we celebrate with the Woman of Persistence Award where we're able to celebrate a resident in our community. And this year I'm thrilled because last year I was on maternity leave, I get to celebrate two amazing women in our city. So last year's Woman of Persistence is Ayla Malik, and this year's Woman of Persistence is Malia Pires. And if they're both here, I'd love for them to come to the lectern. I see Ayla, oh there you are. Perfect.

[01:48:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So not only do I have proclamations for both of them, I also have a certificate of recognition from the city for all the amazing work that they do. And I do want to share that when I reached out to both of them, both last year and this year, they said, well, you know, I'm so honored to be recognized, but it's just about the work and the work that they do in the community. I don't need the recognition. And I think that for me shows me, yes, you do need the recognition. You're so busy doing the work in our city that I feel like it's very important to be able to recognize you. And the League of California Cities Women's Caucus will be highlighting the two of you after our presentation tonight. So you can all follow us, look at our social media, and be able to celebrate them as our Women's History Month comes to a close. But for Women's History Month, we say: whereas women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of Mountain View in countless recorded and unrecorded ways, and women have played and continue to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of life and constitute a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home. And whereas women have played a unique role throughout the history of our nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force, and women were particularly important in the establishment of the early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions. And whereas women of every race, class, and ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement, and women have served our country courageously in the military, and whereas women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist, emancipation, industrial labor, civil rights, and peace movements, which have created a more fair and just society for all. And whereas, despite these contributions, the role of women has consistently been overlooked and undervalued in literature, teaching, and study of American history, and is therefore fitting that we acknowledge their numerous contributions and nothing can be more true than right now in this moment. So now therefore, I, Ellen Kamei, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council, do hereby proclaim and recognize the month as March as Women's History Month.

[01:51:23] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I'm going to present to both women and then I'm going to invite them to own their space and be able to share a little bit more with us. So first is Ayla.

[01:51:34] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, then Malia. All right, the mics are yours.

[01:51:43] Malia Pires, Woman of Persistence 2025: Thank you so much for this recognition, and more importantly for the recognition for women and Women's History Month. And I'm so excited that the dais is majority women in Mountain View. So I want to just give you a couple of contextual comments about Women's History Month. The global gender gap report from 2024 by the World Economic Forum tells us that there's an eye-opening gap that still remains. Globally, 68.5% of the gender gap has been closed. At the rate that we're going, we are still 134 years away from globally achieving gender parity. Here in the United States, we rank 43rd in the world. We have taken a significant drop from one year ago, we were 27th in the globe. So those specific declines are driven by widening gaps in political empowerment and life expectancy for women. Right now women earn 20% less than men at the same job, and 26.8% representation in national politics. And California, within the US, ranks 15th in gender parity by the US News report. And specifically some challenges that remain for us are legislative representation and community safety. There is no state in the country that offers full legal protections for all women's rights, and there are six states, mainly in the deep South, that provide none at all. These are stark reminders that the fight must continue, that equality is ongoing. I'm very proud to represent a city that's doing extremely well and is a bright light in Santa Clara County. Santa Clara County is within the top 10 counties for the state of California, and the excel area specifically for Santa Clara County, which I believe is to do with Mountain View, is in political leadership and engagement. So these movements matter, these proclamations matter. When there's underrepresentation, it requires collective voice, it requires reminders, it requires places for us to acknowledge the progress we've made and recommit to the work that still continues. And as Dr. King says, 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.' That may be true, but I believe it's us women pulling that arc towards justice today. So I appreciate this, this is not lost on me. I hope I earn the right to continue to be a champion for all human rights and equity in our country, our state, and in our community. Thank you so much Mayor Kamei and Council.

[01:54:44] Ayla Malik, Woman of Persistence 2024: Well good evening. Thank you honorable Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramos, and the esteemed Council and city staff that's here this evening. So I'm so really honored to be here this evening and, you know, as I was thinking about this evening, I just want to... I'm just so grateful I feel like, you know, I say in my work that I'm boots on the ground. But I really I stand here this evening in her shoes and women that have been in my shoes, my ancestors, my family, the generations that are behind me, the generations that are in this room with me here today, my daughter and granddaughter who join me. I'm in her shoes here for the women that have invested in my life, the women that have come alongside me in the workplace, in the community, with my spiritual development, leadership development. I would not be standing here today had not other women been standing. So I'm here in those shoes this evening. I'm here on behalf of those that don't feel like they have a voice, all the mom-preneurs that I get to work with every day, the immigrant voices who feel like they don't have a place at the table. I'm honored to be here in their shoes this evening as I look at a diverse City Council made up of different ethnicities, different genders, and strong female representation as Ayla had shared. But I really feel humbled and honored to stand here on behalf of women in this community to serve this community. It's a 'get to' and I just hope I make the women behind me as proud as I am of the ones that have gone before me. So thank you so much Mayor Kamei for this honor.

[01:57:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Would any member of the council like to say a few words on either of the presentations?

[01:57:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, I'm not seeing any. So I'll move on to public comment for the presentation items. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda?

[01:57:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, I am not seeing any. So I'll close public comment and just one more round of applause for those who received presentation today.

[01:57:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Wonderful. Now we'll move on to the consent calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you would like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non-agenda 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?

[01:58:14] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'd like to pull item 4.7.

[01:58:19] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, 4.7 thank you. Councilmember McAlister?

[01:58:22] Councilmember John McAlister: I would like to comment on 4.2 and 4.5.

[01:58:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: 4.2, 4.5, okay, we'll come back to your comments. Councilmember Showalter?

[01:58:30] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I would like to comment on 4.1, 2, 3 and 7.

[01:58:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: 1, 2, 3 and 7. Okay. So maybe if you're going to comment on 4.7 we can hold that because that item is going to be pulled. Okay. So let's start with comments and then we'll... right. So Councilmember Showalter, would you like to start on yours? So we'll do 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and then we'll save the...

[01:59:05] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I gotta put my mic on. 4.1 and 4.2 are two items that are really related to improving our rent control program. Um, these really illustrate how the program has matured since it got started. So I'm very glad to see those. Also, item 4.3, those are appointments to our Rental Housing Committee. We had great applicants and I want to thank everyone who applied and congratulate Alex Brown, Kevin Ma, and Emily Staps Hislop for being appointed. I know they'll do a great job. That's it.

[01:59:48] Councilmember John McAlister: Yeah, I'd like to point out 4.2. First, I'd like to make sure I'm going to register a 'no' vote on 4.2, but I wanted to make some comments about 4.2, it was the mobile home rent control. We always need to be cautious that we approach a project being fair to both sides. And this was one item that I was supportive of the staff report, so I saw that there was some discussion, there was some thought put into it, the staff researched it. And yet when we came for a vote it was drastically changed. And so in the context of fairness, I don't think that this particular item had its fair hearing on it, and we just need to be cautious as we go forward because when we're dealing with housing, we also make sure that people can... that on the other side, that the developers or owners will have sufficient funds to maintain those properties. And I'm a little concerned sometimes I've seen properties get deteriorated and they just don't have the maintenance. Mobile home parks have always had a sort of their own sense of community and I can see where mobile home owners are going to just say, you know, we're not to do a potluck or we're going to organize events because they just don't have the money. So as we go forward, always try to look at both sides and I think this one was... didn't have that fair hearing as I say. But let's make sure that we do get a chance to hear both sides. On 4.5, which is the general plan annual progress report, I was thrilled to see all the other questions relating to the general plan. This came out in 2012, and Chris and I were involved in this one—it's amazing what we're all doing over again, we're still there. Um, and there was a lot of items that I was concerned about that hadn't been reviewed. In fact, when I was on the EPC and when it was being developed there, that who's going to follow up on these action items? And from what I can tell a lot of items have been neglected or haven't been prioritized as they should. So this may be a good opportunity time to start thinking about doing a new general plan, so that we can... a comprehensive general plan so that we can get all these items that we have put on the back burner on the action items and that we can actually have a general plan that's current, relevant, and effective. And so those are some of my thoughts on this. Thank you.

[02:02:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you very much. 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 submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk.

[02:02:45] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I don't see any speakers here or virtually. So I'll close public comment and I'll 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 and resolutions attached to the consent calendar items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4.

[02:03:05] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I'm happy to move the consent calendar. Nothing was pulled, right? 4.7 but we'll go back to it. Okay, so I move to approve the balance of the consent calendar. That will include item 4.1: adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending Mountain View City Code sections 36.40.5, 36.40.10, 36.40.15, and 36.40.20 to make clarifying modifications and adding section 36.40.16 governing rent increases for below-market-rate units to the Mountain View City Code to be read in title only, further reading waived.

[02:05:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes, yes, let me pull up... I was just about to. Thank you, go ahead. I'll pull it up. All right. Adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending Mountain View City Code Chapter 46, section 46.5 and 46.6 to modify allowed annual rent increases from the current combination of an adjustment limited to 100% of the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, CPI-U, for the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward region, with a 2% floor and a 5% ceiling, to an adjustment limited to 60% of the CPI-U with no floor and a 3% ceiling, to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.3: adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View appointing Alex Nu






nez, Kevin Ma, and Emily Staps Hislop to the Rental Housing Committee to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.4: adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing amendment of the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) with Afirm Housing for development of affordable housing at 87 East Evelyn Avenue, APN 160-65-008, to extend the negotiation period for the Lease Disposition Development and Loan Agreement (LDDLA) by 90 days with an option for one additional 30-day extension if necessary to complete negotiations and authorizing the City Manager or designee to execute the amended ENA, to be read in title only, further reading waived.

[02:06:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. And is there a second?

[02:06:19] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Seconded by Councilmember Hicks, yes, and then noting Councilmember McAlister's 'no' vote on item 4.2. Now we may vote.

[02:06:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, and that passes unanimously. So now we will go back to item 4.7 which was the pulled item, Silicon Valley Clean Energy Grant Applications.

[02:07:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No problem. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief because I expect this item to pass and we have a very heavy agenda. But I wanted to share a conversation I had with the City Manager this morning where I brought up this item in the broader context of an item that will be later on the agenda. Um, I think one of the concerns that staff has elevated to us very clearly is limited capacity. It's very difficult to achieve our very ambitious capital improvement program when we don't have the people power and in many cases the resources to implement all of the very strong and important projects in the plan. And one of the things that I've started to appreciate over time—it took me way too long to understand this—is in elevating these grant-funded projects, they become de facto the staff priorities, sometimes at the expense of important projects that are not grant-funded. And that's in part because there are some obligations associated with securing the grants—we have to expend the money at a certain time or complete the project within a certain time—and a corresponding impact is the staff capacity necessary to achieve these projects. And these are... these are very worthy and good projects. The problem is it's becoming very clear that we can't do it all. And I... I'm particularly frustrated because I think while these are good and well-intentioned projects to bring to us, there isn't an assessment of the impact to staff capacity and the trade-offs that would have to be made to deliver these projects. What are we sacrificing in elevating this grant-funded project? What are projects that are more in line with our priorities that may have to be deferred or, you know, postponed indefinitely so we can allocate the staff resources necessary to deliver these projects in a timely manner? And I fear that sometimes I think staff may come to us with good intentions and maybe not be totally forthright or candid about how much staff time is necessary to deliver all of the projects that we are securing funding for. So I... I will be voting 'no'. And the reason I'm voting 'no' is because I want to send a message to staff that I think we need to start being very mindful and thoughtful about how we allocate staff resources. And in particular, in the next item, I'll share the types of projects I would like us to elevate, thinking about public works in particular. You know, I think staff should solicit more input from the Council about what types of projects they ought to proactively seek grant funding for and make sure that they are in line with Council priorities so we don't accidentally allocate additional staff capacity and city resources to projects that really aren't congruent with our priorities. So I... I will be voting 'no'. I do think it will pass, but I think it's important for us to be very clear with staff that we hear them, we can't achieve all of the items in our ambitious capital improvement program and then as a consequence start pulling projects that are less important to us so that way we can reallocate the resources to actually deliver the projects that we are committing for our community's benefit. Thank you.

[02:10:40] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well I wasn't planning to respond to all of that because I didn't know it was coming forward. But since it did, um, I would just like to say that in this case, I think this is an excellent project for us to go out to grants. For one thing, we helped found Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and one of the reasons we did that is because we wanted to use the profit that was made from that enterprise to plow back into our efforts to lower our carbon footprint. And that's exactly what this is about. Silicon Valley Clean Energy is taking money that, you know, we have paid essentially as part of our rates and it's a profit and they are plowing it back as grants to member agencies, us being one of the 13 member agencies, so that we can reduce our carbon footprint. And so that's just sort of the general idea behind the grants. This one in particular checks off a couple of boxes. One is when you think about climate resilience, we know that we will need to have sort of emergency centers, places in our community that you can use when the power goes out, when there's all sorts of emergencies and damage that are independently powered. And it's one thing to have the solar power on the roof, but if you don't have the batteries to back it up, then you don't have 24/7 power, you don't have the power while the sun is shining. And so the idea with this is to make a center in our community where we can count on for emergencies. If there's a heat emergency, people will be able to come here and get cooled. We are going to have a kitchen that can be used. This is one of our centers. So I think this is a great use for this money. And then the other one is the city's water heater project. We in... on the Sustainability Committee and our sustainability staff, we've decided that this... we're going to encourage people to use... to change their water heaters from gas water heaters to electric water heaters because they're more efficient and they have a much smaller carbon footprint. Unfortunately, however, they're more expensive. And so we're having a rebate program and this will help with with this change-out. So for those reasons, I think this is really an excellent program and I'm glad to see it, and I think that this is an example where we founded an organization, Silicon Clean Valley Clean Energy, with a goal in mind. That goal was to help us reduce our carbon footprint and this is a demonstration of how they're doing it. So I wanted to bring that to everyone's attention.

[02:13:53] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I fully support Councilmember Ramirez's calling out the need to prioritize projects and in particular the kind of cost sometimes of grants. And if it were any number of other projects, I would join you in voting 'no'. But this particular one, I think Councilmember Showalter explained it very well so I won't repeat her words. But this is one of the more important things that I think the Council Sustainability Committee has put forward, both because it's something that everyone should do at their own home if they can, to go all-electric and get storage so that when when your power goes out, your power doesn't go out. And then also for the city, it will be part of our resiliency plan. If you're low-income and have not been able to do that or you haven't gotten around to it yet, you'll be able to go to a resiliency center. So I think it's super important. Thank you for calling out prioritization.

Segment 4

[02:15:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I think that's super important too.

[02:15:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Wonderful, thank you. Um, not seeing any more hands, may I have a motion?

[02:15:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, motion by Councilmember Clark, seconded by Councilmember Showalter.

[02:15:12] Councilmember Chris Clark: I move that we adopt item 4.7 of the consent calendar, which is the adoption of a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View directing staff to apply for one, a competitive decarbonization track grant in the amount of $1 million for a battery storage system at the Mountain View Senior Center; two, a non-competitive grant in the amount of $341,460 for a battery storage system at the Mountain View Senior Center; and three, a competitive engagement track grant in the amount of $100,000 for the city's water heater campaign for Silicon Valley Clean Energy, and if awarded, accept and appropriate revenues and expenditures up to $1,444,460 in grant funding to sustainability projects, project 20-99 to be read in title only, further reading waived.

[02:16:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember McAlister.

[02:16:06] Councilmember John McAlister: I concur with Councilmember Hicks. Um, one of the things I was running on was to say, let's prioritize items and get it done. And I was pleasantly, uh, glad to hear you say that. But after seeing some of the natural disasters that are going around the world, and I was just thinking about what natural disaster would Mountain View have, and we probably would be looking at an earthquake. Um, you know, I think this is a good idea to do, you know, good money to do it on. But, um, again, I will comment on Councilmember Hicks said if it was another project... yeah, let's, but this was a good one to do. And, um, thank you for commenting on. I was the first chair of Silicon Valley Clean Energy. So, uh, we have a deep history with them and they, uh, you summed it up well saying that we did this to reduce greenhouse gases and also reduce our energy costs. So, thank you for bringing that up.

[02:17:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, seeing no one else in the queue, we can vote.

[02:18:07] Public Speaker Gene Lee: I can't see the timer, where is it?

[02:18:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: It'll go right here.

[02:18:11] Public Speaker Gene Lee: Perfect. Okay. I'm here to talk about pickleball. Don't all of you turn off because I have some important points to make. Um, there's been a lot of talk about building as many as 25 pickleball courts over at Cuesta. I'm here to tell you that that would be a mistake, and the reason is the way the center is operated. They charge a fee for non-residents. And so, people who would have to charge... pay a fee, go elsewhere. They won't come when they can play for free somewhere else. I see that behavior with tennis players. There's no reason to think that pickleball players will behave any differently. So, right now there are 12 tennis courts. If you were to build 25 or whatever excessive number of pickleball courts, they would not be fully utilized because there will be people who will not come to avoid the fee for non-residents. And when they leave, the Mountain View players who would be playing with them will go with them to play on the free courts. So, the people who run the Mountain View Tennis Center probably have a good idea of what the utilization rates would be for pickleball courts if they're built, and I think a realistic number is somewhere between 8 and 12, not too different than the number of tennis courts. My second point is that too many people conjoin tennis and pickleball. They are not at all the same. Pickleball is a paddle sport, and it has more in common with ping pong than tennis. And if you were to look at the space required to play ping pong and the space required to play pickleball, they're not too different. You could put a ping pong table in this space right here in front of the council. You could put a pickleball court pretty much in the same amount of space, maybe a little more. There's no way you can put a tennis court inside this room. So pickleball has been confused with tennis, and people think, 'Well, let's convert some tennis courts to pickleball.' Well, it would make just as much sense to convert basketball courts to pickleball, because you could build four, five, six pickleball courts on a basketball court. And the wood floor would be a perfectly fine place to play pickleball. In fact, the first time I ever saw people playing pickleball was inside a gymnasium on basketball courts. They just simply taped out on the ground the pickleball lines, and it was a very easy thing to set up pickleball courts on there with no construction whatsoever required as opposed to building the concrete pickleball courts as proposed at Cuesta Park. And...

[02:19:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And that passes 6-1. We'll move on to item 5, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the City Council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agenda items. If you'd like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk now. I see one in-person speaker, so we'll do... oh, seeing more. So we'll add them to the queue. Um, but you have three minutes. The first person is Gene Lee.

[02:21:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. I think your three minutes... thank you, oh, perfect timing then. Thank you. All right, Jim Zehorsky on behalf of eight.

[02:21:33] Public Speaker Jim Zehorsky: Eight, and I think not the number eight, eight people, I believe, correct. Yes.

[02:21:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I think you have slides and I think we'll do a timer of about 10 minutes. Okay. Thank you, thank you.

[02:21:47] Public Speaker Jim Zehorsky: Uh, my 10 minutes starts out with a story... and next slide please, it's about running in the dark the week after daylight savings time started a few... oh, this is the wrong slide. Can you reset the clock please? This is pavement budget. Okay, there you go. Okay, so the my slide deck... oh no, no slide deck yet. Okay, here we go.

[02:22:16] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Hold on, hold on just a moment. I think we're queuing... we're queuing up your deck. Thank you for your patience. Here we go. Is this... does this look right to you?

[02:22:26] Public Speaker Jim Zehorsky: Yeah, this... this is it. Right. Okay, all right. So we'll restart the clock. Okay, so I'm starting with a story, and this is about going running a couple years ago, the first week of daylight savings time at 6:00, and it was pitch black, but I had to run because I hadn't exercised all week. The curb entering the north end of Monta Loma Park is probably the only crosswalk where the curb is not cut. And it creates a problem because you don't know it's not cut because every other crosswalk has a cut curb in the city. So I'm running and next slide please, and I go splat on the sidewalk. Bleeding like hell. Fortunately, there was a nurse who lived two doors down, RN, sweet lady, patched me up. So I was very lucky that she patched me up even though I had two black eyes and a broken nose. So next slide. I was unlucky because I fell two weeks after Halloween, otherwise I would have won the Larry Harmon look-alike contest because I had a big nose and all I had to do was paint it red and I could have been Bozo the Clown, which I tend to be anyway. So the next slide please. So where this is going to fall into is later in my presentation with the PRC meeting that I attended in not 2005 but 2025, next slide please, where there was a level of service presentation done by staff, and there was also questions about the process going forward of the ongoing strategic plan, which is causing a lot of concern in the community. Next slide please. So among the questions raised by the PRC staff is, where is the vision for the project? Because the project was presented as, these are some of the things that we hope to do, but there was no vision and no goals presented, and that says, 'Well, that we're going to present those in June,' and that caused a lot of concern. I recommend that everybody on that can on council look at that meeting. It's an interesting meeting, especially the last maybe from hour 2:50 to the end, which is the last hour. You probably don't want to watch the whole three hours, but it was interesting. They also was saying, why were the community articulated needs gathered over the last 18 months omitted from the draft service level assessment and replaced by those originally recommended by the consultant, which caused a lot of concern. Why do we go through the process of gathering community input if we're not going to listen to it? If we're just going to do what the consultant wants? There was also a lot of concern is why this plan is not being more collaboratively developed with the PRC and the community, and why is it just being brought to council fully upwards thumbs up or thumbs down? What is the basis of draft level of services and why haven't the needs of each neighborhood been articulated? So in more depth, next slide please. This is about why are the driving goals of the project. And we've got to go back and look at where this project has been and where it's come from. The original project, we have a consultant from Indianapolis who at the time did not realize that Mountain View is different and we're special. They're not coming from a place where land cost upwards of 10 million an acre. They're not coming from a place where people often work till 9:00 or 10:00 at night and therefore their needs for exercise and park space is probably different. And they're not living in a place that's trifurcated by 101 and Central Expressway, meaning that people that live in Sierra Vista can't get onto Rengstorff Park without crossing Central Expressway and climbing two fences and then crossing the railroad tracks. So even though the original report said that some of these areas were less than a half a mile from a park, they're not. You have to walk all the way down to Rengstorff, cross Central Expressway, cross the railroad... and our staff knows this. Our community knows this. Council knows this. But we can't expect the consultant to know this, and we can't rely too heavily on the consultant to come up with a plan that we can hang our hats on as a community and go forward and start addressing the parks' problems in the city. So if we look at some of the things that the consultant was originally concerned with, such as water features and obstacle courses... well, it would cost $5 million worth of land to build an obstacle course. We're not going to build one here. It's just not going to happen. In the half-an-acre obstacle course, there's too many things we need like a place for people to play soccer that we don't have. Water structure? Oh, guess what, we have earthquakes and we have droughts, and we have lots of them. Every water structure I've seen is turned off. The ones that they built for the Mountain View Whisman school district, they built a really nice fountain for a lot of money, had to take it down five years later because we had a drought for three years. Money would say we're going to have another drought. So we have to use our own resources to build a plan that we have input in and not look to the consultant to build a plan for us because we have knowledge that the consultant doesn't have. Next slide please. So the draft level of service raised a lot of concern among the members of the PRC. This was what put forward as some of the things that we want. And you look at this and they say, 'Oh, we need a skate park.' Where the PRC had problems with this was that where did these numbers come from? How come we need one skate park per every 10,000 people, but one dog park for every 25,000 people? Where did these come from? And if we're trying to make this... is this the national average? We're not the national average. We don't need indoor gyms. We can play outside 11 and a half months out of the year. We don't need things on the national average, but there are other things that we do need, and we need to take input from staff, from council, and from the community, and that's not happening now. Next. So our city's trifurcated by Caltrain and 101. The parks that exist south of El Camino are very difficult for the people that live north of Central to reach, as are the Shoreline area. The Shoreline area is very difficult. I don't know any mother that'll say, 'Hey junior, go ride your bike on Shoreline and go cross 101 to go do it.' It's... it's just not feasible at this moment. Maybe we'll build some more bridges or maybe we'll build some more tunnels, but right now it's not. Next slide please. So questions raised by this PRC also was why was the community articulated needs that were gathered over the last 18 months not used? And the consultant pretty much said, and you'll need to watch this because I couldn't figure out how to insert this into a PowerPoint and it probably would have been too big anyway, said, 'I know better than you do.' I don't think he does. And I think our staff, our council, and our community knows better, and that we know things like you don't build water fountains, you don't do this, you don't do... we know what the community needs. We know that five areas in this city don't have parks to update the restrooms in. There are no restrooms. So when he says 'Oh, we need updated restrooms,' no, we don't. Next slide please. So we wanted to know what the base... there were a lot of questions at what's the basis of draft for services for each activity. How come we need so many pickleball... we're saying we have pickleball courts for every 10,000 people. We have people here that know exactly how many pickleball courts we need for people. We know people that know how many tennis courts we need. But yet we seem to be going to the national average. We are not the national average in some outdoor sports and we are not the national average in some things like water sports and other things. Yet we're going to have a 10-year plan, which is a long time, that is not driven by our actual needs. Next slide please. Next slide please. So and why haven't the needs of each planning area been articulated? And this is a very important one. Next slide. So we have Mountain View's divided into 10 planning areas or nine planning areas. Each one has different parks and rec needs. People that live in Stirling and in Thompson and in San Antonio, with the exception of Rengstorff Park, have almost no access to park space. While people that live in Miramonte or Grant aren't going to be driving to North Bayshore for their trail access because it's easier for them to go to someplace like in the hills. Next slide please. You can see this by the amount of park space per planning area. However, we are making an average need for the average city. We're not an average city. The needs in this city vary greatly by where you live. And we should be addressing those needs, especially for those people that currently lack the ability to utilize recreation. Such as the very poorest of us that don't have transportation, children from 6 to 12 that don't have any way to get to these parks... these other parks that have no way to go unless somebody drives them and the parents both often work. And then our older seniors that don't drive. Without mobility, we have a very poor city. We also don't have parks in a lot of our area where we're doing a lot of our development, and we need to take care of that. So go down to the last two slides. Last two, last two, just skip all over this. Level of service analysis I'll write a letter about. Next slide, yeah. So go down to say conclusions. Keep going, yeah, conclusions. So as a conclusion, the community wants to help make this a good plan. The PRC wants to help make this a good plan. The plan as it's currently presented is being done as take it or leave it. We're going to give you a plan in June and you have three weeks to think about it. That's not a good...

[02:32:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Thank you. All right, I don't see any other in-person public comment, so we'll move to virtual, and I see Celia Pamer.

[02:32:56] Public Speaker Celia Pamer: Uh, hello. Um, I just, sorry, I was in another PTA meeting, at the same time. I want to check we're in open comment?

[02:33:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes, this is public comment.

[02:33:05] Public Speaker Celia Pamer: Okay. Uh, so my public comment is, sort of building off Jim's a little bit, that it sort of feels like our city staff vision and mission on a lot of our projects is not aligned with Council direction, goals, mission, vision that they spend a lot of time with community input to form. And, uh, my example is more on the Moffett Complete Streets plan. Um, when the plan was brought to the BPAC, um, the feedback was that they wanted a, um, road diet. That was all the public comments said, 'road diet, road diet, road diet.' The commissioners said, 'We want a road diet.' They were sort of maybe conned into saying, 'Oh, it's something that they'd want to do as long as it didn't extend the timeline,' and then that was an excuse to not do it, even though as far as we know it's on the same timeline as Middlefield and that one is still under design. And then, uh, after that it went to CTC. Our CTC commissioners also asked for a road diet. They were told not to make a motion out of it but to say it should be an investigation. And then it went to EPC and they were told that 'Oh, no, no one says it needs to have a road diet.' Um, and it does not seem like it's progressing with a road diet. So, similar to how it seems like Parks and Rec commissioners are being ignored, BPAC commissioners are being ignored. I know one just quit, and I can't, I don't know why, but I wonder if it's from being ignored. That would get very frustrating. I know me personally, I'm not applying this time because after seeing how they're ignored, I don't think it's a good use of my time. Um, so we really need to get City staff to align their vision, mission, and goals with our city and our City Council's... City Council members so that we're all working towards a biodiverse, sustainable, alternative transportation focused future. Um, we want road diets, we want nice parks that include nature and trees and not just plastic pavement. Um, and we don't want to be paving over our parks, um, in an endless cycle of parking lots for amenities, and then the amenities need more parking and then we need parking for more... it's just, we're paving everything and we want nature, and people have asked for nature. And we really need City staff to be listening to the community and listening to our commissioners and listening to our City Council members. It's been very frustrating to see it repeatedly not happen, and then City staff get frustrated when no one likes their plan because they didn't take the feedback. So, I think everyone will be much happier and if we can be collaborative and really align our goals and listen to each other. Thank you.

[02:35:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, I don't see any more in-person or virtual public comment, so we'll bring public comment to a close. And we'll move on to item 6, which is our study session. Item 6.1 is our fiscal year 2025 through 26 through fiscal year 2029 through 30 capital improvement program. The purpose of this study session is to provide the City Council an overview of the capital improvement program, also known as the CIP, and obtain City Council input for the preparation of the recommended fiscal year 2025 through 26 through fiscal year 2029-30 CIP. This is the first of two planned study sessions prior to the scheduled adoption of the CIP in June. Given the need for Councilmember recusals due to conflict of interest, this item will proceed in the following manner. We will begin with the staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment. At the close of public comment, the Council will ask questions, deliberate and vote on matters requiring Councilmember recusals first, and then the Council will ask questions and deliberate on the remaining items for discussion. Public Works Director Jennifer Ing and Assistant Public Works Director, City Engineer Ed Arango will present the item. If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk now, and after that we'll do, uh, virtual. I'll turn it over to staff. Thanks.

[02:37:26] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Thank you, Mayor, for that very nice introduction. Um, again, just quickly, I'm Jennifer Ing, I'm the Public Works Director, seated here to my left is Ed Arango, who is our Assistant Public Works Director and City Engineer, and we'll be tag-teaming tonight's presentation. So, as you know, the CIP is a critical planning tool which we use to maintain and improve the city's capital infrastructure, right? It's a biennial which is basically a two-year process. In odd-number years, we do a comprehensive look, um, and every other year, on the even-number years, we look at the roll-forward type projects. So this year being an odd-number year, uh, we're going to do a full plan development, and we're primarily going to focus on year one funding of the plan and then programming out years two and three. You'll see that our CIP is basically broken up into two categories. The first is non-discretionary. And those are annual and periodic infrastructure maintenance type projects which are intended to preserve our significant investment in our infrastructure in our facilities. It's a combination of end-of-life replacement projects as well as preventive maintenance. And again, the whole goal is to really avoid catastrophic failures and emergency type situations which end up being emergencies and cost a lot of money. And then discretionary projects are basically every other project that doesn't fall in the non-discretionary category. So when we look at our... when we look at our, um, CIP right now and what's going on, we currently have 303 active projects. It's a big number. Out of that, 243 are managed by Public Works. Um, if you look at the donut wheel to the left, you can see how the projects are categorized, um, by category, um, I guess that's redundant. Um, categorized, um, by type as well as the number of projects that we're carrying in each category. A couple of things that we want to highlight for you and that are called out in attachments 2 and 3 of the staff report are that 45 of our current workload projects involve pedestrian bicycle improvements, um, as part of their scope, and there are nine projects specifically that are focused on parks themselves. I know part of the things that you've been discussing, um, in prior years is the effort to reduce the number of recommended new yearly projects and to close out older projects. Um, and that's with the intent to focus on what's currently on the plate rather than adding to the plate. Um, staff is still catching up on this backlog of major and complex capital projects. Um, some types of projects in those categories include pavement, transportation, and larger type facilities projects. Um, looking at funding sources as part of how we fund the projects in our CIP. Uh, there's five major categories that I'll just quickly whip through here. Um, unrestricted funds, enterprise funds, transportation funds, shoreline funds, and development fees and charges. I want to highlight unrestricted funds. Those are our most prized funds, um, because per their title, they're really the most flexible funds that we have to fund any kind of project in our CIP. Um, and so they're super valuable from that aspect. A new funding source that we fortunately added to our arsenal is Measure G. Uh, that was recently approved by the voters at the end of last year. And you can see here on the slide deck how the, um, how the spending is to be allocated, um, with Measure G... Measure G funds coming in. Uh, continuing on funding sources a little bit. Um, so we want to outline the status and you know, kind of take our crystal ball to how we see funding sources, um, in the year coming up in the future. So the first box, I'll call it, of unrestricted funds. You can see that between the yellow bar, which is this year, and the dark green bar, which is the year coming up, we are anticipating a 40% decrease from the previous year. For enterprise funds, also a slight decrease, um, and those are impacted by expected cost rises and reduced water consumption. Transportation funds expected to remain fairly flat, um, a little bit of uptick with gas tax, but again overall fairly flat. Development, um, fees, this is pretty volatile, right, depending on the economy and development activity. Um, one thing to note is that development activity is still, um, less than what it was prior to pre-pandemic, and we don't have the major projects anymore which in... in which we would typically, uh, negotiate community and public benefits. So, um, you know, that's a portion of development fees. So even though the fees are going up, the projects are kind of smaller and and that component of community benefits is is decreasing. And then lastly, Shoreline funds, um, relatively flat. You'll see that we do carry a high balance in the Shoreline funds, and that's because we haven't programmed in years past, but the intent is to aggregate those funds, um, and set them aside for, um, a balance of several future year projects coming up in that North Bayshore area. So we do have a plan for those. So again, back to unrestricted funds, um, and being down, um, and trending down, it's likely that new projects relying on unrestricted funding will not be funded in year one of the proposed CIP. So with that, I'm going to transition and hand it off to, um, Ed to go over staff's workload update on the paving program, um, and the staff questions that we're going to be asking of you tonight.

[02:43:24] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Thank you, Director Ing, thank you Mayor and councilmembers. Um, so I'll be starting off, um, summarizing the typical project process, workloads, and, um, the new project management system that we're looking forward to. So from the time a typical project starts the design effort, it can be constructed in approximately two to three years. This assumes that the project manager is managing about three to four projects in parallel, where the value of each project is roughly under $200 million, and there's minimal community engagement. For a major project, due to its complexity, completing the project may take three to five years, and these projects usually include significant community outreach and engagement, committee and council input, external agency coordination, permitting, and grant oversight. As previously noted, there are 243 Public Works projects... sorry, CIPs are managed by Public Works. And this is a large quantity of projects. And when we do the calculations of the Public Works staff that are delivering these projects, it amounts to over nine projects per project manager. This is significantly above industry standard, and has led to project backlog due to it being infeasible for a single project manager to carry this type of workload. These projects include complex and large-scale projects, and when looking at the city's portfolio of CIPs, there are many projects meeting this level. With just a few examples being the public safety building, the grade separation projects, and the complete streets. In addition to the CIP projects, there's other parallel workload efforts that's happening by the same staff. Staff receives a large amount of public questions and inquiries to respond to, such as 'Ask Mountain View' emails. They conduct research and gather information on Public Records Act requests, and they assist on several city-wide efforts with other departments, um, with some examples that are shown here. We're currently making great progress towards an enterprise project management system. This will provide additional tools, cost, schedule, and, sorry, tools for cost, schedule, and tracking key milestones. It's a third-party system, and while it's intended to be out-of-the-box ready, um, any enterprise system requires a significant staff effort to set up and fully configure for our needs and processes. The good news is that we expect to start the beta testing with the system within the next six months, um, with a handful of projects to ensure it's functioning as needed. Um, though it won't address the project backlog, it will be very beneficial to managing the CIP projects. Now I'll be moving over to an update on the city's pavement program. The city's pavement condition index, or what we like to call PCI, has declined to 67 from its level at 71 in 2020. This has really been a result of previous staffing resource challenges experienced in 2020, requiring staff to focus on priority projects with grant funding and other needs. It did create a backlog of pavement projects, but there has been a concentrated effort to address this. Looking forward, um, there are six projects that will start in 2025, valued at about $25 million; five projects that will start in 2026 and 2027 at almost $19 million; and eight additional projects that will be starting design within this year. This amounts to over $57 million of funding to improve the pavement condition. Staff's doing this by combining multiple year projects, um, with similar scope into one project and assigning several project managers projects. We're going to continue to do this until we're caught up on the backlog. Switching over to pavement funding investment and how it relates to PCI. So in the previous slide, we outlined the planned paving projects over the next two years. Um, this table I'm about to walk you through shows projections assuming the city only had the baseline funding without the backlog. The graph shows past funding in pavement, which fell below $5 million, but has slowly increased to approximately $6.5 million per year. And as you can see here, we're projecting the baseline funding to stay at about that level. The orange line is the historic and projected pavement condition. At the current baseline funding levels of approximately $6.5 million per year, the PCI will slowly continue to decline. To maintain the PCI levels, there will be a need to increase baseline funding levels to a minimum of $8 million per year. And to increase the PCI by five points, we'll need a minimum of $14 million per year for five years. Again, this graph assumes the baseline funding shown of approximately $6.5 million a year. We'll be investing much more than this over the next two years, and we expect the PCI to increase by a couple points as a result. So, as a result of this, staff is recommending to prioritize and continue funding pavement projects to support the city's pavement maintenance needs. Now we'll cover prioritization of unrestricted funding and the first question to council. Uh, given the current funding situation and consistent with the city's strategy over the past several years, staff recommends an approach of maximizing the available unrestricted funds first to non-discretionary projects with no dedicated funding source. As previously mentioned, these are essential projects and ongoing funding is needed to maintain the city's significant infrastructure in good state. Some examples include maintaining the city's 60 buildings, technology needs for IT, supplementing pavement projects, and maintaining and repairing parks, pathways, traffic signals, and sidewalks. The second priority is amendments to existing projects. Some examples include additional funding needs for the reasons shown here, combining projects for efficiency, incorporating grant funds when awarded, and moving funds as needed to address other project needs. Lastly, the discretionary projects. Staff recommends using the criteria listed here to identify priority for use of the unrestricted funds. Leads me to my first question for Council: Does Council support staff's recommended approach and criteria to determine which projects to prioritize for the CIP reserve and C/C tax funds or have other feedback? As part of the five-year CIP process, staff compiles a list of discretionary projects starting with those that were planned in years 3 through 5 of the previous five-year CIP. In our case, it's 2023. Or what we call roll-forward projects. These have typically been programmed into years 1 through 3 of the new five-year CIP. One highlight this year are the 11 projects that were deferred from last year due to funding and staff resource constraints. Any new project proposals are typically programmed into years 4 and 5, though if needed, new projects are reviewed for years 1, 2, 3. Similar to last year, staff expects there will be a need to defer planned year one projects to later years. Years 2 and 3 projects may need to be programmed into years 4 and 5. As staff evaluates these projects, staff looks for council's input on the roll-forward projects with the second council question: Are there any roll-forward discretionary projects in the first three years of the plan, attachment 6 in your packet, that council would like staff to evaluate for eliminating, deferring, or moving up? For new projects, it's a similar theme. We expect there to be very limited capacity for new projects. While there may be a need to program some new projects due to regulatory or other needs, this list is expected to be short. Should council wish to have an unscheduled project move forward or request a new project not listed be added to the CIP, depending on the funding source used and the staffing resources needed, staff would request direction on the priority of the project to identify program year. Staff would then evaluate tradeoffs, which may result in deferring one or more other projects. The third and final council question is: Are there any projects on the unscheduled project list, attachment 7 in your packet, or new projects not currently listed that council would like staff to evaluate and determine tradeoffs that would be needed to add to the planned CIP? Based on the direction provided by council at this study session, staff will be sharing the CIP with the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee in April, the Parks and Recreation Commission in May, and returning to council also in May for a second study session. Following this, staff will finalize and provide the recommended CIP to the council for adoption in June. That concludes staff's presentation with the three council questions here. I would like to add that a big thank you and recognition to staff on the Public Works team that's here tonight of Joy Houghton, Nancy Doan, and Robert Gonzalez, who did a great job preparing all the materials that's in front of you tonight.

[02:52:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you so much. Yes, thank you to staff for all their hard work on putting this together. Um, apologies I'm trying to keep my voice going for the... for the meeting. Um, so the discussion topics related to item 6.1, capital improvement program through fiscal year 20... okay, uh, no, public comment. So we'll do public comment then we'll do the recusal. All right, so we will pivot to in-person public comment first. And let's see. And if I'm going to read the names and then if folks don't mind queuing up, that would be great. Um, and we will do two minutes for public comment. First is James Kuzmall, then Jack Lincke, Mary Dadio, Alex Brown, April Webster. And if you're in-person and you didn't hear your name called, please submit your blue speaker card. Ready? I'm ready, the timer's ready.

[02:53:51] Public Speaker James Kuzmall: Good evening. I'm James Kuzmall. Uh, as a reminder, three years and eight days ago, Andre Ratana was killed trying to bike to school. Um, and in the last 90 days alone on Mountain View's streets, two people have died, 43 have been injured. How we spend our resources, our budget, our staff time, our road space should reflect the urgent safety need this city has, and we should prioritize our efforts accordingly. Just because it is harder to put a hard cost on human life sometimes doesn't mean that we, uh, shouldn't treat it as any less urgent or important in the long term than more fiscal needs the city has. Um, it's also important to make sure that we avoid false dichotomies in discussing tradeoffs around things like pavement management and discretionary funding for active transportation projects. Um, the there are things we can do to improve safety that also help with the city's long-term fiscal sustainability and road quality. If we are doing road diets that reduce asphalt area, if we are doing things that incentivize more biking and walking thus less heavy vehicle use on our roads, we will be spending less money in the long term in the decades to come on pavement maintenance. Um, however, this does mean being willing to do more than just what our business as usual is at times that requires making sure our business as usual is taking aggressive street safety measures and being willing to do projects aggressively, um, and be stringent about making sure that we are using our money effectively so that we are getting the most bang for our buck and saving the lives we can. Thank you.

[02:56:00] Public Speaker Jack Lincke: Thank you, Council. Uh, I'm an avid bicyclist both recreationally and going to work. I've been doing this for over three years here in Mountain View. Uh, unfortunately there's a lot of bicyclists that look a lot like me that are the ones that are confident enough to bike on our streets. A lot of them are unprotected ones that you wouldn't want to put your child or loved one on at risk, and a lot of vehicle conflicts do occur when I am biking, stuff that does go unreported. Um, but I do want to focus on more of the financial piece. Um, there's a figure given number Figure 2, annual funding needs for pavement maintenance, um, currently showing an annual shortfall of $1.5 million. And if we want to increase the PCI from 70 points where it is currently right now to 75 points on par with some of the higher performers in the Bay Area, that is a marginal increase of $6 million annually. So stealing the money right now for a short-term gain, we're going to be staring down the same exact barrel in two years as our CPI still continues to decline as the funds, uh, remain flat. So right now stealing money or borrowing it from active transportation funds that would otherwise be going into reducing our carbon footprint, help building healthier, happier communities, and ones where people can actually connect to the parks, as some other community members have mentioned, is super important to both me and I think others in this room. Um, so I think this is not the most efficient way that we use our money. Thank you.

[02:57:40] Public Speaker Mary Dadio: Hello, good evening. Um, our city's climate goal to reach net zero carbon depends heavily on reducing our vehicle miles traveled because that's such a large part of our carbon footprint. So achieving our climate goals and also having walkable cities, um, reaching Vision Zero traffic fatalities, all of those we're not going to accomplish if we continue to prioritize cars and car pavement over active transportation. Also, um, I'd like to say including trees and plants in our transportation network is critical. So one day last summer, it was 107 degrees in my neighborhood. 107 degrees Fahrenheit. So recently someone with UCANR measured surface temperature of asphalt, artificial turf, and, um, dark mulch on a day when it was 108 degrees Fahrenheit. And all of those surfaces I just mentioned, um, were over 160 degrees Fahrenheit. 160 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's 50 degrees hotter than the air temperature. Um, on the other hand, trees and plants and lawns are typically cooler than the air temperature. So in the example I just mentioned, they were 7 degrees cooler. Um, there was a lawn that was 7 degrees cooler than the air temperature. So road diets give us an opportunity to include greenery in our transportation network, and that makes our city livable not just for active transportation folks, but for anyone who goes outside. Thank you.

[02:59:24] Public Speaker Alex Brown: Hi friends. You all know how I feel about cars. Uh, so I'd mostly want to echo what James and Mary have said. I think we should prioritize people over pavement. Uh, but something I have discussed with several of you, uh, have we explored improving the average pavement quality by de-paving bad streets? Like trying to return some of the streets to like a cleaner state where we don't have to maintain them over time, finding blocks that we could close to cars and open to people and nature and, you know... I think it'd be more fun that way. Thank you.

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Public Speaker: Be creative. We don't have to just keep putting more tar down every year to pave—I bike. The roads suck. I get that. I bike down Moffett. There's so many potholes. It's painful. It's dangerous at times, especially when it's raining and people splash the—I don't know what kind of gunk's in that road. So yeah, I get it. Nicer streets would be nice, but I'd rather have no streets. Thanks.

[03:00:37] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. April Webster.

[03:00:43] Public Speaker April Webster: Hi, thank you. I wanted to briefly speak to the road diet opportunities on Moffett and Middlefield. There's strong public support. During Moffett precise plan outreach, public overwhelmingly supported a new vision: wider sidewalks, protected bike lanes, street trees, linear parks, shade—basically a road diet. In a live poll, 45 out of 64 respondents rejected four travel lanes, and another eight said it's worth considering. That seems to be a clear mandate to me. A road diet reduces paving costs by reducing the amount of pavement we need to maintain, effectively raising PCI more strategically. It reclaims space for people and nature to build a vibrant, walkable, people-friendly corridor that draws foot traffic to our local businesses, not clicks to Amazon. OBAG 3 projects like Moffett and Middlefield complete streets, they use federal formula funds. I chaired the March 20th MTC active transportation working group meeting last week that staff referenced in response to council questions. MTC staff identified only federal discretionary funds as being at risk for federal clawbacks, not formula funds like OBAG 3. Thomas Arndt, MTC's OBAG 3 grant manager, confirmed the deadline is January 2027 for obligation, not construction. The deadline does not prevent revisiting the design, and only substantive scope changes require a TIP revision. At our BPAC meeting, staff said a road diet once you pave, it's only painting, it's straightforward. TLDR, we have time. The data supports it, the public wants it, and it saves money. A road diet is strategic...

[03:02:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[03:02:53] Public Speaker: I sent in a slide show. I don't know if it's on time.

[03:02:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh, okay. We'll wait until the deck—sometimes it's staff behind the scenes who have it. Okay. And then we'll do—is the timer here? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you.

[03:03:09] Public Speaker: Um, so I do see a problem with the pavement budget in Mountain View. Next slide. Problems with it are there's too much pavement for how much we want to pay for pavement. We have so many priorities, and we've decided that that's not one of our top priorities, and I think that's a valid decision and there's too much pavement within that category of our prioritization. And um, we know that more people driving wear it down, as others have said. And then I've also been seeing a lot of delays in projects after approval and as Council gets berated all the time, the more we delay a project, the more it costs. So once it's approved, we should be getting it done. Um, so next slide.

[03:03:51] Public Speaker: Um, these are images from Paris where they actually really decided to follow through with their plan to reduce their pavement, increase their walkability, bikeability, and their green infrastructure. Unfortunately for us, projects like Miramonte started with green components but they've been removed for budgetary reasons, but apparently we can still pay for the pavement. Well, maybe not 'cause it hasn't been done. Um, next slide. Um, you don't have to go as far as Paris. Um, this is La Jolla Boulevard and we see that um, they didn't just road diet, they really incorporated the green spaces again reducing that pavement surface area. They saw noise level drop, retail sales increase, and traffic crashes fall.

[03:04:39] Public Speaker: So better street design will save lives as well as our budget. Next slide. In Seattle, this is just a normal street in their city center. And it is narrow and they are still served by a fire department and they're even reducing the speed limit and um, it's—you're actually allowed to just run in the street because it is considered a park space. Next slide. Um, this is the picture of projects um, for this next year. I couldn't find, because there was dead links, the projects from last year, but everything's been delayed. Basically. Summary. Thank you.

[03:05:11] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. All right, I think that that concludes all our um in-person speakers. Um, so if you were wanting to speak but you didn't submit a card, please do so now. And we'll move on to our virtual public comment. We have Cliff Chambers and then Daniel Hulsey.

[03:05:39] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: Hi, I'm Cliff Chambers, resident of Mountain View. And many of the previous speakers really made a lot of the points I was going to make. So I'm going to concentrate on the ask for City Council. We really want the City Council to direct staff to come back with a CIP that really prioritizes the vision of the active transportation plan. That vision that a lot of work went into really had a basis for increasing the possibility for good transportation choices, increasing the mode share of biking and walking and and really being able to address the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

[03:06:31] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: This current CIP as it's structured right now does not have that sense of priority for the active transportation plan and the vision that it has. It's very important that you as City Council members walk the talk and specifically direct staff to make this a priority to reflect all the community input that you've received time and time again. The current CIP has several examples and listing of active transportation projects that don't have sufficient staffing. It's always about resource allocation. Where are you going to put the resources to be able to deliver the vision of the active transportation plan? And we don't want to divert funding from the active transportation funds to pavement. So please direct staff to make this a priority. I've talked to many of you and I know this is a priority. Thank you.

[03:07:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Daniel Hulsey.

[03:07:45] Public Speaker Daniel Hulsey: Hi, can you hear me?

[03:07:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:07:49] Public Speaker Daniel Hulsey: All right. Um, so hi. I live in Mountain View. Um, and my comment is that if you take a little bit look of a look at the um memo and sort of the stuff that's laid out, it's it's kind of revealing about how our city allocates capital. And I I want to call attention to what I'm going to call printers. So what's a printer? A printer is something where money just kind of comes in and projects just get printed out and it happens almost automatically. So we have a printer for roads, um and that's basically just maintaining everything that we have, achieving a certain percentage of pavement condition. Um, we have a printer for parks. Um, this is about, you know, building facilities, cobbling lots together to make a new park.

[03:08:36] Public Speaker Daniel Hulsey: And what I would like to see, you know, is where's our printer for active transportation, right? This is a big issue with our previous bicycling plans, you know, we put one together, it looks great, everyone agrees, um but then nothing happens. Um, and so I want a printer for active transportation infrastructure so we don't just um cut these things because they're discretionary. Um, so what does an active transportation printer look like? Well, sometimes it needs to look like roads where, you know, we repave and in the process we just make active transportation better. This is something that we already do, I think we need to do it more.

[03:09:18] Public Speaker Daniel Hulsey: And the more we do it, I think the more we need to have standards that are going to decrease the cost and complexity of these projects. Um, but secondly we need to have one that looks kind of like our parks printer where we cobble together different land um and and build on that land. Um, and then there also needs to be a piece that's discretionary. So that's what I hope that um you will look at is try to make a system that makes active transportation. Thank you.

[03:09:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Rashmi.

[03:09:56] Public Speaker Rashmi: Can you hear me?

[03:09:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:09:59] Public Speaker Rashmi: Great. Um, everybody's—a lot of people have spoken um very eloquently on the need for active transportation and green and complete streets. So I don't need to repeat all those points. I just wanted to be present today to also say that I'm another person who supports that and um really feels strongly about the fact that City Council needs to stand up for the vision that it has articulated and for the strategic priorities that it has chosen. Um, I am someone who bikes as much as possible and walks as much as possible already and there are still um places that I just don't feel comfortable doing so, and I'm someone who—I mean, I would say I'm outside of the norm in terms of choosing to bike and walk even in the rain. But for example, on Miramonte, um I just I won't do it because it's it's too dangerous.

[03:10:53] Public Speaker Rashmi: There's not—there's—the bike lanes are intermittent and um cars are buying—driving by very quickly. I just won't put myself or my kids in that danger. So even for someone who almost always chooses biking and walking, we don't—we don't have a city set up for that. Um, so I just want to say please prioritize green and complete streets. I would also um like to um request that the Permanente Creek Trail extension under Central Expressway in the Shoreline West neighborhood be considered to be put back on the capital improvement program list. Um, this has been many years in the making since 2018 and it's been dropped, so it'd be nice to see that back on there.

[03:11:40] Public Speaker Rashmi: Um, and then if you want—if you want to look at saving resources, I would recommend um not re-rebuilding the Shoreline play structure. Um, right now it's—it's a great playground, it's unique, um it's a boat and um let's not—let's not um let's not fix something that's not broken. It's a place to save money. So thank you.

[03:11:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, thank you. I'm not seeing any more um in-person or virtual speakers, so I will bring the item back. Um, the discussion topics related to item 6.1 Capital Improvement Program through Fiscal Year 29-30 require councilmember recusals due to conflicts of interest. So we'll start with the recusals, colleagues can ask questions, we'll go through those items, we'll do more recusals and then we'll do more question-answer and then the full group will be able to discuss. So could the councilmember with a conflict of interest please make your recusal statement now?

[03:12:42] Councilmember John McAlister: This reminds me of that old game show where you—will the real person stand up? Well, um, I'm your de facto conflict guy. Um, no matter where I live or what I do, I seem to get these conflicts. So, it appears that I am recus—recusing myself from the discussion about Stevens Creek Trail extension, which I live across the street from. Um, so that makes sense. Construction due to the proximity of my vast plantation, um, residence to protect—my personal residence to property that will be impacted by the Council decision regarding this project. Even though I have a creek, Highway 85 and... yeah, a lot.

[03:13:27] Councilmember John McAlister: I am also recusing myself from discussion about my El Camino Real protected intersec—I got a protected intersection? Okay, cool. Um, and the design and construction phase point 2.2-4 and Shoreline Boulevard Complete Streets, Montecito to El Camino US-17 projects due to the proximity of my vast empire of Baskin-Robbins that will impact Council's—by Council's decision regarding these projects. So, somewhere the...

[03:13:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you, thank you for that colorful recusal. Okay. Now Council can ask questions, deliberate and provide direction related to Stevens Creek Trail extension. Does anyone have anything? Councilmember Chris Clark.

[03:14:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, I I might be blind. Um, I I thought I saw this earlier. So I see this item in—I think I saw the the construction um piece um had a slot in 27-28, but but I'm not sure I can't find the design phase. Um, I see the construction placeholder but not the design placeholder.

[03:15:13] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Thank you for the question, Councilmember. It's a currently active project. So it would be the design component is currently active. So it would be on the active projects list.

[03:15:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. But the question is I think geared specifically toward the the roll-forward, which would be the construction phase, the placeholder for the construction phase.

[03:15:33] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: That's correct.

[03:15:37] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I'm just going to on these projects that people are recusing themselves from, I'm going to abstain because I want to have an overall philosophical discussion about what kinds of projects should go forward and what not. So I'm just going to abstain from these. I don't think it'll make any difference. Um, and then when when everybody comes back, we can have an overall discussion about the remainder of—so I just wanted to explain why I'm going to not be voting on these.

[03:16:16] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So it's a—it's a study session tonight, so there's no voting. Um, just looking to staff. I believe it's um input and discussion and maybe perhaps a few straw polls um should that discussion go forward. But no final action, and this is the first of two study sessions, I believe, correct?

[03:16:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, so I'll just be—I will be abstaining from the straw polls, not because I dislike the projects, but because I feel a need to have the overall discussion first.

[03:16:45] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Pat Showalter.

Segment 6

[03:45:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: ...some more information. We've been talking about improvements to Shoreline for quite some time and just being able to—and I think the more information we get out of Question 1 from Phase 2 and 3 will help inform our thoughts for El Camino Phase 4 and the Shoreline Boulevard Complete Streets. And I heard Councilmember Showalter comfortable with that, so I've heard at least four. So does that sound good? Okay, and Councilmember Hicks says sure. So I think that hopefully that provides enough information for staff.

[03:45:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. All right. So now we'll continue the discussion for the remaining CIP items and answer the following three staff questions. So we'll change our staff question slide and have a discussion about the rest of the CIP and invite our colleagues back.

[03:46:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, we're—we're—we're going to proceed. So we have Questions 1, 2, and 3 as listed on the screen. And we can take—colleagues can—can answer them, you know, in turn or we can go one at a time, however colleagues feel. Oh yes, and if they have questions, this is the questions/discussion/deliberation portion. Councilmember Ramirez.

[03:47:24] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I have a few questions for staff. First, I appreciate the responses to the questions submitted in advance. There were a lot of them, and a lot of the information you shared was—was encouraging to me. A number of projects in the active list are—are on track for completion and closure before the end of the fiscal year, so that active project list will—will, you know, dwindle down to something that's a little bit more manageable. And it was helpful also to see some—at least preliminary assessment of—of the staff capacity that could be freed up by deferring some of the projects in—in the list. But before I get into specific projects, I did want to ask some questions about non-discretionary projects. And I apologize, I didn't submit these in advance, so I sent an email earlier this afternoon to the Public Works Director and the City Manager with some responses to similar questions asked several years ago. The first is about—staff had in a previous CIP study session elevated a concern that there might—there may be insufficient funding for future major utility infrastructure replacement and rehabilitation needs. And staff had provided some assessment that—that there are some concerns. And I wanted to get a sense of whether we might need to start considering additional funding for non-discretionary utility projects if there remains a concern that we're not investing enough to maintain the infrastructure we already have.

[03:49:19] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, with respect to utilities, the vast majority of those replacements are funded by enterprise funds, right? And so we're talking like water and sewer-type pipelines. We do have an aging city, right? The majority of our infrastructure was built probably 50, 60 plus years ago, so it is time to start looking at renewing and replacing those facilities before we get to a catastrophic failure situation. We did have several main breaks over the past year, so we are continually chasing that. So I think your question is do we need to pump more money into utilities projects? Um, I would say as a maintainer of said utilities, it might be prudent to take a look at that, what that could look like with respect to our resources that we have available, both funding and staffing. I don't have that at the ready, so we could come back with more information if that's something you'd like us to study.

[03:50:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I would be interested. The staff response—again, this is a few years ago and my memory is very poor—staff mentioned that the city at that time was updating the water and wastewater master plans and that they would be completed in early 2022. Were those plans completed and do they provide some helpful information about whether we need to increase the investment in utility maintenance?

[03:51:02] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, what we know—I'm new, so I'll just caveat that—I'm told that our master plans were completed. Those do serve as guidance documents for how we want to move forward with replacement or even build-out of those type of utility infrastructure throughout the city. I'd have to actually go back and review the document to see if it actually set priority-type lists for us to—to tackle.

[03:51:27] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay, that's helpful. I—I don't think the non-discretionary investment numbers change dramatically over time, but while our investment is relatively flat, costs have escalated considerably. So I think having some guidance from staff about whether those numbers still make sense would be really helpful. And related to that, I—there was—the—what I was searching for was a question about whether it would be appropriate at a certain point to distinguish between major roads and arterials from local and neighborhood streets. You know, we hear a lot of concerns about pavement maintenance. And, you know, as I was thinking about this, most people are concerned about the major roadways because they're driving them every day. There are some concerns about neighborhood streets, but for the most part, it's Miramonte, California, El Camino, Moffett. So given the information presented in the staff report, do you think we're approaching a point where just because we don't have enough resources to maintain all of the pavement, it might be prudent to start considering those differently and to start investing more heavily in the arterials and major roadways so we can keep the pavement condition elevated where most people are using the roadway more frequently?

[03:52:46] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: So I'll answer your question this way. The pavement management program that we have is an aggregate of all of the residential and non-residential segments of pavement throughout the city. Right? We have the ability to split out what's the PCI for only residential streets, what's the PCI for arterials and major arterials and collector-type streets. But the average that we report out is an aggregate of all of that. Um... and I just totally lost your question. Do you mind repeating it?

[03:53:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Sure. I guess the question would be, because resources are limited and the staff report makes it very clear that it's going to be extremely difficult to maintain the PCI as it is and almost impossible without a complete change in priority to increase the PCI and then maintain it at that elevated level, are we approaching a point where it would make sense to think—to consider and treat major roadways and arterials and collectors differently from local and neighborhood streets so we would be keeping the PCI up for most of the streets that people generally care about, but it may come at the expense of neighborhood streets where we have, you know, far less traffic.

[03:54:12] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Yeah, the direction we're currently following is for an average PCI, right? To get our average PCI 70. And we heard in the council's strategic study session that there's a desire to potentially move that up to 71. If the Council wanted to direct staff to have different PCI target goals for residential street versus, you know, larger collectors, arterials, major arterials, we can certainly take that into consideration. It does make planning a little bit more difficult. One caveat I'll say is that our active transportation elements by and large with respect to bike lanes are typically on those larger streets. You're not going to see us put bike lanes on a residential street. So to the extent that paving projects do have active transportation elements in them, you know, I don't know that we want to solely focus our attention on certain classifications of streets.

[03:55:12] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: If I can add on, I can't help but to wear the pavement hat right now, so a little education. We provide in the—in the packet, we had identified sort of a little education on pavement. As the pavement continues to decline, there's this curve, it sort of falls off pretty rapidly. It's—we get the most bang for our buck, really, the dollars that we spend are best invested early on to continue maintaining pavement that's in relatively good condition before it really falls off. As soon as it falls off and it becomes in poor condition, the amount of pavement that we can utilize for the same dollar amount significantly declines. So for example, I can do a block of a reconstruction project, meaning that the pavement is just failed, we need to full—fully redo this street. I'll do one block. For the same amount of money, I can maintain existing roads that are in good condition and keep them in good condition, 15 blocks. A little bit of an exaggeration, but there's a significantly—changing in dollars for, again, bang for the buck. So in an opportunity to evaluate whether arterials should be the focus, in order to maintain our PCI, it really should be as a—as a network. Where are the needs and where is our best dollars spent, and at the same time evaluating—and we do this today—evaluating the neighborhoods. So we take a look at where the pavement needs are and then rotate through the neighborhoods on those pavement needs. So then we're—we're actually applying pavement resurfacing through the neighborhoods in an equal fashion. We're getting to neighborhoods when it's your time to get there.

[03:57:09] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I kind of liked that suggestion, but that's a comment. So, sorry. Um, so first, thank you. This is a complex subject and particularly because you're new, thank you for presenting all this information to us. I'm—I have a bunch of questions around the topic of—well, basically what—I had my own words, but I'm just going to quote some of the resident speakers because they probably said it better with—than I would than I would. Um, what it would take to come back, given the lack of funds, the, you know, staff resources, and so forth, what it would take to come back with a CIP that prioritizes the vision of the Active Transportation Plan? And I would add complete green streets and equity, you know, to give projects in places where people are most kind of bound in by—by highways and so forth and difficult places to traverse with bikes and as a pedestrian. So those—the questions under that topic are, first, you know, our—we have a lot of large projects. Is there a large project or two that you would most suggest we might put on ice to—to shift to some of the more—to prioritize the projects within the Active Transportation Plan? And if it takes—I probably should have asked—I wish I'd asked that in my written questions, but I didn't think of it then by then. Um, if you need time to think about it, I could ask some other questions.

[03:59:19] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, how about I'll start and I'll turn it over to Ed. Um, so our Active Transportation Plan is currently under development. It's not completed. We haven't set our priority projects. All of that comes about through identification of projects and scoring criteria that's still working its way through the process. So your initial question of what would it take to focus a CIP on active transportation projects per the Active Transportation Plan, I guess I would—I would kind of cheat by answering your question and saying, well, once the plan is completed, then we can look at figuring out how to incorporate. I—I will say, you know, we do try to take advantage as much as possible on piggybacking on other projects. So you—you've heard us say this before, we try to take advantage of paving projects as much as possible to at least get base infrastructure—I'll call it base infrastructure—of active transportation, of bike lanes down wherever we can. Is there room for enhancements? Always, right? Do—you know, active transportation means a lot of different things to different people and it's really just about how to get everybody actively moving, right, in some way or another, whether that's a bike, whether that's using your feet as a pedestrian, whether that is a vehicle, um, you know, how to keep those modes moving throughout our roadway network. Um, you know, some of the things that could be considered as active transportation could be a second layer. So frankly, we could easily put down bike lanes with repaving projects through striping and paint and that and so forth, but enhancing crosswalks, whether it's, you know, a Hawk signal or an RRFB or even a lighted crosswalk, those could come as a later phase. So I view this as sort of an incremental approach to overall bettering our active transportation facilities within our roadway network.

[04:01:22] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I think I think you're right, I should have modified my question. Not not for the Active Transportation Plan, but active transportation projects. And some of the kinds of things that people—that some of our resident speakers feel continually drop out of our projects, like road diets and green street features. They feel like those are always the first to be taken out. Um, so what I'm—and those—I feel like we have some very large projects and that we kind of take the icing off the cake because we have so many cakes, and maybe we need to eliminate or put a cake on ice and then, you know, complete the ones we have. So if you if any come to mind tonight, you know, that you think could be—if that's an approach, I would love to hear what those are.

[04:02:20] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Or to defer. To defer. I think we'd like to hear the other questions and comments and then we can provide some input. It could be a little bit more of a conversation. Okay. Um, one thing that I would like to identify is, um, we pretty consistently in this effort on a yearly basis provide an attachment that identifies all the projects that we're implementing active transportation improvements with. That's Attachment 2 in your packet. Um, it's a long list. So we've talked about a couple of the projects tonight, which is the two Complete Street projects. But we also have the Miramonte project that's going to be moving forward, the California Pilot Project that's under construction, El Monte Corridor, which we're going to be doing a road diet as well on—I'm sorry, Miramonte we're going to be doing a road diet, El Monte we're going to be doing a road diet—inclusive of other components. Um, and again, the—there's a long list that is in Attachment 2 that we want to point the Council and the public to truly identify that we're really identifying with the program that we have, active transportations elements into the CIP. As well as the CIP is really—it's a balance. It's—there's a lot of infrastructure that we need to maintain. So we're trying to balance all these things at one time and I know that it's a tough decision for Council.

[04:03:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So another question regarding prioritizing active transportation and complete green streets. Um, somebody suggested it might be possible to pull part of the 2024 Vision Zero Action Plan to update construction standard details with green infrastructure and safety-forward design. Do you think that's—and they referred to—and I actually didn't look this number up, but they referred to SR10. I don't know what that is because somebody gave this to me, but the rest of it I understand. Do you think it would be possible to pull that part of the Vision Zero Action Plan forward to change construction standards in a way that would be—in a way that would be more green and safe earlier rather than later?

[04:04:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I think as we'll give staff a bit, I see City Manager McCarthy in the queue.

[04:05:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Mayor. And I wanted to address a previous question that Councilmember Ramirez raised about the pavement condition and how the city has prioritized the neighborhood streets versus arterial streets. And I think the heart of what I'm hearing and what I think you're trying to articulate is should we as staff be looking at whether there are certain arterial streets that should be prioritized that maybe have worse PCI conditions than neighborhood streets? And if the policy, in a sense, has always been to prioritize—or not prioritize neighborhood or arterial streets, that everything was taken together as the assistant director articulated, maybe the review of staff when we come back in April is to say, all right, here's some arterial streets where the PCI is so degraded that we might want to make sure that we're looking at this. And the portion, I think, that is a little harder is we have taken everything holistically in times where we've had more money. And so your question is, now that we have less money, shouldn't we be looking at arterial streets instead of taking everything combined? So I think what as staff and what we can work on is we can look at that. I mean, maybe it is a different approach that we need to take given that we do have constricted funding resources. So I wanted to address that because I think that's what you're getting at. And the approach that we've always taken perhaps given that we're in such a funding constraint, we need to look at whether we should be taking all of them together versus just the arterials. Um, then the other thing I would add is what I'm hearing tonight, not just from councilmembers but the public, is the fact that there appears to be a need for staff to review how we can—I won't use the word balance, but have in harmony the need for our pavement management along with active transportation projects. And so you may ask questions tonight that we just don't simply have the answers to yet because they still need to do the analysis for it. But that we have the next at least month or so before we come back to Council in the second study session to kind of figure out how we can fit those things more in harmony with the funding constraints that we have. And I think that the director wisely pointed out that we do have this Active Transportation Plan in the works right now where we are in the process of getting that feedback from the community and from advisory bodies and eventually from Council on what the prioritization of those projects will be. So I think we've got to try and and find that that harmony between the two needs. So that that's what I'm hearing as these conversations go on. So I'm just kind of trying to give staff a lifeline in the sense that we just may not have answers to all of your questions, but we're hearing what you're saying. Um, so if if that is something that you all, the majority of you agree, I think it's kind of getting at some of—maybe all of the questions in that we'll really look at how we do the prioritization of the pavement management program, the arterials versus the neighborhoods, and we'll look at seeing if there are some options and how to kind of balance these priorities in a way that more clearly prioritizes active transportation while not neglecting the pavement condition and some of the more fundamental things.

[04:09:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. I think many people want—let's just take a beat. Thank you, City Manager McCarthy. Um, and I'm sure people want to add in. We're in the questions portion. So if there's continued to be questions and then we'll get into the comments. I think it'll just be easier for staff to track, but I—but I appreciate that. It's not a either-or, it's an and. And I feel like harmony—I was thinking like how do things work in concert with one another? Um, I'm going to go back to Councilmember Hicks because and then I can go to you, Councilmember Showalter, because you're next. Is that okay?

[04:09:50] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I'll ask questions, but you don't have to give—I liked the City Manager's comments and you don't—since I'm springing them on you, you don't need—we can add them to the queue that will come back, yeah. Um, I'm just wondering if some of the things—so there was the Vision Zero comment, whether that would be helpful or not. Um, other thing—somebody had—is the Shoreline play structure, does it really need to be updated? And then there's all sorts of others like I people have commented to me that new traffic signals are expensive and they often prioritize cars over pedestrians. I know the new one near me seems to be, we all just walk down the street and avoid it. Um, I've heard people say that sidewalks are renewed before they need to be. I don't know whether that's always true, but those are some of the things I'm wondering, you know, whether improved crosswalks and road diets can ever take priority over any of those. You know, a lot of them are the details, not the big projects. And I think I think those are my questions.

[04:11:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Showalter.

[04:11:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: All right! Well, first of all, I just want to say this is a really good report. And it's a very complicated issue, and I really like the way you've laid out the sources of funding and the descriptors of that. I mean, that was very good. So thank you so much for that. Okay. Um, one of the things that's come up in a lot of discussions I've had with the community about this is the five-acre green infrastructure requirement for our NPDES permit. And um, apparently we have to have a plan for it by the end of 27 or sometime in 27. I'm sorry, I lost the date. Um, so I wondered when you're talking about combining Complete Streets with and adding the features of bike lanes and stuff, um, are you also considering the—the green infrastructure? Does that come into it as well or is that viewed as a separate—I think previously it seemed like it was viewed separately. Are we now combining that?

[04:12:27] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: So to answer your question, it's both. Um, we're doing a combined approach. We're looking at opportunities to see how we can address the green stormwater infrastructure requirement as a standalone as well as combining it with various projects. So we'll be evaluating how we can include green stormwater infrastructure as part of projects and that gets us incremental—incrementally closer to the requirement, in addition to evaluating sort of a larger project of that could bite off a good amount of the requirement so that way we're we're getting there.

[04:13:12] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, that's great, because I think there is a, you know, a real desire in the community to increase the amount of shade on our streets as well, as we go forward. And that sort of—I mean, that's very different from the pavement, but it's, you know, it's important. And then another question I had is, um, when will the—when do you think the Active Transportation Plan will be finished?

[04:13:34] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: First quarter of 2026.

[04:13:36] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, that's not too far off. All right. Um, I and then the other question is, we there are a number of field replacements in in the list that I know these fields have artificial turf now. And we haven't taken up the question as a Council of how we view artificial turf yet. And I wondered when you thought that was going to be appropriate for us to do. Are we going to do it on a project-by-project basis? I mean, you know, what's the best way?

[04:14:15] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: I'm going to phone a friend on this one. Um, we have John Marchant, the Community Services Director, that could probably perhaps enlighten us.

[04:14:23] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: He's a great friend to have, isn't he? Thank you, John.

[04:15:00] Community Services Director John Marchant: Councilmember Showalter, thank you for the question. Um, so for the existing fields that we are looking to over the next few years to replace the artificial turf, I think it will be best to look at them on a—on a project-by-project basis. Each one is very different and we'll be able to look at those very specifically compared to all of them at one time. I think even as staff there's some things that we would like to look at on a and make some different recommendations based on the location.

[04:15:31] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, I just wanted to bring it up because it's something in the community and in the literature we're hearing a lot about and we, you know, we want to be on top of that. That sounds like a good plan. Thank you. That's my questions.

[04:15:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember McAlister.

[04:15:48] Councilmember John McAlister: Uh, I'm really happy to see this report. PCI has been one of my top items. And then especially Slide 13 is, you could say that's my wishlist. Those are all transportation, parks, and infrastructure, so that's great. My question is then to that the discretionary on all this paving, are we going to have a trenching policy to follow along all this pavement so that we are getting set up to be a smart city and for the city for the future and have conduit in the ground?

[04:16:29] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Let me try to answer that. Um, let me start by saying that we do coordinate with our utility section in order to implement utility projects in advance of paving projects. It's a coordination effort. We're seeing that this could be an opportunity for communications as well. We're going to be evaluating through the next step in the broadband gap gap analysis—I think that's the title of the study that's going to be happening next—opportunities to take advantage of installing some conduits, so that way we're future-ready, which is what I'm hearing from sort of the question. We also have a practice in place to have existing telecommunication companies coordinate together when we see them doing sort of a longitudinal installation of infrastructure. So that way it's sort of this dig-once policy, let's have you all coordinate, install all your improvements at one time so that way when we come back and pave, there's less disruption to the community. Um, so it's an ongoing conversation that we're going to be taking on with the broadband gap analysis as well as evaluating how we can facilitate these improvements as part of our infrastructure projects.

[04:17:52] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: I was just going to add a little bit of context that, you know, we have a certain type of contractor that goes out and does paving projects and striping projects associated with paving. Um, engaging and implementing conduit within a paving project is a totally different skill set requiring a different type of subcontractor. So if the direction to staff were to be to include empty conduit as part of paving projects, it would be a different approach to how how we do things and it's a little bit more design effort than just a traditional project.

[04:18:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Because the reason I brought asked about trenching because when we did have that broadband gap, we had the question was asked—I asked the question—we don't have any formal policies. So will you be formulating formal policies for trenching?

[04:18:58] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: I see Arn walking up, so thank you very much Arn. He was getting too comfortable back there.

[04:19:01] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Good evening and thank you for the question. I think I can provide a little help here. One of the main things that came out of the gap analysis is that the city should move forward with a fiber network design plan because the last thing we would want to do is dig and put conduit in places that may not actually benefit us. And so we're currently working on possibly even maintaining the firm that we had because a lot of the work they did for the gap analysis is the same type of data that would feed into a design plan, and that would be the most logical first step is get that design plan to see where they feel we should have conduit arterials around the city that would make the most sense. Thank you.

[04:19:44] Councilmember John McAlister: So who would coordinate that and what do you have a timeline on that?

[04:19:48] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Yeah, currently myself and Christina Gilmore, who also helped with the gap analysis, will be the ones either deciding to move forward with an RFP for a fiber network design or possibly even continuing to engage the company we used previously, Entrust.

[04:20:06] Councilmember John McAlister: And then would you and Christina be doing the formulating the policies?

[04:20:11] Assistant City Manager Audrey Seymour Ramberg: Uh, we would probably work in tandem with some of our departments that would actually be doing the fieldwork as opposed to us just taking the full policy formulation on ourselves, but I think the fiber network design from the one that I've seen that has been shared with me, it'll inform a lot of the decisions we'll want to make.

[04:20:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. So I would think we're not going to start paving right away. So will there be time for the formal policy on trenching get in place before we actually start paving? Or can you start paving pretty quick?

[04:20:48] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: We're being very aggressive in our paving program right now. Um, we as we put in the Attachment 4 regarding the update, we have several projects that are going to be starting construction this year, even more projects starting construction the following year. Um, so it's going to be ongoing. As the gap analysis progresses and assistant city manager Andrew—Audrey—probably identified is we need to identify what the plan is. Where is—where are the needs and then we can work around that and we can start implementing or threading in the infrastructure projects with those gaps.

[04:21:34] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Thank you. And then the other question I had was since you did have limited staff time and I've always been concerned about delays cost us more money because through inflation. So you have this rather comprehensive Attachments 6 and 7 which I have to trust staff on saying which is really going to achieve our goal of getting these projects going forward and completed. Do you when you looked at this list, do you guys sort of have in the back of your mind or forward that okay if we're going to rely on staff to recommend certain things that you would be able to say these aren't going to initially get our our infrastructure goals squared away? Or is there something that's more, you know, there's something real important on here? Because they all sound very needy but if again I'm a big advocate of, you know, getting our infrastructure in place so that we can build a great foundation to have safe street and all the other nice things, smooth rides for bicyclists and streets things. So do you have sort of an idea on here how what to defer to get you the money to get take care of the real necessary items?

[04:22:49] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: That's our actual work over the next few weeks—getting Council's input and then building this project list to come back to Council at a second study session to share what our recommendations is going forward. Um, what Attachment 6 does, it shows you the discretionary projects. It doesn't include the non-discretionary projects. And as previously mentioned, we use our non-discretionary projects really to maintain our infrastructure—again, streets, sidewalks, parks, signals, etc. to really continue that. So that's why we're recommending continuing funding the paving program, continuing funding the non-discretionary projects, because that is our day-to-day maintenance needs and ongoing needs in order to keep everything in good repair.

[04:23:35] Councilmember John McAlister: So street reconstruction projects and you have it in here I think about four times. Is that paving?

[04:23:42] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: That is.

[04:23:43] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Move forward on those projects. Um, and then uh so yeah, there's a lot of nice stuff in here but yeah, I'll save that for comments. Thank you.

[04:23:56] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Clark.

[04:23:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, just briefly on the neighborhood's street piece that was discussed earlier. I'm just curious—I should know this, but for there's just so many miles of of neighborhood streets in particular, I think there would be two ways to make assumptions about PCI and when they need to be replaced. One would be to physically go out and measure it, which would be a lot of effort and maybe there are contractors and folks who do that in cities of our size. But the other would just be to make assumptions based on, you know, the age of the pavement, you know, the number of users and then you kind of figure out an index over time. Do we use one or the other for neighborhood streets or some combination?

[04:24:38] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, we actually have a biennial report. So every other year we actually—there's actual evaluation of all the streets in the city that are evaluated based on their actual condition. And we get a number, a PCI number for each and every single street. That really gives us the data to drive which projects to do next and identify—Councilmember McAlister identified their street reconstruction. A street reconstruction project is a full reconstruction. We are taking it all out because it is has failed and it's we can't just apply a simple low-cost treatment on it anymore to really provide a benefit. Um, so we have that information. Um, but as the city manager mentioned, we're going to be looking at the different corridors to identify how we can start matching these elements and balancing them together.

[04:25:33] Councilmember Chris Clark: Great. But there is a firm or someone who monitors like every two years. Okay.

[04:25:39] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Several firms. Yes, yes.

[04:25:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Do you have more? Okay. Um, I just had a quick question and apologies, I was trying to go through the attachments. So we heard tonight and we received some public input about the Stevens Creek extension that had been part of the Tillery, I think we had thought we were going to get some grant funding, we didn't. Can can you update Council on what the latest is on that? Just it'll help inform like Question 3. Thank you.

[04:26:11] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Sure. Um, so it's going to be a little bit of a storytelling. Okay, we'll settle in. Everybody's ready. And I don't have the exact dates, but um when the 1720 Villa project—this is the development project Prometheus—during the project process, during that development, um they had provided or as part of the conditions of approval was to offer an easement over their property for a future crossing from Villa that would go underneath the Caltrain tracks, underneath Central Expressway and come out the other side as a future connection. Um, the only condition that was required of them was providing an easement. So through their development, they had provided this irrevocable easement. Effectively says we're providing the city this easement and the city is not accepting it, but may at some future date and we have that right to exercise once we're ready. Once we saw that, we put in the CIP program at that time, we programmed out a future CIP for this project. Um, I think that happened about four years ago, maybe a little longer. Two years ago, when we came back to Council and were discussing the big five-year CIP plan at that time, like we're doing tonight, um we had identified that because Caltrain—because it is crossing the Caltrain tracks, Caltrain requires anything—any project that's crossing their tracks for them to design, manage, and construct. It's they take full responsibility and control that. They will not let another agency do the design or the construction over their train tracks, or under, in this case. As you recall, we at the time had three under-grade crossing projects. We had the Rengstorff grade separation project, the Castro grade separation project, and the Bernardo grade separation projects. This is in addition to other grade separation projects that are happening up and down the corridor that Caltrain was managing. So recognizing that Caltrain staff was really stretched thin, and in order to get their attention, we probably wouldn't have um to put this project forward to start the effort. Two years ago, Council at staff's recommendation placed that project from a scheduled project to the unscheduled project, really in an effort to allow Caltrain to catch up, get through these projects, and then have capacity to do this project. So that's the history of it and that's why it ended up on the unscheduled list.

[04:28:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um given given that and our current uh and and Caltrain's current state of affairs, it would even though it's two years, it's been two years, I would assume staff would probably put forward the same recommendation that they I see.

[04:29:13] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: That's correct. Yes. Um, a lot has changed in last two years and we've gotten some sticker shock numbers as we've shared with Council on the costs of uh, you know, grade separation projects. Um, but I—we still believe that Caltrain is stretched thin on all the corridor projects that they're working on. We we can re-engage Caltrain to see if this is something that they would have capacity for. We really honestly would expect that they don't have capacity for this. Um, but it's something if Council would like staff to direct staff to do, we can ask Caltrain this question.

[04:29:51] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. Um well I'll save it for the comments, I think it's kind of a greater as as Councilmember Hicks said.

Segment 7

[04:30:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: A more philosophical question on how we'd like to tackle our discussion with the Caltrain. Okay. So, any other questions that colleagues have? If not, I'll welcome...

[04:30:12] Councilmember John McAlister: So, uh, here's one item that drives me crazy is a project that was initiated in the March of 2020. McKelvey Ballpark. When do we... I see a project down here. It says I think 1454 McKelvey Park detention basin Silicon Valley water coordination. Is that... is there a CPI for fixing the ballpark so that you can sit in the seats and see home plate?

[04:30:45] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: So we're currently working on a funding agreement to take a portion of the anticipated cost from Valley Water. I think we're looking to execute that by the end of this fiscal year. Once we have that in hand, the next step will be to engage with a consultant to really evaluate what a permanent fix for the viewability situation would be.

[04:31:53] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay, now I understand staff, I mean council allocated some $700,000 or something a while back, a year or two or so.

[04:32:08] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Yeah, it's anticipated that we would need the additional money from Valley Water to supplement the funds that we've already set aside.

[04:32:15] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay. Why is this particular project taking so long? That's what... I mean when I was on the campaign trail, I heard what things take a while, take a long time, long time. And this is five years and it was identified back in, and I know you knew all about that, but it was identified in March on the grand opening day, you couldn't see the home plate. So...

[04:32:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember McAlister, if I may. So I think there were several wrinkles to work through with Valley Water and the funding and the agency that was going to be responsible or to help figure out how we could figure a more permanent solution. So in March 2020, the pandemic happened I think the week that this opened. Uh, so frankly, I think it just got on the low list of priorities over the three years of the pandemic. And since then, there's been changes at Valley Water and things have happened that now we're re-engaging with them to figure out a good path forward on this. So I think we're in a better place now and we are devoting more time and resources to this now, but that's why nothing happened for a few years.

[04:35:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. So, um, seeing there's no further questions, I'll just ask colleagues if they want to just take question one, two, and three, and provide comments. Um, we still have another item. Councilmember Ramirez.

[04:35:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'm happy to run through them, but I'll first just because I do like 'things have happened at Valley Water' is a great euphemism for all of the things that have happened. Um, so I'll start with question one. I, um, I'm generally supportive of the staff approach. I really appreciate the City Manager's consideration of opportunities to explore the prioritization of the limited funding that we have. I think, you know, when SB 1 passed in 2016, Measure B started to produce revenue, um, what we can do with that revenue for pavement maintenance was was meaningful, and it's less so now. And one of the advantages of at least exploring decoupling major and, you know, arterial roads, collectors from local neighborhood streets is my hypothesis is if the PCI average for, you know, major collectors and arterials were above 70, most people in the community would be pretty happy, right? Those are the streets that they're that they're encountering or using every day. Um, I was looking at the pavement maintenance map and some of these streets are, you know, it's surprising. I'm sure some of the folks on the cul-de-sacs that we're maintaining really appreciate that we're going and repaving those cul-de-sacs, Fairhaven Court and Morgan Court, but it's a comparatively small number of people who are being served and in aggregate it means we're we're stretching ourselves pretty wide, right? The the capacity used to deliver those projects and then also the resources that we're investing. So in the long term, especially if funding gets, you know, harder to to accumulate for for pavement maintenance and the cost of construction escalates, I think we will need to prioritize, and I think the the best way at least preliminarily would be focus on the streets that people are using every day. Um, and once we, you know, reach a a satisfactory PCI there then I think as our funding allows start to work on the neighborhood and local streets to the greatest extent we're able to. And I agree with you, um, that there's there's a point where, you know, the if we had just maintained the road, then the use of that funding would be would go much further, right? So it's a tricky balance, but but the way I read the staff report is we're at a point where what we're investing now is not going to be sufficient, right? We actually have to increase funding ongoing to maintain PCI, and if we want to increase it, it's an extraordinary investment. So I think we do need to we need to consider some of the alternative policy approaches about prioritizing pavement conditions so that way we're able to meet the expectations of our community. I'm also interested in what we really need to additional investment that may be necessary to maintain other infrastructure including utilities. It's one of those things where, you know, folks don't think about it until it's a problem, and we really don't want those issues to be problems. Um, so that's what I've got for question one. Um, are there any roll-forward projects in the first... so yeah, I'm going to largely defer to my colleagues on which projects we want to affirmatively, you know, include and proceed with. Um, I came prepared with a hatchet, so I'm going to suggest a whole bunch of projects that I think we ought to defer or, um, maybe even eliminate. All of these are good projects, but I'm I'm really taking to heart my understanding of the staff analysis that there just isn't the capacity to deliver. And I think the projects that we ought to seriously consider deferring are the projects where we have the least control, so those that involve Caltrains or other jurisdictions, Caltrain for instance. So that's that's very high-level direction, but some of the projects I saw that I think are things that we we may want to consider postponing so that way we can facilitate the delivery of higher-priority projects that affect more people on a daily basis. Um, I see in the... this is Attachment 6, North Bayshore branding and wayfinding signage installation. It's a nice thing, it's small, but I am having trouble, especially in North Bayshore, focusing on projects that may have made more sense when the Google master plan was likely to be delivered, but a lot of the North Bayshore projects I think are lower priority knowing that the master plan is just not feasible and that's not... I'm not certain that that is... that's not a priority I have. Um, the East Whisman area transit-oriented development improvements Phase 3, which I think that's I'm guessing that's a construction-related item and not design, but I could be wrong. Um, that's in fiscal year '27. That's one where maybe that's really important to deliver, but I am not persuaded and I would be interested in staff's evaluation of the importance of that project. Um, there are some projects in the active CIP list. Um, so 19-34 Charleston Road improvements design and construction. Staff mentions that if that project is deferred, um, that that could help open up capacity for other transportation projects. Um, and then some of these I don't think there was information available yet, but I would be interested in staff's evaluation about the... what you would free up and allow if we were to defer them. 19-54 circulation feasibility study from the North Bayshore precise plan. That says Charleston Road underpass and Stevens Creek transit bridge. Again, I just don't think that those are priorities at this time. Um, unfortunately, 20-38 Shoreline at 101 pedestrian-bicycle overcrossing the construction. Another great project, but with the North Bayshore master plan, the Google master plan on pause indefinitely, it's hard to justify that project ahead of bicycle-pedestrian projects that serve, you know, the the our community more generally. Um, let's see here. Um, 20-52 downtown parking lot improvements. Staff mentions that that parking lot at Franklin and Villa is on hold pending staff resources. That's one where I think we could probably put on the unscheduled list. 22-30...

[04:44:02] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: So, so, sorry, sorry, sorry. I just have a question for you.

[04:44:04] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I'm trying to find out where... what list is he using?

[04:44:07] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. You're not using Attachment 6 or 7. I thought that's where they were directing their questions.

[04:44:13] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: These are active...

[04:44:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh, you're using Attachment 2.

[04:44:17] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Uh, I guess so. But the question was for 6 or 7.

[04:44:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah. So I think... sorry, we're all looking at different attachments. So everyone on this side was... okay, so are you... we're talking about Attachment 6 and 7. So Attachment 6, the roll-forward. So I did I did find that one. Um, is that the only one from Attachment 6?

[04:44:39] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I think I think maybe I I would benefit from staff's assistance here. Is it helpful to talk about... these are active projects where staff appeared to indicate there's value in direction about whether we should defer them since they have real costs and real staff capacity associated with them? So where would be the right time to provide that direction?

[04:45:06] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: For the active projects, um, so we expected to come back in the second study session to really give a comprehensive overview of how we can program these projects for the roll-forwards or the ones that are coming, um, and then identify... council had already given us some input on some projects so we're hearing. Um, we expect that we're going to have to swap some things out in order to do that. Um, it could be in a future year, which wouldn't be an immediate swap, um, or it could be more immediate. We're going to take all this, evaluate it. Um, hearing the Attachment 1 is helpful. Um, that's not the question, but it is the effort in the next sort of the next stage. We're not ready to have that level of conversation and identify which projects, um, but we will be evaluating which ones haven't... would be could candidates for deferral. And those typically are the ones that either just started or haven't really started, um, or haven't started and we haven't dedicated resource yet and that could free up capacity to work on projects that are coming.

[04:46:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So, okay. I guess, I mean, I have more on my list, but I'm hearing that that's not helpful direction at this time. Um, I will share... so I I have little confidence that this really matters. So I'm I'm going to trust my colleagues on which projects to, you know, accelerate or or anything. But, um, you know, I was... I have to say I was disheartened when I saw that in my entire time on council we've delivered 0.15 miles of protected bike lanes, you know, and just this month we're starting the California Street complete streets project and very recently, you know, we started the El Camino Real protected bike lanes project. So that's great, but we've we've really struggled to deliver active transportation. I was hoping to be helpful by saying here's a bunch of stuff that I would, you know, relieve staff of the obligation to pursue if it helps elevate active transportation. But if this is not the appropriate time, then I have nothing further to contribute. Thank you.

[04:47:34] Councilmember Pat Showalter: If I can just add, the entire five-year CIP I I view as sort of a jigsaw puzzle, right, with many interlocking pieces across multiple years. So if the Council wanted to give staff direction to pause, defer, or or not do certain projects that are currently on the active list that staff hasn't started, that could be helpful for potentially freeing up some capacity. Again, it's part of the bigger jigsaw puzzle of how all the resources fit together, so I wouldn't be able to promise that projects that slot in its place would go straight to the forefront of being delivered, but it it could definitely go into the bigger the bigger picture of things.

[04:48:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: May I offer a suggestion? Perhaps when the item comes back for the second second study session, we could see Council could see the list of active projects that haven't been started yet and perhaps that could be an opportunity for Councilmember Ramirez to provide the feedback that he seeks to give. Um, and I will say we also have to, you know, unfortunately take into account the pandemic and just how much that affected our ability to to address the CIP list. and I think that that's a real situation and I believe, you know, kudos to staff who are operating I think at something like 50 percent capacity for quite some time. So I really do feel that there're we're living and and now our list is changing as well, we're living in ever-changing times and I think with that some fluidity is is important, but I think we're having conversation on how we can bring forward all the community's interests tonight. Councilmember Showalter.

[04:49:18] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you. Yeah, question number one. Um, do we support the recommended approach and criteria to determine which projects to prioritize for the CIP reserve and CC tax funds or other feedback? Um, basically yes. Um, as I said before, I think this is a really good um report. I really appreciated it. But we have heard and and I thought that the City Manager sort of summed it up beautifully that um really complete streets and active transportation have become a Mountain View community value. And and you know, I just want to make it is, it's a Mountain View community value. So that's one thing I I know you've heard and I I want to strengthen. And I also want to add into what the City Manager discussed is that in addition to the active transportation, we're really interested in getting shady complete streets. And I think that ties in with our, you know, with our... it more than ties in with our five acres. We want a lot more really than than five acres of of trees um being added. Um, but but that is to me that's really important. And I kind of have a little bit of a different view on the PCI maintenance. I feel like this is something that the city has been working on for a very long time and you have a pretty sophisticated methodology for evaluation. And I I don't feel like I really trust that that you're kind of keeping up with how this evaluation process should change over time and getting back to us with that. So I don't really... I don't want to advise you on necessarily how to do that. I want you to advise us on what's the best way to go about it. And um, I do know that deferred maintenance is more expensive maintenance. And um, we just need to be really, really careful about that. So um, that's question one. Question two, are there any roll-forward discretionary projects? Yes indeed. Um, the North Bayshore recycled reservoir construction. Basically I looked at this list and anything that was related to recycled water, I just want to do it as soon as possible. We don't know when the next major big drought is going to come. the the more you put off this work, the more expensive it gets. So you know, as is reasonable, I would like to get it done as soon as possible. Um, and and also I think as as I mentioned in the questions, the artificial turf replacement is really something we need to think about seriously. How are we going to go about it? What are the alternatives? Sounds like staff is working on that and that's appropriate and I really appreciate it and again look forward to your expertise on that. Um, I looked at project 27-XX, the LASD school facilities. I wondered if that's... it seems like there's an awful lot of uncertainty in that. So I I would look for maybe some more direction over time as to when that's appropriate. But but maybe this is as good a place as any. Um, then uh... let's see. Oh, the citywide bike route program. How is that different from the active transportation plan? That's project 28-XX. It's on the second page of Appendix 6. And it's in the third year. So is that implementing the active transportation plan?

[04:53:25] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: I see the the project. Um, if you give us an opportunity we can come back and give you more information. I don't have the scope details right in front of me, but we can pull that.

[04:53:36] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, well anyway I don't really think you need to come back with me right now. I think the it's just part of that theme, you know, we care about active transportation and how does this fit in and we want it done um in the most expeditious way that's reasonable. Um, and then... okay, onto question three. Um, again, I guess I you know I'm the engineer on the Council, so I feel like I need to talk about the utilities. And so from my point of view looking at this list, um, when I look at the section on utilities, again these are these are big projects that relate to keeping up our um, you know, our water mains and our sewer mains and that sort of thing. It's underground, people don't tend to think about it, but when it breaks, it's a big problem. So I um, I really look to your expertise about when these are appropriate. But um, I don't think... and and when we should bring them up. I'm sure we can't do all of them, but I certainly would like to see us chipping away at them um on a regular basis. So that's my questions and answers. Thank you.

[04:54:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Clark.

[04:55:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. So to question one, um, I largely agree with a lot of the things that Councilmember Ramirez said with respect to pavement in particular. I think, um, and what the City Manager had talked about as well. So I think I think the biggest bang for our buck will be some of the not just the really large arterials, but you know some of the more some of the what I consider more minor arterials that are still arterials but aren't... I wouldn't consider them true neighborhood streets. So for example, some of the safe routes to school like Hans or I think there are areas where we can we can marry your repaving with some of the active transportation projects, safe routes to schools. I think that's where we get the biggest bang for our buck. Um, I also recognize that you know on some of the neighborhood streets, once you get below 70 then it gets very expensive to to redo, and so I think we should we should still do our best to keep those at or above 70, but we also have to take into take into consideration the size of some of those streets. and I'm heartened by the the comment that was made earlier that or the confirmation earlier that you know all of these are looked at professionally um because that that goes against some of the things that I as someone who isn't an expert felt when I saw some some neighborhood streets being repaved that I thought were perfectly fine because I jogged down them all the time. But I don't I don't know sort of what's going on below the surface. So I just think um instead of I think PCI the average citywide is maybe not the right the right metric moving forward in a in a world of additional scarcity where we're not getting as many federal dollars or state dollars. Having said that, I do realize that a lot of our neighborhood street repaving is is funded by things like SB 1 and other things. So that brings me to my second point is I agree with all the criteria that you've laid out, um, including and especially you know anything that we've already secured grants for or that we're confident that we can secure grants for, like those should take precedence over some of the other things. But but I do think looking at you know the higher-trafficked arterials, especially the safe routes to school and any place where we can get additional active transportation projects, and the staff has already identified this in the priorities, but I just wanted to reiterate that that I'm looking less at the overall PCI number citywide because um I think there are there are more nuanced ways to look at that that are probably probably get more to the heart of the impact on everyday lives than than a broader number does to us. So those are my comments on question one. On question two, um, I didn't come with a a big axe, but I did have a a maybe something a little smaller. Um, the ones that I would be open to studying to see if if deferral would be appropriate in a future session. Um, Councilmember Ramirez pointed out one, the East Whisman area transportation-oriented development projects. I'm I need to look into that. This is Phase 3, so maybe maybe it's still important that we we do that, maybe there're active transportation components to that that are that are really important that I'm not thinking of. But um, but learning more about that one I think would be helpful. Um, and then these are all in 26-27 and beyond, I didn't really focus too much on the near term. Um, the signage program out at out at Shoreline is probably less necessary now than it was during the the boom times. Um, so if that's deferred a year or so or moved unscheduled, I don't think that would be the end of the world, but I'd like to learn more. As Councilmember Showalter said, the LASD school site facilities, I think some needs there have changed. I think it's important that we eventually, you know, that that we have a really important park site plan there, so I'm not sure if that is is fully integrated into the school site facilities or if this is more looking at shared facilities beyond just the recreational site. But I don't know if 26-27 is still appropriate for that. So I think looking at that in a little more depth. And then the other two that haven't been mentioned yet, um, and um I think I'm very excited about the California Street improvements that are about to or actually I think just started. Um, and that's a trial period. Um, it sounds like that construction just for the for the trial is going to take through the end of the year. So whether whether a permanent solution is really viable to start construction next year feels a little... I don't know, maybe maybe it will all go super well. It just feels like by the time we finish that and have an evaluation period and decide what the right permanent solution is, 26-27 feels a little soon. So I'm guessing that's more like a '27 to '28 thing. Um, but I would love to have that done as soon as possible. It's just I think by the time we construct what we're constructing now, get feedback, figure out what we want to do permanently, it's probably going to take more than 12 to 18 months. And then the last one, um, the citywide traffic signal and operations center. If you'd asked me five or seven years ago, I would have said this was incredibly important. And I think this technology is about to change so quickly that having your traditional brick-and-mortar facility where you monitor where a human sits there and monitors traffic operations and optimizes things is probably not the way we're going to do things five years from now. Um, so I would I would spend a few years letting that technology develop. Not that we shouldn't do pursue signaling projects, but I think this this model of a traffic operation center and all those other things that we like the county has for expressways that I visited once, which is very impressive, I just don't think that's the model that is going to make the most sense in the long run. So I I would be okay exploring moving that to unscheduled. I think we can still pursue signaling projects, I just don't think that model is probably going to be the most the best long-term investment for $25 million dollars. Um, and that's it. And our question three, I don't have any unscheduled projects that I'm really itching to move forward. I think um I was the one, I think, who strongly recommended that we require Prometheus to give us that right of way or that easement when they did when they did that project. As was pointed out earlier, we're we're unfortunately wholly dependent on on Caltrans to do that construction, and you know perhaps perhaps there will come a time where we want to, you know, prioritize that with with Caltrans and and others, but right now I think we have with with rings or even though it isn't fully funded, we have a lot of committed grants to it, and I would hate to give up those grant commitments at this at this particular moment.

[04:59:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank Vice Mayor Ramos.

[04:59:18] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'll just go down the questions. Um, I generally support the criteria. Um, I was going to say, it says in the staff report there's no priority order of the criteria, but I do have like a mental priority in in some of these. Um, it says on public and personnel safety. I was thinking more of how a lot of people were talking about, particularly Mr. Kuzmall was talking about making sure that people can bike and and walk safely, the active transportation. Um, and I I did appreciate how the City Manager was was talking about that balance. Um, I just I think about the um I remember going to the the vigil for um the child that that passed away a few years back on Grant and El Camino. And it's just if we could do something now to prevent that from happening again, I make that that's an easy enough for me to say that should be a priority. Um, and then I do appreciate also the rethinking how we're doing our PCI, looking at arterials because they're the ones that are going to be used the most. They're going to want... they're the ones that have the highest level of services than say certain neighborhood streets. So like it feels right that we we start focusing on that because those are going to degrade faster anyway. Um, so there's that. So overall, yes, agree with the criteria with some some criteria I view higher than others. In that same vein, I appreciate um it's strange because we're talking about like moving things off or deferring things off of the chopping block. I I don't intend on moving anything up. Um, I I want us to get the stuff that we have on our list done now. Um, so I won't... I feel like I'm asking a little too much to move things up from the for question number two in the roll-forward thing. I did have a quick question when they talk about there's a number of projects that are turf replacements. Um, if they're artificial turf, I am glad to like roll that farther away. Um, we haven't made it a priority yet and I don't know if we ever will, but I feel like there's there's a brewing moment and I don't want to I don't want to get caught in that just yet in case like things come down from the state or the county or something like like that. Um, so I'm happy to push that a little bit, deferring a little bit more just so we don't have to deal with that kind of drama. If we... and then we're looking at it feels weird we're like buckets of like 'if there is room, maybe these' and then like 'if there is even more room, maybe these'. So that's like question number three. If I if somehow we find space to fit something in, to move it up to like from the third overflow bucket to the second overflow bucket, the ones I would prioritize would be the ones that have the project origin that are there's one that had a project origin of Vision Zero and for the same reason I made my argument before for question one, and then the ones that for complete streets. And I I do believe that there was some public comment mentioning like when you look at doing complete streets and complete green streets, we might have less pavement to to take care of. So um, I don't know if that is is accurate or or if that actually makes sense. Um, but I like the idea of that and that is what I have for my questions.

[05:03:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember McAlister.

[05:03:31] Councilmember John McAlister: Thank you. Um, as I mentioned earlier, question one, spot on. I like that approach where you were making comments of 'hey, we can take some of these projects off to get other projects done'. And I'm in favor of anything that expedites projects, and the community is very excited to actually see us to Councilmember Lucas's comment about 'they'd like to get something done before they leave'. And so a lot of people would like to get stuff done. So question one is good. Um, I'm sort of in agreement with most people on number two. There's nothing I would like to move for... well, I take that back. Um, as technology comes... everything to me is sort of integrated. So the I know Chris mentioned the citywide traffic signal traffic center. That was a big deal five years ago that we were going to turn into a smart city and get signals moving a little more coordinated and reduce idle cars and... but with fiber coming in, hopefully and AI, that's going-to-be a game-changer on that's going forward. So that is something that I like to see again I'm pushing integrating as many of our goal or my what I'm advocating for is the fiber, the trenching, try to try to get get done. There was one item that Councilmember Showalter mentioned, but it was also 27-item 27, California Picchetti Park design and construction, LASD school site facilities. So I know we're in talks with the school district. So here's maybe there's a serendipity that we can try to get some parks earlier than later, depending on when they get their act together and I you know I let the City Manager update me on that later, but hopefully that's in the works with a simple nod. I guess not. Okay. But if I mean, you look at these a lot of them they by themselves don't look like they're important but when you look at the outer what's happening around the rest of the city, they get important. Along another question, so other than that nothing on the... I'd rather see staff take items off and then allocate the money towards it and the time. And I appreciate the time is always gone. And number three, again Councilmember Showalter, I agree with her, but I want to take her step a little bit further is I know I've been pushing for the water treatment plant and that's we don't do by ourselves, but if we can get that water treatment plant to the point where we can sell potable water because I was reading some about we were discussing the water and allocations. And if I'm not mistaken, didn't we look at some project that was integrated with the water main crossing US 101 at Ringstorff Avenue? That we were looking at that on another related project earlier in this my short two months here on the council that they had all these diagrams about that. And that was a big project back when we were trying to get purple pipe across the 101 so that we can use the recycled water in other places. So in the sense, water preservation, water conservation, that could be something I could see going forward with. But um, so other than that, I am very pleased and excited about what the staff is doing. And then again, the old adage 'trust your staff to figure out what's the best use of time and money' and I'll go with that. Oh and... yeah. Thank you.

[05:07:16] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Councilmember Hicks.

[05:07:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, question one, I generally support staff's recommended approach, but I would also prioritize complete green streets and active transportation. Um, I want to emphasize things beyond just repainting paving, although sometimes that's important for bike lanes, but to also include shade, um, traffic calming, particularly maybe on neighborhood streets. I guess we had some good pictures of other streets that were not neighborhood streets, but green street calming that could um involve road diets and bulb-outs and other alternative policy approaches. Um, so in terms of let's see, question number two, eliminate, defer, or move up. You know, I would like you to study any kind of deferrals you might suggest. It was kind-of like my question of any big projects that that you think if we'd put on ice, um, we would be able to make some of these community priorities. So I I like the ones that other Councilmembers have mentioned, North Bayshore signage, the East Whisman TOD, the Charleston Road, the um other things in Shoreline, the LASD school site, um, you know, exploring those, I'm not going to name them, I'm not going to insist on them myself. And then also the traffic signalization, defer that for the reasons that Councilmember Clark mentioned, but also I often find that traffic signals enable car flow and not um people flow, pedestrians and so forth. So if that can be a part of the mix, I would appreciate that. Um, and then any projects to move forward, you know, probably the answer will be um will not move things forward, but I would at least ask about the Permanent Teek Creek Trail. And I also liked a resident had mentioned maybe looking at moving forward the Vision Zero construction standards, um, because that would that would inform all the projects you're doing and make maybe not all of them, but many of them, um, safer. Thank you.

[05:10:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. Thanks. Um, I think given the um the late hour, I'm just going to kind of flow through quickly and then maybe do some straw polls on some of the ones that I heard for question two. So um, for question one, I'll just my colleagues answered that quite well. Um, for question two, I'm just going to defer to the straw polls that I'm going to be putting forward. And then for question three, um, thank you, Councilmember Hicks, I was thinking the same thing, I'd like evaluation of the Permanent Teek Creek. I think that the Shoreline West neighborhood let let council know that it's something of interest. I also wonder, yes, we have grade separation projects, but the cost estimate was 50 percent more than Caltrain had said, or Caltrain had said, so you know, I don't know how in jeopardy those projects are, and I don't know I don't know what the focus will be given what's going on with the federal government. So I think it's just worth asking um about. And appreciate the elevation of Vision Zero and the active transportation plan. Um, it'll be great when that comes forward um at the beginning of next year. So um, I think what makes most sense is I heard quite a few um deferrals, I would say, for the from the roll-forward project list. Looking to staff, I think that that's probably what they heard too. So I'm going to go through the ones that I heard. So let's see, so I heard...

[05:11:50] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Mayor, may I interject here?

[05:11:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, Councilmember Showalter.

[05:11:53] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, we weren't really asked to do this beforehand and in and I mean, I feel like I didn't study that. I don't feel comfortable making decisions about this um deferring active this this Attachment 2 at the moment.

[05:12:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: It's not Attachment 2 that we're talking about, Attachment 6 from the roll-forward discretionary projects. And so study... I'm sorry, I misheard you then. Okay, no. Question two. Not Attachment 2. I know we're at 10:15 now. So um, and and I heard kind of I agree with Councilmember Hicks, just kind of a general um question to staff of given what they heard tonight, if there are some projects that they might recommend to defer, I'd be open to hearing that um when the item comes back. But I did hear I want to elevate the ones where I heard two or, you know, two to three um folks bring forward. Um, so the first um that I heard was the North Bayshore wayfinding... is that right? Does that sound right?

[05:13:03] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yeah, that sounds correct.

[05:13:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: North Bayshore wayfinding. So all those who are comfortable with deferring the North Bayshore wayfinding?

[05:13:18] Councilmember Chris Clark: All in favor of deferring or studying defer?

[05:13:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so I saw six. Councilmember Hicks, yeah. We're all putting our hands up to defer or studying defer. I think it is to evaluate, staff to evaluate for deferring.

[05:13:28] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Okay, yes, I can vote for that.

[05:13:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Okay. Then I heard um possible staff to evaluate for deferring the Los Altos School District school sites... is that what it's called? Um, school site facilities. Okay, that looks like one, two, three... five. Councilmember Ramirez.

[05:14:01] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Mayor, may I interject here? So I think this category goes beyond just the CIP, so I would just look for Council direction on certainly we can look at deferring this, but uh it's probably a larger conversation that will take place in the future.

[05:14:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Yeah, it's on the CIP list. Um, so should we skip it?

[05:14:24] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No, let's discuss it. What should we skip it? I mean it's for staff to evaluate and so maybe evaluate. Yeah.

[05:14:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes, evaluate. Yeah. Okay. Everything is evaluate as a since it's a study session, nothing's final. Okay. Um, I heard something about the East... the East Whisman Trans... I'm not going to vote for that, I live in East Whisman, we need some love. So we we need help out there. We do, we really need a lot of help to make it a more walkable, bikeable place as somebody who runs, um, but... but for those who want to evaluate um deferring it, you can let yourself be known.

Segment 8

[05:15:00] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: We'll be known, and then I'll get to talk offline.

[05:15:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: I I would like to know what is in the transit oriented improvements, or I can learn myself.

[05:15:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so at least one. Anyone else? Sorry, I killed I killed that one. All right. I heard something about turf from a couple folks and I wasn't sure which CIP was...

[05:15:28] City Staff: Shoreline athletic field.

[05:15:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yeah, there are a number of turf. There's two turf replacements, one at Crittenden Field, I have one at Graham School. Those are the two... Shoreline athletic field. So I think that'll be... are people in favor of evaluating that? One, two, three, four. Four.

[05:15:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes. Yes. Yes. And then those are the ones that I heard where there was at least three. Am I missing any looking at staff?

[05:16:11] Councilmember Chris Clark: I I was seeing the same ones. I was looking at my notes to see if there was another one that popped up that you didn't already identify.

[05:16:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Traffic... Operations Center... or the...

[05:16:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: The citywide traffic signal and traffic operations center operations planning and design. Are people interested in deferring that? One, two, three, four, five. Five.

[05:16:40] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. And that is evaluate, staff to evaluate, plus I think just a general consensus that Council would be open to staff recommendations too, if there's anything that you would recommend deferring.

[05:16:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And then for question three, I heard at least Councilmember Hicks and myself bring up just looking at the Permanente Creek extension. Just looking at it. Is anyone else interested in that? Okay, that looks like six.

[05:17:13] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, I think that is everything for all our questions and everything for CIP. Does staff... did I what did I miss? Did I miss something?

[05:17:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: It's just to call out that there were two separate shoreline signage programs. One is now and one is upcoming fiscal year, one's the following fiscal year. One is North Bayshore branding and wayfinding signage and then the other is signage program on the other page. Signage program. So I was interested in looking at both but maybe others aren't but...

[05:17:46] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. It sounds like the people who voted for that are interested in both. Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right, looking to staff. Anything else? More than enough I'm sure.

[05:17:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, we really appreciate the the input and the conversation with Council. This is really good information. Like we said, we're going to come back at study session two and that's going to be another very robust conversation with Council, and we expect there'll be some difficult decisions that'll need to be made.

[05:18:15] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you very much. Much appreciated. Um, should colleagues it's past 10:00, should we wish to continue. I think we just need a vote and then I would recommend just taking a five-minute recess as we shift staff. Vice Mayor Ramos.

[05:18:35] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I move that we continue the meeting past 10:00.

[05:18:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, is there a second?

[05:18:41] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I I second.

[05:18:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so a motion by Vice Mayor Ramos, seconded by Councilmember Showalter to continue the meeting past 10 o'clock. Let's take a quick vote.

[05:19:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, so passes slimly there. I think that was five five-two. All right, let's take a five-minute recess and we'll reconvene at 10:25 PM.

[05:26:34] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right, everyone. We're going to reconvene and get this show back on the road. All right, thank you for your patience. We're going to move on to item 6.2, our R3 Zoning District Update, increase densities.

[05:26:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Chinese and Spanish translation services are available for this item. We will now hear from our Chinese interpreter.

[05:27:06] Chinese Interpreter: [中文解说]

[05:27:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. We will now hear from our Spanish interpreter.

[05:27:47] Spanish Interpreter: [Interpretaci3n en espa1ol]

[05:28:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. The purpose of this study session is to provide direction on: 1. Locations where increased densities will be allowed in the multi-family R3 Zoning District. 2. Densities in those locations identified for increased density.

[05:28:38] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And 3. Locations where two-family R2-zoned properties may be integrated into the R3 Zoning District, pursuant to Housing Element Program 1.3H. Given the need for Councilmember recusals due to conflict of interest, this item will proceed in the following manner.

[05:28:59] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: We'll begin with the staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment. At the close of public comment, the item will be broken into two parts for Council questions and deliberation.

[05:29:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Part one will be discussion and deliberations to confirm R3 change areas where increased density will be allowed and the increased densities appropriate for these R3 change areas. Part two of the questions and discussion will be discussion and deliberation to identify R2 parcels for rezoning to R3.

[05:29:34] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: The Council will ask questions, deliberate, and vote on matters requiring councilmember recusals first, and then Council will ask questions, deliberate, and vote on the remaining items for discussion.

[05:29:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Due to the multiple properties involved in the discussions during Part One and Two of this item, multiple councilmember recusals will be required during both parts. And so just letting the public know and ask for your patience as we maneuver that.

[05:30:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So we'll move on first to the staff presentation, then public comment. So Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson will present the item. If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk now or raise your hand in Zoom. We'll turn it over to staff.

[05:30:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Great. Thank you very much, Mayor Kamei. Thank you very much, City Council. As the Mayor said, this item is regarding increased densities in the R3 Zoning District. My name is Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager, and I'm joined by Amber Blizinski, the Assistant Community Development Director.

[05:30:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This project started back in 2020. Since then, it has gone through several rounds of outreach and study sessions. In addition, the project has been put on hold several times to address other city priorities such as the Displacement Response Strategy and the Housing Element.

[05:31:10] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The Displacement Response Strategy is a related project led by the Housing Department because rent-stabilized units are a key focus of the strategy and the R3 district contains the majority of rent-stabilized units.

[05:31:23] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: On October 2023, Council directed staff to prepare an ordinance requiring replacement of rent-stabilized units with affordable units in new development that would go into effect after SB 330 sunsets. Last April, the City Council provided direction on this project, including support for these key goals.

[05:31:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Supporting diverse unit types, better design through form-based standards, promoting neighborhood-serving commercial, complying with State and Housing Element requirements, density change in targeted areas to increase housing supply with a focus on large parcels, creating incentives more attractive than State Density Bonus, and encouraging parcel aggregation.

[05:32:09] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: In addition to the goals, the City Council provided other direction on the project. They expressed support for a framework of density subdistricts that went up to six stories, and they also provided feedback on a range of criteria to use to locate higher densities.

[05:32:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This slide is a reminder of the obligations the city must consider with this project. The Housing Element programs include prototype analyses, updating definitions, lowering development costs through the reduction of standards, addressing state laws, allowing for live-work units, and incorporating some R2 areas.

[05:32:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Relevant state laws include the State Density Bonus, which is frequently updated; SB 478, which sets limits on the city's FAR standards for smaller projects; SB 684 and 1123, which create a ministerial pathway for projects on small sites; SB 330, which includes a replacement requirement for rent-stabilized units and a prohibition on down-zoning through 2030; and SB 1211, which expands the allowance for ADUs on multi-family lots.

[05:33:24] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The identification of R3 change areas for additional density is a voluntary process based on council direction. One more note about State Density Bonus, most projects that use it will be eligible for waivers and concessions of development standards that the city has little control over. Therefore, the R3 project cannot realistically anticipate any project that may result.

[05:33:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: One of the council goals for this project is to support density change in targeted areas, especially large parcel areas, to increase housing supply. To implement these goals, the team has identified 14 draft change areas that meet these goals, and they're shown on the screen.

[05:34:12] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: A strict adherence to utilization of all the council location criteria would have eliminated every site in the R3 zoning district. Therefore, rather than using these criteria to eliminate areas, this report presents a different change area methodology that adheres closer to project goals, then evaluates those change areas based on the criteria.

[05:34:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This process allows the City Council to use their own judgment to determine which criteria are most important for each location. This slide shows how the proposed change areas result from the council goals. This is a hypothetical neighborhood with four blocks along two streets, which includes a mix of R3 sites along with an adjacent R1, R2, and mobile home neighborhood.

[05:34:49] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Gray sites are removed from change area consideration for one or more of several reasons. They are small or less likely to develop, have significant parts of the site adjacent to lower-density neighborhoods, or are not part of large contiguous areas, at least 90,000 square feet.

[05:35:05] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The latter criterion allows us to focus on a reasonable number of areas and to support future neighborhood planning. For example, 90,000 square feet is a reasonable size site to expect a public park or other neighborhood amenity. Attachment 3 includes detailed maps of each of the change areas, and Attachment 4 includes an evaluation of the change areas relative to the council-endorsed criteria.

[05:35:30] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The first question for council consideration tonight is: do the identified areas reflect Council goals and criteria, and should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria? The EPC recommended moving forward with the 14 change areas.

[05:35:49] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This slide shows various alternative areas that could be added if the methodology is adjusted. For example, public comments discussed the downtown area and those properties are shown in reddish-orange on this map. It should be noted that the Council recently discussed a portion of this area as part of the Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan, indicating that no new land uses or densities would be adopted through that project.

[05:36:19] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The next question is regarding the future densities in these areas. To support this decision, Attachment 6 to the staff report includes a feasibility and prototype analysis of medium and large lots in the R3 zone, studying potential for for-sale and rental projects.

[05:36:38] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This analysis also assumes the provision of public paths and open space, replacement of rent-stabilized units with permanently affordable units pursuant to SB 330 and the city's forthcoming local replacement ordinance. The analysis found that six to seven-story buildings at 75 to 135 units per acre would be necessary with those conditions for feasible development.

[05:37:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The staff report presents three options for new densities based on the prototype analysis and the density framework presented to Council last April. In Option 1, the base density is likely feasible and would apply the six-story R3-D2 subzone to the change areas. In the latter two options, a bonus would be necessary to meet feasible densities.

[05:37:24] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Option 2A would apply the four-story D1 subzone to the change areas and applicants could use State Density Bonus to meet the densities in the prototype analysis. Option 2B would not increase base densities. A local bonus would be crafted that would allow projects to meet the densities in the prototype analysis.

[05:37:44] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Note that there are some risks and challenges associated with a local bonus approach. Higher densities may be necessary to create the right incentives, and state law may change how local bonuses apply, and Mountain View's history with local bonuses has focused on precise plans and not a general ordinance such as this.

[05:38:03] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The second question for Council consideration tonight is: for the change areas selected, what density option should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out? The EPC recommended Option 2A, the four-story option for most change areas.

[05:38:19] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: However, to ensure no areas are down-zoned, they supported Option 1, the six-story option for the Del Medio South area. They also expressed support for an approach to transitions involving split zones for density changes in transition areas.

[05:38:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The next key question for the council to consider relates to a program in the Housing Element. The Housing Element includes Program 1.3, which directs the city to identify areas of the R2 zone to include in R3. The Housing Element has a strong focus on affirmatively furthering fair housing, and several programs are specifically targeted to increasing the supply of housing in the city's highest opportunity neighborhoods.

[05:38:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: There's no specific area in the Housing Element defined as highest opportunity, but the area south of El Camino Real and around downtown are the focus of other programs that are intended to support affirmatively furthering fair housing. These areas also have good access to transit and services, especially downtown and areas near El Camino Real and served by the city's highest performing schools.

[05:39:21] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: In addition, the Council and community have expressed interest in maintaining neighborhood transitions to lower-density neighborhoods. Based on these considerations, the report proposes R2 areas to include in R3 based on two criteria.

[05:39:38] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: First, sites within the area south of El Camino Real in the vicinity of downtown; and second, sites that do not border directly on the rear or side yards of R1 properties. These sites can be integrated into the R3 zone at the density illustrated here.

[05:39:52] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The R3A density was presented to the City Council back in April 2024. It's lower density than the rest of the existing R3 zoning district, but would allow multi-family housing without a conditional use permit and would allow greater density than the R2 zone.

[05:40:11] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The third question for council consideration tonight is: does the City Council support or wish to modify the proposed criteria and density for upzoning R2 properties? The map here shows the parcels that meet the criteria in orange. The EPC supported the criteria generally, but also recommended including some properties north of Central Expressway near the transit center, as shown.

[05:40:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Here are the next steps for the project: after Council provides direction on these questions, the project will continue with environmental review and drafting the standards. In addition, we will conduct some additional outreach to affected neighborhoods and properties.

[05:40:51] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And this concludes our presentation. We're available for any questions, and also available are Christian Murdock, the Community Development Director; Wayne Chen, the Housing Director; Tony Perez, our consultant with Opticos; and David Bergman, our consultant with Lisa Wise Consulting.

[05:41:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. So we'll take the questions down for now because we're going to move on to public comment. So would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item?

[05:41:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk. We will now take in-person speakers first, and we'll do two and a half minutes.

[05:41:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I want to honor the fact that you stayed with us to this very late hour, but there's quite a few of you. So my happy middle is two and a half minutes. So hopefully you'll meet me there as well. So first is Robert Cox, followed by Albert, Alex Brown, Julie Muir, Tony Rath, Richard PS. That's what I have for in-person. So let's see. First up, Robert.

[05:42:06] Public Speaker Robert Cox: Albert has a slideshow, so could he go before me?

[05:42:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. I mean, I'm going by what the queue is. So if you really want him to go first, it's fine.

[05:42:18] Public Speaker Robert Cox: Okay, sure. Okay. Let me see. Okay. Um, hi, Mayor Kamei, Vice Mayor Ramos, and members of the City Council. I am Robert Cox speaking for Livable Mountain View. We thank each of you for meeting with us and listening to us before the Council meeting.

[05:42:36] Public Speaker Robert Cox: Let me speak here about why we support the 14 high-intensity areas recommended by staff and not the alternative areas outlined in the staff report. The 14 areas in the staff report were proposed by staff after three rounds of outreach to our neighborhoods over a period of five years.

[05:42:56] Public Speaker Robert Cox: These areas are large enough to provide what developers want most: the ability to construct buildings of up to seven stories and developments with at least 100 units. They also minimize the impact on R1 and R1-like areas of our city.

[05:43:10] Public Speaker Robert Cox: On the other hand, many areas in the alternative approaches for Council consideration are adjacent to R1 and R1-like areas or are less than an acre in size, making them too small to support 100 or more units. Instead, they would enable projects like the Tyrella builders remedy project: a few seven-story buildings immediately adjacent to one and two-story residential buildings.

[05:43:35] Public Speaker Robert Cox: The outcry from residents living near the Tyrella project site shows that this kind of project is not well received. Please reject these alternative approaches. Beyond this for building heights, we support the four-stories base option, that's Option 2A, unless down-zoning is required.

[05:43:53] Public Speaker Robert Cox: This would require developers to use the state density bonus to get the seven and eight stories, and would provide more affordable housing for our city. Thank you for listening to what we have to say. Thank you.

[05:44:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Albert.

[05:44:14] Public Speaker Albert: Great. Um, yeah, thanks for the time. I hope I don't have to use all of it. Um, I just want to make a point about transitions. Um, we've always talked about them, it's the thing we care most about. And but I'd like you to ask staff to actually come up with a concrete proposal for like form-based standards or what a transition should look like so that developers know what to you know expect.

[05:44:34] Public Speaker Albert: Next slide, please. Um, this is a house I visited a little while ago at an open house, this is in Sunnyvale. Next slide, please. It's on Charles Street and this is what they've got. This is what shows what can happen if you don't have transitions. Four-story affordable housing apartment right next to an R1 yard.

[05:44:55] Public Speaker Albert: Next slide, please. So what does that hold for us? This is my neighborhood and supposing you you did allow six stories in one of these transition zones and the developer went to 12, what would that look like? Next slide, please. This is an actual 12-story apartment that's currently in Sunnyvale.

[05:45:13] Public Speaker Albert: They've gone up to 12 stories, so it is feasible. And I think you'll agree it's quite horrendous. Next slide, please. And this is even worse. This is in Tokyo where they've you know they're desperate for space and there's this little two-story house that's surrounded by very very tall apartment buildings.

[05:45:32] Public Speaker Albert: So again my only ask is that you come out and make an explicit request for transition standards for between R1 and R3. Thank you very much.

[05:45:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Alex Brown. Oh sorry, Alex Brown. Sorry. It's a compliment.

[05:45:50] Public Speaker Alex Brown: If only I could come up with these slides. Ah, hi friends. Um, don't let the poor decisions of the past like limit our future and like prevent people from getting homes. Albert, those those looked awesome.

[05:46:05] Public Speaker Alex Brown: That that looked great. Tokyo has so many wonderful parks and open space because they have room for it because they build up. That that's a good thing. So thank you. Um, I think we should go big for more homes. You know. Thank you.

[05:46:23] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Julie, Tony, Richard.

[05:46:30] Public Speaker Julie Muir: Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Councilmembers. My name is Julie Muir and I am a neighborhood leader in the North Whisman neighborhood. And as a compromise, um, other neighborhood leaders and I support the 14 high-intensity areas recommended by staff, but recognize that even these have some direct dependencies to R1-like like areas.

[05:46:58] Public Speaker Julie Muir: So providing for sensitive transitions between high-intensity development areas and our traditional neighborhoods has been a hallmark of Mountain View city planning and a key part of our zoning code. But recent state legislation has required our Council to approve builder remedy projects and state density bonus projects.

[05:47:19] Public Speaker Julie Muir: These can override zoning rules like setbacks and building step-backs needed to construct viable transitions. That's why we reached out to Eric Anderson to try to find a solution. Um, and he suggested that we might be able to look at a split-zone approach, and that might be possible.

[05:47:41] Public Speaker Julie Muir: And this approach would create a small area of low intensity or lower intensity immediately adjacent to R1-like areas. The EPC endorsed giving staff this opportunity to explore this approach, and we would like Council to direct staff to explore it as well. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you.

[05:48:09] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. Tony.

[05:48:12] Public Speaker Tony Rath: Good evening. Um, thank you for taking my comment. Um, I'm Tony Rath, Cuesta Park resident, and I usually don't come to these things, but this is important to me because I live in an R3 zone that is in character very similar to an R1.

[05:48:28] Public Speaker Tony Rath: Um, so I was quite horrified to see the first proposals come out, but um, I would like to now support the staff proposal to up-zone exactly the 14 identified change areas with the highest economic feasibility. And um, I believe that this proposal strikes a balance between the need for more housing and the concerns of the owners of the nearby homes.

[05:48:50] Public Speaker Tony Rath: And um, the builder's remedy project that is proposed on Tyrella and the shocked reaction of the neighbors should be a warning that, you know, we don't really want projects like this, like very massive buildings in the middle of residential areas. And so um, that project is of course unique because it's not um following the usual planning process.

[05:49:13] Public Speaker Tony Rath: But um, earlier project iterations on the R3 rezoning were kind of like resulting in similar situations for all of the R3 zone. And uh, I believe that it sends the message that existing homes aren't really compatible with the city's vision of um the vision for the neighborhood.

[05:49:33] Public Speaker Tony Rath: Um, and having residents move away and, you know, replace what is now a walkable neighborhood with, you know, apartment blocks that have very minimal landscaping, replacing the tree canopy we have, does not seem like particularly good planning. Um, so I believe that the staff proposal with the 14 change areas finds the right balance.

[05:49:58] Public Speaker Tony Rath: And uh, I think that good planning should work for everyone. And uh, please make it so. Thank you.

[05:50:05] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Richard, then Kevin.

[05:50:15] Public Speaker Richard: Hello, um, Council and staff and everybody. Um, I'm Richard. I've been a resident of Mountain View um since 2012 and have been living in the Stierlin Estates neighborhood pretty much that entire time. And um, I support the Livable Mountain View um with Bob Cox.

[05:50:37] Public Speaker Richard: And I um have also spoken with other neighbors nearby, many of them couldn't come tonight but they said they're going to write emails. And I ask that there's responsible transitions between R1 and above and that we uh we could look at ways to use those transitions to facilitate walkability and balance high density with parks.

[05:51:01] Public Speaker Richard: Because one of the best things about Mountain View has always been their stewardship of parks and trails. Uh, it's a very attractive property, and I'd like to maintain it even as um we continue to build. Thank you very much.

[05:51:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Kevin.

[05:51:25] Public Speaker Kevin: Thank you Council for the time. Um, I'd like to reflect my slight disappointment that there is not more densification closer to the city's to downtown core of Mountain View near Castro Street. And as a result, I fully support EPC's recommendations um to do the R3A zoning update uh to allow three separate communities um close to Castro to further densify.

[05:51:50] Public Speaker Kevin: I also want to further synchronize with the rest of City Council what the goals are for densifying Mountain View. We want more housing, one. Two, we want to serve more people with less money for the same to provide city services more um, I guess, efficiently, which we can do with far more dense communities.

[05:52:15] Public Speaker Kevin: And lastly, I've heard from multiple councilmembers tonight that active transportation is a big priority. If we move forward with a plan that does not densify the city enough and try to build active transportation on top of that, we're just adding expensive trinkets on top of an unsustainable road network.

[05:52:32] Public Speaker Kevin: We need to be densifying Mountain View so that we can serve the citizen we can serve the community with a lot less money to provide the same city services, including roads, water, sewage, and everything else that a city needs. To accomplish this, I want to really challenge the idea of having to let R existing R1 communities hold down the development of future denser communities.

[05:53:03] Public Speaker Kevin: We need to be able to see the future and forecast how much financial trouble the city will be in if it is unable to densify itself and to more effectively and efficiently utilize public dollars. I yield my time.

[05:53:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Any other in-person public comment? All right, not seeing any, we'll move on to our virtual speakers. Cliff Chambers.

[05:53:33] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: Hi, uh, Cliff Chambers, uh, resident of Mountain View. I also support the 14 change areas proposed by staff, although I do feel the Council should at least evaluate the five change areas adjacent to the mobile park homes and R2 zones.

[05:53:53] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: Um, I really support the adoption of Option 1, the R3-D2, uh, for the large majority of the change areas for the following three reasons. Generally, I think it's general agreement that six to seven stories is going to be financially feasible for the developers, but it's also going to provide a lot of community benefits and providing the kind of housing that we desire.

[05:54:14] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: And I think it's really going to achieve the diversity of units uh, such as stacked flats. It's a win-win situation for the city and the residents of Mountain View. My most important point is is that I really feel that um, the density bonus law, if you do the R3-D2, is just not going to be used that often.

[05:54:35] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: It's going to be a rare exception and not the norm. And by having a four-story, you're requiring the density bonus law to do it, and you lose a lot of control for the kind of transition considerations that uh previous speakers have talked about, and among other exclusions.

[05:54:54] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: So I really feel if if the staff had done an an analysis of 12 to 14 stories in the prototype development, they would have my hypothesis at least is that would have found it as financially infeasible. And so I don't feel that many developers are going to step forward and use the density bonus law if you go forward with the R3-D2 zoning.

[05:55:16] Public Speaker Cliff Chambers: And I think that's the most important point that I'd like to make tonight for your consideration. Thank you.

[05:55:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Jessica, then Manuel, then Louise. Jessica, you're next.

[05:55:38] Public Speaker Sash Gondhi: Hi, thank you. This is actually Jessica's husband, Sash Gondhi. Thank you Council and staff for hearing me tonight. Uh, my wife and I are in our 30 years at Mountain View, we've been residents here for 30 years and a homeowner in the North Whisman neighborhood.

[05:55:54] Public Speaker Sash Gondhi: Uh, we have been actively involved in the discussion of the R3 rezoning since 2020. We support growth and development but are also concerned about blanket rezoning rules that could severely impact residents living in single-story or lower-density homes adjacent to large projects.

[05:56:11] Public Speaker Sash Gondhi: Recent presentations show that over time the feedback has been heard. City officials are finding a balance of addressing new residents' needs as well as old residents' concerns. With regards to tonight topics, we support the current recommendation by staff made by the Planning Commission to focus new density developments only in the 14 designated change areas.

[05:56:36] Public Speaker Sash Gondhi: And within these 14 areas, our request is that the city works hard to ensure the rules include safeguards to protect the current neighboring residents by taking an individual approach to approvals, including appropriate setbacks, landscaping, and dare I say parking to implement smart growth with reasonable transitions and not broad-brush changes.

[05:56:58] Public Speaker Sash Gondhi: We trust that you will take these points into consideration so that we can continue to welcome new neighbors to our wonderful city without driving out the existing residents that have put their heart and soul into their homes and communities. Thank you for your time.

[05:57:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Manuel Salazar.

[05:57:18] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Yeah, hi. Uh, good evening, Mayor Kamei and Councilmembers. Um, my name is Manuel Salazar and I'm going to be speaking on behalf of SV@Home. Uh, first, I'd like to you know really appreciate the work that the city has done on the R3 Zoning District Update.

[05:57:35] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, it's commendable work, staff especially has put a lot of time and effort into this and and we really appreciate you know the thoughtful approach they've taken to balancing housing production with tenant protections and all the other things that people brought up today. Uh, but I will say to maximize the impact of this update, we really would urge Council to take the following kind of actions into consideration.

[05:58:02] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, first and foremost, you know, the adoption of the 14 high-density change areas uh as they align with Council's housing goals and provide prioritizing development near transit and job centers. Uh, we would additionally encourage the city to consider sites near mobile home parks, R2-adjacent parcels, and low low-coverage development sites to further expand housing opportunities into these kind of areas.

[05:58:36] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, we would also kind of uh really encourage Council to approve the highest feasible density option, that being R3-D2, uh to ensure projects remain financially feasible and deliver more homes. This would allow for six and seven-story developments along with benefits of the state density bonus law which would ideally make the products financially feasible.

[05:59:05] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, right now it's incredibly difficult for any projects to move forward, so incentivizing development in any capacity and allowing for it um as is feasible in the current market is just general best practice. Um, and the last thing we really recommend is pairing zoning changes with strong tenant protections uh to prevent displacement.

[05:59:28] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, with many rent-stabilized uh units located in R3 areas, it's critical to implement right to return policies, expand relocation assistance, and support nonprofit acquisition of at-risk properties. We also encourage Council to move forward with a local replacement ordinance uh to safeguard affordability beyond SB 330's sunset, which is you know rapidly approaching in 2030.

[05:59:52] Public Speaker Manuel Salazar: Uh, with that said, you know, this update presents a crucial opportunity to create more housing while ensuring stability for existing residents. We encourage the Council to take bold actions tonight to make these changes as effective as possible, and well, we really appreciate again all the work that staff and Council has taken on this item. Thank you.

Segment 9

[06:00:00] Public Speaker Daniel: they'd have to use steel instead of wood. Yet Castro Commons is coming at us, and they're very proud that they're going to put in eight stories. Um, I think to give a higher base will not be... the idea that the Council can have safe harbor that we'll never have higher than seven stories even if we have a higher base, we don't believe is true. Not only Castro Commons will show us this, but also that it is very likely that we'll have technology in the near future that will allow larger buildings to be built for less money. So we very much would appreciate the Council remembering the impact of even an eight-story building set in the middle of neighborhoods. Castro Commons is unique because it's facing El Camino and it has a park on the corner that mitigates its impact, but imagine um a building of the- the buildings of the size that they're preparing to give us set right in the middle of a neighborhood. It would be very, very different. Thank you for your time.

Segment 8

[06:00:27] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you.

Segment 9

[06:02:02] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Daniel. Then Story with AI.

[06:02:10] Public Speaker Fanfan Tan: Can you hear me?

[06:02:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[06:02:14] Public Speaker Fanfan Tan: All right. Um, so I live in Del Medio, um, in rent-controlled housing that happens to be in a change area and I am telling you that I support the inclusion in the change area. I think it's glad that we're finally getting to increasing density in our R3 district. However, on places to increase density, I think the methodology here was way too strict on the way that it applied criteria where it's solely giving us projects that meet every single criteria instead of a more broad, lenient approach. As a result, you know, every new criteria that might be some good thing that we want out of these sites actually results in fewer rather than more potentially developable sites. Um, and so I think we should push for something more broad and also more legible. Um, particularly I'd like to see eliminating gaps between upzoned R3, uh, that can't be upzoned for some reason according to this methodology, being way more lenient about what we mean by next to R1, um, and then bringing, uh, the R3 near and around Moffett Precise Plan in line with the precise plan vision where it's a higher density extension of downtown. Uh, you know, it seems like there's been back and forth here with the precise plan on whether or not we're upzoning or not and I- I think that needs specific consideration by Council, but I think, uh, the public's been asking for higher density in this area, so it would be good to address it specifically. Uh, and then finally I think, you know, just as someone who lives in a- apartment, um, I think it's not really fair to solely be addressing homeowners' concerns on what gets upzoned and what doesn't. Um, I think, uh, giving these people special privileges to just shut down development doesn't really, you know, it's- it's not fair, uh, and it's not actually, uh, reflective of the political economy of Mountain View, which is a pro-uh majority renter city. Um, and so that's my comment. Thank you.

[06:04:39] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, I'm going to move to Kathy and allow the person that's written 'Story with AI' to rename themselves to their real name. So we'll go to Kathy.

[06:04:59] Public Speaker Kathy: Hello. Um, thanks for taking input. Um, I've got just a- a narrow view of things because, um, I'm on the- I'm an owner and occupant of an R2 unit at the edge of the R3, um, zone that is right across- that ends at right across about the school. So, um, you know, initially it was strange to me that the R3 zone would end at our back fence, um, so I do think that it makes a lot of sense to include the- the duplexes that are on that part of Hans. Um, but I think it would be helpful as looking at the different R2 areas that are potentially going to be included in R3 zones, to think through, um, like in our situation, I don't think the city would want or the community would want each of the duplexes to become all the sudden, you know, a double in size and have that many more people coming out onto Hans. However, I think, you know, it could really improve the safety and the traffic and things in Hans for all of the kids going to the schools if some of our units were incorporated into a development that did not have exits onto Hans. So that's just probably unique to our little group of, um, duplexes, but I want to say I support the concept and I think there are some good possibilities. Um, so thank you for taking input.

[06:06:50] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. I see April Webster.

[06:07:01] Public Speaker April Webster: Hi. Thank you, yes. Um, I have lived in the, um, near Moffett Boulevard for about 15 years. I rent. And I just wanted to lend my voice to say that I support adding more housing, more affordable housing, um, and I also support upzoning. Uh, I also think that, um, it should be done thoughtfully, um, when possible and, um, you know it's important to have new homes but also investments in the infrastructure around it to create those, um, transit, invest in green spaces, bikeable, walkable neighborhoods, um, because those areas also deserve to have that sort of quality infrastructure around and to create a- a very livable space. So, um, thank you so much for let me comment.

[06:07:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, last we have Story with AI.

[06:08:19] Public Speaker Fanfan Tan: Hi hello. Can you hear me well?

[06:08:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes. Can you please identify yourself?

[06:08:25] Public Speaker Fanfan Tan: Yes, uh, I'm Fanfan Tan, a resident of Sterling Estate, uh, and I stand very firmly with the Livable Mountain View and our neighborhood association leaders in advocating for sensitive transition as our community evolves. This is really not about just, you know, suppressing, uh, just, you0, more high density development. I do, uh, welcome right like say those new residents, uh, coming to this beautiful city. I personally lived here for more than a decade, uh, but in the meantime I'm also championing a more,0, equitable and sustainable growth, uh, because you know as we expand quickly by just, you0, suddenly increasing density, the public transportation, the schools, the public amenities, right, the parks all needs to catch up and we feel like you know in the earlier sessions that this particular area, for instance, are really short on, um, some of the public facilities as parks. Uh, so it also helps to preserve like community identity, uh, and just you0 making everyone, not- not just the existing incumbent, but every single right resident in this area, you0, feel to come to enjoy to the fullest. Uh, so thank you for letting me, uh, comment on this issue.

[06:09:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. I don't see any more, uh, people in person or in the queue. So we will bring the item back, um, for Council questions and deliberation. The discussion and deliberation regarding confirmation of R3 change areas where increased density will be allowed will require Councilmember recusals due to the conflicts of interest. Could the councilmembers with a conflict of interest please make your recusal statements now?

[06:10:14] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I'm recusing myself from the discussion and deliberations regarding R3 change areas where increased density will be allowed due to proximity of my residence to property that will be impacted by Council's decisions.

[06:10:29] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great thank you. Councilmember McAlister.

[06:10:32] Councilmember John McAlister: Councilmember McAlister will be recusing himself from the discussion and deliberations regarding R3 changes areas where increased density will be allowed and the density increase for certain change areas due to the proximity of my residence to property that will be impacted by Council's decision.

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

[06:11:08] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: All right. Council will now ask questions, deliberate, and provide direction, um, related to R3 change areas where increased density will be allowed. Once we confirm which change areas are appropriate for increased density, we will evaluate when Councilmember Hicks and McAlister may return. So I think this is specifically to question 1, um, related to the 14 identified areas, um, and if they reflect Council's goals and criteria and should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria. Correct? Yes.

[06:12:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: My only question is, I- I didn't have time to watch the EPC meeting. Uh, thank you for summarizing the EPC, um, actions or recommendations, but I'm just curious if there was... if it was unanimous, four-to-three, do you remember for this particular question? And then I'll ask the same about another question later, but, um, I'm just curious if you remember if, uh, this was fairly unanimous on the 14 change areas. And if you don't know offhand that's okay too.

[06:12:40] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Uh, so the... on this particular question, um, it was a, uh, 5-1, I believe.

[06:12:49] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay.

[06:12:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Was one person absent then or abstaining or vacant? Oh, vacant. Okay, got it. Thanks.

[06:13:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Ramirez.

[06:13:08] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'm not seeing any other questions, so I thought I'd, uh, go ahead and start the deliberations. And I- I've committed to concluding the meeting by 11 o'clock and I stand by that, so I'm going to do my best to... I didn't say am pm. Um, so, uh, for this question, first I want to share, uh, my appreciation for, uh, the work that staff has done. Um, this is- this is a challenging project and I- I empathize with you, um, in, uh, soliciting, um, community input and Council input over the years and trying to find, uh, ways to- to balance very different perspectives, you know, even as we've heard tonight. Um, so I- I know it's, uh, a very complex project with constantly evolving state law and I know it's- it's not- not an easy thing to put forward, uh, recommendations, um, when, uh, it- it's difficult to have a good sense of where the community is and when councils change over time. Um, so I- I just want to share, uh, my- my gratitude for the work and then also, uh, my- my appreciation for members of the public who have been following this for many years, um, and who have taken time to meet with me and share their thoughts with the Council. Um, I think we're very close, as you can see, the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm- I'm optimistic that we will conclude the project before, um, the end of- of next year, um, and- and then, uh, hopefully see, uh, some outcomes that reflect the community's vision for, um, our conventional multi-family zoning district. Um, so with that, um, I'll share I think we're very close. Um, I- you know, I- I think I- I've been struggling a lot with, uh, the criteria and how, uh, objectively you use the criteria to produce a map. And I think, uh, I think as a starting point I- I was grateful and heartened to see the alternatives map provided since it's not intuitive, you know, to know exactly how if you were to change one criterion or, uh, apply a different weight for those criteria, how it would affect which parcels ultimately are, uh, elevated for consideration for changes in density. Um, and I have some thoughts about that too, but just focusing on the change areas, I'm comfortable with the staff, um, recommendations, um, but I did want to, uh, share, uh, support for some of the alternatives that are proposed and then openness to my colleagues for, um, modifications as, uh, you all deem appropriate. So I would support for question 1 the staff recommended, uh, change areas plus the... these are all a small number of sites, the- the sites added with R2 and mobile home adjacent, uh, characteristics. I'll note that some of these like The Reserve, um, that- that there's an entitled project there already. Um, so it, you know, some of these I think are- are areas that are... almost all of the alternatives I'll note are, uh, immediately adjacent to the change area. So we're not like creating new areas where, um, you know, we- staff hadn't, uh, previously, uh, explored some of the impacts that- that could come out of increasing densities in areas outside of the contemplated change area. So the purple sites, um, sites added with R2 and mobile home adjacent, and then, uh, the recent develop- development with additional capacity, which is just one property from what I see. Sites added with condos, so that's the blue, and then sites added with row houses and townhouses. And the reason I think those are important to include is, um, this project has been very hard. Um, I don't think a council is likely to pursue modifications to conventional zoning districts for a very long time. Um, but we're not- this is not a precise plan. We're not thinking about, uh, facilitating near-term evolution and change. I think the way I've always thought about this is when change occurs, what are the outcomes that we would like to see realized. Um, and- and my frustration has been with the projects that have had a significant displacement impact where the- the development that was constructed achieved none of our community priorities, right? And I- I feel, I know I'm a- a broken record at this point, so, you0, bear with me, but- but projects like 570 South Rengstorff, or 2005 Rock Street, 2310 Rock Street, 1555 West Middlefield. I've committed them to memory and those will be the last words I utter when I pass away, right? That's- that's how stuck they are in my mind. Um, but those projects have been challenging because they don't... they- many of them have resulted in a reduction in unit count, there's no affordability, there's no- there's no parks or open space. It just was a displacement of people. Those were some of the hardest votes that many of us up here have taken. Um, and- and what I would... one of the reasons why I've been supporting this project is I think what it can result in is when projects like that occur, it's inevitable, you0, we- we don't build buildings that will, you0, stick around in perpetuity, right? Um, so when there are changes, then we should have in place zoning standards and planning regulations that result in outcomes that- that achieve community goals. And that's going to be true for projects that have, you0, row houses and townhouses and condos. Um, one- one thing to consider is if there is, you0, a catastrophic event, then it would be helpful to have a- a zoning in place that can achieve some of our community goals, rather than a presumption that we're going to see, you0, low density, you0, attached or sometimes detached single-family homes in areas where we've zoned for- for multi-family. So I think this is- this is a- a long-term, um, uh, exercise. It's not, you0, we're trying to create housing in these locations in the next 5, 10, or even 15 years. This is more, you0, thinking about the next generation, um, in some cases it might have some utility in future housing element cycles. You have to start thinking about additional residential capacity, it's only going to get harder, so I think making some of those tough decisions now will help future councils, um, meet the- the residential capacity obligations that- that the state will impose later, um, and doing so within the context of our conventional multi-family zoning district I think is- is a lot easier and more tolerable than looking at upzoning R1 properties. So I think there's a lot of value in, you0, thinking, uh, very deeply about which areas we want to include. So the those are the alternatives I'd be interested in. The- uh just the- so purple, red, purple... yeah, I was going to say the 14 areas plus purple, red, blue, green. Um, and then the only other for the Council to consider, it's not any of the alternatives, but in it's sort of like the- the western portion of the California Street Ortega area. That's all high density. Um, but there- there is a strip that's excluded and I'd be interested in staff's exploration of including those properties as well. So it's- you can see um there's the green portion um that's connected to the western tip of the California Ortega change area, but immediately adjacent to... it's sandwiched between um some high-density housing you have- you have a strip of R3 that under the general plan is the- the medium-high density residential land use designation, so it's already contemplated for- for the highest density that we see within the R3 zoning district. I'm open to um alternative suggestions from the Council, but that's my input for- for question 1. Thank you.

[06:15:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So that last, sorry, that last area is California Street and what?

[06:15:58] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Um, so that- that would be Gabriel, right? So there's Ortega, Showers, California, so it would be just to fill out the rest of that, uh, the- the R3 area. Okay. Thank you. Just want to level set. All right.

[06:16:21] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Feels like everyone is so hesitant on this. Um, I guess it's because it's been a... this- this project has been a long road coming. I appreciate staff finding a... and the community finding a solution through all our multiple visions of what we were hoping R3 to be. I think as Councilmember Ramirez says, we're- we're heading toward the light. Um, I'm feeling that we should probably, uh, speed up. So I'm just going to say, uh, the 14 identified, uh, goals. I support, um, Councilmember Ramirez's, um, alternative sites. And I- I will say, I- I do appreciate, um, uh, meeting with many of the community members, Livable Mountain View. I appreciate that you are supporting the 14 zones. That- that actually does mean a lot to me. I think, um, especially since those zones are the ones in particular that are- have current CSRA units and these are the ones that I'm most scared of, uh, should a redevelopment happen, we don't get the protection of SB 330. If nothing else went through with this project, that was the one thing I would crawl through glass for. Um, so, um, thank you so much and I guess that- that's question 1 for me.

[06:17:33] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so that was 14 plus purple, red, blue, green, and the parcel that Councilmember Ramirez mentioned. Okay. Any other discussion?

[06:17:50] Councilmember Chris Clark: I- I just... I support the original 14. I think the addition of the others gets really... I don't think the condos, row homes, and townhouses... I realize you're thinking really super long-term, but I just don't think... I think there are better ways to address those, perhaps through a General Plan update that we'll need to do in the next decade or so. Um, so I- I support the 14 change areas. I think um it's difficult for me to- to really think beyond that aside from maybe some of the mobile home adjacencies, but I think even those should be thought of a little bit more comprehensively as opposed to just simple adjacencies.

[06:18:42] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Um, I'll- I'll echo your sentiment. I'm- I'm comfortable with the original 14. I think one of the things that I really struggle with with the conversation about R3... is just the issue that Council's talked about on the flip side related to displacement, relocation, um, and just what that would mean for a majority of the people who live at these sites. We've tried a lot of the things that came up in public comment related to like right of return, trying to find alternatives in Mountain View and those, as we've heard in other staff reports, has been really difficult, um, on the implementation side. And so before I look at other areas, I really want to be able to figure out how we tackle that component as we're bringing um change into the city. Councilmember Showalter.

[06:20:42] Councilmember Pat Showalter: This is a subject we've been working on a long time as everybody's mentioned. And I, um, I think I'm just going to go with the 14 identified areas. Um, I'm also kind of interested in the- the row houses, but, um, I- I think that- that the 14 is probably good. Another thing I'm- I'm interested in, but this isn't on the table, is somehow looking at situations like we saw in, um, Moorpark last week where, you0, there was a lot aggregation and, um, they put together a- a single-family home, um, development that I think most of us were not happy with voting for but we felt forced to. So I would also be interested in if we could... is the only way to do that kind of lot aggregation and change it to a zone, if we were to change those to zone three, would that be just through a gatekeeper? Would that be the only way to do that?

[06:21:58] Staff (Rebecca Shapiro): I think if an applicant proposed it through a gatekeeper, then that could definitely be something that could be considered. I think too, you0, if- if the Council created some, like a work plan item that was to study, you0, R1 sites to see if there were areas to upzone, I mean, that's a whole different project, I think, but it could come from I think either direction.

[06:22:27] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, it's just kind of added to the list of, um, things that people say they've walked by or driven by that they're really sorry have been allowed to go forward. Um, so I'm not really sure where we- we land with that, but at this point I'll just go with the 14.

[06:22:48] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, I think that now, um, since... Oh. Councilmember Ramirez.

[06:22:59] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I want to try Councilmember Showalter to win you over because I think you're winnable. Um, it's- these opportunities are exceptionally rare, right? I agree with you. I think the Moorpark project is a quintessential example of a lost opportunity, right? And part of the lost opportunity is we don't have opportunities as a- as a body to contemplate upzonings really outside of the context of a General Plan update, which is a very challenging and arduous task and not one that we're likely to do in the near-term. Right? But here we have some options, um, that I think it's- they're in my opinion very modest extensions of the staff recommendation. All of these alternatives are basically adjacent to immediately adjacent to the change areas and I would hate for either of us, right, a few years down the road to see one of these sites redevelop for whatever reason to then say, 'Man, if only we had included that site in this update, right, we would see something that's a lot more meaningful than what we would otherwise get with the with the lower density base zoning.' So I agree with you, and I want to support you, and if there are particular sites you can support, since this is our- this is it. Um, if- if there are sites that you would consider including beyond the 14 that staff have recommended, I think this is the best opportunity to avoid the- the types of outcomes that you're describing. Thank you.

[06:24:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I guess I'll just speak while Councilmember Showalter ponders. You0, I- I think maybe it's just a philosophical difference, um, different point of view, which is that I- it has been an iterative process with the community and to me this is the first step. So I guess it doesn't- I- I don't see it as the one and only opportunity. I think that Council's worked really hard. We had community members, um, coming forward and, um, I think that in support of the 14 change areas, it's the staff recommendation, it's what EPC recommended. I think that there's still two other questions, which we'll go through, where we- I think there'll be also different opportunities. So I think that there's, um... I'll just say, I- I don't think that it's the- the only chance and I think the more community engagement we have to the process the better. Um, and we saw that tonight with a variety of community members. Councilmember Showalter.

[06:26:40] Councilmember Pat Showalter: The two areas that, you0, I think would be good to include would be the- the green and the- the blue. I guess I would be interested in the green and the blue.

[06:27:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so we will need to, I believe, just do a- a straw poll on this just to make sure that we're capturing it correctly. So I think those who are following, not looking at Attachment 5, blue is sites added with condos and green is sites added with rowhomes and townhouses. So it would be... can you please raise your hand if you're interested in the 14 site areas plus the sites added with condos and sites added with rowhouses and townhomes? All right, I see three. Um, and so those not in support will be two. Um, and I think that takes care of that. We're now going to dis- then given this discussion, we can invite Councilmember Hicks back to the dais so that the Council can now discuss the density increases for the Continental Dale change area.

[06:30:20] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So, I'll welcome colleagues, if you have any questions, deliberation, or straw poll for Continental Dale. Just given the time, if you could queue up. Continental Dale. I believe that that is a change area, the intensity increases. Yes, now we're going to talk about... it's just the- the level of increase for that particular property, correct? So it's- it's how much you want to increase the density for that Continental Dale property only.

[06:32:03] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so now, okay so now we had to do Council recusals from Question 1. So we are done with Question 1. And now we are moving on to Question 2. For the change areas selected, which density option should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out? And we are doing the Continental Dale change area specifically because Councilmember McAlister cannot participate in that conversation. So if we could just speak about the Continental Dale. So the EPC recommendation was Option 2A, which was four stories, Del Medio South Option 1, and density approach to transitions. Councilmember Ramirez.

[06:34:18] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I'll be quicker on this one. Um, so I'll support Option 1, the R3-D2 base density, and part of the reason why is I think this is, um, one of the areas where I think it would be feasible and- and where there isn't a significant impact. This is already a dense area. It has the benefit of being in close proximity to, um, one of the 522 stops. Um, I have some broader comments for the rest of the change areas, but I think for just in the context of this one, Option 1 is what I'll support.

[06:34:57] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. I may be disoriented because I was out of the room. I did watch you all on television, though. Um, so may I ask questions, or if you've passed through questions? Okay. Yes. So, what kinds of, for staff, what kinds of waivers are developers likely to... if they do the bonus density to pursue? Is it mostly setbacks or other maybe other waivers that you're thinking of?

[06:35:32] Staff (Eric Anderson): Honestly at this point I've heard like such a wide variety of things, but I would say the probably the most common are setbacks or height or stepbacks if that's a requirement in a precise plan. Um, open area for sure. Um, u- like- personal storage spaces. Um, I think that's probably the most common.

[06:36:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. And then what I feel I should know the answer to this but I don't. Um, for as buildings get taller, what can we or would we be able to require regarding widening sidewalks? Are you imagining if they're like the super narrow five-foot sidewalks and the buildings go up, they just stay five-foot, or do we- will we require them to be like sidewalks next to most tall buildings?

[06:36:31] Staff (Christian Murdock): Well we're not quite at that part of the process of defining kind of the frontage character. Um, you0, right now we need to get through this density process. Um, we are going to come back to Council for further guidance on questions like that, like frontage character and design. And so widening sidewalks may be an opportunity there, although there's a fundamental challenge with R3... we've done it, you0, a lot in our precise plans where we can look at all the roads in the area and define, you0, the target street section for all the roads in the area. That's very easy to do in a precise plan. A lot harder to do for R3 where there are just so many different conditions across the city of existing, you0, how the- how the roads are currently in public rights of way are currently configured. So we'd have to look into it a little bit more to see how much we would be biting off if we started talking about sidewalk, um, dimensions and character as part of this project.

[06:37:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you. Yeah, I- wasn't clear. I knew it was in the future, but I can't quite picture how we'd do it or whether we would ever be able to do it. And quite frankly, I don't want to go up seven stories right on a- on a five-foot sidewalk. I think I...

[06:38:08] Staff (Christian Murdock): Good evening, Mayor and Council, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. I think, um, as far as my thinking has necessarily gone on this, um, it's likely to be a development standard that could be subject to waiver or concession through a density bonus request. And so as with so much of what we do now, we're trying to set the tone and the direction and shape the thinking of developers about projects, but we have fewer and fewer options in many cases to require particular outcomes. So this could be another example where we put forward an ideal standard and we recognize in some situations we may not actually be able to require it.

[06:39:04] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And so in the ones where we're saying in the options where we're saying it would only be feasible if they take the density bonus, then we're opening our- I guess in either case we're opening ourselves up to the waivers, but there we're saying if they build it, we pretty much think they probably will do waivers?

[06:39:09] Staff (Christian Murdock): I think our experience is that we're seeing projects frequently use state density bonus law, um, in many cases to also get additional density, but in all cases, or nearly all cases they're using state density bonus law to get out of particular development standards. It's a very powerful tool. Developers almost qualify by default in many cases because of the city's inclusionary zoning requirements. And so, um, it's a low bar for a developer to get over to qualify, and it's a very powerful tool once they do qualify. And so I don't know if there's as much consideration about incentivizing a developer or not to use state density bonus law. I think there are other considerations in terms of the posture or the relationship they want to have with the community about how they're packaging their project, if there are other approvals or requests they're making to the city. But I don't know if we have any indication or evidence to suggest it's so much one way or the other based on four stories or six stories base density.

[06:40:05] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. So any standards and any standards we have like sidewalks and whatever else setbacks are just, um, nice to- if they take the state density bonus, just hints, nice to have if you want to be friendly to the neighborhood. But nothing more.

[06:40:22] Staff (Christian Murdock): I mean as hard as it is to say that, I- I think that's largely the case and that's sort of a new reality in recent years with laws the legislature has put in place to clear the way for housing development.

[06:40:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions.

[06:40:40] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you Mayor. Um, I wish we didn't have to just do this one thing because there's an overall kind of ethos that I'm deciding on with these density options. Um, as- as it was mentioned before, uh, at least in- how we have seven different perspectives in R3, but my main perspective was to ensure that those CSRA units that are in these change areas, um, have feasible redevelopment without giving up any of our protections. And those protections, I understand, essentially cost money and feasibility for these projects. And so in terms of making things more feasible, that is the tradeoff I'm willing to do: getting higher density so that things like the tenant protections that we have on these existing units that would probably get demolished upon redevelopment, those protections stay in place. And I'm not entirely sure if that's- that's coming through or if it's making sense to people. Um, but that's why I'm in favor of Option 1. And I'll probably be in favor of Option 1 going forward with all of them, just to ensure that we can keep those protections, the one-for-one replacement requirements, the- the right to return, and probably a few more protections that we will probably be looking at so that we can move forward with a true right of first return. Thank you.

[06:42:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So apologize, so I think it's also, um... so it's Option 1 the R3-D2. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Just making sure and so that other people can follow. Councilmember Clark.

[06:44:00] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: No, they were unanimous on that.

[06:44:03] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Um, so I... I generally agree in the... EPC saw this when I was on it too, and then they've seen it again since- since I departed. Um, I generally agree with their recommendation. There are a handful of sites, for example, you0, a large change area adjacent to 85 where there are certain levels of intensity that as long as you're respectful of transitions, which we'll get to later, um, in my mind I don't really care how tall something is along a freeway as long as the neighbors are respected in the transition, um, in the adjacencies to the to the other housing area or the existing housing as opposed to, you0, what people see when they drive off the freeway. So this is one of those change areas or parcels where, um, I- I could see R3-D2 being more applicable or appropriate as long as the transition discussion that we might have later, um, occurs. Um, especially since as was pointed out, if we- if someone is pursuing state bonus, um, for the additional density, um, that's going to be the biggest bang for their buck. In those cases, um, you0, if we have a base density of four stories...

Segment 10

[06:45:00] Councilmember Chris Clark: along a freeway on a large parcel like this or a large change area like this. I think you're almost guaranteeing that if it redevelops it's going to go through a state density process and we're going to have restrictions on maybe some of the transition guidelines that we might be put in place. Whereas if we start at a higher density in areas like this, um perhaps the the incentive is lessened to go uh even higher the the real incentive for them is less the additional density and it's more maybe some of the waivers of some things, but that additional cost to go higher probably isn't worth it. Um so that's a long way of saying there are a couple of while I'm supportive of the overall EPC recommendation um on the the parcels citywide, there are a handful of parcels where like this one and I'll get into some of the other later where I think um the increased density is actually in our um in our interest to avoid state density bonus issues where we're getting all sorts of waivers on sidewalks and other things as someone has mentioned. So um I'm open to hearing what my my colleagues feel on on this particular change area but I'm leaning toward actually a deviation from the EPC in our 3D2 in this particular change area.

[06:46:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Ramirez. Thank you Mayor. So, I'm sorry, so you spoke on this already. So I'm going to skip to Councilmember Showalter and then I can go back to your comment. Councilmember Showalter.

[06:46:31] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, just to follow on what Councilmember Clark said. I too agree that this is a very unique location because it it does border the um the uh the freeway and the hospital and um an area of uh multi-family homes that are at least two or three stories adjacent to it. So I think this this is a real good location for option one.

[06:47:06] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Hicks.

[06:47:08] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I could go with option one on this one too for the reasons other people have said. I actually have one more question.

[06:47:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Of course. Go ahead.

[06:47:16] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I'm wondering in the 14 change areas in general, um you know we have another initiative which is uh something along the lines of a community land trust um you know purchasing community members purchasing and preserving housing. If we upzone a lot does that make the land more expensive? Does it make it harder to purchase, repurchase your own building and redevelop? How much does it how much exactly does it affect the land cost?

[06:47:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: Well, we do have the housing director here who may be able to answer questions related to their community ownership action plan project. We also have our economic consultant here uh David Bergman. Hopefully he's still with us at this very late hour. His hand is up. Okay, great, who may be able to respond to the dynamics of upzoning and land cost changes.

[06:48:21] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. And especially regarding this particular project.

[06:48:26] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so maybe we'll take Mr. Chen first and then we'll go to David. I think he got moved over to a panelist. Go ahead, Mr. Chen.

[06:48:35] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Wayne Chen, Housing Director. Uh yes, in general when the capacity of a site can accommodate more housing then the market will be able to typically pay more for it because they could generate more rents or sell more units to cover the development cost. Uh so because the CLT or nonprofit would have to compete in the market uh typically along with market rate developers, they would be facing the same market prices. Uh we're envisioning that the acquisition preservation fund however may be targeting uh projects that are smaller in size that may be outside of the change areas and so while this might increase the value of these sites, the opportunities for a smaller project in acquisition preservation program or under the community ownership action plan may not be looking at these change areas anyway uh due to feasibility and the size of the projects and the funding available.

[06:49:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. And then the consultant had had their hand up and then it went down. David, did you want to speak? There you go.

[06:49:51] Public Speaker David Bergman: So I can unmute myself. Uh just a couple of things to be aware of with that. David Bergman, Director at Lisa Wise Consulting. I'm assisting the Opticos team in supporting staff in reviewing the financial feasibility of the different prototypes. Uh there is this temptation to say well if some is good isn't more better, um shouldn't we just increase the capacity on the site and that'll make the land more valuable and more attractive to developers. And there's two thoughts in that regard. One as you get over about eight stories in height, um your costs it's it's non-linear, there's a big bump up in your costs for development. And so that along with the market acceptance, you know we we particularly we're talking about for sale product, not every um uh product is um equally desired by the market. Um they become increasingly difficult uh and they're less attractive. The other thing to think about with this too is there is a way that you end up over-entitling land. And if it's not calibrated more closely to market pickup, you can have a situation where uh you know why does land have value land has value for you know what improvements that are on it adjacencies what's next to it you know in public infrastructure, but also the entitlements what it is you're allowed to build there. So if you if you make the entitlements too large it gets baked into the price of the land. Um and if you're using conventional bank financing um and also SB 330, you cannot propose a project you can't finance a project that's less than the full entitlements. Banks don't like to see people leave entitlement on the table so the land price gets you know the the entitlements get baked into the land price. And then also with SB 330, uh you cannot entitle a project that's less than uh than the um than the site's density allows. So um yeah, I would avoid the thinking that if again you know if some is good more must necessarily be better. And I hope that provides some guidance.

[06:52:28] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you very much. Um appreciate you staying on with us and providing your input as we make our way through this item. So, um I I heard a majority consensus, but I think given I'll just weigh in before we go through second round. Um I think kind of given what we just heard from Mr. Bergman, I was thinking what it sounds like the staff report, staff, the consultant had said is they there might be actually greater flexibility with Option 2A because of for the applicant whoever might come forward. And so to me the thing that I feel like we always hear from developers is like they want flexibility and they want to be able to kind of do what they they like. Um and so I'll I'll go along with the EPC for the Option 2A, but I know others had other varying opinions. So, um do people want to comment again or can I just ask for a straw poll since I heard a majority. Councilmember Clark.

[06:53:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: I just wanted to ask a quick question. So for staff, I'm probably going down a path I shouldn't go down, but I do um yeah, does it create significant issues for you if certain change areas are you know one density option and others are something else?

[06:54:02] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: No, that's exactly the feedback we're looking for and part of the reason why we teed up these options is to uh give council the opportunity to identify uh the areas where uh the density is right-sized.

[06:54:18] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. Thank you.

[06:54:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so if there's no further questions or clarifications, I heard a majority for the Continental/Dale going to uh Option 1, the R3D2. If you just raise your hands just for the straw poll please. This is Option 1, the R3D2. Okay, so that is five and then I'll just vote no. And then I think we can bring okay. Now Councilmember McAlister returns.

[06:54:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: If he'll come back. Yeah, there's there's many more recusals going forward, so this is not the end. So if people if folks can be as they're coming in and out for the recusals if you can just help me with being speedy then I would greatly appreciate that. All right. Councilmember McAlister's back. So the council will now discuss density increases for the remaining change areas. We'll have council questions, deliberations, and a straw poll. Councilmember Ramirez.

[06:55:38] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Uh first, uh some questions about the state density bonus law. I was uh waiting for this item, um but it came up in the previous um one so I wanted to clarify some things. So Councilmember Hicks asked about uh sidewalks and I'm I'm curious, um sidewalk width is not typically a development standard, right? That's that's more in the realm of public works. And so for instance as a if I were a developer using the state density bonus law, I couldn't use a waiver to not build a sidewalk at all, right? So why is it help me understand I I feel like there might be a miscommunication that you couldn't use the state density bonus law to wave away sidewalks. So maybe maybe clarification would would be helpful.

[06:56:24] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, I think I the way I understood the question was in the context of an R3 zoning standard. And so understanding that typically the state density bonus law waivers are applying to zoning standards then in my mind at least preliminarily it's potentially subject to um such a waiver or concession. There may be other ways to structure the requirement which we haven't analyzed yet and would be part of our future work. And certainly if that's the direction for council we would think of whatever the most robust and defensible approach would be to assure that and all of the other development standards are able to be implemented. Uh but I don't think I have a conclusion one way or another right now.

[06:57:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: With an important distinction though, right? Just like you couldn't use a state density bonus law to uh wave away or to get a concession to not pay a park in lieu fee, right? Or to not dedicate land for for a park, right? The state density bonus law has very clear limitations and I think it's really helpful for us to understand what those are since I do feel there is a little bit of fear-mongering around the state density bonus law. It is a powerful tool but it also has very clear limits and restrictions. Um and so it's not like you can just get around any city uh regulation or or requirement. Um in the same I was thinking also in the context of the multi-modal transportation analysis which we require, right? So there are certain police powers that we we can exercise to uh even for a code-compliant project get investment in you know um improvements to the public right of way. And so that's how I think of sidewalks. It's not I'm pretty familiar with all of us are pretty familiar with the R3 development standards at this point. Sidewalk sidewalk width is not one of them. Um so I think that that analysis would be really helpful for us. The other thing that's come up a little bit, you know I'm I am strongly disinclined to adopt standards with the presumption or for or not even with the presumption, basically requiring uh development the developers to use the state density bonus law. What that means is none of our development standards matter. We're saying we don't care about those things. All we want is to limit density and height to the greatest extent possible. There's no point in adopting development standards if what we're saying is the reason we're picking arbitrarily a particular density is to force developers to wave away all of the standards, you know, that they need to get to the densities and heights that are actually financially feasible. I think part of this exercise also is coming up with good designs, right? Community-supported or informed and community-supported design. And that that means you know if if we it's counter to that it's it would be counter-productive to say we have excellent design but we're constraining ourselves to a point where we are de-facto requiring uh developers to wave the development standards that yield the the designs that we've worked so hard to to develop. So I'm very concerned about that and that's why generally speaking I'll be supporting option one R3D2 for all of the the change areas, but I also recognize you know as as Councilmember Clark was saying there are areas where we want to be thoughtful about transitions and sort of prevailing character. So I think I'm interested in in understanding you know where some of those distinctions may be. The transition zones were are are baked into the change areas. Um I'm looking at the map and they're not easy to see, but they are pink, they're very clearly outlined and so I think the staff recommendations already include an understanding of where the transition zones will be to help you know mitigate impacts uh uh with adjacent development. Um the last thing I'll say is and I think this has come up already but but just just for the sake of saying it out loud. Uh type one construction is extremely expensive. Um I asked a question about having a type one construction prototype um and staff uh didn't have time to produce that. It's not an easy thing to do. Um but we've we've done a lot of this in my day job and I pulled up the cost of residential development study most recently in the city of San Jose where they're really trying to get type one construction in downtown. The assumption for height for type one construction in the most recent report which is from November 2023 uh is 22 stories. And at 22 stories type one construction still is financially infeasible. You need pretty extraordinary heights for this to work. So I I um I don't believe that we will see towers anywhere in Mountain View anytime soon, at least not you know unless we're contemplating 25 30 35 stories which is just not realistic and and not feasible in most areas even with the maximum density bonus permitted under state law with the maximum density contemplated with the options presented here. You're not going to get anywhere close to financial feasibility with type one construction. So I think one one of the ways I would want to approach this is you know what what are the standards that it would be necessary for a developer to build something that actually is in conformance with that that complies with the design standards that we're crafting concurrently with the development standards. Um so that was long-winded but um I think all that to say um I don't think we should have a presumption that you know nothing we do matters and that we want to force everyone to use the state density bonus law to make our development standards de facto irrelevant. Um and I think where it makes sense D1 or option one um is uh is what I would all be supporting. Thank you.

[07:02:43] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you Mayor. Uh I'll just keep that simple. Um I'll go with option one for all of them. I will say, um I'm so sorry. Um I will say um one of the interesting things is when we picked the change areas, those are larger parcels and there's a reason why we did that is because there there are R3 areas that have smaller parcels that are have rent-controlled properties on them. It's not that many but they are there. And those are why we call a lot of the acquisition programs, they're colloquially called small site programs because they're usually targeted towards small sites. So that's how we're targeting things as uh Councilmember Hicks was talking about. They usually don't target these large areas. They target the small areas because you can't redevelop them to a point like in order for them to be actually feasible for like a one-for-one replacement part, you really actually have to build a huge freaking tower because of the parcel size being so small and that's just that's just not going to happen. Um and so and so we chose not to allow that to happen and that's that's why the things like a community land trust would acquire a property like that so that it wouldn't it would still remain affordable even if it can't get redeveloped.

[07:04:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Others. We're on Question 2. For the change areas selected, which density option should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out? Councilmember Showalter.

[07:04:18] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Is it possible to say you should study two? You know, you should study option one and option two.

[07:04:28] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh we are looking for a preferred alternative, which is what we would be uh kind of bringing forward with the project description in the CEQA. Um of course the council can always uh you know make changes later in the process as long as there aren't new potential environmental impacts from those changes. Uh we'll also go through a process of uh kind of qualitatively evaluating alternatives in the CEQA process and we can uh come up with options for studying those those alternatives.

[07:05:09] Councilmember Pat Showalter: So is what we're really doing tonight trying to figure out what the envelope is that we're going to study in CEQA?

[07:05:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think to some extent yes, but it would be very helpful for staff if council could decide one option or the other. There is some specific work that will need to follow on as well in relation to development standards and that could be quite different for a smaller versus a larger project type uh depending on Council's preferred density. Um so getting direction on the change areas uh one preferred option instead of the other would be very helpful to staff.

[07:05:43] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well, helpful to staff or not, it's always better to have a big envelope than a little envelope for CEQA. Um and I have to say every time I talk to somebody about this I change my mind. I I have I really am having trouble with it. I I'm not normally like this as you know I usually have an opinion that nobody else seems to like, but no anyway. Okay. But this one I'm I'm really you know I'm really bouncing forward back and forth. One of the things that we haven't talked about that's really important to me is we have a lot of soft story um apartment buildings in the city of Mountain View that are really dangerous from an earthquake point of view. And I would like to see whatever standards we put in um sufficient so they inspire people to redevelop some of those because I think it would be safer and we need more units. So so that's a real um incentive for for me. But I'm going to go then with the CEQA answer, um which is option one, but I really would also like there to be some consideration for option 2A particularly in the um ones that are not adjacent to either well the this Continental Dale one I think is is an outlier and I also think the one that's that's essentially along El Camino Real or almost along El Camino Real. The um California Latham Ringsdorf grouping, it's very close to El Camino Real. That that to me seems to be one that's more appropriate for um for one. The other ones I I really think are more appropriate for the other one. So I'm sorry not to be more helpful.

[07:07:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Um no, I think I think that's helpful. I think staff had said if we want certain areas to be one option and another area to be another that they would be open to hearing that feedback. I think it was just helping them identify those areas where we'd like to look at one or two, right? From that's what I heard.

[07:07:52] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's absolutely right. So we don't need all of them to be the same, but we would need and very much prefer to get the direction that a particular change area should have a particular density option, not, you know, consider both and figure it out later. That's a little more challenging for us.

[07:08:07] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Oh okay. So then let me take let me take those down. So you said California Latham and Ringsdorf? Yeah, we already talked about that one. Okay. So those those two are the ones you were thinking of? Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Councilmember Hicks.

[07:08:29] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I'm going to go for um option one for Del Medio South and option 2A for the rest.

[07:08:49] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. I'll just make it easy and say I'll I'm going to do the same, that was the staff recommendation. Councilmember McAlister. Wide awake. Wide awake and bushy-tailed.

[07:09:04] Councilmember John McAlister: I'm going to make it easy. I just like option 2A across the board. Consistency is good and staff time is valuable.

[07:09:14] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Clark.

[07:09:18] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um can staff talk about the so EPC requested um express support for transition areas and studying approaches to those. So um I'm just curious if if staff plans to carry assuming we agree with that if staff plans to study that or what that would even entail. There are rumors of different zones and

[07:09:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, this so the this is something that we still need to look at and it was always going to be something that we would look at in in implementing the transition areas. Uh the EPC kind of reconfirmed their uh their support for that direction. Um but really it would just be um kind of setting up kind of separate split-zone zoning districts for these transition areas and we would kind of test that against um how useful it is for developers to understand and implement. We would test it against um legal opinions about how enforceable it is. Uh and we would test it against a range of other like how how well is it organized in our uh proposed zoning ordinance. So that is there's there's more work to be done on that proposal and we can't say with any absolute confidence that it's going to be the most effective or useful approach for the city, uh but it is something that we're going to look into.

[07:11:04] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. And I'm supportive of that by the way. So I think in to get to the heart of the question, so I I support the overall I support the EPC recommendation, which is with the exception of Del Medio um option two, which is I think R3D1 based. Um we talked about there are a couple parcels where I do think um perhaps um if you're looking for um an alternative to study there there would be um it would be worth studying as an alternative in CEQA. Um we talked about it was mentioned earlier um there's one of the proposed change areas uh where I used to live at the Central Park apartments at uh Whisman and Central Expressway. There are really tall trees there. There is Central Expressway and there's there aren't a lot of people to bother um with height. There there is a newish development of um I forget whether townhomes or single-family homes that were built when I lived there but um anyway if there if there are places where R3D2 um might be feasible with with the transitions that were described, I think that is one of the change areas there at uh on the uh I guess that's the west side of of Whisman at Central Expressway and then perhaps um some portion of the area the change the other change area along 85 um um between Dana and the Caltrain tracks. Um obviously you want to be sensitive to the transitions along Dana but I think closer to the creek or the or the freeway um I would be okay with a additional base density there. But other throughout the city with all the other change areas I support the EPC recommendation.

[07:12:58] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, thank you. So, I'm going to attempt to aggregate what I've heard and uh and try to do do the overlap. Okay. So let's see. So I heard a majority for 2A minus Del Medio I heard one two three four five five for option one for Del Medio South because those who said they wanted option one I'm defaulting to saying that they would be comfortable with option one Del Medio South, right? So because I heard one two three with the staff recommendation and then two for option one so then that's five that I heard for op uh Del Medio South option one. Then I think we need to take straw polls on California Latham option one because I'm only hearing three and then we are going to need to take a um that was the one you put forward um Councilmember Showalter. And then Councilmember Clark just put forward option one Central Park Apartments. Did I get that right? Is or are you identifying a new area?

[07:14:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: I'm just making a suggestion if if there's no one else of interest in that and and also like the whole site wouldn't be able you know you wouldn't want six or seven stories on that entire site you'd have to figure out how to do that. But I'm just suggesting very specific parts of these sites where I don't know very many people are going to care how tall something is because it they're very well screened and they're next to a freeway.

[07:14:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, so I'm going to do California Latham first. So because I only heard three. So if you are interested in having the change area identified as California Latham Ringsdorf as option one R3D2, please raise your hand.

[07:15:24] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I see three. Okay, so that does not have a council majority. Then I heard the Central Park Avenue Apartments. That is near Central Expressway. Yeah yeah it's along Central Expressway. Um are people interested in looking at option one for the Central Park Apartments?

[07:15:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: One two three four five. Okay uh four, I got four. Okay, so then that got four.

[07:15:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I think that answers question two. I didn't hear another one proposed because we already did Continental Dale because we can't do it again because people had recused from that. Oh did did you propose something else? I didn't hear it.

[07:16:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: I did. It was okay. It was that change area that's along 85 by Dana along the creek.

[07:16:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Evelyn Calderon? Evelyn Calderon Evelyn Calderon option one? Is that what you're proposing?

[07:16:30] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yeah, for the portion closest to 85 but just studying it as part of CEQA.

[07:16:35] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Those who are interested in just studying a portion of Evelyn Calderon change area. Okay that's five. Five. Okay, did I get it all? All right. Question three. The Council uh we will now shift to part two of our discussion, which involves identifying R2 zones that will be rezoned to R3 and determining the appropriate density for each parcel rezoned to R3. This discussion results requires council recusals due to conflict of interest. Could the councilmembers of the conflict of interest please make your recusal statements now.

[07:17:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: I am recusing myself from the discussion and deliberations regarding the rezoning of certain R2 parcels to R3 due the proximity of my residence to those properties.

[07:17:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay, others.

[07:17:34] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay, I'm also recusing myself from the discussion um about R2 parcels close to R3 due to my residence being near there.

[07:17:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. And I'll just ask you all please come back quickly.

[07:17:51] Councilmember John McAlister: Wait a minute, I mhm you want me to just yell it out loud? Well this is an all-time high three recusals in one night. Uh I'll recuse because I got a business somewhere that's close by.

[07:18:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Okay, the Council will now ask questions, deliberate and provide direction regarding the rezoning of certain R2 parcels along California Street, View Street, Church Street, Sierra Avenue and Hope Street to R3. Councilmember Ramirez.

[07:18:25] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Uh support the EPC recommendation and I'm also open to additional suggestions from my colleagues.

[07:18:34] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Ditto.

[07:18:38] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I support EPC recommendation. I do not have the brain power to add anything else.

[07:18:43] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. So why don't we just uh there's just four of us. Okay, perfect. So that's do we need to do a straw poll or would people like that's fine. Okay great. So we're going with EPC recommendation. Everyone come back. John probably got too comfortable. Oh apologies. Um sorry. Sorry. One more. Sorry.

[07:19:10] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Councilmember Hicks returns. Okay, the council will now ask questions, deliberate and provide direction regarding the rezoning of certain R2 parcels along Shoreline Boulevard, Snow Street, Mountain View Avenue, Palo Alto Avenue and Miramonte Avenue to R3. Vice Mayor Ramos.

[07:19:28] Councilmember Emily Ramos: I support EPC recommendation. Thank you.

[07:19:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Ditto, thanks.

[07:19:33] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Ditto.

[07:19:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, me too.

[07:19:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay, great. I support that as well. So Councilmember Clark and McAlister can return to the dais. The Council will now ask questions, deliberate and provide direction related to the rezoning of the remaining R2 parcels to R3.

[07:20:14] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I support the EPC recommendation.

[07:20:17] Councilmember Emily Ramos: EPC recommendation. Thank you.

[07:20:22] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. I support the EPC recommendation.

[07:20:25] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Um shall we just take straw poll or would people like would you like to say anything Mr. McAlister? Yes. We are voting on Question 3. Does the City Council support or wish to modify the proposed criteria and density for upzoning R2 properties? So the EPC recommendation was that they supported the criteria and that they supported studying adding blocks north of Central Expressway.

[07:21:04] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, we didn't have a formal recommendation on this although we prepared the criteria uh which were to focus on parts of the city around downtown and south of El Camino Real and to focus on parcels that are not immediately adjacent to R1. The EPC then uh took that uh those criteria and added uh kind of three groups of parcels immediately north of Central Expressway uh near the transit center. This is a this is a density increase from R2, which allows uh about 14 units per acre, to R3A, which would allow between about 20 units per acre.

[07:22:12] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Okay. Um so we will do a uh just a straw poll um because I heard at least a majority for the EPC recommendation so all those in favor of the EPC recommendation. Okay that's six with the one no. All right. So I think I have everything but but maybe staff can read into the record everything that they heard for the three questions.

[07:22:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I can. Yeah, sure. For so for question one, the 14 change areas with the addition of condominium areas and rowhouse areas as identified in attachment five. For uh question two, the Continental Dale area has option one, the Del Medio South area has option one, a portion of the Central Park apartments near Central Expressway has option one, a portion of the Evelyn the Evelyn Calderon area near the freeway has option one and the remainder areas have option 2A. Uh and then the uh the third question is the EPC recommendation.

[07:23:28] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. Thank you. That's what I heard too. Um colleagues is there anything else that uh you need on this one? All right. Thank you very much to staff. Thank you very much to the public, um those who had joined us virtually for making it through this item. We will now conclude um that item and move to uh item seven, our Council Staff Committee reports. Though this item was inadvertently omitted from the posted agenda, any councilmember who has a report to make on official city business in their capacity as a city councilmember may do so now and I just ask if with the hour colleagues can be brief. Councilmember Showalter.

[07:24:15] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I attended a BOSCA meeting last Wednesday and I will send everybody the summary. But basically what I want to share is that the reservoirs are from a water capacity point of view are in um really good shape and they are still working on finalizing the minimum purchase agreement uh packet to go to the SFPUC which they hope will happen on April 22nd.

[07:24:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Vice Mayor Ramos.

[07:24:45] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Uh yes, I got to be I'm the alternate for ABAG, um and I got to finally vote on stuff there. I'll send everyone a report afterwards.

[07:25:07] Councilmember John McAlister: Isn't item eight if we had a you know general question I want to throw out? Or was that at seven? I forgot.

[07:25:17] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Um you can put that I believe on item seven. Item eight was adjournment, but we can reverse.

[07:25:23] Councilmember John McAlister: Okay because you said official. I was just wondering if people were aware that uh city of Palo Alto in conjunction with Senator Becker was looking at ways to uh modify the builder's remedy and they may be looking for support and so I'm just putting that out there to see if city of Mountain View may consider it to help uh make it clear. So uh Senator Becker has two project two ideas is one that it would be if you have your papers in proper order that you they could not do the builder's remedy and then if you did need to do it there would be a limitations on it so it would restrict it so uh people wouldn't get hammered. So I'm sure the if you guys are interested in that we can get some more information on it and they may reach out to us but

[07:26:54] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes, thank you Councilmember McAlister. So it essentially it boils down to if a housing element is approved by an agency, um the builder's remedy would not apply after that. Whereas the way it stands now it's once it's approved by HCD. I see. Okay. Thank you for that report. So we will move to item eight which is our adjournment. The next City Council meeting will be held on April 5th, 2025 for our team building retreat. This meeting is adjourned at 12:26 AM.

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