January 21, 2026 Environmental Planning Commission Meeting

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:00:00] Chair Alex Nuñez: Action. State law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agenda items. If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on non-agenda items, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on non-agenda items, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Mr. Clerk, any speakers submit yellow cards or on the Zoom list?

[00:00:29] City Clerk Heather Glaser: None in person and none online.

[00:00:33] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. So, looks like we have no takers. Then we will proceed to our public hearing for agenda item 5.1, the Small Business Streamlining and Other Minor Zoning Code Updates. We'll first hand it to staff for a presentation, then we'll have questions from the EPC, and followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment, the commission will then deliberate and then take action. So I think we can proceed with the staff presentation from our Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul and Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen.

[00:01:49] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Thank you, and good evening Chair Nuñez and Commissioners. I'm Madelyn Faul, Assistant Planner, and I'm joined by Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen to present proposed code amendments to City Code Chapter 36, known as the zoning code, related to streamlining permit procedures for certain small businesses and other minor code revisions and cleanup.

[00:02:18] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: The package of proposed zoning code amendments will implement various actions from the city's Economic Vitality Strategy with the purpose of eliminating certain barriers to zoning—sorry, zoning barriers experienced by businesses. To implement actions 1.B.7 and 4.A.6 and Strategy 5.D, the proposed amendments remove two of the largest barriers to small businesses in Mountain View by streamlining permit procedures and reducing parking requirements. Specifically, the amendments remove Change of Use Permits, which disproportionately impact small businesses, and include reductions in required parking standards for retail and personal service uses. For certain small footprint land uses, the amendments waive requirements for a Conditional Use Permit and from new or additional parking.

[00:03:50] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Identifying and addressing these issues will support businesses that offer goods and services that Mountain View residents value, and encourage those businesses to locate in Mountain View, activating commercial corridors and centers. In addition to the Economic Vitality Strategy, staff has initiated the proposed amendments to: one, implement the Council Work Plan item of completing City Code Clean-Ups. The proposed amendments update inconsistent language and modify or add land uses and definitions to reflect modern land use terms and advance a more user-friendly zoning code. And two, staff routinely prepares minor zoning code amendments to align with state and federal laws, improve consistency and transparency, and update procedures.

[00:05:19] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: A major element of the proposed amendments are new streamlining provisions for small-footprint businesses. These provisions were developed by staff through a review of planning use permits approved by the city between 2020 and 2025. These approvals were evaluated to find common patterns that could inform staff on the specific land uses to consider for streamlining, the maximum tenant space size to consider, and appropriate operational standards. Our review found that 37% of the use permits, or 35 out of the 95 permits evaluated, were comprised of the following active land uses: retail, restaurant, personal services, and indoor recreation and fitness centers.

[00:06:44] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Staff has also consistently heard interest in these types of uses during community outreach for recent precise plans and at the public counter. Also, staff found that the majority of these permits, or 86% of the 35 permits for active commercial uses, were in tenant spaces at or under 4,000 square feet. After conducting this review, and based on our conversations with small business owners, commercial brokers, and property owners at the public counter, through the permit process, and through outreach, staff felt that these four listed uses were a good baseline for the streamlining effort. And staff is specifically referring to these land uses as 'small-footprint land uses' because the term 'small businesses' can have many connotations.

[00:08:10] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Staff is proposing to geographically focus the streamlining provisions for small-footprint land uses within the city's existing commercial zones, as shown on the map on your screen and in Attachment 2 to the EPC report. It's important to note that the package of amendments before the EPC tonight does not include any changes to precise plan areas. The changes we are discussing would only impact a precise plan area if the specific precise plan currently refers to the commercial zoning land use table. The qualifying land uses include the active commercial uses discussed on the previous slide and listed here. In the commercial districts where the four uses are currently allowed land uses, either permitted or conditionally permitted, staff is proposing these uses be permitted if they meet a list of operational standards, which I will describe in a moment.

[00:09:06] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Provided a business complies with these criteria, the new provisions would allow the use to be exempt from use permits and from providing new or additional parking beyond what already exists on the site. This streamlining would allow the applicant to submit directly for a building permit, which could save up to six months of time and $10,000 or more in permit fees and operating costs on the unoccupied leased space.

[00:10:10] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: This slide shows a list of the proposed operational standards for small-footprint land uses. These standards were developed through a review of the conditions of approval placed on past permits, as well as applicable city code requirements. The standards include the maximum tenant space size, compliance with other applicable codes and laws, and basic objective requirements for loading, solid waste, outdoor activities, noise, and any changes in ownership.

[00:10:41] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Here's an example of how the small-footprint streamlining provisions are captured in the amendments to the Commercial Land Use Table. A new row is added with revised permit requirements for restaurants that are 4,000 square feet or less, and the existing land use would be updated to clarify that current standards continue to apply for businesses that are over 4,000 square feet. Additionally, staff is proposing to add language to the operational standards that if a business violates any of these provisions, the city will utilize existing code enforcement procedures that are already established.

[00:11:58] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: To further implement the Economic Vitality Strategy, the proposed amendments also include the following changes: First, to stay competitive in the retail market regionally, staff recommends updating the minimum parking standards for retail and personal services to one parking space per 250 square feet. This is based on a survey of ten cities in our region, which was summarized in the staff report. Through staff's research, Mountain View was identified to have the highest parking requirement in the region. There's no need for the city to have such a high requirement compared to the other cities surveyed.

[00:12:32] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Second, staff recommends removing requirements entirely from the zoning code for Change of Use Permits, which is a use permit approved at the staff level. This permit can be a burden for businesses and a confusing step for applicants that are proposing a change of use from one permitted use to another permitted use. It can also take what should be a ministerial permit review and make it discretionary, where conditions can be placed on the permit. If approved, both changes would have impacts in all commercial and industrial zoning districts, and not just for small-footprint land uses. The changes to parking standards would impact precise plan areas only if the precise plans specifically refers to the zoning code.

[00:13:55] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: In addition to implementing the Economic Vitality Strategy, the package of proposed zoning code amendments include a comprehensive set of minor clean-ups which have been drafted to improve consistency and usability, and add new land uses or update existing land uses with modern business types and definitions. The proposed clean-ups can generally be categorized in the areas that are shown on the slide, which I will touch on briefly in the following slides. The majority of the amendments include broad updates to the residential, commercial, and industrial land use tables and the parking standards table to align land use category names throughout the code, to use similar formatting, grammar, and capitalization, and to incorporate appropriate references to sections where definitions and applicable requirements can be found.

[00:15:26] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: To add greater clarity to the zoning code, and in some cases to consolidate land uses, staff has proposed: one, adding new land uses. So one example is public recreation, which will distinguish recreational facilities managed by a public agency from privately operated facilities. Two, combining similar land uses under an existing or renamed land use category to be consistent. And three, renaming an existing land use category to reflect a modern, more inclusive reference, and to further improve the clarity of the land use.

[00:16:40] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: In addition to changes throughout the code, staff is proposing specific changes to the Industrial Land Use Table. These changes include: one, recategorizing existing uses to align with land use terms used throughout the code. Two, adding land uses to the Industrial Land Use Table which are allowable based on other sections of the code but are not currently listed. Three, adding new land uses to reflect current business conditions, including adding outdoor retail as conditionally permitted in districts where retail can be located, and adding a shopping center warehouse retail use to reflect existing warehouse retail centers in the MM zone. Four, updating permit requirements for the existing offices, research and development land use to allow it as a permitted use in the MM zone where it currently requires a Conditional Use Permit. Five, renaming the existing storage use to storage, accessory to match the existing definition and to further distinguish the use from personal storage and warehousing which are already listed elsewhere in the zoning table.

[00:18:32] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Staff proposes the following changes to the Required Parking Standards Table: One, updating land use names to align with the land use tables. Two, consolidating parking standards under a given land use name—a number of the land uses have multiple parking standards for different business subtypes. Three, adding new parking standards for all listed land uses, including separating out some of the individual land uses which are currently combined for easier identification. And if no parking standard currently exists for a use, then adding a parking requirement based on a parking requirement listed elsewhere in the code, applying a parking standard that has been used historically, or requiring a parking study.

[00:19:58] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Staff proposes to modify zoning code definitions to add any new, combined, or renamed land use categories, as previously discussed. In addition, staff proposes to add definitions for existing land use terms that were not previously defined, and to update language and listed examples for certain definitions to meet current business trends and to increase clarity.

[00:20:22] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Due to the combining of various existing land uses, there are certain land uses where the proposed updates have altered the zoning district in which a current land use is allowed or conditionally allowed. These are summarized on your screen. A summary table is also found in Attachment 4 to the EPC report. Most of these changes expand where the uses are allowed with a Conditional Use Permit or as a permitted use. There is one use that would go from permitted to requiring a Conditional Use Permit, which is Plant Nursery. The change would align the Plant Nursery with all other outdoor retail uses in the city, and it does not impact any current businesses in the city. Overall, staff feels these alterations in permit requirements are appropriate based on the current businesses within the city and given the overarching effort to streamline and modernize land uses in the zoning code.

[00:21:58] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: In terms of community outreach, city staff discussed the proposed amendments with various members of the business community to verify they would result in meaningful improvements, including one-on-one meetings with brokers, and meetings with developers and the Chamber of Commerce. Staff received unanimous feedback that the proposed amendments are a positive improvement to support the retail and service business community. In addition, the business community expressed interest in expanding the streamlining provisions to certain precise plan areas.

[00:22:30] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Moving forward, staff will present the EPC's recommendation on the proposed amendments to the City Council at a public hearing tentatively scheduled for February 24th, 2026, followed by a second reading in early March. If approved, it's anticipated the new updates would be effective in early April. Additionally, these changes, if adopted, may precipitate text changes to various precise plans to ensure consistency with the zoning code. Staff will undertake this effort as resources and workload allow. Also, staff will be evaluating expanding the ExpressPermitsMV building permit program to incorporate the four small-footprint land uses. For any commissioners not familiar, this program allows for a more condensed review for a building permit, and it includes a scheduled Zoom meeting with city staff reviewers and the applicant's project team over a three-week time window.

[00:24:05] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: In conclusion, staff recommends that the Environmental Planning Commission recommend that the City Council adopt an ordinance amending City Code Chapter 36 and find that these amendments are not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act. Thank you for your time. Staff is available to answer any questions. Also here tonight is Amanda Rotella, Economic Vitality Manager, to assist with any questions. Thanks.

[00:25:12] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Ms. Faul. Uh, we will proceed to the questions, uh, portion from the commission. Are there any questions that the commissioners would like to field at this time? Uh, Commissioner Subramanian.

[00:25:30] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you Chair, and thank you staff for your presentation. I had a couple of questions to clarify some of the points that were noted. In the staff report under parking and permit exemptions, um, number three, there was reference to the qualifying small footprint land use being exempt from meeting the minimum number of parking spaces, but I think elsewhere it speaks about exempting it from providing any new or additional spaces. So could you clarify what is intended there?

[00:26:50] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Thank you Commissioner for the question. Um, so the intent is to, um, essentially not require the business to provide any additional or new parking. Um, so whatever parking standard is set in the parking standards table in the code, uh, would not apply. So whatever parking is available on the property, um, would be sufficient. Um, the caveat that is noted in the report that I'll just highlight now is the building code requirements about certain electric vehicle parking and accessibility or ADA parking would still apply.

[00:27:27] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you for the clarification. So the idea is that the code would be updated to the new, newer standards and therefore the businesses don't have to provide anything in addition to the new standard? Is that...

[00:28:20] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um, so there's two different points. Um, in terms of the new parking standards, it really is the, um, like there's the retail, you know, component and the restaurant, I'm sorry, retail component and the personal service component, um, that we are updating that parking standard in this package of amendments sort of across the board that would apply to any of those uses in the city. Um, in terms of the small business footprint, it's only those four listed uses if they comply with sort of the framework we've established, then they wouldn't be subject to adding any new or additional parking for what's that standard set.

[00:29:00] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you.

[00:29:05] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Dempsey.

[00:29:05] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Help me understand the reasoning behind running this analysis for all the commercial spaces but not for any of the kind of heavy retail precise plan areas.

[00:30:02] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: That's a great question. I think part of our effort here was to look at, you know, what, where we're seeing a lot of these permits getting triggered and what are those land uses. Um, and so really we started from what we know, what the history, you know, tells us. And so for us that was really a starting point. Um, and so a lot of that is focused in the commercial areas. Um, I will say the list of uses, I'm sorry, the permits history we did look at does include, um, some of the provisional use permits that are in the precise plan areas. Um, this effort, uh, if you can't tell by the size of these attachments, is quite large. Um, and so I think we wanted to focus on what we felt was achievable in this first pass. Um, but as we mentioned, um, towards the end of the presentation, you know, there is an effort of carrying some of these, uh, cleanups and other effort into the precise plan areas. I will highlight a number of the existing precise plans already allow for some of this streamlining. Um, so the effort really is to look at, um, you know, where do we need to make further tweaks.

[00:31:48] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Does that include any of the big three? The San Antonio, El Camino, and Downtown?

[00:31:53] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, so a number of them, the way those provisions are set up in those precise plans already allowed for some of the streamlining that our current commercial zones don't allow. So some of it's already being achieved. Um, I think part of the effort and the additional work we need to do is to see where are, where are those, where are there still differences that we may need to tweak.

[00:32:12] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: The, uh, this is probably not something, not data that you have right now, but I think this might be a useful data point for, uh, for when the council sees it. If you could give me a sense of how many of the small-footprint retail businesses in Mountain View are going to be covered by this change and how many are left out of it, I would be very interested to know that. So if you could tell me you're going to get 80% of the small footprint, small businesses in Mountain View by doing what we're doing here, I would say right on. If it ended up being like 60, 50, I'd be concerned. Because actually I, I so support, this isn't comment time so let me just say, um, I think there, the work done here appears to be really good work and I would love to see it applied more broadly if we can do that with relative ease. So but anyway, I think that data point would be useful for a further iteration of this.

[00:33:40] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Yeah, and what I would, um, add to that, and I appreciate the comment, is, um, essentially based on the surveyed history we see, the four uses we're talking about is 37% of the use permits we see. So it was the majority by far, um, in terms of packaging uses, you know, of a similar kind that, um, are having an impact. So, um, we'll see what data we can pull, but I hear what you're saying in terms of it would be helpful information.

[00:34:09] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: And I do think just the fact that the, uh, the chamber raised it as an important next step is another piece of data that suggests there's probably going to be some value to it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[00:35:01] Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh, excellent. And, uh, we are, uh, in the question phase. Appreciate the commentary, uh, just in the vein of, uh, kind of keeping this rolling here. Um, questions, uh, Commissioner Pham.

[00:35:15] Commissioner Tina Pham: Uh, one of my questions, uh, was already asked by Commissioner Dempsey, so thank you for that. Um, another question I had was just more general context around the motivation for this work. I know some of it came from council and council priorities, um, but was there any motivation or influence regionally or statewide, uh, for some of these amendments?

[00:35:39] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, appreciate the question, Commissioner. Um, I think, you know, a lot of, uh, and what we sort of tried to identify in, I think the beginning of the staff report, um, it is a common practice for us here in the City of Mountain View every couple of years to come forward with kind of a package of minor code amendments and cleanups. So it's not unusual for us to be doing that. I think, um, uh, so that is kind of a common, um, effort that we put forward. A lot of the focus here was on implementing the Economic Vitality Strategy and sort of the small business focus. I'd say a lot of the cleanup effort, um, quite honestly, sometimes when you introduce, um, new staff, new regulations, new state law, you start realizing, um, there's things we could clean up and present better in our code. And I think that's really all the effort, a lot of the effort here is, is a lot of that. Um, and I think also just hearing a lot of the feedback and implementing the code and hearing the feedback we hear from the, the business or property owner community, um, helps also kind of drive some of the list of amendments we do. And making it, a lot of the effort in this package of amendments is really to make it easier for someone to track their use across the different aspects of our code, um, which is really challenging for someone to do today. Um, so a lot of this is to try and build a better user interface with our zoning code, both from a public perspective and business perspective, and also from a staff implementation perspective. So, um, I would say, you know, it's a lot of those things wrapped up into this package of cleanups.

[00:38:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And Chair, if you'll allow, good evening, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Um, all of the reasons that the Assistant Director mentioned, uh, are important and relevant. I'll say another driving force from my perspective in giving direction and guidance on this work is vacancy elimination. Um, vacancies are problematic, um, when they occur in our community, and eliminating barriers for small businesses to open, uh, particularly low hanging fruit where we can resolve parking issues proactively that we know even after going through the process don't surface as ongoing operational issues, um, is important. Uh, the time and the cost associated with obtaining these discretionary permits is significant for small businesses and it leads to them, um, failing because they consumed so many resources early in that process, or looking for some other community to locate in and not resolving a vacancy in Mountain View. And so to the extent we can speed up the time that those vacancies are resolved and occupied by businesses that want to locate and thrive in our community, um, that's important work and that's a driving force for this as well.

[00:40:19] Chair Alex Nuñez: Any further question? No? All right. Uh, thank you, uh, Commissioner Pham. Commissioner Cranston?

[00:40:24] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Did I wait long enough? Okay. Um, for people that were wondering, I've been told that they can't hear me on the things, so they gave me a microphone. Um, [mic fumble]. So, several questions. Um, the 37% that were in these categories, can you characterize what the other 63% was?

[00:41:34] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um, so a number of them, I think examples were listed in the staff report, but essentially, um, there wasn't a lot of consistency across the board on what some of those other uses were, but they ranged from things like office, research and development. We've done school CUPs, childcare related CUPs. Um, I think that's what's coming to mind.

[00:41:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. And then of the 86% that were under 4,000, were all of those in this category? Or were, were they spread out? Were some of these retail, restaurants, personal service, indoor, larger than the 4,000?

[00:42:15] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I apologize, Commissioner. You're asking of all the 95 permits?

[00:42:19] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So on slide four, you say that 86% of the 35 permits were for tenant spaces under 4,000. Okay. So that was, so that's limited to these four categories?

[00:42:34] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Correct.

[00:42:35] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. All right. Um, of those, how many of those were located—so there, when you look at the map, there are areas that are, I tend to think of as retail-ish, you know, it's a shopping center, some kind of plaza of some kind. But there's also three, the three largest blocks are not, okay. The area along Middlefield, the area along Moffett, and the area that's kind of tucked between 237 and 85. How many of those permits were into those, in those large areas rather than in the other areas that were included?

[00:43:52] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, I appreciate the question, Commissioner. I don't have necessarily a specific breakdown, but I can say, um, that we do get a frequent amount of CUPs in the CS zone along Old Middlefield Way. Um, and we do get a handful in the CN or the commercial neighborhood zones, which are primarily the shopping centers. Um, and then we would get a smaller portion of them in the CRA zone, which is along Moffett. Um, and we get, um, very few, if any, in the CO, the commercial office.

Segment 2

[00:45:00] Peter Katz: study have unfortunately become barriers to our ability to attract the kinds of businesses that residents want and need in Mountain View. The zoning code needs updating to reflect modern business trends and to support the vitality of our commercial areas and retail centers, many of which have struggled to fill vacancies over the years. The proposed changes will proactively remove zoning barriers and encourage a number of popular businesses to locate in our shopping centers and commercial areas such as personal services businesses, indoor recreation, studios, and fitness centers. In particular, the streamlined process for small format uses less than 4,000 square feet will significantly reduce the timeline, cost, and risk for small businesses wanting to open up in Mountain View. We often hear from our members that Mountain View has a reputation for being a tough town to do business in and that many desirable businesses are choosing to locate elsewhere. These zoning changes will make Mountain View more competitive, help us attract the kinds of businesses Mountain View residents want and need, and they will go a long way towards demonstrating that Mountain View is a business-friendly city. Let's keep it going! We hope the city will extend these changes to many of our precise plan areas where we've seen similar changes. Again, we thank staff for responding to input from the business community and property owners and for working collaboratively with us and for all your hard work on this. We are very excited to see this move forward to the City Council for approval. Thank you.

Segment 1

[00:45:10] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Do you have any way of assessing who, what we're not seeing? When, given the current, what we have here today, what are we not getting? Because I'm, I'm, it's one of the things I'm struggling with this. Is it, this is a, I am, generally like the idea, but I'm, I'm a little worried that this is narrower than it should be. So, how do you, do you have any way of getting a feel for what's missing at all? I mean, have you, as you talked to brokers, have they said, 'They just won't bring something even into Mountain View simply because it's just not something that's feasible?' I, that's what I'm trying to get a sense of.

Segment 2

[00:45:33] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Mr. Katz. Mr. Clerk, any other speakers?

[00:45:37] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No more.

[00:45:38] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Then in that case we will proceed to deliberation from the Commission and then take action. Any commentary or input from the Commissioners?

[00:45:46] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Gutiérrez?

[00:45:47] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yep. I like the changes. I like that there was an initiative there to engage with the community, especially the business community in general, but just overall to also find out what's going on around us so that you can make the best decision possible to present to the EPC and then move forward with suggested changes to the zoning codes. One way or another when you have that type of initiative and proactive perspective, things do get done. So I thank you for being able to look into that and to bring us something here that we can all agree on will help move the needle and that you're also thinking about the future perspective of how to incorporate this within other precise plans accordingly, right, based on workload and opportunity. We don't know what that may look like for you all because you all know your schedule a lot better than we do. But at anytime you have the chance to do something like that at that level, that would also be appreciated. And just a friendly reminder to members of the community like with the Chamber of Commerce or other business owners in general that are interested in future potential sites: If you see and encounter issues with the City of Mountain View and any step of the process as you interact with us to open up a potential business and you see an opportunity to give us constructive criticism, we're here. You can talk to us, you can email us, us or the team or City Council. It's not like it's a one-way conversation, right? It's not just always initiated by the city. Sometimes big changes also happen when we get that type of feedback along the way. So we appreciate your time and patience with all that. Thank you team.

Segment 1

[00:45:50] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I'll be honest, Commissioner, it's a hard question to answer in the sense that, um, we had to start this exercise somewhere. And so I think for us it was starting with what we know historically and what we've heard consistently. I think, sort of what I'm hearing you ask is almost like a larger study of what sort of retail marketplace, you know, we could attract or services we could attract that we don't currently have, which wasn't necessarily part of this scope or effort. Um, but I think for us, this was really an exercise of starting somewhere, and I think starting where we hear and interact with customers the most, which is really at this ground floor, sort of as the director highlighted, sort of low lying fruit that we know is, are uses trying to locate here. Um, and so improving that existing process, but, um, in terms of a broader study, that would take a much different effort to undertake.

Segment 2

[00:47:08] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Commissioner Gutiérrez. Commissioner Pham.

[00:47:12] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um I want to thank staff for all the work here. It was a lot of work based on our read and it's great to have a lot of community support for this. And you explained the motivations very well so it was, you know, easy to understand and easy to get around. One one thing I would ask that you consider potentially for the Council audience is some sort of language to explain your guys's plan to expand this to the precise plan. I know that you mentioned it may be impacted by workload or other priorities but just some general paragraphs or thought about how it could work out and what it may look like and schedule would be helpful for that Council audience. That's all.

Segment 1

[00:47:28] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, the decision to extend the rules for these into the other areas, um, that aren't included in this, why was that decision made?

Segment 2

[00:47:53] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Commissioner Pham. Vice Chair Donahue.

[00:47:56] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: I also think this is great. I think that it's clear that this is not something you just did last week, that it's taken a lot of effort to get here. So thank you for that. I think it really, well hopefully, will help the small businesses. You know, that's... we'll see, but that's the goal and I think that's a worthy goal. I think that the the parking standard, I mean Mountain View is a special city but I don't think it's special in how much parking is necessary for for certain uses. So I think that that aligning with some of our kind of peer cities makes a lot of sense. And other miscellaneous changes I think are also important. I... like one thing that stood out to me was replacing churches with religious institutions. I mean we have the Buddhist temple here, right? That that I think being more inclusive in that way is great and and and many of the other language changes I think are great. So generally I'm supportive and and good work.

Segment 1

[00:48:25] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um, so I think in terms of why we didn't go beyond the commercial districts, uh, we have a number of precise plans. I think again, trying to take this effort and have a starting point, this was something we felt like we could achieve and bring forward and start and see its impact. Um, I think in terms of, uh, the effort of undertaking the review of the numerous precise plans we have would be a larger undertaking that we just didn't think we could do in combination with this at the same time.

[00:48:55] Commissioner Bill Cranston: That wasn't actually my question. Let me ask it a different way. Um, things like the parking standards are being extended to areas that are not part of what you're calling a small-footprint land use streamlining. Those parking standards affect businesses that don't fit into these categories. Why were something like the parking standards extended to other things in the standards that don't meet the same kind of characteristics as these kind of businesses are?

Segment 2

[00:48:57] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Mr. Vice Chair. Commissioner Dempsey.

[00:48:59] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. Let me be stunningly unoriginal and say I also like this. And I really want to commend staff for putting so much good work into, you know, into code hygiene, which doesn't get the respect that it deserves. That's like actually really important to do cleanup. So, so I love what you're doing here. I think the only, I wouldn't even call it a criticism, the only request I would make is I want more of this. I think it's valuable when you do this and I would love to see it expanded to the precise plans. In fact, you know, I'd love to see some... just as Commissioner Pham said, some conversation about when this might... you might be able to do that. Because here's what I worry: My worry is there's so many other things that the city has to do, that when will the window open to do this again? A year from now? I think that's potentially a pretty significant loss. Especially for the precise plan areas where we... we talk a lot about vacancy and we worry about those vacancies. If this is going to be useful, if this is going to be helpful, like let's let's take a good idea and have more of it. So anyway, bravo for that. The only part that made me worry was the reduction in parking requirements. I always worry about that. A lot of times there's nothing we can do about it. I do want to commend staff. You did an excellent job of explaining precisely why it needed to be reduced and why that was a reasonable choice. That was probably the best explanation of why why we're going to do what we're going to do. So I thought that was fantastic and I just I want to praise you for that as well. So good work. More of it, please.

Segment 1

[00:50:08] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um, in terms of the, and we'll use the example of the parking standards for retail and personal service. Uh, when we did the survey, seeing that we had the highest standard for us was sort of a red flag of why we're not potentially one of the issues of why we're not attracting retail. Um, and so for us it seemed like a very, um, straightforward thing we could take an action on and propose, uh, for consideration in terms of trying to alleviate any of the zoning barriers we might have for that type of use, especially since we hear about it so much at community meetings and other outreach efforts as an interest, you know, a use that is of interest. Um, and you're correct, it does go beyond, uh, the small footprint business framework we're talking about. Um, but it is still centralized on the commercial and industrial zones, um, and a handful of the precise plans that reference the parking standards. But, um, I think for us that was a, that was a one way to additionally address the Economic Vitality Strategy action item related to parking barriers.

Segment 2

[00:50:32] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Commissioner Cranston.

[00:50:35] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So, I'm going to say first I like the direction here. I will but I I need to so I'm I'm going to come across as a little bit negative, but I need to give some context, okay? So I am a small business owner with 3,000 square feet of space. Um, when I looked at this I did not immediately... when I saw small footprint land use streamlining I thought 'Oh, this is me. This is not me.' Okay? It is not me at all. This labeling this as small footprint is for consumer small consumer facing small footprint. And so let me walk through my concerns here. Because so I'm I agree with Commissioner Dempsey, this needs to be extended but there's some things in here that I don't believe we should be doing because they would actually hurt someplace like me. My business is I'm a I'm a small printer, okay? I think of myself as more of a commercial printer. It's not a copy shop. I'm not a, you know, a FedEx office. Um but I do business with consumers. People want to... I got called today, somebody wants to do their wedding invitations. Somebody's you know son got killed, they need a a poster for the funeral. Um they need business cards at churches. But I also do stuff for events and I do stuff... I do graphics for business windows, okay? So these kind of places that you're talking about here want to put something on the window that says 'Hey we're open from 9:00 to 5:00' so I'll make the graphics for them. So it's not... I'm not consumer facing, I'm more the businesses services... business services piece. And as I looked through this, I had actually... I went back to the beginning I'm like did I miss something? And I realized yeah I this isn't me. Um this is very focused on the things that are consumer facing. And some of the things in particular um would actually make it harder. In particular the parking standards, okay? The extension of the parking standards, you're saying it's too... it's getting too low. It's the... it's way too high. Okay? I have 3,000 square feet of space. About 40% of my space today is equipment and inventory. I'm trying to add another piece of equipment that will take me to over 50% of my space being equipment. That means out of the 3,000 square feet I would need to have 12 parking spaces and I have four employees. Okay? There's a similar business in Sunnyvale that's double my size, 6,000 square feet and he's got eight employees and he lives with 10 parking spaces. Saying that I need to... we need 250 square feet per of for of these other areas... and and I don't I don't have the the delivery van and the and the uh and the and the trailer that he has but he would actually have to have 26 parking spaces for something where he needs 10. So the extension... I I'm what I'm concerned about, I like the changes for the customer facing pieces. I'm really concerned that the extending these into areas that were not part of what you looked at is going to actually make it harder for somebody to actually move into the city. There used to be a business like mine in San Fran... in in this in in in in this area, okay? And it went out of business during COVID. It hasn't come back. A lot of printers went away but I could never with and with these requirements I could never afford to have 12 parking spaces in addition to my 3,000 square feet, okay? The definitions in here today that were the changes that are being made... printers today, I have large format printers, I do window graphics. I don't just I don't do I do I do quick copy. I do posters, I do banners, you know, 'Grand Opening for my new restaurant! Yay!' Okay? That's what I print, okay? Menus, I print those. Business cards for the people, I print those. I'm not I'm not the consumer but I'm serving... I'm one of those business services. And the definition that's been in here for... I sort of looking for things okay what... I I I would not meet the criteria for what a printing business does. I drove past a uh a place that does um uh the stuff you put on windows uh like in cars. Um private you know where they want to tint their windows. There's nowhere in this definitions that would cover that kind of a business. I drove past one that does vehicle wraps. Is that a consumer facing? It's mo- most of the time vehicle wraps are being done for businesses. They wouldn't fall in here either. So I'm I'm concerned that so for the areas that this is focused on, which is the consumer facing pieces, I'm in, okay? I'm really worried that the areas that weren't part of focus have not had sufficient attention to be actually to be incorporated into the changes we're recommending to Council. And I think we need to go back and look at those before we make those make make the the ext- the changes that go that far. I'd be happy to give you my thoughts on the commercial printing business and and the things that that kind of touch that but I don't know somebody who does you know uh you know engine modifications or you know a lot of other things. A lot of stuff... the reason I asked about Middlefield and the area over by um the 237-85 area... those are not primarily consumer facing streets. Okay? Yeah people can go in there get their car repaired um but there's a lot of other businesses in there that are doing other things. There's a I can think of a camera repair place, there's you know there's there's I mean there are some high end vehicle repair locations but there's a fair number that wouldn't fit in this and that's part of my reason for asking about the these strip things because if somebody wanted to add another you know ten- a landlord wanted to add a business to fill up one of those spaces and had to add you know 20 parking spaces for businesses that don't exist, you know they would never be able to rent that space. So I don't know how I don't know how to feed fold that into this discussion because for the focus of the what I wh- when I went back to the beginning I read 'Okay this is the consumer facing stuff,' I like it. I'm really not in favor... I'm not on board with the extension of these things into areas that aren't consumer facing. And because they're they would actually make it... I could not move into Mountain View to do this. The the business that went out of business during COVID could not move back into the city under these rules as the way they are today as a business services. So that's my like I said I don't... I like the consumer facing piece. I'm in. How do we amputate the business piece or call it phase two uh for a follow-on to address these other areas? That's what I would be that's what I'm worried about and I will let staff tell me how we would do something like that. But I I don't know that I could support this as is without finding some way to amputate that portion for small business... small footprint land use phase two. Okay?

Segment 1

[00:51:55] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I think that's anything else I have would be more in the go into the discussion section, so I'll wait.

[00:52:00] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Uh, Vice Chair Donahue.

[00:52:04] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: So I just have one remaining question, and it relates to something I think that Commissioner Dempsey was talking about. Uh, so you said that the, that this doesn't apply to the precise plan areas, I understand that. Uh, unless the precise plan specifically refers to the standards of a commercial zoning district. So do you have any sense of, I don't think that you answered this, but do you have any sense of which precise plans or how much of, uh, you know, the precise plan areas, uh, do that?

[00:53:20] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, we actually have a slide, uh, as a backup because we thought this might come up. Um, there's five precise plans explicitly that reference, um, the zoning, either the zoning land use table or specifically reference the parking standards in the zoning code, or, uh, specifically reference what I'll call the exempt, um, or certain uses or scenarios that are exempt from a planning permit, uh, which is where we put, uh, language related to the small-footprint business exemptions. So, um, these five have some element of these amendments where it would relate back to them. Um, and so I'll just take for example, um, the Downtown Parking, or the Downtown Precise Plan currently, um, has references to the parking standards of other listed land uses, um, in that precise plan if it doesn't have the standard in it today, it refers you back to the zoning table. Um, and so there are scenarios where, you know, adopting this package of amendments would effectively, uh, make change in some of these areas.

[00:55:10] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. Uh, yeah, great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

[00:55:18] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. All right. Uh, I have a question then. Um, in regards to the recency of, um, the parking analysis. So in the, uh, presentation, uh, I think you guys mentioned that we're currently the, uh, you know, that 180, uh, number is, uh, the highest, uh, amongst our kind of like neighboring cities. Um, was any, uh, accounting done for the recency? So for example, um, that 250 number that would bring us on par with Sunnyvale, for example, um, was that a standard that just got revised to get to that 250? Um, or is it like some number from the 1980s or how do we know that, you know, they're not looking at their own parking situation and going, 'Er, right?' I guess, are we modernizing? How do we know we're not modernizing to something that's going to be un-modern in, you know, five years or something like that?

[00:57:00] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um, that's a great question. In terms of the surveying done, it was based on all the existing zoning parking standards that these cities have available. Um, so I'll be honest, I don't know the timing of all of them. Um, but again, for us, uh, it was a very evident sort of concern that we were the highest when we surveyed these cities, and these cities are ones that have popular downtowns and popular commercial centers and corridors. And so, uh, I do know at least some of the handful of cities, uh, have more recently looked at their parking standards. Um, I know, uh, a portion of City of San Mateo did. I know a portion of, um, uh, Sunnyvale as well. And so, there are certain cities where they've definitely done some, you know, more recent updates, but I don't have specific dates or time frames for that.

Segment 2

[00:57:25] Chair Alex Nuñez: Yes staff, uh any commentary on kind of in what ways business services were accounted for in the plan or uh any kind of amelioration or uh resolution to Commissioner Cranston's concerns there?

[00:57:35] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah I'll just start by saying um we're not here telling you that we're done. Our code needs a lot of work, our precise plans need a lot of work as well. Um as the Assistant Director mentioned, um you know speed was important, right, and the ability uh of what we could put together and bring timely to respond to identified uh business community needs was important to us. And so we didn't want to stop and try to do the omnibus, you know, code modernization process and be done in three years and have a bunch of businesses fail or vacancies remain and persist. And so um this is what we could do efficiently, effectively and quickly and and that's why we've brought it. Um receiving this feedback about what, you know, priority next step items would be is very helpful to us and so we'll take that feedback uh and put that into our our work planning to the extent that we can.

[00:58:25] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you uh uh Commissioner... uh uh Mr. Murdock. Yeah uh uh Yeah, Commissioner Gutiérrez.

Segment 1

[00:58:34] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Um, Commissioner Subramanian.

Segment 2

[00:58:38] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Alright cool. Um so I have a quick question. Uh now that Commissioner Cranston brought this up. Christian and team in general. Is the way that Commissioner Cranston described his business, would that under our terms and understanding for the definitions you gave us as consumer interfacing businesses, would his business fall under that auspice or is it something else?

Segment 1

[00:58:40] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you, Chair. I have a quick follow-up question. Um, recognizing that the revised parking standards will probably be applicable to any new businesses that are coming in, um, how do you see the impact of this being applied to existing businesses given that a lot of, you know, legacy retail has the larger parking? Is there a process in which some of this can be applied at a different stage to them as well?

Segment 2

[00:59:04] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Um well I guess part of the question would be um so we have two different categories he could potentially fall under for that type of business. It could either be printing and publishing, which um is a use in our code. Um we also have a use called business support services today. Um and so there is some photocopying type uses that are in that and that's typically more of a business to business type of sales. Um and so um you know those would be the two different uses that we would consider for for the description he gave for his business.

Segment 1

[00:59:15] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, great question. I think in terms of how, um, these new parking standards, if they go, you know, get adopted and go into effect, would impact existing sites, it's really going to get triggered only if they have a turnover in tenancy. Uh, in which case, uh, if they're already parked at today's standard, they'd have no problem meeting the new standard. Um, which to some extent may be a benefit for those properties because they might be able to have a different mix of uses on the site that were maybe more challenging to meet, um, under the current parking standards. So there are benefits in that regard, but, um, it really only gets triggered when there's some sort of permit request coming in.

Segment 2

[00:59:40] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Thank you team.

[00:59:41] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Uh Commissioner Gutiérrez. Commissioner Pham. Okay. Then in that case I I will make commentary. Um I I do like it um as well. Um you know I I in particular I'm very um receptive to the idea of making sure we can do something now um rather than uh yeah uh not being as nimble as uh we could be in the moment. Um one thing I'm trying to uh glom onto as well uh Director Murdock you said that there was an opportunity to uh you know kind of um move forward by also uh I think as you mentioned in in that vein of not being done yet, right, and us having an opportunity to kind of give um affirmative feedback on what's the next kind of priority area we would like to have the Council um look at or consider. Um is that kind of business service orientation um something that we could uh for example um you know move this forward with an additional um kind of you know guidance from the Commission that you know business service distinguish or or differentiation is is is a priority item that we'd like the Council to consider as well? Is that is that something that would be able to to do as part of this action?

Segment 1

[01:00:35] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you.

[01:00:38] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Gutiérrez.

[01:00:40] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Chair. I have a couple quick basic questions. So, when you looked at the comparisons with other cities regarding the parking space allotment, were you able to also figure out or determine if there was a positive impact with those spaces that might have been not, uh, rented out or leased out to then have a business opportunity show up? Because it would be nice to be able to see that correlation and say, 'Well, in Sunnyvale they did this, or in the other surrounding cities, when they did this, they had a certain percentage of vacancy, and then afterwards the percentage of vacancy decreased.' And if you brought that up really in the report, forgive me, I missed it because I came in late, so.

Segment 2

[01:00:59] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So I don't think we'll be able to add that work in, you know, to catch up to the Council process as part of this. I think hearing from the individual Commissioners as we have about other areas they wish could have been a part of this is as much as we need I think at this point in time to think about um how we might prioritize the next stage of work. Um there's already the need to prioritize the precise plans for this work and so again you can see how this work can easily um agglomerate into uh a significant effort. And so um we take these uh types of feedback and and prioritization from Commissioners and try to factor them into how we we lay out and prioritize our work.

[01:01:34] Chair Alex Nuñez: Right. Um because I also heard from Commissioner uh Pham and Dempsey uh some desire around um some kind of um just directional input to Council on 'Hey we also want to understand a little bit more around how this is going to expand to precise plans.' Um and so you know I want to make sure that uh you know we if if there's that majority sentiment on that, not necessarily imparting it as like um 'Hey this is what the priority ought to be' but more like guidance from the Commission on um what we think you know Council should explore as that kind of next prioritization item. Um more along those lines um because I I I I am hearing uh you know majority support here for this as is but I also want to make sure that I um capture um if there's majority sentiment as Commissioner Pham and Dempsey are kind of um indicating which, you know, I wouldn't think is a bad idea as well and and obviously understanding you have your own um work cadence and and you you know structure that you need to um be mindful of. Um just trying to thread that needle there. Is is that something that's possible in terms of uh because I know for sure I would agree you know I I'd like to see some um differentiation you know in the vein of not being done here right um in terms of uh facilitating business services facilitating um you know a future with uh regard to how we're looking at the precise plans around this. Um without slowing this down. Um how does that land for you in terms of just like um just possibility there?

Segment 1

[01:01:59] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I appreciate the question. I think, um, you know, did we specifically talk to city staff in those cities and ask them that question? I'll be honest, no, but, um, it is definitely something we can follow up with some of the, you know, the cities that we know have more recent, you know, done more recent updates. I will caveat to say parking is often not the only thing that will bring in a tenant or business, but it is a major factor. Um, so there's often a combination of things that cities, you know, do to try and streamline.

[01:02:29] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Great, thank you. I'd appreciate that. I'm thinking a couple members of the City Council might be interested in that. That's why I also brought that up just because it's always good to have some sort of exemplar. Like you had the, uh, which was awesome, I like it when you anticipate some of the questions that we may have asked and all of a sudden you have a slide just in case, right? That's awesome. And then the other basic question is for the City Attorney. Good to see you again. Um, when you look at, when I look at the, um, finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act. I've always wanted to ask this and it triggered my curiosity even more when I saw the article earlier today on the Mountain View Voice where, uh, Los Altos is having some sort of lawsuit over a CEQA, uh, quote unquote violation. How do you all check that to make sure that it's not covered by CEQA? Does a team check with the City Attorney office and do they in turn check with the state agency somehow somewhere? Or how does that process work where you can say exactly what you just said, which is finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act?

Segment 2

[01:02:49] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right so for from my perspective it's about hearing what's important from the Commissioners and then taking that back and figuring out how we can try to work that into other processes, other work that we have to do. What I'm not able to do is commit to you that what you provide feedback on tonight will become the priority. There's too many um too many other things I need to balance in that regard of course.

[01:03:12] Chair Alex Nuñez: Of course. Perfect. Good thing that's not the ask. Um then in that case um I I am seeing majority support for this. Um you you know in terms of like I also share that concern um from Commissioner Cranston. Um I'm also um very amenable to Commissioner Pham and Commissioner Dempsey's uh view on kind of expanding this to the precise plan just having some kind of understanding on that. Um Commissioner Cranston I will go to you in a second I just want to make sure Commissioner Subramanian, did you have any commentary on this before we...

[01:03:42] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you Chair. I am generally in support of what is being proposed here.

[01:03:46] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay thank you. Uh Commissioner Cranston.

[01:03:50] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So I'm going to make a motion. Um is it possible for staff to pull up the exhibit on the ordinance itself and go to page 39?

Segment 1

[01:04:08] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So, um, staff typically takes a look at what the action is and applies whatever categorical or statutory exemption, if one applies, and we work together closely on all the CEQA exemptions. In this case, um, we've identified two bases for CEQA compliance, um, each as a separate and independent basis. But we do work together.

Segment 2

[01:04:29] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Uh looks like uh Commissioner Gutiérrez is seconding so we have a motion from Commissioner Cranston seconded by Commissioner Gutiérrez. Just letting staff know.

[01:04:39] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So what I'm going to do is the is move that the addition and edit to the Processing and Production section be removed from the proposal in its entirety and reviewed at a future date. The biggest concern I have is in these kind of things all the businesses service business services fall under these kind of things and these are the ones that to me um the the change in the parking requirements makes them infeasible in the city in its entirety. So I believe these were uh my I believe these were added um in with without there wasn't bad intention, okay? But I think the addition of these is actually making makes it more difficult for businesses to come into the city and stay than than they could otherwise and there wasn't sufficient diligence done on these things to adequately to see whether or not this is a positive or a negative. So my motion is the section starts Processing and Production and ends on the next page at Public Safety Facilities that that section be removed from the proposed draft going to Council.

Segment 1

[01:05:12] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Great. Thank you. And I'm sure, uh, I should have asked that before, but thanks for the response. I appreciate that. Those are all my questions.

[01:05:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So a follow-up to Commissioner... at the end, I can't pronounce your last name very well... Subramanian. Um, so I'm trying to put this in my head. I'm thinking of one of the places, my favorite place for breakfast. It's on Middlefield. It's a little restaurant, kind of faces Middlefield, but it's in one of these, a lot of the buildings along Middlefield are these kind of low, almost like a office strip mall kind of a thing. And it goes back and there's like six units beyond it. If the tenant, if they wanted to rent the space next to the restaurant, would they have to meet the parking standards even though the building doesn't have anywhere near enough space to allow these kind of standards in anything except the one that's facing the street? Or is it because the building already exists, they could do it anyway? Or is it simply they, they could not even a thing to apply in those areas?

Segment 2

[01:05:44] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yeah so I wasn't aware that he was going to make that modification so I withdraw my request for to second.

[01:05:50] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Um could I ask a clarification of the question uh Commissioner Cranston posed? So without the addition of these parking requirements what does the current code require?

[01:06:03] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Appreciate the question, clarifying question. Um currently uh most of these uses would have no independently listed parking standard for the use listed. Um but what generally and historically has been applied is the, if you look on page 37, it's the Manufacturing and Industrial General parking standard, which is the same parking standard as what has been delineated in that section. So the intent um of these amendments was to simply match in this case what historically has applied to what the listed land use was. Um and so in our zoning code just for further clarification in our zoning code if there isn't a listed sort of parking standard at all, um it does defer to the Zoning Administrator to essentially make an interpretation on the parking and often uh if it's not a listed parking that's a similar sort of use that may apply, it would be a parking study that would be required.

[01:06:57] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right so said another way, um this was not intended to change the parking standard, it was intended to add clarity and connect the dots between uses and parking standards. Our code had a lot of gaps and inconsistencies and so this makes it clear that if you're one of those types of uses you're very clearly associated with a particular parking standard. There's less guesswork, there's less chance for mistake, misapplication of some other standard or triggering a parking study that is a you know complex and and costly endeavor.

Segment 1

[01:07:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: If I'm understanding the question, I'll start here. Um, in terms of how parking standards are applied to multi-tenant sites, uh, it's really when each use comes in, we verify the parking is met. On some sites, and I'll use the example as a shopping center, they have one parking standard applied to the whole center. So the independent uses, um, it's not triggered as much because as long as they, you know, meet the five or six uses listed in a shopping center definition, um, then we don't have to keep looking at parking over and over. For the multi-tenant sites, uh, I know a number of them on Old Middlefield Way in particular, um, we do have to kind of look at it case by case. I will say the benefit of what we're trying to present here with the small footprint businesses is if you are one of those four uses, we're not saying you have to add any parking or do any additional parking. We're basically saying you have to meet the basic accessible parking, um, on the, on the site, which a number of these sites might already meet even if you have a new use go in. And, uh, you would also need to meet, um, the electric vehicle charging requirements under the building code.

Segment 2

[01:07:28] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah thank you for the clarification.

[01:07:30] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Yeah and this is just to staff and maybe you did just answer the question I'm about to ask and I'm I'm being repetitive. I just want to understand the practical implication of the change to the motion that Commissioner Cranston had proposed. If you could just put it into plain English for me what it would mean to do what he said.

[01:07:50] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure I think it would uh result in those uses from the zoning land use side reverting to what's in the code currently, which is a more generalized description of those kinds of uses without very explicitly saying it's those uses from the use side. So when you go from the use to the parking side it's best to have a direct line from use to parking use and thus parking standard. Currently we do not have that for those uses and so the line is squiggly right or fuzzy and it's not clear where you draw that to in terms of a parking standard. You know we try through training and and common practice to be consistent but um there's a potential for misapplication because it's not explicit that use A goes to parking standard for use A.

[01:08:39] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay so there would be some net increase in in uh applicant confusion about what exactly the rule would be.

[01:08:46] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think that's our sense that it this increases clarity and reduces the chance for confusion or ambiguity.

[01:08:54] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay.

[01:08:57] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Cranston I'm not seeing a second for the motion.

Segment 1

[01:09:00] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. Uh, looks like that's all the questions. We'll move on to public comment for this item. Uh, if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Um, Mr. Clerk, uh, how many speakers do we have, either in person, in aggregate I guess, in person and online?

Segment 2

[01:09:00] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if it's I guess just a... How does it make it worse than what it is today? It just it what I'm suggesting is don't change it for now.

[01:09:12] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh it wouldn't be worse than what it is today um but what it is today is not helpful or clear from the staff's perspective and this as is proposed by staff would at least improve clarity um while we you know endeavor to find a time in the future to do the work that you've described about finding what's the appropriate parking standard that doesn't disincentivize these businesses and enables them to function optimally.

[01:09:37] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right I'm going to um presume that um that motion will not have a second. Um anyone else would like to make a motion or further the discussion? Thank you. Commissioner Gutiérrez.

[01:09:54] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Thank you Chair. Uh I move that we accept the recommendation by staff for the small business streamlining and other minor minor zoning code amendments as presented.

[01:10:07] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you do we have a second?

[01:10:09] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: I'll second.

[01:10:11] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. All right. Thank you Vice Chair Donahue. All right. I think we can put that on the screen. And Commissioner uh Gutiérrez if you would like to read the motion at the right appropriate time. I think staff is ready.

Segment 1

[01:10:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We have one speaker in person and one online.

[01:10:17] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Uh, can we do two and a half minutes?

[01:10:20] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Sure. Would you like, uh, in person or...? Okay. Um, so first speaker is Tim Vego.

Segment 2

[01:10:34] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Sure. Um I move that the Environmental Planning Commission recommend the City Council adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending Chapter 36 Zoning of the Mountain View City Code to implement the Economic Vitality Strategy by streamlining permit processes for certain active small footprint land uses, remove change of use permit requirements and reduce minimum parking standards for retail and personal service uses, to make other modifications, clarifications and technical corrections throughout the chapter to align land uses in the residential commercial and industrial zones with parking standards and definitions to improve consistency and clarity, and to modernize definitions and land uses to align with current business trends, and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission to be read in title only, further reading waived and parens attachment one to the staff report end parens.

Segment 1

[01:10:42] Tim Vego: Hi. So my name is Tim Vego and I am president of the Nicholson Company and we are, um, general partner of the Rengstorff Center up at, uh, 101 and Rengstorff Avenue. So just wanted to come in and kind of vocalize my support for these, uh, amendments that are being made to the zoning. Um, you know, streamlining, uh, the, the codes is very important for us. I mean, of course, um, having vacant spaces is, is deadly to us. We want to be able to get our spaces filled as soon as we can. And kind of what drove this in 2025 is that we had, uh, a possible tenant that, she was a resident of, of Mountain View, and she wanted to open up a Pilates studio in our center, and it just wasn't, um, zoned correctly for that. And so, you know, she had to start going through the CUP process, found it burdensome, and decided to, you know, move on to a space in Sunnyvale that, you know, apparently it was easier and quicker for, for her to open it. So, um, you know, they've come to us for outreach and we've given them our feedback and, you know, so we just really appreciate, uh, the efforts that have been made, um, to improve the situation. And that's all I wanted to say.

Segment 2

[01:11:48] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay please vote.

[01:11:54] Chair Alex Nuñez: The motion carries 6 yay and 1 no.

[01:11:56] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you uh Mr. Clerk. Uh having uh completed that item we will now move on to uh item 5.2 Mixed-Use Residential Project at 490 East Middlefield Road. First we'll have a staff presentation, then questions by the EPC, followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment the Commission will then deliberate and take action. We'll begin with a staff presentation from Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura and Principal Planner Diana Pancholi.

[01:12:49] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Real quick we are just going to make a quick announcement. This is just to let you know we have a desk item um for EPC related to this uh project. It is modifying the conditions of approval which is Attachment 1 Exhibit A uh for the proposed project. Uh the changes have been shown in redline.

[01:13:09] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you.

Segment 1

[01:13:23] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you very much for your comment. Mr. Clerk, uh, we'll proceed with the Zoom comment.

[01:13:35] City Clerk Heather Glaser: The next speaker is Peter Katz. Peter, you should be able to unmute yourself.

[01:13:39] Peter Katz: Can you hear me okay?

[01:13:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yes.

[01:13:44] Peter Katz: Great. Uh, thank you speaker and esteemed commissioners. I'm Peter Katz, President and CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce. Um, I first want to say that the, uh, Chamber really applauds staff and their efforts, and urges the EPC to recommend approval of these important changes to council. As was said earlier, the Chamber has been consulted a number of times and overall we see a lot of this code clean-up as being overdue, necessary, and very beneficial, especially to our small businesses. Um, Tim just gave one example. I can give you many, many more. Um, as noted, some of the long-standing issues in the zoning code that are addressed here and raised in the S...

Segment 2

[01:13:48] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Good evening Commissioners. My name is Jeffrey Tsumura, Senior Planner. I'm joined by Principal Planner Diana Pancholi. Item in front of you tonight is a mixed-use residential project at 490 East Middlefield Road. Okay, the project is on an approximately 2.86 acre site is located on the northwest corner of East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street. The site is currently developed with a two-story commercial office building. The General Plan designation is East Whisman Mixed-Use and zoning is within the P41 East Whisman Precise Plan. The surrounding uses include office buildings of varying height ranging from one to four story buildings. The project is requesting a Planned Community Permit and Development Review Permit to construct an eight-story mixed-use building with 460 apartment units and ground floor commercial. The project is approximately 391,775 square feet in size and includes a one-level at-grade parking garage with 442 stalls. Additionally the project is utilizing State Density Bonus Law for a 27.5% density bonus above base units. The project requests a Heritage Tree Removal Permit for the removal of 29 heritage trees with a proposed replacement of 173 trees. The project also includes a request for a Development Agreement between the applicant and the city to utilize both the East Whisman Precise Plan residential bonus FAR program and State Density Bonus Law to develop the additional floor area. As required under Section 36.54.15 of the City Code, the Zoning Administrator will separately consider and make a recommendation to City Council on the proposed Development Agreement. So to clarify the Development Agreement itself is not before the EPC tonight. Uh it's going to be subject to a recommendation by the ZA and would be considered separately by City Council. As the project is providing approximately 15% affordable units, the project is eligible for a 27.5% State Density Bonus, so up to 100 bonus units from the 361 base units. The applicant is proposing 99 bonus units for a total of 460 units. The project is also eligible for up to one concession and unlimited waivers of development standards. The applicant is requesting one concession that the applicant has indicated would result in identifiable... um excuse me... and actual cost reductions to provide for affordable housing costs pursuant to State Density Bonus Law to provide the BMR units as the smaller unit type offering otherwise required to be of comparable size to the market rate units per City Code. The applicant is requesting six waivers or reductions in development standards that would otherwise physically preclude the construction of the project at the density permitted. This includes relief from the East Whisman Precise Plan minimum 6-foot paseo requirements, minimum private open area dimensions, minimum bicycle parking, minimum common open space, minimum ground floor height, and full PUE dedication along the project frontage. Staff has determined that the project could not be constructed without these concessions and development standard waivers as full code compliance would generally require a reduction in density bonus area. The project includes fully affordable units at or below 80% of the Area Median Income or AMI, split between two income levels. This exceeds the city's 15% BMR requirement and provides for a wider variety of lower income units. Pursuant to city's BMR ordinance, the affordable units shall remain affordable in perpetuity. Aside from the unit size proportionality requested under the concession, the project complies with other requirements otherwise applicable under the BMR ordinance including distribution of affordable units throughout the development and bedroom count proportionate to the market rate units. The site is comprised primarily of the proposed mixed-use building with ground floor commercial uses along East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street. Surface parking and vehicle access is located along East Middlefield Road at the southwest corner and Ellis Street at the northeast corner and a secure ground level parking garage entry is also located near Ellis Street. The primary residential lobby is along East Middlefield Road which provides a mail and package room, leasing offices, access to the parking garage, a secure bike room, and residential upper level floors which include out uh shared outdoor amenities and interior common spaces. The project features a contemporary design. It's organized around a second floor courtyard with upper level roof decks that help break up the building mass. The building frames East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street and emphasizes the key corner with active ground floor uses, public artwork, and vertical articulation to support a pedestrian oriented streetscape. Massing is stepped and articulated with balconies and decks to produce uh to reduce perceived scale and a lighter plaster plastic plaster palette with dark metal accents further softens the building's height and bulk. The site contains a total of 112 existing trees: 25 heritage trees, 77 non-heritage trees, 5 five heritage street trees, and 5 non-heritage street trees. The existing tree inventory is largely composed of mature parking lot and perimeter trees, many of which are in poor to fair condition due to constrained planting areas, proximity to the building, and long-term conflicts with overhead utility lines. The project will require the removal of a total of 107 trees including 29 heritage trees, four of those uh of which are heritage trees... heritage street trees excuse me, and 78 non-heritage trees, two of which are street trees. Due to the poor health and growing conditions of the trees as well as the comprehensive redevelopment proposed on the site to accommodate the building and as well as site and frontage improvements, the tree removals are necessary for project feasibility. There are very limited locations where existing trees do not directly conflict with the construction or the long-term building operations. Um however four tulip trees and one coast redwood are proposed to be preserved in place along the Ellis Street side where project conflicts are not anticipated. The applicant proposes a total of 173 new replacement trees with a minimum box size of 24 inches and proposed at a nearly 6 to 1 replacement ratio which exceeds the city standard practice for a 2 to 1 replacement ratio for heritage trees. The new replacement trees are anticipated to create an onsite canopy coverage of 44.5% at full maturity based on the project site open space area compared to 35.6% of existing canopy coverage. The project provides approximately 34,400 square feet of common and private open space including a second floor podium courtyard, roof decks on the 4th and 7th floors, and landscape areas throughout the site. Streetscape improvements include new detached sidewalks, landscape strips and street trees along East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street with additional planting within the parking areas. While a waiver from the East Whisman Precise Plan open space requirements is requested, the landscape design meets the intent of the Precise Plan by enhancing usability, greenery, and pedestrian comfort. The project is within one half of a mile of a major transit stop and is therefore not required to provide any parking per Section 36.32.50 of the City Code as well as the East Whisman Precise Plan. The project is voluntarily proposing a ground floor parking garage with 442 assigned residential spaces utilizing a stacker system with additional standard and accessible stalls and a dedicated moving truck loading space. Additionally surface parking accessible from Ellis Street and East Middlefield Road is located along the north and west sides of the proposed building with 20 spaces dedicated to residential use and 34 commercial parking spaces as well as three loading spaces. The project will meet all required electric vehicle and accessible parking stalls per the City Code. Per the Precise Plan, projects with at least 100 units are required to provide a Transportation Demand Management plan or TDM plan with measures such as maximum parking and car share requirements, bicycle parking, and membership in the Mountain View Transportation Management Association. The applicant has provided a TDM plan and meets all the East Whisman Precise Plan requirements for residential TDM measures except for the minimum bike parking requirements which the applicant has requested a waiver for. The proposed TDM measures would result in a 14% peak hour reduction from all trips for the site and aligns with the Precise Plan goals of reducing vehicle trips and promoting alternative modes of transport. In addition the project complies with the East Whisman Precise Plan streetscape design standards as the project is proposing an 8-foot wide detached sidewalk as well as a 6-foot planter strip along East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street. Additionally new curb ramps and repainted crosswalks will be provided. The project is determined to be statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21080.66. Standard conditions of approval have also been incorporated in the project resolution for additional site testing and a preliminary endangerment assessment to mitigate any potential hazardous materials to acceptable levels for future occupants. Per the VMT policy the project is statutorily exempt and VMT is considered not to be an impact pursuant to CEQA PRC Section 21080.66. During the review process the project was reviewed at a Design Review Consultation meeting on September 3rd 2025. Those recommendations focused on enhancing the streetscape, ground floor activation, landscaping, and improvements to the building's articulation to alleviate building mass, accent colors, and materials. Subsequently the applicant implemented changes in paint color and stucco textures, incorporated additional landscaping to the retail courtyards, uh and additional shading elements throughout the residential floors to enhance the residential character of the building. Typically staff recommends that applicants host a neighborhood meeting for projects of a scale project of this scale to gather community input during the project review phase. The meeting is not mandatory but the project planner typically would attend the meeting if it is held. The applicant had declined to conduct a meeting a neighborhood meeting for this project. The project is tentatively scheduled for an Administrative Zoning hearing on September February 11th 2026 for review and recommendation of the Development Agreement and City Council for consideration of the EPC and ZA recommendation on March 10th 2026. Also want to note that uh after the agenda for this hearing was published, staff identified some uh necessary modifications to Attachment 1 in Exhibit A. Um those are the project conditions to modify some of those conditions based on applicant discussion. This includes modifications to conditions 5, 25, 33, 34, 45, 50, 67, 81, 84, 85, 127, 136, 138, 150, and 155. A list of the recommended revised conditions have been provided to the EPC as a desk item for consideration tonight and posted online for reference. In conclusion the project is found to be consistent with the applicable development standards, achieves General Plan and Housing Element goals for uh by increasing affordable housing opportunities in the city and helps meet the city's Regional Housing Needs Allocation. Therefore staff recommends that the Environmental Planning Commission recommend that the City Council adopt a resolution conditionally approving the Planned Community Permit, Development Review Permit, and Heritage Tree Removal Permit pursuant to the conditions of approval for the project attached uh to the Council report along with the modifications to the conditions of approval as described earlier. Staff has received uh one public comment on the item which has been provided to the EPC prior to this meeting via email and it's also available on Legistar. And this concludes staff's presentation. Uh staff community as well as Community Development Director Christian Murdock and Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blizinski is here tonight uh available to answer any questions you have. Um the applicant is also here and they will be making a presentation. Thank you.

[01:28:56] Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh thank you. Um quick uh question around the uh precedence of that is uh our EPC questions I guess... is is there a desired timeframe for the uh presentation from the uh project uh from the developer?

[01:29:06] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Sure our typical practice is to provide them 7 minutes.

[01:29:09] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Um sure. Is that... are you ready? Yeah?

[01:29:32] Brian Griggs: Chair Nuñez, Vice Chair Donahue and I hope I got that right. I was trying Donahue or Donahoe. I wasn't sure of the two. Um members of the Environmental Planning Commission, my name is Brian Griggs and I'm with my colleague Andrew Jacobson and um we're going to Andrew is going to take the lead really on presenting our project and some of the motivation behind it and why we're really excited to bring this before you tonight. I'm going to take a quick moment to uh thank your staff which has been really collaborative to work with. We've been able to process this...

Segment 3

[01:30:00] Brian Griggs: Specifically... and I think you've really got some talent between Jeff and Diana, and then the Public Works folks, Suzanne and Quinn have been just phenomenal along with Christian and Amber. So I commend you on the folks you've got and you should be really appreciated, uh, appreciate what you have because we work in a lot of different communities together. But Andrew's going to talk about the project. Um, we're both going to be able to answer questions, um, whether it's about affordability or other aspects. We've kind of worked on it collaboratively. But, uh, why don't you take over.

[01:30:28] Applicant: All right. Thank you very much, Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners. Um, really excited to uh present this project. I think the first image here kind of gives you the context, uh, of where the opportunity lied for us. We knew we wanted to uh provide housing. We knew we wanted to provide high density housing. There's an amazing East Whisman Precise Plan. And there's realities on the ground today, which you can see is mostly commercial. So what we took upon ourselves was we need to create a vibrant project here. And we actually kind of started at the ground floor and really started with how do we create a area and a project that will invite people into the retail. And as you know, retail is very important for residential, the future of the precise plan, the future of the neighborhood, an amenity to the commercial now, and most importantly amenity to the residential. So if you go to the next slide. Um, so you can see is at the ground floor uh we provided as much ground floor retail as possible. And it will be our goal to bring in great retailers that are going to bring people from all over and hopefully bring other developers to develop residential around here. I know it is typical to do as little retail as possible because it's hard to make work. In our view it's it's worth the fight. Um, one of our strategies for this project was also to pull people out of their units. So as you'll see, the units are on the smaller side. What that creates is a naturally affordable unit type and it creates a new typology for what's probably more typical in Mountain View which is bigger units, people stay in their units, we look around everybody is staring at their phones and their computers all day. This is a building that's meant for community. We want people out of their units. We want people collaborating, uh, hanging out at at the the pool, hanging out at the amenities, hanging out at the retail. So, next slide. Um, this is an image of the retail and and how it actually coordinates with the gym and work uh co-working space above. So you can see what we try to do is bring all those amenities to Middlefield as much as possible. So when you drive by, you feel a sense of of vibrancy as opposed to privacy where a lot of buildings are very insulated, the amenities are in the middle, you don't really know who's inside. We really wanted to draw people out. So when you drive by Middlefield, you want to stop and go here. Next slide. Here's a shot at night. You know, the the corner is where we're going to be working on some public art. Um, we have some work to do there, but we think that corner is going to be very important, not only for the project, but for the neighborhood. And you can see we we did try to break up the massing in terms of the retail, the residential, and how we finished it at at the top. Next. So here's a a floor plan of how the this would be the top of the podium. So how the pool, uh dog park, gym, co-working space actually flows throughout the project. And how the units um will have direct access to them. You'll see we have quite a bit of storage. So we had to think a lot of what are the repercussions of going with smaller units? Well one of them is is storage. So see there's a healthy amount of storage, a very healthy amount of amenity. Our hope and if we're actually successful in this, those amenities are where people will be. They'll go to their units to sleep at night, but um we want to drive them out as much as possible. Uh, this is Level 3. There are some double height spaces. So um trying to break up those floor plates as well so you feel more grand in in some of the areas and it's it's not doesn't feel like a big box. Um, and then uh Level 4 we'll have a lot of outdoor space on top of the the podium and gym deck. And more places to invite people to get out of their units. And then on the 7th floor you'll see a lot of different areas that are a little bit more private you can book, you know if you want to have a party with friends or people hopefully in the community, you can bring them in, you can book spaces and um they're all outdoors and and again the same theme of trying to bring it all off Middlefield so as people are driving down they get a sense of vibrancy. That's it. Minute and a half to spare. Thank you very much.

[01:35:05] Chair Alex Nuñez: Appreciate it. All right, um, then in that case we'll proceed to uh questions from the commissioners, Commissioner Gutierrez.

[01:35:19] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yeah, I have a question for the team. When I look at the EPC desk item, I need your help for clarification to conditions being modified, the first one, which is five. We'll look at um community benefits package down in uh see. Um, five units, three studios at 90% AMI and two one bedroom units at 100% AMI. In addition to the 15% 55 affordable units that are being re provided at a weighted average of 65% AMI. To meet the City's below market rate affordable housing requirement. These five units will be restricted to an afford affordability term of 10 or 15 years pursuant to terms in the development agreement. I need your help to understand that last sentence in plain English. What does that mean?

[01:36:09] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Good evening Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Um, what this is describing is an additional um element of affordable housing proposed by the applicant. Um, specific to the last sentence that you asked about, uh Commissioner Gutierrez, um, there are two potential terms for those units. The base term that would come along with the project is the 10 year term. Um, there are other affordability um provisions contained in the development agreement that's being contemplated that if those, the option for those uh is triggered by the city, then the uh affordability term would extend from 10 years to 15 years um to align uh more effectively with those uh additional affordability provisions that are contemplated in the development agreement.

[01:36:50] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Oh, great. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then I have two questions for the developer. Can you please take the podium?

[01:37:06] Applicant: Great. How you doing?

[01:37:08] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Good, good, good. So I have a quick question. So why did you decline to conduct outreach within the neighborhood and community?

[01:37:19] Applicant: So we did a lot of iterations on the design, a lot of work towards this. Uh, we went to Design Review. We made a lot of changes from that. And given the the vicinity is mostly office, we just felt we we've got we've done a lot of work. We've iterated a lot and we felt we we landed in a really good spot, um, from a lot of feedback from staff. So it wasn't we don't want to hear anymore, it was we've spent a lot of work on this and we really want to move this forward.

[01:37:49] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Okay great. And thank you for clarifying that. And then my my other question is, um, I understand you wanting to have a certain type of community and you have a vision, you shared that uh in a very professional way and I appreciate that. It's so we can further understand the vision behind the community. Um, my concern is you're focusing a lot with studio and one bedrooms. Um, ideally I would like to see what we don't have already which is more low income, um, two bedroom units and very low income two bedroom units. Um, why the decision to go with zero for low income at 80%?

[01:38:21] Applicant: Sorry, say why to go to...

[01:38:23] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yeah, why don't you offer two or three units at two bedrooms for low income at 80%? Right here you have zero.

[01:38:30] Applicant: Am I understanding this incorrectly? Is that... uh...

[01:38:35] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Page three to the staff presentation.

[01:38:38] Applicant: We have zero at two?

[01:38:39] Brian Griggs: So we thought two... we thought a portion... I can answer...

[01:38:46] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Please help me. Can you give this to him?

[01:38:48] Brian Griggs: Well we only got... we only got 6% of our two bedrooms...

[01:38:54] Applicant: Oh, is it the majority because...

[01:38:56] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Diana. Appreciate it.

[01:39:01] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: In the chart where you have the breakdown of percentages for types of affordable units, you'll note that there's a zero there for two bedrooms for low income at 80%.

[01:39:09] Applicant: Oh for the low income? Because we put them in the very low income.

[01:39:13] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Mhm. So so why not offer it in both columns?

[01:39:18] Applicant: So go one and one? Like one...

[01:39:20] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Go two and two.

[01:39:21] Applicant: Go two and two? Yep. Um, I mean these these are we we spent quite a bit of work moving this around.

[01:39:25] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Right, so I would expect an answer then if you've done a lot of work moving things around.

[01:39:30] Brian Griggs: So you're saying two and two, meaning four total?

[01:39:33] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yep.

[01:39:34] Brian Griggs: Well, we only have um um 6% of the whole building is two bedrooms. So proportionately it would be 6% of the units, and we've done it as four.

[01:39:48] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: So you look at it more from an economic perspective and not a community benefit.

[01:39:51] Brian Griggs: Correct.

[01:39:52] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: I mean it's... That's all I need to know. That's all I need to know.

[01:39:56] Applicant: Mr. Guti, can you speak into the microphone?

[01:39:58] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: And can you repeat what you just said please?

[01:40:00] Brian Griggs: I don't even remember. Um, we we have 6% of them are two bedroom units in the project. We're proposing 4% for this and having the other ones be studios.

[01:40:12] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Okay. So that's where there lies the issue for me. When you propose community as a whole, I don't just look at it as an economic perspective. I understand your perspective and I hope that developers will understand more of our city perspective. For me, I would think at minimum, especially when you're going to have profitability, you know one way or another within this community because of the retail and the types of people that you're trying to lure in there. Um, two at minimum for low income at 80% I think is a reasonable number along with two at very low income 50%. And why do I bring that up? Because I'm concerned. I I am not in your position, nor do I claim to know what your position is all about. But knowing that Meta laid off 15,000 workers and the last two years this area has had a strong number of unemployment uh numbers come in, that affect the very same people you're trying to target, studio and one bedroom folks? People coming out of universities either with a Masters or PhD or just joining the workforce? Man, I wish you luck. Whereas I know if you were to have a little bit more two bedrooms in general, I think you would attract families, which is what we want and what we need because we've had this type of perspective in general years past. So that's why I asked the question. Thank you very much.

[01:41:59] Applicant: Okay. Appreciate. I respect that.

[01:42:04] Chair Alex Nuñez: Is that it? Okay. Um, and yeah, um, I'm super presumptive that uh the applicants will be here for commentary as well. So um to the extent that we are um able to keep this to questions for now. Commissioners are going to hate me at the end of this year. Um, I apologize in advance to everyone. Um, Commissioner Subramanian.

[01:42:44] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you Chair. Um, while we have the developers, the podium, could I ask a couple of questions off you and then I'll turn to my questions to staff? Um, thank you for your presentation. Um, could you please share a little bit of the retail market study you conducted as well as the residential market studies you conducted, um, and a little bit about the retail, or the type of retailers you expect to um attract to the spaces you are planning? As well as um the residential market study that determined your unit mix.

[01:43:39] Applicant: Yeah. Um, great question. Reality is on the market study the retail, if we had gone off the market study the retail, we would have said don't do retail. I mean that's just the reality today. What we need to do in this project is create a project within a project and we need to create a project that can house retail and can lure retail in that will actually thrive. And how you have to do that is lots of unit, lots of density, um, and lots of vibrancy and and people that tend to um frequent, you know, retail shops. What we imagine in this are cafes, food and beverage first and foremost. You know, we'd love to have small type market if possible. It's a very tough business right now. Um, hopefully that will change. But first and foremost we'll be focused on food and beverage and uh cafes and you know light light bites and things like that. And you'll see in the retail, we did actually flow that to the outdoors and so we we do want to bring people outside, not just indoor retail. Our hope is they grab a coffee, grab food, and then come and actually hang out um outside the project. In terms of, you know, why we went with this unit mix, we did cater this for um single people and uh couples. Like at you know I I completely agree on um this is not geared towards families. This is not geared towards people who want to be insular and and stay inside their home. Um, we're really looking for a specific tenant who actually wants to thrive in community which we feel in in Silicon Valley is is lacking and that's where we see the opportunity to be completely honest.

[01:46:04] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you. Um, next question. Could you talk a little bit about your uh decision around the building aesthetics um and the choices you made with regards to materials and color composition?

[01:46:19] Applicant: Yeah, I mean I think if you look at the design when we first started to where we landed, um, it was a a little bit more plain, a little bit simplified. When we went to Design Review, we got a lot of great feedback. Um, what where we went with that was uh a little bit more warmer colors. I think one of the biggest moves we made was actually adding quite a bit of balconies. Um, same idea of, you know, bringing people towards the outside of the building. So when you drive by uh it looks like a community that people live in. And then adding that double height space at the top we thought really broke up the massing.

[01:47:04] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you. Did you conduct a study of the surrounding neighborhoods and the the newer buildings that have come up in Mountain View and consider their palettes?

[01:47:14] Applicant: Uh, we considered the area directly around it. Um, you know our view on this to be honest was come with something completely different and something new that isn't typically seen in Mountain View. This is probably a you know a bit more of an urban typology than I think exists in Mountain View which is more everything kind of gets brought to the ground. There's walk-up townhomes and units on the ground floor, less retail. So I I'd say to some extent we did, to a lot of our thinking was how do we bring something new to the city.

[01:47:53] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you. Um, I have a few more questions for staff. So in your presentation, Jeff, I think you noted that the current mix as proposed uh provides 15.23% of affordable units. Uh but when I run a quick number of 60 over 460, I get 13%. So could you clarify that?

[01:48:38] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Staff will confirm. I think that's uh based off of the base density...

[01:48:45] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Not the bonus density for the project. Yeah. Thanks for your question and thanks for clarifying. Um, that is based off of the base units on the project which is 361 units.

[01:48:59] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Okay. So the base was considered on the 360 without the density bonus being added to it. And so the 28% was all of the 55 without the five additional units?

[01:49:17] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: So the 27 and a half percent bonus is um what brought the project up to 460 units total. So that's the additional 99 units.

[01:49:29] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Got it. Um, I did not see specific mentions to what alternate was being proposed. There was some mention of um no public utility easement being provided. So could you speak a little bit to the the overhead line and what's being recommended for the utilities?

[01:50:04] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Yeah, I think um uh a representative from Public Works is able to um assist with that question.

[01:50:11] Senior Civil Engineer Renee Gunn: Good evening Commissioners, my name is Renee Gunn. I'm a senior civil engineer in the Land Development Section um of Public Works. So typically for this project we would ask for a 10 foot wide public utility easement along the frontage of the project. And that's to put in PG&E transformers, other things of that sort. Um, in this case they provided us with a, excuse me, a detailed plan that shows exactly how much space they need and then are carving out the easement to follow the space that they actually need. Um, this is a common exception that we allow.

[01:50:53] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you for the clarification. Um, those were all the questions I had. Thank you Chair.

[01:51:00] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Um, Commissioner Cranston.

[01:51:04] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay, few questions. Um, the commercial parking is in the back of the building but the retail space is on the front. So there's no none of the none of the spaces for people going to the retail are inside the building or or right next in close proximity? There's looks like there's stackers directly behind all of the retail spaces?

[01:51:29] Applicant: Correct. So there if you look at the ground floor in the garage itself, there wouldn't be access for somebody going into the retail to go through the building. Um, so you can think of that garage as the secure access for the residential. The uh at grade around the building is for the retail. So if you were to go into the garage and you don't have a key to actually fob into the building, you would actually have to go out of the garage, around, and so it's actually be further to be in the garage than uh outside the building. So all the retail has access from outside the building.

[01:52:04] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And right now there is no space allowed for delivery vehicles?

[01:52:11] Applicant: Yeah there's delivery vehicle. There's there's space. Um...

[01:52:15] Commissioner Bill Cranston: There's a space for for moving and moving out. But the lobby and the mail room are in the front and there's no parking anywhere near that for uh Amazon or UPS or FedEx trucks.

[01:52:30] Applicant: Yeah, we've got... We have people. Yeah. Where would that be?

[01:52:33] Commissioner Bill Cranston: There's handicap parking and bike parking directly behind the the uh the mail room and the package room. As shown on the on the plans.

[01:52:43] Applicant: Yeah. Yeah, in the top left. It wouldn't be designated solely for the retail. I mean there would be some coordination on that but it's you know most retail deliveries are done um in the early mornings. Or are you talking about like for like DoorDash or Uber, is that what you mean? Or are you talking about delivery to the retail?

[01:53:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Deliveries to the retail, deliveries to the mail room. Looks to me like all deliveries would have to be from LS or from Middlefield.

[01:53:14] Applicant: Yeah, so we could designate one inside for the mail. Um, but in terms of delivery for the retail... Yeah there's a loading zone in the back there. Back left, right?

[01:53:28] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So it's located if you look if you're looking at the site plan right here, there is a hatched cross hatched uh parking space coming uh you know where it says garage access from the from the rear. There is a loading space right there.

[01:53:43] Applicant: Yeah.

[01:53:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So in retail space A, they're going to have to have the delivery truck park way down at that end of the building and walk all the way around to deliver their stuff?

[01:53:54] Applicant: Yeah.

[01:53:55] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, what's the height of the of the parking in that first floor?

[01:54:02] Applicant: 14 feet. 14 feet.

[01:54:09] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Is the... how tall are UPS trucks and FedEx trucks? Staff? Do you know what that is? Could they could they come into that space?

[01:54:17] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh yes. We checked that.

[01:54:21] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, question for staff. The... I thought that all new projects had to be electrical, all electric today. Is that not the case?

[01:54:35] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Commissioner, I I can't make out your uh comments. If you could repeat that please.

[01:54:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Sorry. Okay. I thought there was... So I thought the city required all new developments to be 100% electric today.

[01:54:47] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, so that's not a requirement that the city is able to enforce any longer per pursuant to a a Federal Court decision uh from a few years ago. Um, what we have um contemplated in the development agreement context, which again is not within the purview of the discussion tonight, but for context, um is to seek to design the building um with as much all electric uh as many all electric systems as possible, save for some of the common area like fire pits, pool, uh spa heaters and so forth that really don't function like that as well as um the uh retail space uh cooking appliances that might be needed for a restaurant with um with gas fuel. So uh uh strong intent from the applicant to maximize all electric design for the building.

[01:55:33] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So a a question before I go onto the next question then. So aren't we supposed to consider this in its entirety including the community benefits component?

[01:55:46] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um so it's a great question. Um, the terminology here matters. So the community benefits are a component of the East Whisman Precise Plan that are a requirement for the bonus floor area ratio. The public benefits are additional benefits for the community, but they're not community benefits per se, uh based on the the definitions and terminology. So the public benefits are in the development agreement context and within the purview of the Zoning Administrator to recommend to City Council. Community benefits for East Whisman Precise Plan bonus FAR are prescribed and um we've summarized how the applicants propose to uh satisfy those requirements.

[01:56:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So the East Whisman Precise Plan includes something that says that individual unit metering can be part of the community benefits of the East Whisman Precise Plan?

[01:56:58] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, so those are requirements for the bonus FAR. It's one of the components um related to sustainability and um what have you.

[01:57:04] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess it's been a while since I've looked at that. Um, so the so is the ZA going to look at review the stuff that's in this this proposed list and then decide whether or not it meets the criteria? And so if we want to talk about that we have to go to the ZA meeting? Is is that correct?

[01:57:24] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, so what's shown here, um for example in the desk item condition number five, is is not per se part of the development agreement public benefits. There is some overlap like in 5C as an example where this meets uh certain uh requirements of the East Whisman Precise Plan community benefits, but are not required minimally. And so they exceed the community benefits requirement and therefore are also considered a public benefit in the development agreement context. Um, there's nothing that the commission will discuss tonight that will necessarily need to be a part of the Zoning Administrator's review of the development agreement. It's an independent consideration of that item.

[01:58:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So the letter from the applicant outlining the community benefits is not something for us to discuss?

[01:58:13] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So maybe I can chime in. I think Commissioner Cranston you're asking about attachment 7 to the staff report which is the Community Benefit Contribution Letter. That does uh respond to what the applicant is proposing in exchange for getting additional FAR under the East Whisman Precise Plan. And you can comment on that.

[01:58:38] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, a question for the applicant. How did you come up with this $1.2 million tenant improvement fee? Contribution?

[01:58:49] Applicant: Sorry? Um, it it's calculation on what it will probably cost to get it to a space where we can actually lure great tenants in. You know, if you build this as is open it up as uh cold shell, you're probably not going to get a lot of interest. So our intention is actually build it out a lot further than what most retail would normally build it out so that we can lure tenants in. They can make it financially feasible. They'll either have a lot of runway so they can say, okay, I'll come in and as this building fills up, you know, I'll I'll be able to ramp up or they could put more money into the space to, you know, thrive. So that was the intent for it.

[01:59:34] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And so a question for staff. Can the ZA say that there's a time limit on these things? Or how does that work? Just says 1.2. The building that I'm in has retail space I just moved into a space that was vacant for eight years. And so I'm just wondering how would the could this money sit there for eight years?

[01:59:54] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure. Um, I'll start by um maybe talking a little more about what this item is as well in the East Whisman Precise Plan context. So um there is discussion of alternatives to fee payment which can include um support for small businesses. So as part of the negotiations for the development agreement, um the applicant um and the city worked through this contribution to support business operation. Um, and the applicant is also proposing to pay the per square foot fee that the Council has adopted for the community benefits. So the small business contribution is additive to the uh per square foot bonus floor area ratio fee payment as well that the applicant uh will be providing. Um, related to your specific question, yes the Zoning Administrator can consider particular terms uh and time limits associated with this contribution as part of the recommendation to City Council.

[02:00:43] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, and then this optional master lease. Where the heck did that come from? What is that? I I've never seen that before in anything. This option to add to to lease 60 additional units was like, what? Where did that what what's that?

[02:01:03] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, so that's a purely uh development agreement term. So not subject to the commission's um recommendation tonight. But for context, um that is a negotiated component of the development agreement as a public benefit related to affordable housing. Um, there are terms uh, you know that will be provided in the development agreement that contemplate uh a standalone agreement being prepared if that option is triggered. Um, that would allow uh for more of those units, the block uh that's being negotiated, to be provided at affordable income levels and potentially for the city to provide a rent guarantee so that if for whatever reason um the rents are below uh what's negotiated, the city will make the developer whole at that affordable uh housing uh income level. But in the event that the city chooses to lease them in in different configurations that could deepen the affordability, the city may be able to actually subsidize those units by renting some of those block units at market rate for example. So provides a lot of flexibility for the city to really target um affordable um units at income levels where they're needed.

[02:02:27] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And how would the value of that be determined in order to assess how it fits into meeting the East Whisman Precise Plan goals?

[02:02:37] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, it's a it's a challenging uh discussion to try to figure out the valuation of that that block lease. That's why we have not ironed out all of the terms of what that agreement would look like at this point in time. Uh, there's just not enough time in the project entitlements phase of this um to to iron all of that out. Um, we have um, you know in our working on the the contours of that um to get key provisions identified, but knowing all the details would need to be worked out in that subsequent agreement if the city triggers the option.

[02:03:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, and then a question for staff. Um, on the front of the building, if you can pull that plan back up. Um, the the size of the the grass area on between the the street and the the sidewalk on Middlefield. What is that distance? Like kind of where that pedestrian access arrow is. What's the distance of that between the the curb and the and the sidewalk?

[02:03:42] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: The plan I'm seeing uh the landscape area looks uh to be six feet wide. Talking about the the green strip or? That's six six feet on the plans that I'm seeing. Sheet A4.6.

[02:03:53] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if the commission wanted to put a delivery space in that, that would be a specific deviation from the East Whisman Precise Plan? In other words, to cut out the grass and put a place for delivery vehicles, like UPS trucks and Amazon trucks?

[02:04:16] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah perhaps uh Public Works staff could talk about um how that might work in relation to right of way management.

[02:04:23] Senior Civil Engineer Renee Gunn: Good evening again Commissioners. Again my name is Renee Gunn, um with the Public Works Department. So we did actually look at that as part of this design process. Um, there are also plans for Middlefield Road to put in um some new bike lanes um which are needed along the way there. Um and so when you start putting in duck outs there, you start introducing conflicts between bicycles and pedestrians and the vehicles. Vehicles and the and the bicyclist. Um, and that's why we pushed for any of that delivery activity to happen on site on their at grade parking and those delivery areas. Um because through a CIP we're working on, that will all be turned into um a buffered bike lane.

[02:05:04] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So but EPC could say we get it but we want it anyway. I I'm my my question is specifically at the last meeting um Mr. Anderson raised the issue that the that the city is seeing on Evelyn in front of the Frolla Mart project, the issue that I see every week in front of The Dean, okay, which is it doesn't matter whether it's not supposed to be parking there, it says no parking, but the delivery vehicles are parking um in the bike lane on San on on Evelyn and on San Antonio. So if we said we want to do it anyway, would you say, I mean is that are we allowed to say that?

[02:05:41] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right. I think I need to remind the commission that as frustrating as it may be and as much as we've heard it on recent projects, we don't have uh an objective standard for this type of loading zone or delivery zone. And so this would need to be something the applicant would propose as part of the project and it's not currently part of the project. And so um I'd caution the commission against imposing some requirement on this project that's not an objective standard and that's not something proposed by the applicant.

[02:06:07] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So the width of the grass zone is something for the applicant, it's not part of the East Whisman Precise Plan?

[02:06:16] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Well I think I'm hearing you describe some sort of carve out there for deliveries.

[02:06:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm saying if we said we're okay deviating from the East Whisman Precise Plan and cutting the grass out in the section in front of the the mail room and and and box or where the boxes are to allow for place that so to me that sounds like it would be us saying we are okay with a deviation from the East Whisman Precise Plan to not have a grass strip in that section of the street so that there's a space for vehicle. It's not an applicant thing. It's us saying the precise plan we're okay with the deviation there. Is that not clear?

[02:06:53] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Well I think the commission can express whatever flexibility it may want to allow. I I think I understood the dialogue to suggest that um there may be desire to require that as part of the project. And I'm cautioning the commission that there's not an objective standard to allow the city to require the installation of such a delivery parking space.

[02:07:13] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: And if I may just add to um what uh Director Murdock just said, the six foot landscaping requirement is the direct requirement in the in the precise plan streetscape plan uh for Middlefield Road. Um so that will be a deviation from the adopted streetscape plan that we have in the precise plan.

[02:07:36] Commissioner Bill Cranston: That's what I thought. Thank you.

[02:07:43] Chair Alex Nuñez: Vice Chair Donahue.

[02:07:44] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Um, my first question is how does stacked parking work? Like I I haven't I haven't come across this before so I'm just kind of curious.

[02:07:58] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Yeah I can start and then maybe if the applicant can um can support further. Um, thank you for the question. Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner. We have stackers in couple of projects in Mountain View. Um, there are different configurations of how stackers can work. Um, you know different type of puzzles that can work uh in moving the the cars which are just stacked and you know one of the space will be empty so while people are moving the cars around, you know you can it can go down, it can go up. Um, there they have proposed a particular type of stacker at this point of time, but I think the final details of what kind of stacker actually goes in is decided later on during the construction detailing um in order to understand the feasibility, the cost associated with it. But there are different um types of stacker systems that that exist that can be used.

[02:08:59] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Yeah, I'm just kind of curious about how yeah just how it works.

[02:09:03] Brian Griggs: No problem. Um, we've got 'em in two projects now. And generally it's it's much as what Diana said. We're actually doing a puzzle system that goes down. So there'll be a pit where if you come on your main uh garage level, you'll you'll you'll pull into a stall and that stall will either go up mechanically and then the bottom one will lift and there could be a car in that or it could go down. Um, you end up having about they they range in size between 24 and 32 in in a pod and you always have one vacant so you can always program your car in and if you're in stall you know four down here, you put a certain code in and it mechanically will come down. What it enables you to do is not raise the height of the building by having to do a second level of garage parking. And it also because we have 14 feet, it actually fits. You go down about seven or eight feet and then you go up to 14 feet. Um, and so I think you'll it's not cutting edge by any means. It's being used pretty commonly now especially in an infill close to transit. Um, it does allow us to get the number of parking stalls which we are be able to provide.

[02:10:06] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. And and so it can accommodate like a 7 foot vehicle or something?

[02:10:09] Brian Griggs: Yeah, there's different size... yeah. A Suburbans usually are tough. Um we're not doing 100% stackers by any means but um it'll probably get about 80 85% of the cars.

[02:10:20] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: But yeah it's not just sedans. It'll fit like kind of average size SUVs.

[02:10:25] Brian Griggs: Yeah, and mini SUVs or SUVs, yeah, not full size SUVs.

[02:10:29] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. Uh, cool. Okay. And and and and that all meets our parking standards and it's legit.

[02:10:43] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So this project is not required to provide any parking. They are providing voluntary parking. So they will be subject to build it to our uh parking standards. That is a condition of approval and the applicant will have to abide by that.

[02:10:57] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Interesting. Well, I guess that's the way it is. Thanks. Um, okay the other question I had was that came up while I was reading it and then we actually got the the public comment on the the the same thing. Um, the people who live in apartments don't have backyards so their backyard is is the public parks. Um, and so that's why the Quimby Act allows us to have a a you know park parkland dedication ordinance and we do. Um, but it doesn't appear as though they're um subject to that or what talk talk to me about the um park uh in lieu fees or dedication.

[02:11:48] City Attorney's Office Selena Chen: I can take that one. Selena Chen on behalf of the City Attorney's office. So the City's current parkland dedication fee is um authorized under the Quimby Act. Um, it's codified in Chapter 41 of the City Code. And it was the City's authority to require the dedication of parkland or the in lieu fees is legally limited to residential subdivision projects. Um, so if there's a tentative map or a parcel map approval that's required, at this point we can impose a parkland dedication requirement. This project does not have a residential subdivision, so there is no uh parkland dedication requirement that applies to this project.

[02:12:29] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Oh. Wow. That's very interesting. Okay.

[02:12:32] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I'll just add that's something the city is working very hard to um correct or to uh update and supplement. And so um just today actually the Council Finance Committee um considered a nexus study that would um impose a Mitigation Fee Act fee that would allow the city to impose park fee um requirements on rental housing projects and potentially non uh residential land use types as well. So that work is ongoing and at some point in the near future I would expect the city would have a fee in in place um to address residential development projects as well. Uh rental residential projects I I should specify.

[02:13:08] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Right, so like condominiums would would if this were condos, the exact same project condos, they'd have to pay.

[02:13:15] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Correct.

[02:13:16] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Huh. Okay. Um, interesting. Well, I guess that's the way it is. Thanks.

[02:13:23] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Vice Chair Donahue. Commissioner Dempsey.

[02:13:28] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. So I just have one question and it's it's really for staff. I was hoping that you could help me understand the concession. And and by that I mean precisely what it is we are conceding. I read it, I read the definition here four or five times and I still didn't have a proper mental model in my head of what this meant. So I was hoping y'all could explain it.

[02:13:54] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Yeah, no, thank you for your question. So a concession or an incentive is uh essentially to request a an exception for a monetary uh restraint against the project. Um, a financial burden on the project. And then waivers are physical constraints to make the development otherwise infeasible um at the proposed uh number of units that are being proposed.

[02:14:22] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Right, so I think what I'm asking is this describes a smaller average floor area, you know product type than would otherwise be required. I'm trying to wrap my head around precisely what that is. Maybe that it's better directed to the applicant. I just want to understand what this is.

[02:14:33] Brian Griggs: Sure. It's it's um it's driven I break this up just because of numbers. Um, we have 50% of the units are studios. Um, of those 240, 208 of them are a smaller square footage. They're 409 feet. Just because of where they're placed in the building. So about 80% or almost 90% of them are this what we call a Type A. And then we have a Studio Type B that's 460 feet versus 409 feet. And we only have 22 of those. So if you look at the average of the studios, they're 414 feet because they're weighted to the smaller footage. So we're asking for a concession to put them all in Studio A because we have such an abundance of those versus the Studio B. There's about a 5 square foot difference so the average is 414, Studio A is 409, so the the footage isn't dramatically different. But because we have such an abundance of them, we want to put those as the below market rate. We just have a bigger there'll be 22 for market rate that are slightly different floor plan. And the same's true on bedrooms A, there's a 3 square foot difference between the average. We have 44% of them are the one bedrooms. So we have 614 feet and Model A 690, the average of that 617, so there's a 3 square foot difference. But again from a marketing standpoint, we'd like to have that bigger other product type. Right. And then the question that um Commissioner Gutierrez said was really um of the two bedrooms, you know, there's the average is 300 or excuse me 837 feet and we're asking to put the the units in the 818 feet. So it's just a slight it it seems more than it really is mathematically I think. But it's more from a marketing standpoint to make sure we have a big variety.

Segment 4

[02:15:00] Applicant: ...second floor you could make them all small and unfortunately the, you know, you could get away with it. But that's just to my partners and I, that's not what we want to do.

[02:15:14] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: No, understood and thank you for again indulging my theoretical wanderings there.

[02:15:15] Applicant: No. It's a complicated issue, we spent a tremendous amount of time with Wayne Chen and the Housing Department getting to this.

[02:15:22] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[02:15:23] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey. Commissioner Pham.

[02:15:27] Commissioner Tina Pham: I just had a few questions. A lot of my questions were already asked by other commissioners. First question, first off more of a general question. With all the conditions of approval and the items in the development agreement, how do staff track them? It seems like some of these, you know, come into play at different parts or different points in the project or even after.

[02:15:54] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Thank you for the question. Principal Planner Diana Pancholi. So community benefits, if you look at the conditions of approval for every kind of community benefit there is a set timing of when that community benefit will be delivered to the City. Similarly when we have the terms figured out in the development agreement, they also have, you know, the delivery timing for each of the public benefit. Community benefits usually, you know, we have like, you know, within this much time frame of the project approval, the applicant shall provide this or within this much time of the building permit. So the project planner will be will be tracking that for the community benefit parts. For the public benefit and a DA, we do have a annual reporting of the DA. You know, when you have a multiple year DA, you need to send us a letter and say, you know, what you have done, what what has not been done, where you are. So we keep a track of that. Of course, the project planner is going to be tracking that as well. But so we have record in the conditions of approval, in the development agreement terms itself, and then we have the annual reporting as well.

Segment 3

[02:16:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Just out of curiosity, is there a l is there a floor on how small you could make a BMR studio apartment? Studio uh yeah. How small could you make it?

[02:16:58] Brian Griggs: Um, the ordinance requires without a an incentive that they um have a commensurate amount of bedrooms, which we do, and a commensurate square footage. So in theory, you know, you could do a 200 foot um studio if you used an an incentive for that. So we could have produced all of our studios as 200 feet. But, you know, for a variety of reasons, one of which is just equality, you know, we want to make sure that people we're hoping and and you'll see they're distributed on the plan set if you got it throughout the the the floors, throughout the distribution of the floors. Um, which we again feel is is important for the affordable unit to not necessarily have someone who's paying market rate next to you. We don't want that differentiation.

Segment 4

[02:17:16] Commissioner Tina Pham: All right. Thank you. Another question I had was related to the tree removal. I think it was Page 4 of the slides. The figure looks I think worse than it is especially since there's a lot of tree replacements, which is a good thing. My question maybe for the record is, of the trees removed, what percentage is either like poor or critical versus like good in terms of the condition of the tree?

Segment 3

[02:17:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. No thank you for indulging my theoretical question. I'm not not in any way suggesting you've you've gamed it or anything like that. It it appears to be they're pretty close.

Segment 4

[02:17:49] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Thank you for your question. I don't think we have an exact percentage handy, but you know, per the arborist report the majority of the trees were in poor fair to poor condition. And again that's just based on the site constraints, a lot of narrow planters, a lot of trees that were grown or planted too close to each other, and then issues with proximity to the building.

Segment 3

[02:17:52] Brian Griggs: No, and we're we're proud of the way we've done it because with an incentive you can game it. You know, you could put you could put them all on the first floor.

[02:17:58] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: That's what I worry about. But thank you.

Segment 4

[02:18:14] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. How were the 173 trees slated for replacement? What determined the mix of trees that were going to be used?

[02:18:29] Senior Planner Jeffrey Tsumura: Well, it's a so it's a selection based on you know, it's an applicant proposed. We always have the the preference that they be California Native, which a majority of them are. And to meet the qualifications of a Heritage tree replacement, we ask that they be minimum 24-inch box, which they are. So they have those 173 trees have met the requirements of Heritage tree replacement.

[02:18:58] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: In addition to that, we also have street tree list for street trees that needs to be, you know, planted when you are coming in with a new project. So that's what we what we confirm that, you know, what is being proposed is going to match the street tree list as well.

[02:19:12] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Last question. This was based on one of the last bullets in the community benefit contribution letter, I think it was Attachment 7. Spoke about wayfinding to between the project and Pyramid Park, which I think is great. Is there any thoughts about wayfinding to some of the VTA stations nearby?

[02:19:38] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, well, that particular component was contemplated in relation to applicant contributions related to parkland specifically, and so there's a nexus there for purposes of the negotiation to guiding people to Pyramid Park to utilize that park space. The negotiations have not contemplated similar wayfinding or contributions to install wayfinding to to transit.

[02:20:07] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Thanks.

[02:20:09] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. I'll ask some questions. I guess mostly for staff. I I can't remember, this might have happened while I was on the Commission or it might I don't like it just it seems like I can't remember the last time a desk item situation came up. Maybe I'm like just like unmeritoriously weirded out about it, but it just seems a little like I don't know, like I guess I guess I'll ask a broad question like, what are desk items? Like what's the governance around them? Like how and why? And what can be done with them vis-a-vis the Brown Act and what can't be done?

[02:20:39] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure. Thank you, Chair. I think to start I'll just remind the Commission and the community about the challenging timelines under which the City is obligated to process housing development projects. Specifically under Assembly Bill 130, a very stringent timeline to take final action within 30 days of certain processing triggers is now in effect. Fortunately we've been able to work with the applicant to extend some of those timelines, but nevertheless it's an aggressive schedule combined with the additional work of negotiating a development agreement. And so what this desk item reflects is an ongoing effort to collaborate with the applicant to find conditions of approval that meet mutual needs of the City and and the applicant and the project. What happened here is subsequent to sharing conditions, the applicant had comments. We were not able to address those prior to publication. There are a whole host of conditions we were able to address, which you'll never know about because we got them into the draft resolution and conditions that you see. But this reflects the ongoing work and collaboration to try to get the project as close to a place that there's no disagreement ideally between the City and the applicant. In terms of governance, you know, we publish these on the website, we've made copies available for the public concurrent with the distribution to the Commission. And so they're in the record, they're fair game to be discussed. And so, you know, feel confident in in the approach that we have in front of you. It's not ideal, but it's just a reflection of the challenging circumstances.

[02:22:48] Chair Alex Nuñez: So like, thank you, I appreciate that. I guess like, I'm I'm trying to understand in just like plain terms like what's what's what's kosher, what's not, right? And if if we are now subject to this law around, you know, the 30-day timeframe, it stands to reason that we might be seeing more desk item situations in the future. And so if that's the case, I think it's just good to get a a brief kind of a a sense of like like I don't like for example is is it is it okay to say that um theoretically right, I know this is not actual I know we have requirements for this but just you know, in a vacuum here like um, oh, the project is gonna offer, you know, I don't know, 30% below market rate units and then here's a desk item, the project will offer zero. Like, I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but I'm I'm just trying to understand like what what's allowable, what's not, what's best practice, what's not best practice? Can you just help me understand that?

[02:23:53] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure. So maybe to to tackle the hypothetical, you know, worst case scenario, you know, this is not an intention to bait and switch and put something really favorable in the published version and then reel it back at the last minute in a way that's maybe less visible to some members of the community. What this reflects is ongoing collaboration, desires to clarify things that maybe are unclear, to maybe correct errors that sometimes occur given the the volume and of the work and the the time that staff has to do it. People make mistakes and so we correct mistakes. Sometimes applicants bring to light, you know, legal opinions that we need to contemplate as well to manage risk for the City. So all of those are examples of things that need to be addressed in a a desk item of this sort. It's not ideally intended to make major changes to key project components. And so we do our best to avoid that. But, you know, any range of of issues could come up in this in this type of context.

[02:25:33] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate it's an intent to collaborate. I guess I'm looking for clear-cut examples like I and again, not necessarily focusing on this specifically is my question. I'm trying to understand in clear terms like where's the line that we should be looking out for as commissioners or you know and if people out here go onto whatever like what's the line in terms of like where a desk item goes into like just something that's like a non-noticed thing? If that makes sense. Like because for example right here, if if I want to use this example like if I was someone who cared way more about birds, which I like whatever, birds are fine. But like, no, I'm I'm not trying like like you know, it says here like, hey, a qualified biologist will come and conduct a survey of the project site and then in the original version it said and surrounding 500 feet for active nests. And now we're striking that out. And in the prior prior version it said if active nests were observed either on the project site or the surrounding area. Like, you know, I'm not a a bird expert, but like what if that's a critical radius? And and that seems to me like a substantive strikeout to be making. Again, I'm not the bird champion, but like how how can I why should I be okay with like that um if if yeah, like and I'm looking for comfort here, right? Like why should I be okay with that?

[02:26:58] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Maybe I can give you a little bit of background of what happens when the this kind of a desk item is prepared. When we publish the conditions of approval, a lot of the conditions of approval have been based on historical um, you know, knowledge and experience of working on different projects. But, you know, as of last few years we have been challenged consistently to figure out, you know, under the Housing Accountability Act we are really subject to only objective development standards in our code. If we have a standard condition which doesn't have the objective standards, uh we don't have a legal ground to require that. And the example that you're using for the uh say the pre-construction nesting bird survey, we don't have an objective standard for 500 feet. At some point of time we worked on a project which, you know, the applicant agreed, there were some environmental conditions and we had the purview under CEQA to require that. Unfortunately in this particular project, this is an example where we don't. Because our code doesn't say that an applicant will be required to do this, we don't have the authority to do that. So the cleanup items that are here, you will see in a lot of places staff has just referenced the actual code section to say applicant will be subject to this. So there is no ambiguity in what is discretionarily, you know, put into the condition from staff or the City's enforcing it.

[02:28:27] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. So it sounds like it's objective standard driven significant. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. I don't have any other questions. I forgot I was Chair. So therefore, we will move on to the public comment section. Um, cool. If anyone uh in participation would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC Clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star 9 on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star 6. Mr. Clerk, do we have any speakers either in public having submitted yellow cards or on the Zoom line?

[02:29:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are no requests to speak in person or online.

[02:29:11] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. Perfect. Then in that case we will proceed to EPC deliberation and action. Um, we have the staff recommendation and I'm now looking for commenters. All right. Commissioner Gutiérrez.

[02:29:23] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Okay. Great. Thank you, Chair Nuñez. This is Commissioner José Gutiérrez speaking. So, I like the design. I I like that the community perspective on um what this could look like will hopefully influence the type of community you want to build. And when I've looked at design projects in general from that have come in in the last couple years, this seemed to be the same old same old, right? It's just it's it's just it's a modified version of what I see in housing in certain other parts of the world where it's just a square and some amenities to the square on top of the square. And so this doesn't have that feel at all, which is great because then I think that's going to help your cause for trying to get those units filled, right, with the community that you're pursuing. So from the design perspective, I appreciate that. I know there's debate around, well, is there loading um spaces available for UPS or Amazon? Some places have them, some don't. In my neck of the woods between California and Rengstorff, we've got a a a test pilot project where you've got bike lanes on both sides. They've eliminated um uh uh driving lanes to just have one going this way and one going that way and the middle is a turn lane. And there are spots designated for loading and unloading which are not being used by Amazon or UPS or FedEx or DoorDash or whomever you have stopping by to drop stuff off for you. And I'd like to see enforcement on that, but that I'm not City Council, right. But for you not to have as much of that, that's on you. That it was brought up, hopefully you'll factor that in because for this large a type of a community, you're going to have that as an issue one way or another. So if it's still in the early development phase where you can factor some of that in and work with the City to try and find a possible solution, I I'd I'd jump all over that so that you don't have the issues that we're having with the tightness of space, especially when there's been a reduction of parking spaces within that stretch, right? You would think that they would use those spaces but they don't. So in this case since you have a limited amount of space, I might look into that, right. And I want to thank staff for the EPC desk item. And this is more like a redline project which is great because you get to see the difference between the before and the after and then you look at what's highlighted in red to see what was modified and when these things come up, I always feel comforted by that because I'm used to that with what I have done in my past as a paralegal and looking at briefs and all this and proposals and arbitrations and you see the the the it's like the terms and conditions to a mutual understanding of what the contract or settlement in the end will be, which is great. Which tells me that the you working with the developer, the developer is working with you, uh basic norms of governance are applicable and then you also have staff working with the City Attorney I would think to try and figure these things out as to what is kosher and what's not. So when this comes into play, I I I know we're doing everything we can to make this process um transparent, right? Um and I'm just uh of course I would be uh remiss not to bring up uh the two-bedroom issue just in general just because you have to, right? It it it's part of what I deem as a concern and as a benefit for the community. Um the majority of the folks here for the most part we all get along well which is great. Um but these two people here, Alex and me, our numbers are going smaller and smaller in the city because of affordability, right? Whether you have a degree or not doesn't matter anymore. It's a it's always an issue of cost. And when you're in that type of situation, when you have this chance to bring those issues up you will, right? You're not the first, you're not the last that I bring those questions to, so don't take it personal. I'm just trying to figure this out and that's why I ask those questions to also then give you the chance to then explain the why, the vision, the perspective. So then that way if anyone's looking, and I hope someone's watching, they'll know that we're doing our best to try and bring these issues to light. Just like Commissioner Cranston did with the issue of is there a space for deliveries, then I will also pursue those types of questions for affordability. Um so outside of that, um yeah, tho those are my comments and and I appreciate your time. Thank you.

[02:33:35] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Gutiérrez. Commissioner Subramanian.

[02:33:39] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you, Chair. Um, I want to congratulate the applicants on uh coming forth with a very dense residential project and um really trying to crack the code on bringing so much housing to Mountain View. We appreciate it. Uh please make sure that you go through with this project and bring all the units that you promised to this community. We really need it. Um, I also want to congratulate you on your focus to really introduce street level retail. I know that area is very lacking in a lot of amenities, retail being one amongst them. And um you taking advantage of the opportunities of fronting onto two major streets and trying to introduce street level retail. Um it'll probably be a challenge so good luck with that. Uh but I commend you on that sort of forward-facing community facing approach with the retail and also the planning of some of your spaces so there's a lot of activation that's felt on the street in addition to some of the massing moves you've made. But with that, I'm going to uh make a comment that I do think that the loading and servicing for the retail does seem totally inadequate. I think to Commissioner Cranston's point and some of my other fellow commissioners stating this, I think providing loading and drop-off zones far removed from the retail spaces is only going to encourage bad behavior with trucks stopping in the middle of the street right in front of the store and um, you know, doing offloading right there. That's going to be very disruptive to the traffic flow on Middlefield and to the proposed bike lanes that are being planned. Uh we see every day what happens in reality and I think unless you plan for it, the opposite will happen. So I think I I urge the applicants and staff to really go back and look at the plans and make sure that there are designated loading um areas that are closer to the retail um uh storefronts. In addition to that, I think for a building of this size what's going to become a big issue for our community is just like Uber pick up and drop off, Waymo drop offs and you're talking about almost 4 500 units and maybe 700 residents. That's going to be a constant ebb and flow and with the lobby parked right in the center of the block with no sort of uh drop off point, um that's going to become another constant nuisance for that street frontage. So I do encourage you to go back and think about providing adequate points to really resolve that uh that issue. Um I also have comments for staff about a couple of other points that I noted in the plans um as well as uh some of the other attachments. Uh there was mention about the Paseo easement and that being one of the uh waivers, right? Uh I I'm not quite sure how that's going to operate particularly if this is the first site that's going to provide like one half of the Paseo. What does that even mean? And if that Paseo easement is going to abut a vehicular lane, will that provide the safety that is needed for a pedestrian walkway that is intended through a Paseo that's designed into that part of the plan? Um it's not clear to me so I think it bears further study and some clarification or some additional buffer if that's possible within the vehicular uh way that's adjacent to the proposed Paseo. I saw mention about the project being responsible for installation of the bike improvements. If it's built before the Middlefield bike lane improvement project commences, that doesn't really make sense to me because then you'd have a strip of bikeway lanes being put in with no continuity to additional bike lanes on Middlefield. So is there a better way to require the applicant to come back and put in the bike lanes if the Middlefield project bike lane has already been completed? So they're not ripping up and not connecting it to nowhere? Like the the the sort of sequence of that in the requirement of the applicant didn't quite make sense to me. Um could be a question if staff has any response to that or it could just we could leave it as a comment there.

[02:38:39] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I can start and maybe if um Director Murdock has any comments on that. That seems very complicated. In today's market condition what we hear from the developers day in day out is that for them to get the financing for a residential project to occur, the the lenders need surety. We don't know when their section of the bike lane will come online, after how many years will they have to come back to put that portion of the bike lane in. What would be the cost associated with with that? These are some of the factors that I see which comes into the play when we start talking to the developer and asking them if they will agree to that or not.

[02:39:28] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Alternately could it be that they pay into it and it's done at the date when the entire bike lane project along Middlefield is installed so it's done continuously?

[02:39:38] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: We have tried that in the past when the uh state housing laws were not so stringent. Uh we tried that. Um and in recent projects when we have explored it again the cost comes into the picture. Not knowing what the cost would be, what their fair share of cost would be to build that creates that um, you know, unknown for the developer to sign into an in in an agreement uh to comply with that. Even with established developers who have done a lot of work in Mountain View, it's a very hard sell because of that factor.

[02:40:18] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: So as it stands, the way it's being proposed, this project will put in its sort of frontage of the bikeway improvement but then because there's nothing currently on Middlefield will it not connect to anything?

[02:40:29] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So what happens is that in how we have envisioned this happening is through collection of the East Whisman Precise Plan uh impact fees which then are utilized, so every developer is supposed to pay that fee when they come in uh for the entitlement. That fee which is collected then will be used by the City when we actually put in that kind of infrastructure project in.

[02:40:54] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah, so that that makes sense. Um it just that you had this as a condition that they complete the bikeway improvements at their frontages um instead of it being paying into the impact fee that goes into the bikeway project.

[02:41:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So it is pretty similar to how we upgrade our sidewalks as well. When a single family home owner comes in to update their home or do substantial changes to your home, we ask them to update their portion of the sidewalk because we cannot do it for the whole stretch at at a time, you know, or you know when we are looking at the sidewalk dedications as well. So similarly when a parcel comes in for development at that point of time we can we have the uh that's the right place and time when we can actually work with the applicant or negotiate that kind of condition and figure out what is, you know, uh what is their fair share contribution to upgrade that. They will pay at that time. Retroactively going back and asking somebody to pay, I'm not sure if we have the legal grounds to do that.

[02:42:00] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah, I don't I don't mean retroactively, but if they pay upfront into it rather than put in the actual bike lane is the clarification I'm seeking. And I think the other part to know and um thanks to our Public Works staff, they're chiming in, you know there is an existing bike lane um at the frontage which they are just improving it. Um it is not placing a brand new facility in. So there is a connection already.

[02:42:25] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Okay. Thank you. I have a few more questions pertaining to the TDM program. Um some of the measures that were included in the TDM seem way more applicable to a commercial building than a residential building. Uh particularly with regards to having uh, you know, reduction in peak hour employee trips. Like we're talking about employees to the residential building, right?

[02:42:51] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So maybe I will take some uh this opportunity to explain how the TDM requirements work for the East Whisman Precise Plan. So thank you for the question. I think we have been discussing this a lot with the applicant as well. Um City at this point of time does not have a TDM ordinance which is applicable to City-wide projects. We are in the process of preparing one, we are hoping to get to a finish line uh more towards the summer this year. In the absence of that, we have uh specific TDM requirements in some of our most recent Precise Plan projects. Uh within the East Whisman Precise Plan project, we do not have a specific trip reduction TDM requirement for residential or commercial project or I should say residential or non-residential project. Uh what the Precise Plan says specifically is uh it references it back to whatever is the requirement in our Greenhouse Reduction Program. Greenhouse Gases Reduction Program. Which says, you know, for a commercial uh component of the project there will be a 9% trip reduction. Uh that is the only objective standard that we can ask them to comply with. There is no percentage reduction uh requirement under the East Whisman Precise Plan TDM requirements. There are certain measures which have been specified within the Precise Plan that a new development project coming up with the residential uh development shall provide these TDM measures into their program but no particular percentage reduction to say, you know, need to address this much so they will have to do more than what is prescribed. So that's why at this point of time the applicant is actually proposing a 14% reduction in the trips, but a lot of the measures that you see in there is only driven towards the non-residential portion of the project.

[02:44:42] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah, noted. Thank you for the clarification. Um again my point was like it just seemed a little moot to apply some of those TDM measures including requiring a commute coordinator. I know the transportation consultant provided the letter which shows that they're compliant and achieved the 14% reduction, so this is probably moot but I wanted to make the point that applying TDM to residential projects is a little incongruous. Um so I'll leave it at that. I also wanted to just thank staff because I know this is a tremendous push to uh go through a lot of documentation and test against the City's objective standards within the newer uh deadline requirements as stipulated by state laws. So kudos to you for going through it and for bringing more housing projects in front of our Commission and the Council. Thank you.

[02:45:38] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Subramanian. Uh Commissioner Donahue, uh Vice Chair Donahue, excuse me.

[02:45:45] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Well, I'm a commissioner. Um yeah, generally I think that the the the project looks good. I think there there's there's kind of pros and cons, right? I mean, uh I like that it brings a lot of housing units. Uh the the size of the units is seems kind of small to me, but as you said that's kind of maybe one of the goals. Um and I think you know, really we need a variety of types of housing units, so I think that uh, you know, having some some uh developments that have uh smaller units is is good because they would presumably be less expensive and so that that uh that helps uh fill a market need. Um I like that the um one thing I don't like is that the uh that the the concession where the um the BMR units are not kind of uh distributed, the the types of units are not exactly proportional to the the overall types of units. So that's um less than ideal. But I do like that you didn't create a special this is a BMR size unit and uh and that's that's what we're providing. It's it it's it's a unit that that there will be market rate uh units that are that size and so it is a fully reasonable unit for for people to live in. Um I like the um you know the pool and and uh amenities, the the the um the different decks at different levels, things like that. That that's pretty good uh on the kind of um open space and recreational kind of aspect than the parkland thing. I'm I'm not super thrilled about but I think that's not your fault. There's there's kind of nothing to be done about that unfortunately. Um I wish there were but but I guess that that's in the works so that um hopefully going forward we we will be able to um provide adequate parkland for for uh new residents that we're having. Um cutting down a lot of heritage trees is is not great, but they're not really in great shape. Um and the six to one uh replacement ratio I think is is great. Um and increased canopy um you know in the long run I think is great as well. Um as far as the um the delivery thing, I do share concerns that I think we've we've talked about that on on other projects as well. Um it sounds like there's not a lot that we can directly do about that, but it's something that I think that you should keep in mind because you you want to have a reasonable um community that isn't all jammed up with with um you know people double parking and and and kind of disrupting things and um you want it to be a success. So I I think that's uh in your best interest to to to just think about that. Um so overall, yeah, I think it uh seems um you know there's there's pros and cons but in balance I think that it's it's a good thing.

[02:49:15] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Uh Commissioner Cranston.

[02:49:18] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So overall the um there's nothing in here that I that we can go after objectively. I mean I understand what's here, I get what you've asked for. Um but objectively I do think you're going to have pissed off people if you don't find a way to do drop offs near the the the mail room and the box. And particularly for the two center retail spaces. The the retail spaces on the Middlefield end are close to the commercial space there so you can easily have delivery truck there. The the retail space on Ellis could conceivably have vehicles park on the on the driveway. Um but the two in the middle are going to have problems. And I'm in exact same kind of a situation up in San Francisco where there is no place to drop off. Um and people get really mad at it. The people at at and the reason I have the vehicle I have is because I had to dodge around a Amazon vehicle that had parked in the middle of the street um and I didn't see the car that was hidden behind it. Okay. Um so we've seen issues in other developments in the area. I really we're still working through as a City. But I would really en- I would for myself, I would not object to a proposal that violates the East Whisman Precise Plan streetscape requirements and put in a curb cut essentially in right there by the lobby because that's also where Uber drivers, the two two of your elevators in the front of the building are right there by that and by those two retail spaces and by the parking. Um so during the day you're going to have the delivery vehicles coming out there. In the evening you'll have the Uber drivers coming out there and then they can hop in and go up the elevator. So I would not object to the applicant approaching staff and staff saying, okay, let's cut out a 6 ft, you know, 6 ft deep of grass and make it long enough for two Uber/UPS/FedEx/whatever vehicles that for, you know, go in and drop off and, you know, for short term things. I would not object to that being put in place going forward because I think there's more benefit to the community that the bike riders don't have to then swing out in front of of the traffic. Um the Uber drivers aren't getting flipped off because they're blocking things. They the the the delivery vehicles are have a place to go. Um but everything else in here, I get what you've done. I appreciate the fact you've worked with the Design Review Committee. Um I don't like the generic boxes so I like better what you've got here. Um I understand the requ- the request for the changes and so that would be my only request is that staff and the applicant seriously consider proposing something that would allow for a drop off at least near the lobby, closer to and closer to the two middle spaces and near your where you have your mail room.

[02:52:15] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Uh Commissioner Dempsey.

[02:52:20] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I think very simple. What so what's most important? What's most important is that this is a is dense housing in an area of the City where we need dense housing. It's a lovely building I might add. Um this is a good thing. These are good things. So I'm absolutely going to be supporting this today uh just on the strength of that alone. Um you know I do wish you had done a community meeting and you know had one person show up. If for no other reason than because and I can't imagine you were going to have a big you know uh you're gonna have a you're gonna have a big group. But a lot of times that's a very important signal to us that you that you did it, nobody really cared and we're like, great, nobody cared. That is actually valuable information to us if you throw the party and no one comes. So I generally think it's always a good idea to do it. Um you know most of the other things that I might critique or wish were different um about the proposal, they're all things that fall under the category of issues that we can do nothing about. That are outside of our jurisdiction or uh outside of our power because of state law or or what have you. Um and so I won't belabor any of those points here um because it would be a waste of my time. But I think the general takeaway for me is it's it's a lovely building of a type that we need and it's in a neighborhood where we really need it. And so that is a good thing and worth supporting by itself.

[02:53:53] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey. I very much uh if I'm going to make my commentary, very much agree with that. I support it um fully based on the strength of the the the the actual housing delivery. Um one applicant said, hey, this is where opportunity is, you know, even the modern yuppie needs a place to live. Um so, you know, like I yeah, right? Like I'm I'm down with that. Um I also agree that all the things that I would complain about aren't things that we are going to have jurisdiction or uh sound steady ground to try and impart or require or obviate or do anyth- like I I don't think that's what we're here for. I think um Vice Chair Donahue put it um beautifully. Um you want this to be a success. I can tell you of my own accord that I do have those concerns around the double parking. Um it it it's a real thing. Um it's it's come up over and over, you know. This isn't the first project where that's something that's come up. But um you know, obviously that's a signal that this matters um to the community. If we're like, you know, representing uh the community and you're going to have a project in the community and you want that to succeed, um then to the extent that I can you know recommend along the lines of Commissioner uh Vice Chair Donahue's guidance, like just think about it. Um you want this to succeed, the community wants it to succeed and no one wants to have bad feelings um in the future. So I will be supporting it. Um I think I was hearing uh consensus around support. Um I'm I know I'm not of the mind of introducing requirements around the cutouts and all of that, but I do want to just make sure I'm double checking that there was not a majority sentiment for that that we would have to because I know Commissioner Cranston was kind of teasing that out. I think Commissioner Subramanian I kind of heard you kind of teasing that out, but I just want to make sure I'm double checking here. Commissioner Cranston?

[02:56:08] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Impression that we can't require it. It is something that I think we, like I said, that it's something that we ask the applicant to consider and staff to consider and that at least from one commissioner there would not be an objection to removing the grass in that section. Um but that's not a wouldn't be a requirement, it's a request for the applicant and the staff to go think about it. So it wouldn't change the motion, it's just advice to everybody.

[02:56:38] Chair Alex Nuñez: Grazie. Uh can we get then maybe uh anyone who would like to be brave enough to maybe make a motion?

[02:56:47] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And Chair, just uh for the maker of the motion's consideration, we have some language um related to the desk item and the amendments associated there with.

[02:56:57] Chair Alex Nuñez: Wonderful. Is there a script or like a paper that we? Yep. Okay. Who would like to make the motion? All right. We've got Commissioner Donahue making the motion. And then do we have a seconder? Commissioner Subramanian. Okay. Uh Commis- Vice Chair Donahue, would you like to?

[02:57:16] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. I make a motion that the Environmental Planning Commission recommends the City Council adopt a Resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving a Planned Community Permit and Development Review Permit to construct an eight-story mixed-use building with 460 apartment units utilizing State Density Bonus Law and approximately 9,371 square feet of ground floor commercial replacing an existing office building, a Heritage Tree Removal Permit to remove 29 Heritage trees on a 2.86 acre site located at 490 East Middlefield Road APN 160-53-004 and finding the project to be statutorily exempt from California Environmental Quality Act CEQA pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21080.66 to be read in title only, further reading waived, Attachment 1 to the EPC staff report. With the staff proposed modification to Attachment 1, Exhibit A, conditions of approval numbers 5, 25, 33, 34, 45, 50, 67, 81, 84, 85, 127, 136, 138, 150, and 155 as presented to the EPC.

[02:58:33] Chair Alex Nuñez: Great smile. Yay. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Uh think we're ready for the vote.

[02:58:56] Chair Alex Nuñez: Com- uh Commissioner Gutiérrez is marked as absent. I don't know if we he just kind of came in late.

[02:59:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Can he just tell me the what the vote is and then I can indicate it? The motion carries uh 6 yes and 1 no.

[02:59:27] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. Thank you. All right. At that uh we will now proceed to Item 6, uh new business. None. All right. Now uh Item number 7. Commission Staff announcements, updates, requests, and Committee reports. No action will be taken on any questions raised by the Commission at this time. Staff? Commissioners? Any suggested next meeting dates maybe?

[02:59:58] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Yeah. So uh Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner just wanted to remind we will have our next EPC meeting on February 4th followed by February 18th.

[03:00:09] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Chugging along. All right. So then we will move on to Item number 8, adjournment. This meeting is adjourned at 10:03 and 23 seconds PM. Thank you everyone.

• ← Previous
• Next →