March 10, 2026 City Council Meeting

Video

Agenda

• 1. CLOSED SESSION ANNOUNCEMENT (OPEN SESSION): Meeting called to order for closed session, roll call, and public comment on closed session items. (00:00:00)
• 2. CLOSED SESSION: Council convenes to closed session. (00:04:54)
• 1. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE/ROLL CALL: Regular session called to order, pledge of allegiance, and roll call. (00:07:30)
• 2. CLOSED SESSION REPORT: City Attorney reports on the outcome of the closed session. (00:08:44)
• 3.1 Women's History Month Proclamation: Proclamation honoring Women's History Month. (00:09:12)
• 3.2 Proclamation in Recognition of Chief Information Officer/Information Technology Director Roger Jensen on His Retirement: Proclamation honoring retiring CIO Roger Jensen. (00:13:21)
• 4. CONSENT CALENDAR: Approval of the consent calendar, including discussion on pulled item 4.2 regarding the Facade Grant Program. (00:18:17)
• 5. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC ON NONAGENDIZED ITEMS: Public comments on items not on the agenda. (00:26:05)
• 6.2 Mixed-Use Residential Development at 490 E. Middlefield Road: Public hearing, staff presentation, applicant presentation, and council vote on the mixed-use development at 490 E. Middlefield Road. (00:35:36)
• 6.3 Rowhouse Development Project at 515-545 North Whisman Road: Public hearing, staff presentation, applicant presentation, and council vote on the rowhouse development at 515-545 North Whisman Road. (01:08:44)
• 7. COUNCIL, STAFF/COMMITTEE REPORTS: Reports and updates from council members and staff. (01:42:21)
• 8. ADJOURNMENT: Meeting is adjourned. (01:46:58)

Transcript

1. CLOSED SESSION ANNOUNCEMENT (OPEN SESSION)

[00:03:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: Good evening everyone, thank you for joining us for our closed session tonight. It's 5:31 PM on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Mayor Ramos, do you have—welcome, by the way—do you have an announcement to make?

[00:03:16] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. Pursuant to Government Code section 54953.8.3, I am participating in this meeting remotely via audio and visual technology while traveling on official business of the legislative body. Zero other person over 18 of age is present at this remote location with me.

[00:03:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Great, thank you very much. All votes tonight will be taken by roll call vote. City Attorney Jennifer Logue, do you have a closed session announcement?

[00:03:51] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes, good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor and Councilmembers. There's one item on this evening's closed session agenda. Item 2.1 is a conference with legal counsel regarding one item of anticipated litigation pursuant to Government Code section 54956.9(d)(2). And I'd also like to let the record reflect that Councilmember Hicks has recused herself from participation in closed session this evening due to a conflict of interest.

[00:04:22] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session item tonight? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a speaker card to the City Clerk. We'll take in-person speakers first. And we—this is for the specifically for the closed session item. Do we have any speakers tonight?

[00:04:44] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't see any in the queue. So we will recess to the Plaza Conference Room for closed session and return to the Council Chambers for the regular session which is scheduled to begin at 6:30 PM.

2. CLOSED SESSION

[00:04:54] Councilmember Emily Ramos: At this time the council will convene into closed session.

[00:04:58] Councilmember Emily Ramos: We will return into this chamber at approximately 6:30 for the public meeting. Thank you.

1. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE/ROLL CALL

[00:07:31] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call this meeting of the Mountain View City Council to order. City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

[00:07:42] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[00:07:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Present.

[00:07:45] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Kamei?

[00:07:47] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Present.

[00:07:48] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember McAlister?

[00:07:50] Councilmember John McAlister: Present.

[00:07:51] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Ramirez?

[00:07:53] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Present.

[00:07:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[00:07:56] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Present.

[00:07:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Chris Clark?

[00:07:59] Councilmember Chris Clark: Present.

[00:08:00] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Emily Ann Ramos?

[00:08:02] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Present. All members are present. Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance, led tonight by Vice Mayor Chris Clark. Please stand.

[00:08:10] Councilmember Chris Clark: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[00:08:28] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you.

2. CLOSED SESSION REPORT

[00:08:46] Councilmember Emily Ramos: We're back in open session. City Attorney Logue, do you have a report from the earlier closed session?

[00:08:52] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Thank you, Mayor. The City Council met in closed session earlier this evening regarding the items on the posted agenda, and there is no reportable action.

[00:09:01] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. And with that, we'll adjourn to closed session to finish the remaining items and then we'll be back at 7:00 p.m. for our regular meeting. Thank you.

3.1 Women's History Month Proclamation

[00:09:12] Councilmember Emily Ramos: We will now move to our next item, item 3.1. City Clerk, please.

2. CLOSED SESSION REPORT

[00:09:14] Councilmember Emily Ramos: We are now in recess.

3.1 Women's History Month Proclamation

[00:09:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Item 3.1 is a proclamation recognizing March as Women's History Month.

[00:09:19] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. We have one proclamation tonight, and it's for Women's History Month. I'm going to go ahead and read it, and then we have a couple of guests who will come up and say a few words. Whereas, throughout history, women have made significant contributions to the growth and strength of our city, state, and nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways; and whereas, women have played and continue to play critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of the life of the nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home;

[00:09:57] Councilmember Emily Ramos: and whereas, women have been leaders, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement, which create a more fair and just society for all;

[00:10:27] Councilmember Emily Ramos: and whereas, despite these contributions, the role of women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in the literature, teaching, and study of American history; and whereas, the City of Mountain View is proud to celebrate the many contributions of women to our community and to recognize the importance of their work in shaping our collective future;

[00:10:57] Councilmember Emily Ramos: now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of March 2024 as Women's History Month in the City of Mountain View and call upon our community to celebrate the contributions of women throughout history and today. Signed, Mayor Emily Ann Ramos. I'd like to invite our guests from the League of Women Voters to please come forward.

[00:11:32] Public Speaker: Thank you, Mayor Ramos, and members of the City Council. I am representing the League of Women Voters of Mountain View/Los Altos, and we are honored to accept this proclamation. Women's History Month is a time for us to reflect on the progress we've made, but also to recognize the work that still lies ahead in ensuring full participation and representation for all women in our society.

[00:12:07] Public Speaker: Our League remains dedicated to empowering voters and defending democracy. We work every day to provide non-partisan information and to encourage everyone to take part in the process. We are grateful for the city's partnership in these efforts and look forward to continuing our work together.

[00:12:37] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you so much. Councilmember Hicks, did you want to share a few words?

[00:12:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, thank you. I just wanted to express my deep appreciation for the League of Women Voters. Your work is so foundational to our democracy, and your dedication to education and voter engagement is truly inspiring. Thank you for all you do for Mountain View.

[00:13:00] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you. Councilmember Showalter?

[00:13:04] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank the League. Their presence at our community events is always so professional and helpful. It's a great service to our residents, and I'm glad we could recognize you tonight.

3.2 Proclamation in Recognition of Chief Information Officer/Information Technology Director Roger Jensen on His Retirement

[00:13:22] Councilmember Pat Showalter: The city is in a much better place technologically than when you arrived. I remember the days of paper agendas and how far we've come. You've really led that transformation, and I want to thank you for your patience with all of us as we learned new systems. It's been a pleasure to work with you, Roger, and I wish you all the best.

[00:13:56] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you, Councilmember Showalter. Councilmember McAlister?

[00:14:03] Councilmember John McAlister: Thank you, Mayor. Roger, I just want to say thank you for being such a great partner to all the departments. IT can sometimes be a silo, but you made sure it was integrated into everything we do. And I've always appreciated your honesty and your straightforwardness. You'll be missed, and I hope you enjoy your retirement to the fullest.

[00:14:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Hicks?

[00:14:43] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you, Mayor. Roger, I also want to thank you for your incredible work, especially this past year during the pandemic. We had to pivot so quickly to remote meetings and remote work, and your team really stepped up. I also want to mention the work you've done on open data and making city information more accessible. That's a great legacy. Thank you.

[00:15:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Councilmember Abe-Koga?

[00:15:29] Councilmember Margaret Abe-Koga: Thank you, Madam Mayor. Roger, I've worked with you for many years, and you've always been such a professional. You have a very calm demeanor, even when things are crashing or there's a major system upgrade. That's a rare quality in IT! I also appreciate your leadership in the region and your collaboration with other cities. You've really put Mountain View on the map as a tech-forward city. Best wishes on your retirement.

[00:16:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. Vice Mayor Lucas Ramirez?

[00:16:31] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Mayor. Roger, I'll just echo what everyone else has said. Your contribution to this city has been immense. You've built a very strong foundation for whoever follows you. Thank you for your service and for your friendship over the years.

[00:17:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. And Roger, I'll just add my own thanks. As we've all said, this past year has been a real test of our IT infrastructure, and you passed with flying colors. I've always appreciated your vision and your ability to look ahead to the next technological trend. You've kept us current and secure. We have the proclamation here, and while we can't present it to you in person, we will get it to you. I'll read just the final 'Therefore' clause.

[00:17:36] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Therefore, I, Ellen Kamei, Mayor of the City of Mountain View, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby recognize and commend Roger Jensen for his 18 years of outstanding service to the City of Mountain View and wish him a long, happy, and healthy retirement. Congratulations, Roger.

[00:18:01] Roger Jensen: Thank you so much, Mayor, and thank you to all the Councilmembers for those kind words. It's been an absolute privilege to work for this city. I've been very lucky to have a great team in the IT department, and I want to share this recognition with them. They're the ones who do the hard work every day. And thank you to the City Manager and the rest of the leadership team. It's been a great ride. Thank you.

6.2 Mixed-Use Residential Development at 490 E. Middlefield Road

[01:04:51] Councilmember Chris Clark: Good evening everyone. I'm calling this meeting to order. This regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council to order at 6:32 p.m. on March 10th, 2026. Please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance.

[01:05:05] Councilmember Chris Clark: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[01:05:17] Councilmember Chris Clark: City Clerk Glaser, will you confirm attendance by roll call, please?

[01:05:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[01:05:20] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Here.

[01:05:21] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Kamei?

[01:05:22] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Here.

[01:05:23] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Ramirez?

[01:05:24] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Here.

[01:05:25] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[01:05:26] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Here.

[01:05:27] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Clark?

[01:05:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: Here.

[01:05:29] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Ramos?

[01:05:30] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Here.

[01:05:31] City Clerk Heather Glaser: You have a quorum with Councilmember McAlister absent.

[01:05:32] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. In recent weeks, the city along with a few of our neighboring elected decision-making bodies has been subjected to disruptive, racist, and verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments.

[01:05:47] Councilmember Chris Clark: The Council welcomes respectful, non-threatening public comments on matters within our jurisdiction, but comments deemed otherwise pursuant to Council Code of Conduct and the Government Code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period. Item number 2, closed session report. City Attorney Logue, is there a closed session report this evening?

[01:06:07] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Yes, there is. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Councilmembers. In closed session this evening, City Council considered a settlement proposal to resolve a dispute between the city and Castro GPRV 10 LLC regarding the calculation of privately owned, publicly accessible open space credit to be applied to the park in-lieu fee for the proposed mixed-use development project at 881 Castro Street.

[01:06:34] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: The Council voted to approve the settlement by the following votes: there were four ayes, there was one absence by Councilmember McAlister, one recusal by Councilmember Hicks, and one no vote by Councilmember Kamei. The approved settlement will result in the imposition of a park fee in the amount of $2 million.

[01:07:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. For our presentations this evening, we have two items, 3.1 and 3.2. The City Council won't take any action on the presentations, but there will be an opportunity for the public to comment immediately after the presentations occur.

[01:07:20] Councilmember Chris Clark: If there's anyone here in person who wishes to speak on either of the presentation items specifically, please submit a blue speaker card to our City Clerk during the presentations. And we'll start with our first presentation is item 3.1, Women's History Month, in recognition of and we're honored this evening to be joined by Katie Zoglin on behalf of the League of Women Voters to accept the proclamation. Katie, will you join me down at the lectern?

[01:07:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you so much for being here. March is National Women's History Month and it's an opportunity to honor the extraordinary contributions of women that have been made throughout history and those that are and women who continue to make those contributions in our community today.

[01:07:57] Councilmember Chris Clark: This year's theme is leading leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future.

6.3 Rowhouse Development Project at 515-545 North Whisman Road

[01:08:44] Councilmember Chris Clark: I didn't read all the whereases, but hopefully I captured all the content.

[01:08:55] Councilmember Chris Clark: Katie, would you like to say a few words?

[01:08:57] Public Speaker: Thank you very much, Vice Mayor, and also thank you Mayor Ramos... Did I say Vice Mayor? Vice Mayor Clark, sorry. Anyway, I wanted to thank the city for this recognition of the League of Women Voters. The League of Women Voters was founded over 106 years ago to help women exercise their new responsibility with their new founded right to vote which came with the 19th Amendment. We now welcome everyone, it's not just an exclusively women's group, but for those of you who don't know us, we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to promote and inform and engage community and to strengthen our democracy. So thank you very much.

[01:09:50] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. We'll do a quick photo.

[01:10:20] Councilmember Chris Clark: And then the other presentation item tonight is to recognize Roger Jensen, our Chief Information Officer and Information Technology Director, who's going to retire on March 20th after 12 years of service to the City of Mountain View. Roger, do you want to come up?

[01:10:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: So Roger joined the city in January of 2014, which I'll say a little bit about in a minute. He joined as the City's first CIO and IT Director, and he established the City's Information Technology Department. In that role he's overseen the City's IT functions and technology needs while helping modernize how the organization operates. During his tenure the city expanded Wi-Fi service across downtown Mountain View and city facilities, which many of you have probably enjoyed over the last several years. He's launched, he helped launch a new city website and intranet and helped develop and implement the city's online permitting platform. Roger also established the city's geographic information service mapping group, creating a centralized development and support for enterprise-wide GIS services which if you're a government geek, you know is really, really important that we know where everything is and all the assets within the city and what the city owns across the entire organization. He created the enterprise applications group and launched projects to replace several major systems including the City's utility billing program, work order management and land management systems. Under his leadership the IT team also strengthened the City's cybersecurity protections including real-time monitoring of internal networks for system attacks, multi-factor authentication, employee cybersecurity training and stronger antivirus protections. Roger also led the effort to integrate new hardware and software systems across departments to improve efficiency and productivity, and he championed innovation across the organization, drawing on his private sector experience to modernize systems and internal functions including document processing, legal inquiries and employee onboarding and offboarding. Particularly important was his efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic when he helped to ensure that the city could continue providing essential services by implementing virtual and hybrid meeting support for both the City Council and all of our other public bodies who help, were able to continue holding public meetings during that period and he helped enable remote work for city employees on very short notice. More recently he initiated the city's responsible use for artificial intelligence, helping Mountain View become one of the first jurisdictions to join the GovAI Coalition and leading development of the city's AI administrative policy. So Roger, on behalf of Mayor Ramos and my colleagues on the City Council, we recognize and commend you for your steadfast leadership, service and dedication to the residents of Mountain View and most importantly we wish you a long and very happy retirement. Congratulations and thank you for all you've done for the City of Mountain View.

[01:13:33] Roger Jensen: Sure. Um, well thank you. I've been here 12 years. I have a lot to be grateful for. First of all, for the City Manager and executive team, IT has to do a lot of work, but it, we depend on our departments to support us, and they've been great. The things we've done, I couldn't have done without my IT team, Manisha, my Assistant Director and group. Um, just to give you some idea what it was like when I came here, the city had 30 laptops and everybody came to the office five days a week and if you wanted to be in a public meeting, you came here and if you were a councilmember on the road, we put a phone here with a microphone next to it. So we were not very high-tech. As of this month, I think we have 600 laptops in the field, all our public meetings, you can, you know, participate remotely and that's all thanks to the group that we manage in IT. And as Vice Mayor Clark mentioned, we have some exciting projects coming up for enterprise software, which we're excited to do and should improve productivity especially on the development support front. And finally, I'd like to thank Council. A short story. I was in 2013, the council voted to make the IT department and create my position. I had said to my wife a couple years earlier that boy, if I could do my career over again, I'd like to work for a city. They're just really fascinating how they work. And so the Mountain View Voice used to be a newspaper got delivered to your house. So she came up to my office and she said, you know, you said you want to work for a city, Mountain View's hiring one, you live in Mountain View, you should apply. And that started. And so actually, you were on the Council, you were Vice Mayor and approved it, as was Councilmember McAlister. Um, so you both helped create this position. I didn't see the minutes so I hope you voted for it. I'll give you, I'll say yes you voted for it, I'll just tell myself. Anyway, thank you all very much to everyone and I wish you all the best of luck. Thanks.

[01:16:17] Councilmember Chris Clark: Do any of my council colleagues have comments on the presentation items? Councilmember Showalter.

[01:16:24] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'd like to say a little something about both of them. Um, first of all about Women's History Month. It took about 80 years of fighting to get or action, maybe it wasn't all fighting, to get the 19th Amendment ratified and get women the the right to vote. And at that time it was only white women. It was much, much later when women of color were were given the opportunity to vote. So, so the um the fight that we see going on in our country now about voting rights, I mean it's not new. It's a, it's we've had a very um um, we've had a long history of people arguing about who should be able to vote and what criteria they are. But all that aside, I think I for one feel like it's one of our most precious rights. And it's something that um uh we all hear is is optional, you don't have to vote. I know in my family we teach uh everybody, our kids and our relatives that it's not optional, it's your, you know, it's it's your duty as an American citizen to vote, at least on the things you know about. So, and Women's History Month, I just like to bring that up that this fight over the right to vote and who gets to vote um has very, very long roots. And um we're not done yet. But it's um it's something that's worth fighting for. And then I just want to say thank you to Roger. I'm not going to be able to be at your party on Friday, unfortunately. I always love a good party but I'm going to be out of town. Um, but um you have been a delight to work with. I um I am not particularly strong on um tech, as my children are want to tell me pretty much anytime they get an opportunity. And but you were always and are always so um good about explaining things and making sure that things got fixed so they worked. And that's actually what we all care about, making it work. And so I really appreciate you um you um being the person that for so many um issues that I had with tech made it work. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[01:17:29] Councilmember Chris Clark: Mayor Ramos, I see your hand up.

[01:17:32] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you Vice Mayor Clark. Um, I'll start with congratulations Mr. Jensen on on all your work that you have done in our city. Um also fellow Leadership Mountain View best class ever. Um, it was before I was actually on Council, so it was really nice to to be able to talk to you about the different systems of IT that the city has including um our our Open GIS portal which was really nice. Um and so congratulations on that and I know that like the obviously the technology, this position, it's something that has a lot of people um really mindful of, especially in a city, any Silicon Valley city probably has kind of like that pressure on them because there's an expectation um that we would have the most advanced technology ever uh for our cities. But you have done a good job in keeping us up to date and and making sure that we are focused in having technology that makes us do the the best work we can. Um, I'm really sad I can't be there in person because I really like today's proclamations. Um, but um so but for the next, for the other proclamation, um I'm using that for my uh my mayor call to action, call to service, call to community, um because League of Women Voters is uh what some people say is the gold standard of um civic engagement. Um, we're very proud to have such a strong chapter that covers us and and Los Altos, Los Altos Hills. But um very proud to have a strong chapter that covers us. So I encourage people to get involved that way. One of the biggest, one of the one, one of the major things that League of Women Voters do is uh voter education and voter registration which is a huge um service to our community. Um, so get involved and you really can't do better on civic engagement than League of Women Voters. So thank you.

[01:19:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: City Manager McCarthy.

[01:19:04] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you Vice Mayor. So I just wanted to make remarks about our retiring IT Director, um Roger Jensen and he, I saw you tried to leave too fast because he's so diligent that he's going back to his office to help monitor the Zoom component of this meeting. Um, but one thing that I have just really appreciated about Roger over these last several many years is his ability to to be a doer. There's a lot of agencies where there are directors that are just delegators and we don't have that here in Mountain View. And Roger has been instrumental in making so many changes over this past decade for the better for our community, for our Council and for the city organization. One thing that wasn't said in the proclamation is that we have about 11 system implementations going on right now. Everything from a brand-new utility billing system to a contract management system that we're looking at to a land management system that we're hoping to launch, GIS improvements, improvements to our agenda management system. It really runs the gamut um and touches so many parts of our organization and Roger's leadership and diligence and passion for this work is really um tremendous and instrumental. And I just wanted to thank him as he mentioned he is a Mountain View resident. So I know he's going to be watching and he has a lot of passions that I know that you're excited to to do in retirement. But I wanted to thank you for a great 12 years. You're the first and only IT Director so far and I feel like you've gotten us to a really tremendous place and a leader in many ways. So thank you for all of your years of service for being a great public servant coming from the private sector and I know you have a lot of wonderful things ahead of you. So thank you so much, Roger.

[01:21:13] City Attorney Jennifer Logue: Hi Roger. We haven't had a chance to work with you for a very long, but it has been wonderful. I know Mitesh would echo um what I'm saying as well, he speaks highly of you. And we wish you all the best in retirement.

[01:21:29] Councilmember Chris Clark: And then since no one else is in the queue, I'll just wrap up by saying um I think I've worked with both of you for quite a while, probably too long. I think you know you've probably been here too long when I think I was yes, I the same month I became Mayor in 2014, Roger joined us. Um, and and now I'm um seeing him off to retirement although I know I'll see him around. But um Katie, thank you again for all the work that you have done, you, Sue Russell, everyone. Um I remember Councilmember Ramirez sitting in the back with with um yes, with Julie Lovens and and some of the League folks and and um and your, our community is stronger because of all the work that you and your organization do. And Roger, um I highlighted it a little bit, but I I do uh want to just thank you again for the work in particular that you did turning everything on a dime during at the start of the pandemic. I remember sitting here never thought I would have to declare a public state of emergency except maybe an earthquake, certainly not a pandemic. And to have to almost immediately go fully remote and knowing that we had to keep the city operating, that democracy has to continue, I mean you helped enable that. So thank you not just for for that, but for everything else that you've done for our community. Um we'll I'm sure we'll see you around and maybe every now and then you can pop in and tell us when we do something wrong or something you don't like. But um so. Um, and then I just wanted to check and see if there's any public comment on the presentation items. I don't see anyone in the queue. Okay, well thank you again. We'll close the presentation items and move on to item four, the Consent Calendar. These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration and if an item is pulled from the consent calendar it'll be considered separately following the approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you are here in person and would like to speak on the consent calendar or the next item which is Oral Communications on non-agenda items, please just make sure you've submitted a blue card to the City Clerk. Would any member of the council like to comment on or pull a specific consent calendar item? Councilmember Hicks.

[01:25:52] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes. I would like to pull 4.2 regarding facade grant programming.

[01:25:59] Councilmember Chris Clark: For a separate vote. Yeah, separate discussion vote. Okay. Councilmember Ramirez.

[01:26:05] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Uh, thank you Vice Mayor. Just a brief comment about 4.1. I want to thank staff for the commitment to return to Council later with the minor amendments to align the zoning ordinance with state law. I appreciate the consideration even if the EPC did not consider it, I appreciate your consideration of making those modifications. Thank you.

[01:26:31] Councilmember Chris Clark: And I don't see anyone else in the queue, so 4.2 was pulled. We'll um we'll take that separately. Is there a motion to approve the balance and just a note that 4.1 requires reading the title of the ordinance? Councilmember Showalter.

[01:26:51] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I would like to move the remainder of the Consent Calendar, so that would be items um 4.1 and 4.3 I think. Um, item 4.1, adopt an ordinance of the City Council 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 use, to make other modifications, clarifications and technical corrections throughout the chapter to align land uses in the residential, commercial and industrial areas 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.

[01:27:57] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, so that motion is to approve the balance of the Consent Calendar which I believe is everything except 4.2, and the motion was by Councilmember Showalter, the second was by Councilmember Ramirez. We'll um, is there any public comment on the consent calendar?

[01:28:21] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't see any so um we're ready for a roll call vote on the balance when you're ready, City Clerk.

[01:28:27] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter. (Yes). Councilmember Ramirez. (Yes). Councilmember Hicks. (Yes). Councilmember Kamei. (Yes). Vice Mayor Clark. (Yes). Mayor Ramos. (Yes). Motion carries.

[01:28:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. We'll turn to item 4.2. Councilmember Hicks, did you want to start us off?

[01:28:48] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes. So um 4.2 is improvements to a facade grant program that we've had for several years. Um, and I'll start off by saying I like all the improvements that staff has suggested uh to the facade grant program, I'm not I didn't pull it to complain about them. Um, and in fact this program's really important to me because cities I've worked in, principally Oakland, had a fabulous facade grant program that over time reduced vacancies, increased foot traffic and increased business um in the city um and was won honors for for doing so. So um and it didn't do that alone, there were other supplementary programs, but um facade grant programs are are one thing I really have faith in uh in our economic vitality plan. Um, I believe it needs continual improvement as many of our programs do. Um, and so I talked um both to our Community Development Director, our Economic Vitality Director and um to Mr. Katz from the Chamber of Commerce about my you know several hundred ideas for how to improve it and narrowed it down to two that oh I see they're smiling. So to just two of those ideas. So um so those were and feel free to reword this if if you need to narrow it more. Um, so those were first to focus our priority on placemaking and historic improvements and second to um focus on the downtown for the facade improvements. Now I don't mean solely those areas but to focus on those areas because I think in walkable areas and at this point our pedestrian mall is our primary walkable area, that's where facades really make a difference as opposed to streets that you drive by they make less of a difference. So to have an impact I think those would be the appropriate focuses or foci if that's the right way to say it. Um, so those would be the changes I would make. I don't know if staff has any comments on how to word those changes.

[01:31:24] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Good evening Honorable Councilmembers. Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Uh, what I would ask when we're we're talking about focusing the effort of the program is uh perhaps to focus on the staff outreach to businesses where a facade grant would achieve one of those policy objectives that are prioritized. Um, we have a broad range of needs and businesses across the city and we wouldn't want to limit funding opportunities to those that come to the city uh in some fashion to pursue a facade grant program if they don't uh meet one of those criteria, but in our efforts to contact business owners, make them aware of the resources, um having that priority focus would be helpful for us.

[01:32:07] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I'm so glad you worded it that way because that's exactly what I wanted to do. Thank you.

[01:32:16] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Showalter.

[01:32:17] Councilmember Pat Showalter: I really appreciate you bringing this up. And uh the I I applaud the the idea of of working with outreach. Но I would also um I also think about the signage ordinance that um we have on the books. And it doesn't seem like too many people understand it. And um the idea behind the signage ordinance is that most of the window is opened, you know, so you can see in and uh sort of enjoy the, you know, what's what's going on inside. And um some of our uh our uh our businesses cover every them up with all sorts of notices and things. And some are nice, but but uh I do think that the idea that you can look inside and see what's going on makes um makes an a restaurant or a store much more inviting to go into. So I hope that when you you know do the outreach you'll you'll do a little bit of marketing on our signage ordinance as well. Thank you.

[01:33:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Ramirez.

[01:33:28] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Mayor. Briefly, a short remark on Councilmember Showalter's comment first. I I this is God's work and I'm not suggesting that we do it, but it would be good to update um that that part of the code. Um but I know that's that's very tricky, but um a good endeavor for a future council. I'm thinking about Councilmember Hicks's suggestion and I'm not sure I actually agree. Um and maybe you could persuade me to to support it, but I recently went to a restaurant in a part of the city far outside of downtown, a restaurant I like and I was meeting a couple of friends from out of town and it took them a while to find it because they don't have a sign. They have like if you go up to I knew where it was, right, so I walked up to it and you can see they have a very tiny like like this sort of size sign, um but my my friends were sort of giving me a hard time like we thought this place was closed because they didn't have or like it was a vacant storefront since they didn't have uh something that you could see like when you're navigating the shopping center. So I I think I appreciate the intent, but I want to make sure we don't leave businesses outside of the downtown uh out of or we don't give them the same opportunity since it could be for some of them the difference between viability and non-viability if people don't know, if you drive past it, it looks like it's a vacant space. So I'd love to find a way to make sure we're not you know uh disadvantaging other businesses. Uh but because it's it's I want to respect the suggestion and maybe find a way to yes, but I'm a little concerned that if we if we narrow the outreach too much then you know I'm not sure that that business owner for instance would think oh you know I should go to you know the city and see if there's a grant program for the facade. You know, that's that's not intuitive I think for most so I'm thinking about is there a way where uh we can achieve the spirit of of the request but but not leave some businesses that would benefit immensely from participation in the program you know not denying them that that opportunity.

[01:35:31] Councilmember Chris Clark: Do you want to respond?

[01:35:32] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, so um funny you should say that because in discussion both with Mr. Katz and now uh with the Community Development Director they said similar things. I think that the highest impact if we had multiple facade grants would be on the walkable would be on the pedestrian mall. Um, frankly I think the I think many things about our our downtown and pedestrian mall are really great and thriving, but I think the facades are could use some upgrades and it could make a big difference. I do think though that that you're exactly right that there other places that could benefit too and I really liked what Mr. Murdock said about um about uh not confining the so I could have said the facade grant should only go to the first three blocks of Castro Street. Но I think that the program should be available citywide, but just most of the door knocking and promotion could be on the the downtown. And that's not to say I also believe that this there should be continual improvement. You know, if if the downtown is upgraded a tremendous amount over the next give me any timeframe you want year, two years, you know we could continue and and uh and promote other pockets citywide but for now I think we really should uh have our outreach focused in that area.

[01:37:02] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I can see that's not quite doing it for you yet.

[01:37:08] Councilmember Chris Clark: While you all noodle on that, is there is there any public comment on 4.2? I don't see anyone in the queue. So um we'll bring this back uh a motion is in order to to do something with 4.2. Councilmember Hicks. Sorry, Councilmember Kamei, you're in the queue.

[01:37:32] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: It's okay, thanks. Uh so I just want to say thank you to staff. It's really exciting to see that we've supported 14 total facade improvements across our city. About, you know, it said seven so about half of those are a little over half or is it my math right is are is in downtown. Um, but exciting to hear about the other locations that we're looking at. Um, and so I think what Councilmember Hicks brought forward that perked my ears up was the idea of the placemaking and the kind of historic improvements. And so maybe that could be um you know to get to to bring forward maybe compromise if it's not just focused on the downtown but I'd love to think of the placemaking and the historic improvements because I think there's so many different uh areas of our of our city that are wonderful and um I'd love for it to feel especially where I live in the East Whisman area, I'd love for that area to have a little bit more placemaking. Um, it wasn't listed as one of the project locations currently. Um, so I think maybe we can, it would make me feel more comfortable if we included those with like less of a focus on downtown. The downtown also in addition to the Chamber support has the Downtown Business Association, so they again get to be highlighted, but I understand that concern of being equitable throughout the city. So I don't know if you would be open to that because I know there was kind of two parts to your...?

[01:39:13] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I would be open to changing it to dropping the downtown and just saying placemaking and historic improvement. Okay.

[01:39:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: Is that is that motion clear? The the motion is by Councilmember Hicks, seconded by Councilmember Showalter and I just want to make sure that Community Director... okay, Community Development Director you okay. Um so we'll that motion is by Councilmember Hicks as she summarized for 4.2, seconded by Councilmember Showalter. Um I don't see anyone else in the queue so we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote.

[01:39:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks. (Yes). Councilmember Showalter. (Yes). Councilmember Kamei. (Yes). Councilmember Ramirez. (Yes). Vice Mayor Clark. (Yes). Mayor Ramos. (Yes). Motion carries.

[01:40:03] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. So that um concludes our consent calendar. We'll move on to item five, Oral Communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter that is not on tonight's agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak for up to three minutes on any topic not on tonight's agenda as long as it's within the City Council's subject matter jurisdiction. State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agendaed items. If you'd like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us uh virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, if and if you're in the Zoom room you can click the raise hand button uh or press star 9 on your phone and if you're in person as I mentioned before submit a blue speaker card. We'll take in-person speakers first and then we'll move on to virtual speakers and we'll have uh three minutes for each speaker. Our first in-person speaker is Bob Rich. When you're ready, sir.

[01:41:08] Public Speaker Bob Rich: Good evening Mayor and Councilmembers. My name is Bob Rich, I reside in Los Altos with my wife and two children and my 16-month-old black labrador puppy, who's already 100 pounds. With me today is Shawn Clifford who is a US Marine who fought in um Afghanistan for our country. I'm here today to bring to your attention a serious fire hazard and a serious hazard to our dogs when they walk at the Annex at Cuesta Park. And the reason there's a fire hazard and a hazard to our dogs is because what I'm holding in my hand which is a foxtail. These are extremely dangerous to dogs, they're an invasive species and they have overgrown the Annex where we let our dogs roam freely until 10:00 in the morning. Here is a picture I took this morning of this is George, he's actually bigger than he looks because he's this is Shawn's dog Clyde. You can see the overgrowth of the foxtails.

7. COUNCIL, STAFF/COMMITTEE REPORTS

[01:42:21] Public Speaker: tons and tons of them throughout the park. The plan this year as it's been for prior years is to cut this down in the next week or two, maybe even the first week of April.

[01:42:33] Public Speaker: The problem with that is they don't pick up the debris. They leave it on the ground. There's a contractor that you hire to do that.

[01:42:41] Public Speaker: And unlike our lawns where we do grass cycling, there's so much wooded debris here, tons and tons of this, that when you leave it on the ground, it creates a fire hazard. It dries out.

[01:42:56] Public Speaker: Now in the hallway before we started, I got here early, I talked to Officer Jones, the fire marshal. He told me that in this state now, it's a fire hazard because the fire, when it's tall like this, it can grow quickly, spread.

[01:43:12] Public Speaker: But even when you cut it, if you leave it on the ground, it still creates a serious fire hazard. It's laying a thick mat of this dry debris that's down there, and to leave it there is a huge fire hazard. And I think I wanted to bring that to your attention.

[01:43:26] Public Speaker: But for the dogs, it's a very serious health hazard because now, the way it is now, dogs rarely try to run in there. It's kind of a barrier, right? It's it's up five, six, seven feet high.

[01:43:40] Public Speaker: Once you cut it and you leave it on the ground, the dogs are going to run through there. And these foxtails get in their noses, get in their ears, get in their eyes. They're barbed seeds.

[01:43:50] Public Speaker: And if you ran your hand down, you can feel it, they're spiked, they're barbed. And these they're like biological drills, they get into the fur but don't stop there.

[01:44:01] Public Speaker: They dig deeper and deeper, and as the dog moves and jostles around, they dig into the organs of the dog. They'll get in your eyes, they'll get into the mouth, the throat, the lungs.

[01:44:13] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We can't take any specific action tonight but we can note your comments and and follow up. No, I'm sorry, we're doing the same time for everyone tonight. Thank you very much.

[01:44:29] Councilmember Chris Clark: Do we have anyone—I don't see any more in-person comments. Are there any virtual? Okay. So we'll go ahead and close oral communications from the public and move on to our public hearings.

[01:44:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: We have two items—or excuse me, we had three items tonight. The first of which, 6.1, a mixed-use development at 843 and 903 Castro Street and 700 West El Camino Real and 750 Fairmont Avenue.

[01:44:55] Councilmember Chris Clark: That item will not be heard tonight. Um, it will be re-noticed for discussion at a later date. So we'll proceed to item 6.2, which is a mixed-use residential development at 490 East Middlefield Road.

[01:45:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, we'll start with council member disclosures, which, um, to save us time, especially since we have one person remote, um, I'll start by asking, you know, colleagues, if you've—raise your physical or virtual hand and I'll note you if you—if you've met with the applicant, which I have.

[01:45:25] Councilmember Chris Clark: Looks like Councilmembers Ramirez, Kamei, and myself. Um, and then, um, for those who've been to the site in the recent past, I think probably most of us have.

[01:45:39] Councilmember Chris Clark: Looks like several of us except Councilmember Ramirez and—and—I didn't see Mayor Ramos's hand for either. So. And then if anyone wants to make any other additional disclosures, you're welcome to jump in the queue. But um thought I'd save us that.

[01:46:02] Councilmember Chris Clark: Um, so, um, tonight we'll start with—so the order will be a staff presentation and then we'll have an applicant presentation, Council will ask questions, and then we'll take public comment and deliberate at the end of that.

[01:46:19] Councilmember Chris Clark: So we'll—we'll start with our staff presentation. Principal Planner Diana Pancholi and senior planner Jeff Sumutura will present this item.

[01:46:27] Councilmember Chris Clark: If you wish to speak on this item in person, uh, you can fill out a blue speaker card during the—during the presentation and we'll make sure to get you into the queue. And we'll proceed with the staff presentation when you're ready.

[01:46:36] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Good evening, Councilmembers. My name is Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner with the city's planning division, and I am joined here tonight by project planner Jeffrey Sumutura.

[01:46:49] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The item in front of you tonight is a mixed-use residential project at 490 East Middlefield Road. The approximately 2.86 acre project site is located

8. ADJOURNMENT

[01:46:58] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: located northwest corner of East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street.

[01:47:02] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The General Plan Land Use Designation for the site is East Whisman Mixed-Use and it's in the East Whisman Precise Plan Zoning District.

[01:47:09] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The site is currently...

Additional Content 1

[01:47:11] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The project site is currently developed with a two-story commercial office development and surrounded by similar one- to four-story office developments. The applicant is requesting various permits for the project development, including a Planned Community Permit and Development Review Permit to construct an eight-story, 460-apartment unit with ground-floor commercial mixed-use building and an at-grade parking garage. A heritage tree removal permit for removal of 29 heritage trees, and a development agreement request to utilize both East Whisman Precise Plan bonus FAR program and State Density Bonus Law to develop the additional floor area and allow for flexibility in the timing of the project.

[01:47:57] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The proposed site plan includes a mixed-use building with ground-floor commercial uses along East Middlefield Road frontage and Ellis Street frontages. Surface parking and vehicular access is located along the East Middlefield Road at the southwest corner and Ellis Street at the northeast corner. The primary residential lobby is located along East Middlefield Road frontage.

[01:48:18] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The project features a contemporary design organized around second-floor courtyards and upper-level roof decks that help break the building mass. The building frames East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street, emphasizing the key corner with active ground-floor uses, public artwork, and vertical articulation to support a pedestrian-oriented streetscape. Massing is stepped and articulated, and a light plaster palette with dark metal accents further softens the building's height and bulk.

[01:48:50] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The project is requesting a state density bonus for a 27.5 percent bonus above the base units by providing approximately 15 percent affordable units. The project proposal includes 99 bonus units for a total of 460 units proposed on-site. As per the state law, the project is eligible for up to one concession and unlimited waivers of the development standards. The applicant is requesting one concession to provide the BMR units as the smaller unit type rather than the market-rate units required by the City Code.

[01:49:13] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Compliance with the City Code requirements would result in identifiable and actual cost reductions to provide for affordable housing costs. The applicant is also requesting six waivers or reduction in development standards that would otherwise physically preclude construction of the project at the permitted density. Details of the waivers are included in the staff report and also listed on this slide. Staff has determined that the project could not be constructed without these concessions and development waivers as full compliance would generally require a reduction in the density bonus area.

[01:49:57] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The project includes fully affordable units at or up to 80 percent of the area median income and split between two income levels. This exceeds the City's 15 percent BMR requirement and provides for a wider variety of lower-income units. Pursuant to the City's Code, the affordable units shall remain affordable in perpetuity. Aside from the unit size proportionality requested under the concession, the project complies with other requirements applicable under the BMR ordinance.

[01:50:29] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: In terms of the tree removal request, the project site contains a total of 112 existing trees, including 29 heritage 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 buildings, and long-term conflicts with the overhead utility lines. The project will require the removal of 29 heritage trees and proposes a total of 159 replacement trees at a nearly 5.5 to 1 replacement ratio, which exceeds city standard practice of 2 to 1 replacement ratio for heritage trees.

[01:51:08] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Additionally, the project will also provide approximately 34,000 square feet of common and private open space distributed among the second-floor podium courtyard, roof decks on the fourth and the seventh floor, and landscaped areas throughout the site. Streetscape improvements include new detached sidewalks, landscape strips, and street trees along the East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street frontages with additional planting within the parking area.

[01:51:37] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The project is within one-half mile of a major transit stop and is not required to provide any parking per the City Code. However, the project is voluntarily proposing a ground-floor parking garage with 442 parking spaces for residential uses utilizing a stacker system. Additionally, additional residential parking spaces and commercial parking spaces, including three loading spaces, are provided in the surface parking around the proposed building. The project also includes a TDM plan that meets the precise plan requirements for residential TDM, except for the minimum bicycle parking requirements for which the applicant has requested a waiver.

[01:52:17] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: As part of the requested development agreement, the project will receive an initial four-year term with two extension options in exchange for monetary public benefits as described in the report, including $1.2 million contribution in tenant improvements for ground-floor retail spaces, $1.2 million contribution towards parkland acquisition for a new park within the project vicinity. Commitments to the CalGreen compliance, LEED Silver-equivalent design, and an all-electric building design, options for a master lease guarantee to designate up to 60 additional units as BMR units for a minimum of seven years.

[01:52:53] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Sales tax point of sale designation for good faith efforts to require all persons and entities providing materials for the project over a specified value to have the local portion of the sales and the use tax distributed directly to the City. In addition to these public benefits, the project will also provide community benefits associated with the precise plan bonus FAR requirements. City staff has completed the review of the development agreement and finds the agreement is advantageous and benefits the City as it advances the legitimate planning and public objectives.

[01:53:32] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: In terms of the environmental review, the project is determined to be statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, pursuant to the Public Resources Code Section 21080.66. Specifically, a condition of approval has been added into the project resolution for additional site testing and preliminary endangerment assessment to mitigate any potential hazards to acceptable levels for future occupants.

[01:53:57] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: In terms of the meetings so far, the project was reviewed at the Design Review Consultation meeting in September last year, and the applicant has made revisions to the project plans incorporating the DRC suggestions. Typically for a project of this size and scale, staff does recommend to the applicant to conduct a neighborhood meeting to solicit community input on the project during the review. The applicant chose not to conduct a neighborhood meeting for this project.

[01:54:27] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The Environmental Planning Commission reviewed the project at the public hearing on January 21st this year and voted 6-1 recommending approval to the City Council. Based on the EPC recommendation, the applicant has been willing to explore a cutout along the Middlefield Road frontage for delivery vehicles. Following the EPC meeting, the applicant also requested additional modifications to the proposed conditions of approval. Staff is supportive of these modifications and is recommending amendments to the project conditions as shown in Attachment 1 to the council report.

[01:55:00] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: On February 11th, the Zoning Administrator held a public hearing and recommended Council approve the development agreement. In conclusion, the staff recommends adopting a resolution approving the project and introducing an ordinance approving a development agreement for the proposed project and setting a second reading for March 24th this year.

[01:55:24] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: It should be noted that following the agenda publication, staff received three public comments: one expressed concerns about the increased traffic given recent and developments in the area, one supporting the potential cutout along the Middlefield Road frontage for deliveries, and one noting the City's obligation to review and act on housing projects pursuant to the state law. Please note that staff, in addition to Community Development Director Murdock and Assistant Director Blizinski, we are present here if you have any questions. The applicant is also present here tonight and has a brief presentation for Council. Thank you so much.

[01:56:01] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. So we'll move on to the applicant presentation. My notes say we have Brian Griggs and Andrew Jacobson with Development Partners, but when you're ready to start your presentation, just please introduce yourselves into the mic for the record. And I believe we set up seven minutes for the applicant presentation, is that right? So the timer should appear below. So whenever you're ready.

[01:56:35] Brian Griggs: Good evening. My name is Brian Griggs. Mayor Ramos, Vice Mayor Clark, and councilmembers, thank you for the opportunity to present our project this evening. I'm joined by Andrew Jacobson, who's going to present the project, and several other members of our development team who are in the back. Before I start, my main focus is going to be on the process, which working with Jeffrey and Diana, Susanna, Renee, Quinn from Public Works, the City Attorney's office, and working through the DA in a very efficient and timely manner and having the collaboration is certainly in my mind a model of how development can be done in this city.

[01:57:25] Brian Griggs: I think we've been able to address issues that were challenging for us in collaborative ways, and we're proud to be able to bring this project forward to you tonight. We are going to provide 60 affordable rental units at 65 percent average AMI. We have underwritten this project to be able to build it, finance it, which is challenging in this market, and we look forward to being able to actually break ground in the not-too-distant future. We'll jump into working drawings and a lot of the other due diligence that must occur. Andrew, you want to take over with some of the slides?

[01:57:50] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, thanks for your time Mayor, Vice Mayor, councilmembers. Really excited to bring this project forward. It's a very interesting corner, very important corner for East Whisman. You can look in the rendering, not a ton of housing nearby. You know, I think the goal is to have a very mixed-use community with housing and office. Today as it stands, quite a bit of commercial. So how we really approached the project was through two things: housing and vibrancy. And that's really how we set out and made all of our decisions.

[01:59:10] Andrew Jacobson: So first and foremost, density housing. As we all know, there's a huge crisis in California. We really aim to deliver on that. What we set out to do is to deliver a different product than what this area is used to seeing, which we see as something you would more see in an urban setting, which is smaller units, highly amenitized, great retail, and try to get people out of their units. You know, I think a problem in Silicon Valley in general is people are very insulated, tend to stay in their homes a lot. We're trying to build a community within this project that can hopefully become an anchor for more future development for residential.

[02:00:31] Andrew Jacobson: Retail's tough in this area. And so our hope and belief is if we can do be very successful in bringing great retail to this project through the residential as well, it'll encourage more residential development in the neighborhood. So as you can see, we spent a lot of time at the ground floor, put as much retail as possible on the ground floor. Our aim is to bring some of the great retailers into this area, not to really touch on nine-to-five commercial tenants, but really 24-hour living that is more accustomed to residential living.

[02:01:10] Andrew Jacobson: You can see as well on the second floor, we did incorporate our amenities on the second floor and really tried to spread that and open that up to East Middlefield. And so the idea is as you're driving by, you actually see a lot of people. You see people in the retail that are hopefully eating, having coffee, enjoying their time, but also enjoying the amenities. Because you don't want a lot of these insulated residential projects where people may be in the amenities, but it's really not visible. And so our hope is to actually enhance the community, enhance the feeling of vibrancy so when you drive by this project, it feels active.

[02:02:12] Andrew Jacobson: And here's a shot of the corner. And East Middlefield is the most obvious area for the retail. Ellis is a little bit more tricky. So what we aimed to do is to really set that corner, and we're doing that one through public art, but two, letting the retail spread out into that corner so that it's hopefully indoor-outdoor experience so you can really round that corner and have Ellis thrive as well, not just Middlefield.

[02:02:42] Andrew Jacobson: Here's a shot of the residential units and the amenities. You can see this is a shot of the second floor, pool, outdoor space, gym, coworking, all in one area. Again, our goal is to encourage people out of their units. The units are a bit smaller, which does create a little bit naturally more affordable unit type. And by creating these great amenity spaces, our hope is people are actually spending time together, not sheltered in their unit as much.

[02:03:18] Andrew Jacobson: And you can see some more outdoor space as you go up. Again, some more private spaces. So, you know, some may feel they want to be around a lot of people, but if you want a little bit more intimate moments, there are areas you can go into, and it is very generous in the amount of amenity space. And you can see same idea on the seventh floor, which is the top, as much outdoor space as we could put in here. Thank you.

[02:03:45] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. So we'll start with councilmember questions, either for staff or the applicant. And look at my queue here. Councilmember Ramirez, we'll start with you.

[02:04:01] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you Vice Mayor. I have just one quick question. I'm curious, the design review consultation is a voluntary practice. I would be curious to understand why you would voluntarily participate in a DRC hearing but not have a voluntary neighborhood meeting.

[02:04:21] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, no, that's fair. We did go to DRC, we got a lot of comments, we did make a lot of changes. There wasn't a ton of engagement, you know, there's not a lot of residential nearby. So we did make a lot of changes along the way, but our goal was really to push this as fast as possible because we'd like to get a shovel in the ground.

[02:04:43] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Okay. Thank you.

[02:04:46] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I have two hopefully quick questions. The first is for those of you who don't come to council meetings a great deal, councilmembers can submit questions in written form before the council meeting, and we get to read everybody else's questions, and you can too if you're really good at getting online. So one of the questions that one of my colleagues asked is whether some of the studios are likely to become offices. And I'm wondering from—and staff has a, you know, a good answer to that. That was a curious question to me, and I wanted to know, I guess the councilmember who asked could also answer this question, whether that's a regular thing. I've heard one resident ask about this regarding another project we did a long time ago. But I'm wondering whether that's a regular thing, turning—like where that question comes from because it was curious to me.

[02:05:50] Andrew Jacobson: Thank you for the question. I can say no, we don't see that often, not even rarely.

[02:05:59] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, it was my question and frankly it came up when I went on a tour of a new building once and one of the—one of the builder was saying, 'Yeah, he thought maybe, you know, these might actually be used for offices.' And I thought, 'Oh, that's interesting.' And apparently it's not legal without a permit. So—but when I think of what you need in a—like a small engineer's office or a therapist's office or something like that, you know, a studio, you have—you have a nice living room kind of area, you have bathroom, you have sort of—that could work. But apparently you would have to get a—a permit for that, and we don't typically do that. Another thing I—in my asking questions about this to some other people I found out that this would be a very, very expensive office unless you live there, because the cost per square foot is at least right now much higher in apartments than it is in—in office space. So that's where the question came from, and those are the answers I have.

[02:07:25] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Did you have any other questions? I had one other question. Yeah, so—but thank you, now I have more information on that subject. So my other question is that the staff report said that in response to the EPC recommendation for a loading—that the EPC asked for a modification for a loading area along the project frontage and that the staff report said the applicant is willing to work with staff, etc., etc., to accommodate a cutout in front on Middlefield Road in front of the project. And I—I asked a question again in the written questions about that and got a very thorough answer, but I have more. So to me this is concerning because—because there's not a lot of—there's a reduced—some of the waivers are for reduced common space, and to me it seemed to be made up by what you called an indoor-outdoor experience, encouraging people to get out of their units in various ways, but partly in the retail with a wide sidewalk and with a buffer—a landscape buffer from the street. And this is—in my mind—drastically reducing that and turning it just to a bunch of concrete in front of the retail. With all these other amenities, I would stay inside. But so my question—so my question is—is there an—you were going to do it without this on-street loading, so it seems like you feel fine with that. How do you—how would you alternatively do the loading, how were you planning before to do it?

[02:09:12] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, so the real—the challenge is the bike lane, how to safely navigate a bike lane. You don't want cars crossing a bike lane to get into a loading area. So how we've been working with staff is putting that area just in front of the lobby so it doesn't actually take away from any of the retail. So the retail will have those wide sidewalks, we'll have all that planting you're speaking about, and have that area just in front of the lobby.

[02:09:37] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So prior to that suggestion from the EPC, how were you going to do the loading? Was it in the parking lot?

[02:09:47] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, around the back, which creates challenges. I think the main concern is whether or not you have that—that loading area, people will just stop if they're taking Waymo or an Uber, they're just going to stop in the middle of the street anyway. That's the big concern. Which we think is—there should be a solution for that, because you see it all the time when you go anywhere that Ubers and Waymos are just stopping in the middle of the street. So that's what we've worked with staff to address.

[02:10:18] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. And does—I know that you're still working on this, so I can't get a drawing of it. But do you know like what percentage of the buffer—I'm trying to picture it because I'm hesitant to go for it.

[02:10:34] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, maybe 20 percent of the frontage. So and none of it would be on the retail, it'd just be in front of the lobby.

[02:10:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Okay. Oh, do we have more answers or—

[02:10:52] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Good evening all, Jennifer Ing, the Public Works Director here at the city. Just for a little bit of context, the condition of approval that is put on this project is that city staff will work with the applicant to create or to explore a loading zone in front for a two-car space. It will require that the sidewalk wrap around the back side of the cutout and no trees would there—would be there. At this point we're still working to locate the cutout, whether it's directly in front of the lobby area or maybe pushed a little bit down towards the driveway to the west, but somehow centrally located in front of the project.

[02:11:42] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Two-car cutout, would it be possible to do a one-car one instead?

[02:11:47] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: I think we really need the flexibility for two cars to be there. Whether it's a larger Amazon-type vehicle that is dropping off, you know, bigger packages, whether it's a—you know, a bigger truck of some sort or whether it's just two smaller ones. The intent is really for it to be kind of like a five-minute—you know, somebody is DoorDashing some dinner or something like that or a Waymo is coming up and—and you're really just jumping in and out of the car, and it's—it's not like a 10-minute zone or a 15- or 20-minute zone, it's really just a quick, you’re drop and go kind of transaction.

[02:12:28] Councilmember Alison Hicks: And why not on Ellis Street instead?

[02:12:31] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Middlefield is the front entry of the project, right? It's sort of the most prominent place. If somebody is putting into their GPS, 'I need to drop off a pizza to such and such unit,' it's probably going to come up on the Middlefield side, and it—it makes sense.

[02:12:55] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So apologies, I have a question that piggybacks off of this. So I think I'm trying to—we have another project that the Council, prior to my being on Council but on EPC, 100 Moffett, where it—we had similar concerns. So it is on Central and Moffett and there's a bus stop there, it's all red-curbed. My recollection is that Council worried about people double parking, but every time I've been in that area walking, running, or in a vehicle, I do not see that double parking. And I am curious if staff knows if it is the way that the address is, there's rerouting, I think there's some signage along that says there can't be parking. And I just—I just wonder because I feel like as our developments get taller and more dense, we're going to be having to have this conversation a lot. And the rendering that I saw was the street, the bike lane, the—it gets dotted, the cars go behind, the bike would go in front, and I just worry about the conflict. And so that was my question, because I feel like we've had other developments that are quite dense where we have not gone forward with the cutout where we aren't seeing the double parking issue. I don't know if colleagues remember this project. I also don't know if staff has looked at that, because it—it feels like the recommendation was an EPC recommendation and it—and I think to Councilmember Hicks' question, it didn't exist prior to their feedback, correct?

[02:14:53] Brian Griggs: To be clear, our initial submittal did have a cutout there. And when we were informed there was a protected bike lane as part of a CIP project, staff encouraged us to take that away. But then in hearing EPC and revisiting it and looking—and actually if you're talking about the drawing that I shared with you the other day, the bike lane does duck in towards the building so it's always protected. There'll be bollards, and so you'll never have that conflict, which I think was the biggest issue we were trying to face, which was bikes and cars usually don't get along very well when they're crossing over each other.

[02:15:57] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: So I'll add, there's a current CIP project right now to look at putting Class IV bike lanes along Middlefield Road. And of course Class IV bike lanes are the ones that are separated from the vehicles with some sort of vertical delineation, typically it would be some sort of channelizer. We do like to minimize the conflicts between bikes and vehicles, obviously bike versus car, car usually wins. But in this case when I said we're trying to locate the cutout to an appropriate location, you know, if—if we can get it to a place where as we design the project and as we look at it as a whole where the conflicts are minimized, that's certainly what we want to do, right? And so to the extent that once a four—a Class IV bike lane goes in, there really is nowhere for a vehicle to stop on the street. If they miss the driveway on Middlefield, the one driveway on Middlefield, they're going all the way around the block and having to find the other driveway on Ellis. And so I think having a cutout here is really in response to just sort of the modern ways that the world is—is evolving and how, you know, our residents are—are getting their goods and services.

[02:16:56] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes, I submitted a question about vapor barriers. You're in the area of the MEW groundwater plume. And so I wanted to ask you about your plans for a vapor barrier.

[02:17:13] Andrew Jacobson: Yeah, so there's some work that's already been done on the site. So there is a barrier that already exists, so you know, it's mostly known conditions where the troubled area is. We will work with the EPA before we start to get their blessing on our—our plan.

[02:17:31] Brian Griggs: There's I think four or five specific conditions of approval, one of them being number seven, which does require us, you know, prior to the commencement of construction to have an approved work plan by the EPA. That same condition requires the EPA sign-off prior to occupancy to make sure that they've done the testing, we've implemented the approved plan. And there's several other four or five other conditions that talk about the vapor barriers and that sort of—we do have the garage on the ground floor that serves a little bit of a difference of a buffer. But I think what Andrew was speaking to is most of the plume is actually at the south end of the property. In fact, there's some piping and such that we can't build in, so you'll see on the design there's actually nothing along that common property line to the new AI corporate headquarters in the back.

[02:18:58] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Well I just want to bring that up because it's a safety issue for the people who are going to live there and it's—it's really crucial that it's done properly. And one of the things that I've observed over time is that requirements just get more stringent. And so, you know, if there is a place where you're close to the threshold but you're not there, I would just urge you to, you know, go the extra mile because we had an—we had an instance in a project that occurred about 20 years ago where we did the health risk assessments and the standard changed after we got the project built. And that meant that we had to go back and do a great deal of monitoring and retrofitting. It was just—not only was it difficult, it was—it just produced an incredible amount of anxiety. And since we know, you know, that this situation exists and we know how to deal with it, I—you know, I just want to always bring up how—how very significant this is for our community.

[02:20:09] Brian Griggs: Absolutely.

[02:20:12] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Councilmember Kamei?

[02:20:15] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: I don't have a question for the applicant. Thanks. I have a question for staff. So my question for staff is I ran through the property today in the neighborhood and the block from Ellis to Whisman that I—that I noticed when I was running, I didn't note any speed limit signs. And so I feel this ten—this leads to speeding. And so I was just wondering as we are doing streetscape improvements, can we add some signs of what the speed limit is?

[02:20:56] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Thanks for your question. I am not a runner and I didn't run over there today. I was just making a joke that I am not a runner and I didn't run over there today. But yeah, that's something I can certainly look into. You know, we—we do space speed limit signs out so that they're not always—they're not too dense, right? In location. But I can have my staff take a look and see if there's something that's needed with this particular project as we go through the construction drawings.

[02:21:30] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Because I wonder if if we're moving in the direction of doing the, you know, car cutout, if having it before could help with like the visibility in terms of people—I just think it could be an opportunity. Okay, thank you. That's my question.

[02:21:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: I don't see anyone else in the queue with questions. So we'll move on to public comment. And we'll do three minutes per speaker. We'll start with in-person comments first. So if you haven't already and you wish to speak in person, please fill out a blue card and submit to the City Clerk. And if you're in the Zoom room and you want to speak virtually, just click the raise hand button or press star nine on your phone. Our first in-person speaker will be Abner Genes when you're ready.

[02:22:22] Public Speaker Abner Genes: Thank you. I don't have a presentation today. Yes, as noted in the staff report, I was the one that submitted a comment before the EPC questioning why there wasn't a parkland dedication for this project, you know, which is probably going to have over 500 people in it. And at that meeting I thought they said something—they made—they waved their hands and said, 'Oh, it's a mixed-use development, doesn't qualify.' But in this report they say it's a project as a rental development with no ownership units and therefore the project is not subject to parkland dedication requirements under applicable provisions of the City Code. That's the first time I've ever heard of rental units not qualifying. I mean, The Seven on West Middlefield—on West Middlefield had a huge parkland dedication, like $20 million or something. It's all rentals. And there's nothing in the ordinance that I read, Chapter 40, that says rental units are excluded from this. So I'm just wondering, you know, what's going on here? I mean, between this project and the next one, you know, this project should have had like about, you know, half an acre or so, once at 500 people, no, a third of an acre, one and a half acres, sorry, one and a half acres of parkland dedication, which at current rates is $15 million. And the developer's offering 1.2 million. So the city's experiencing quite a shortfall there. And then I'll talk more about the next project when that comes up. Thank you.

[02:23:56] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you Mr. Genes. Eli.

[02:23:59] Public Speaker Eli Robles: Good evening Mayor, councilmembers, and community members. My name is Eli Robles, I'm here on behalf of Carpenters Union Local 405. As you consider the 490 Middlefield Road project, I want to stress how important it is to select a responsible general contractor, one that upholds strong area labor standards and reflects the values of this community. A responsible contractor ensures fair wages, safe working conditions, and family-sustaining healthcare. And they rely on state-accredited apprenticeship programs that can create real career pathways for local workers. These standards don't just protect workers, they protect the project itself by reducing delays, improving quality, and ensuring that public and private investment in Mountain View delivers long-term benefits. Choosing a responsible contractor who meets these expectations strengthens the local workforce, supports economic mobility, and ensures this development to be built safely, ethically, and with community benefit at the forefront. Thank you for your time.

[02:25:25] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you for your comments. Andrew.

[02:25:28] Public Speaker Andrew Wills: Good evening Mayor and councilmembers. I just wanted to follow up on Councilmember Showalter's comment. I'm a resident of the Slater neighborhood, and I do think it's exciting to see some development occurring in East Whisman. That said, I do bike down Middlefield pretty much every day, and I do it often with my children. So I just wanted to understand, as this project is a relatively high building, it will dig into the plume, and so I want to understand perhaps from the developers and also from staff what the plans are to avoid TCE exposure during construction, which I don't—I haven't heard being addressed. And also I'd like to know from staff if they've been in communication with the EPA. I know we have a challenging EPA situation with the current administration, and if they're confident that EPA will provide sensors and monitoring during the construction process. Otherwise, it looks like a really lovely development. Thank you.

[02:26:46] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. Paul Donahue.

[02:26:49] Public Speaker Paul Donahue: Hi there, Paul Donahue, Mountain View resident. I wasn't going to speak but I wanted to discuss the EPC recommendation for the cutout, although I'm speaking only on behalf of myself. Basically, I've talked to a lot of people around town who are concerned about Waymos and Ubers and Amazon deliveries and DoorDash, all these things basically stopping. They have no time, they want to do quick turnarounds and minimize the time stopping. They don't want to park in the back and walk around potentially carrying lots of packages and things like that. So it—it seems important to—to have some way to accommodate that without blocking the bike lane. As Director Ing said, if there's a car and a bike, usually the car wins. And I was on Shoreline when a car pulled into the bike lane, I was on a bike and I went through the back window of the minivan. So anyway, I—I hope that you support having the cutout for bicycle safety and traffic safety in general. Thanks.

[02:28:21] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. That's all of our in-person speakers. We don't have anyone online. Okay. So we'll bring this back to the Council for any action it would like to take after deliberations. Would anyone like to start? If not, I will. Okay, Councilmember Hicks.

[02:28:38] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So I have to say I understand all the reasons for the cutout and they all make sense. The problem I'm having with it is that we're having so much—is that we keep one piece after another taking out green space and open space to the point where there's just like nothing there. And I'm—and we're building a concrete jungle and I—in this case, we're putting it in the place where people are going to be—I don't sit outside next to a very car-oriented street. So we're putting—putting people right next to cars. So I'm on the fence whether to vote for it or not. I don't know, you know, it is a safety issue. I assume if I vote against this it's probably going to pass anyway and it will just be a protest vote telling everybody that I am highly concerned about the loss of green space, and that that's always the thing that goes. So, like I said, I'm on the fence. If you all have proposals for some other way of handling, you know, having a place for Waymos and drop-offs is important. I just don't know why it's alway―why we always lose the green space. Why we always turn a place that I would like to spend time into a place that I'd be like, 'Maybe I'll just stream Netflix tonight.' So any comments you might have, and I'm on the fence as to how I'll vote.

[02:30:23] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. Anyone else? If not, I'll guess I'll jump in and make my comments. I'm fine with the project overall. I have some personal and HOA experience with loading zones and parking going away on a busy street, on El Camino when the bike lanes were put in, and unfortunately that project was not—did not conceive that bike lanes and the—and the parking on El Camino might go away someday, and there's just a tiny, tiny little loading zone. So that was challenging. I mean, the nice thing about these projects coming before us now is that we can kind of better plan around the realities of modern-day multifamily living in Silicon Valley. I think there are really two things that you need to think about or—or I think the—the applicant has done this enough that they've thought about this, but it's—there's really two primary use cases. There's the—the five- to ten-minute quick in and out which is, you know, DoorDash, Waymo, Uber, for most—for the most part they're not sitting and waiting. And in those cases, I think if—if the plan is—if my understanding of the plan long-term is to have a protected bike lane that jogs in, and so the vehicle—the cut-in where a vehicle might stop for five or ten minutes isn't actually crossing the—the bike's—the person on the bike's path of travel, then I'm a little—it's not completely safe but it's—it's safer than if the cutout is such that you have to cross through the bike lane. I'm not sure the exact final design. But the other thing and the thing that we've bumped into a lot is, you know, in a multifamily complex you have a lot of peop—you have people constantly moving in and out every month or two, right? And so the real issue there is that you—you have these larger moving vans and moving trucks that aren't just going to be there for five or ten minutes, they're going to be there for, you know, an hour or two. And in those cases, you know, those—what—you—those you can easily direct to specific spots, either back in the parking area, the back of the building, maybe there are some number of parking spots that are dedicated to those large vehicles. But I—but I will—whoever said this is correct, I think it was our Public Works Director, you know, when you're plugging in your destination and it's 490 East Middlefield, you know, unless you're—unless you're really diligent about placing that pin on Ellis or maybe on a named alley, you're—you're going to end up on Middlefield, and for better or worse. So I think we probably do need to think about some sort of cutout and, you know, my preference would be for something that doesn't cross through a bike lane if perhaps there's a way to have the bike lane duck in with the traffic, but then you have the person loading and unloading has to look out for the bike lane. There's no perfect way to do it. But in any case, I just hope that as we're—as the applicant is working with staff on this, that they think about those at least those two use cases, the loading and unloading zones for really large trucks and then also for the quicker ones, five to ten minutes. I do want to just share a little bit of a different perspective. I don't think we're building a concrete jungle in this case. I think we have a giant asphalt—a building surrounded by an asphalt parking lot that eventually will have a greater canopy than it has today and will eventually have less asphalt than it has today. So I—I understand kind of the sentiment but I—and I understand the, 'Why does—why do we have to do this at the expense of what little open space is being created in a particular project?' But I just don't subscribe to the view that we're creating concrete jungles, if anything I think we're actually reducing heat islands by eliminating asphalt—or reducing it, not eliminating, reducing asphalt and increasing our tree canopy. So and I think this, despite the loss of the heritage trees in the near term, will end up with better I think better canopy in the long run and native species of trees as opposed to what's there now. So those are my comments. Councilmember Showalter.

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[02:32:11] Councilmember Pat Showalter: This is an illustration of how some of the legislation that changes the timeframe of approval is playing out. And I'm sorry that we didn't get to have a community meeting because frankly, although a lot of people don't come to those community meetings, the people that do often have really good ideas. And they know a lot about how, you know, traffic flow and that sort of thing functions in their neighborhood that they can share that's, you know, that turns out to be valuable. So I'm sorry that that didn't get to happen.

[02:32:46] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Another thing, and I'm very pleased to hear that you're cognizant of this vapor barrier issue. It's a really big deal long-term. And I feel the need to bring that up. I'll bring it up for the next project as well because it's just a fact of life in living in an area that had these groundwater plumes and using this land for other uses, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it needs to be done safely. And so the engineering parts of the project to make that happen are very important to safeguard the community.

[02:33:36] Councilmember Pat Showalter: The thing that I find the most troubling about this is really the mix of units. When I see this, it's half studios and then half except for a few one-bedrooms. To me, this is, you know, clearly it's workforce housing, and I'm sure that you've done a great deal of market research to say, 'Oh, this is going to do really well here.' But when I think about a building, I don't just think about how it's going to be in the first five years. I think about what it's going to be 20 years from now or 30 years from now when the economy is different.

[02:34:19] Councilmember Pat Showalter: And I wonder how this studio building will kind of hold up from a social point of view. And it sort of bothers me because to me, most studios, I understand about 86% of studios are occupied by one person. So it's a very specific kind of lifestyle, which is fine, but I don't think it's necessarily a long-term one for many people. So I think it's going to be the kind of place where there's a lot of turnover. So when I think about this, I think this is going to be a really nice dormitory for young adults.

[02:35:00] Councilmember Pat Showalter: That's what I think this is going to be. And I'm not necessarily against really nice dormitories, but I do think in a sense that's what we're building here. And that's probably appropriate at the moment, but if it will be appropriate in 30 years, I don't know. And so that's the thing I find the most troubling about this. But that said, and also it had 20 waivers that seemed like some sort of... oh, it's the next project. Okay, this one had quite a few waivers. Then the other, but one thing I thought was really interesting was the idea of the sales tax point of sale designation.

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[02:35:05] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I have a couple comments too. First off, I think this is just a real demonstration of what can happen when you have—you've done a really—really precise job with the Precise Plan. You've gotten all your requirements together and developers know what they're supposed to do and staff knows what they're supposed to look for.

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[02:35:46] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Perhaps that's standard, but I had never heard of it. I think it's a really good idea, so thank you for coming up with that. So those are my comments.

[02:35:58] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Kamei.

[02:36:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thanks. Thanks to staff, really appreciate all your hard work on this project. And if colleagues don't mind, I'm going to talk about this a little bit because it's not a concrete jungle area for me or a piece of asphalt contributing to our GHGs. It's my neighborhood. It's where I live. And the East Whisman Precise Plan is something that we worked on on the Planning Commission and now over seven years on Council we with care have adopted our East Whisman Precise Plan.

[02:36:41] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And so as different projects come forward and I'm not recused out, I do want to take the opportunity to talk about my neighbors, my future neighbors, and the community that we're building in Mountain View. And so I have comments and some ideas and some suggestions for our applicant that hopefully they'll heed and they'll take to heart. So, you know, first of all, I want to echo the comments that some of my colleagues made that no community meeting is unfortunate because as I mentioned, from my house I can run through the neighborhood and I actually ran and did a loop through both project sites.

[02:37:21] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And I'll say fun fact on my run I saw a woman taking a beautiful walk by heritage trees and as I looped back to my house she had a super big Big Gulp because that's all we have in our neighborhood is a 7-Eleven. And I want more mixed-use commercial, you know, residents to live there. And I feel like a community meeting might have helped as well because just right across the way is a six-story, 600-unit project that's going to be coming forward from Prometheus that's only putting forward a 0.52-acre POPA, publicly accessible open space.

[02:38:04] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: And so I think that we need as we see projects coming forward and laws from our state that's doing a lot of streamlining, I hope that applicants will still take the care that these projects particularly ones that we're looking at office commercial moving to housing and residential, neighbors are going to be surprised. And I just think we need to do our due diligence in daylighting the projects, soliciting feedback because this is our community.

[02:38:54] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: So I wanted to also just talk about a little bit in terms of what hasn't been mentioned from colleagues, which is the acquisition and development fee that's being offered by the applicant that it would go towards hopefully a new city park in the area. But if that doesn't happen within one year of issuance of the final certificate of occupancy, it would go to Pyramid Park. Pyramid Park is oversubscribed. It is the largest park that we have opened in, I was looking to see if Mr. Merchant was here, but it's the largest park at over three acres that we have opened in our city in I think two decades.

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[03:17:37] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: So again, maybe more of a comment, but back to the Housing Director, I want to make sure we're not inadvertently ending up in a scenario where you can use the layout and design to get around, sort of in a de facto way, the intent or the regulation in the BMR ordinance. So I want to make sure that—I'm not sure how to frame this question, but I'm concerned, right, that anyone can now come in and say, "this happens to be where all of the small units are, so we're going to use our concession to say all of the BMR units will be in this part, and they also happen to be the small units." How do we—is there a way to better articulate that regulation in the BMR ordinance, perhaps?

[03:18:32] Housing Director Wayne Chen: This has come up and, as you know, you'll be seeing the BMR ordinance coming up. We think that this can be clarified. We'll work with staff and in connecting with the City Attorney's office to see if this is the type of thing that can be just further clarified through the administrative guidelines about the intent and in situations where there might be interrelated—some clarification regarding how it's applied. If we needed to do this through some more ordinance-level work, we envision incorporating this as the very next BMR review is actually coming up not that far from now because of the housing element timing, and that could be one of the things that we can incorporate at that time. But to the extent that we can, if we can incorporate some further clarifications in the administrative guidelines, we would endeavor to do that.

[03:19:26] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you. Those are my questions.

[03:19:28] Councilmember Chris Clark: Mayor Ramos?

[03:19:30] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. My question to the applicant is mostly about community—the neighborhood and community meeting. And I acknowledge that you said that in the future, you'll probably do community meetings for future projects. I do kind of want to delve into, like, what kind of barriers are you facing in having a neighborhood meeting or a community meeting?

[03:19:53] Public Speaker (Brian Griggs): My experience, and I've been doing this for quite a few years, is they're often emotional, they're often vocal. The concept of Nimby, a lot of people don't want change. And, you know, sometimes it's challenging to have to say no. That said, I think as a few of your fellow councilmembers indicated, you do get a lot of, you know, boots on the ground kind of feedback. And, you know, transitioning this particular property from an office building that on weekends is empty and people could go enjoy and get over the trail, to possibly having, you know, 500 people if you figure two and a half per unit, it's different and people are usually resistant to change. I think the precise plan did a really good job at making this property and just a couple others transitional properties where it was going to be low-rise versus high-rise or mid-rise. But I think it's more wanting to move fast and also not wanting to have to say no.

[03:20:59] Councilmember Emily Ramos: So it's not a logistical issue. It was more...

[03:21:02] Public Speaker (Brian Griggs): No, no. We could have easily organized it on site. We could have had placards, we could have been collaborative. And I've done that, you know, candidly, and I think as I tried to say earlier, the state laws, you have to balance how much—how many rights you have implied under the state now as a developer versus being collaborative and trying to come up with that right solution. And in this case, admittedly, we swung a little far to the one side. We need to swing back.

[03:21:31] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Okay. I appreciate that you're taking our feedback that we do want community meetings. I'm delving into comments as well, so I'll leave it at that then.

[03:21:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: All right. Thank you, Mayor Ramos. Additional questions? Councilmember Hicks? Sorry, my brain is fried.

[03:21:57] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Just, can someone briefly—I was recused from the East Whisman Precise Plan. Can somebody remind me where the park is to be and what triggers it? Because I'm, you know, I love that we're turning parking lots and so forth into housing, but I'm just wondering when the amenities come that make it a little more livable.

[03:22:20] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. There are a number of parks that are planned for the East Whisman Precise Plan. One of them has already been approved as part of the Middlefield Park master plan. There was a neighborhood park that was approved as part of that. That is planned for the block that's bounded by Logue, Clyde, and Maude. I can bring up a map if you'll bear with me for just one minute and I can show you that. There are also a number of other mini-parks that are planned for the area. Quite a few, actually, probably on the order of four or five, just dotted throughout the area. And this site itself was planned for a mini-park in the precise plan. And so they are implementing that, as they said, as a publicly accessible open area, slightly smaller than the standard for the mini-park.

[03:24:01] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Thank you.

[03:24:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, I don't see any further Council questions, so we'll move on to public comment. If you would like to comment on this item and you're in the Zoom call, please press the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. And if you're in person and you haven't already filled out a blue speaker card, please do so now and hand it to the City Clerk. We'll start with in-person comments, and the first person on the list is Albert Genes. How much time did you want to issue?

[03:24:38] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We'll do three minutes each. Thank you.

[03:24:41] Public Speaker (Albert Genes): Hi again. Albert Genes, long-time Mountain View resident, again advocating for parks. I was interested to see Council question number 18: "Can staff explain the parkland dedication in-lieu fee math?" Maybe you didn't read the extensive public comment I made on February 10th which at least laid out what I thought was the formula that was being used, which incorporated all the variables they listed here. But staff just said it's a complex mathematical calculation. Just give it to us. You know, we're adults, we can take it. We've had high school algebra, hopefully. So it would just lay a lot of things to rest if we could just see what the formula is. It can't be that complicated. But the main thing I wanted to go back to is the whole reason why we're using this alternate method for calculating parkland, which is the Supreme Court ruling about Sheetz versus County of El Dorado. This was a case where a retiring individual in El Dorado County wanted to build a little prefab home for him and his wife to retire in, in a rural part of the county. And the county, when he applied for the building permit, they wanted a twenty-three or twenty-six thousand dollar impact, traffic impact fee. And he objected to that, of course, because there was actually no way that he was going to benefit from this fee. And that's what the Supreme Court ruled. They said you just can't extort fees from anybody just because, you know, they happen to be applying for a permit and you want to cover some other costs. But the way I see it, you know, our parkland dedication ordinance is quite a bit different than that. This park is going to service the people that we're extracting the fees from. It's to provide, you know, residents of Mountain View with parks. It's not to just—it's not just sort of a general park maintenance fee or whatever that the residents won't really see. This is supposed to be for a park for those people. And between this project and the previous one, we have a thousand people coming in and we have only about the equivalent of half an acre of parkland. So how's the city going to make that up? It's kind of ironic, you know, the Strategic Parks and Recreation Plan is coming before you, I think fairly soon. It's almost done, a huge document, hundreds of pages. And yet now, when I look at what's happening, you know, it looks like a toothless document, an exercise in futility because we're never going to have the funds, you know, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to buy this parkland from private developers. It has to come from the developers. They're the ones that hold all the cards. They're the ones that have the land. You know, if we can't get that land, I mean, there aren't going to be enough parks for all the people coming. Thank you.

[03:27:26] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Mr. Genes. Andrew Wills.

[03:27:33] Public Speaker (Andrew Wills): Mayor and City Councilmembers. As I mentioned earlier, my name is Andrew Wills. I'm a resident of the Slater neighborhood. Before I was fortunate enough to buy a house in Slater, I was a renter on Devonshire Avenue directly opposite this proposed project for about five years. Thank you for bringing up these slides. So, I find this project really troubling, in particular because we do have a heritage tree ordinance and because if you've been to this site, you know this site has some really gorgeous trees. And these trees are not in the middle of the project, they're not where you need to put buildings. They're at the very front of the property and to a lesser extent they're at the very back of the property. So as I see it, the developer wants to clear-cut this entire property for convenience. It's not a necessity. It's not where the buildings need to go. Okay, there's a berm. It's not possible to work around the berm to save some of these trees? I do think it's exciting that the East Whisman area is seeing some possible development. But when I look in general at all of these developments, they all are clear-cutting. They're taking out almost every single tree in there. And I think we've all been to neighborhoods, you know, parts of East San Jose and such, that have no trees, that are really pretty desolate. And while I want to see this area developed, I want to see it developed in a way that, you know, I could live there or my kids could live there. And if you can go to the next slide, I just wanted to show a few more examples of these. If you look at the arborist report, these are healthy trees. These are not bad trees. If you look at that eucalyptus in the corner, that's like a three-foot tree. I think I have a picture of my kid hugging that tree. By the time whatever the developers are planting grows up, I'm going to be dead and pretty much everybody here is going to be gone. These are trees that are worth saving. They're right on the edge of the property. I'd ask the City Council to reject this plan and to ask the developer to come up with something that maybe is a little bit less convenient for them, but that retains the trees that are part of the character of Mountain View. And I guess in addition to that, I'd say I don't think they're offering many other amenities. The BMR is sort of gaming the system. So I'm not seeing that this is being offset in another way. Thank you.

[03:29:56] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. That's it for in-person comments. And then looks like we have one person virtually, Gabriela Hilek.

[03:30:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Gabriela, you're unmuted.

[03:30:15] Public Speaker (Gabriela Hilek): Okay, can you hear me?

[03:30:16] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes, we can hear you.

[03:30:18] Public Speaker (Gabriela Hilek): Okay, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to make a comment. I live on North Whisman Road. I have been living there the last 13 years, so I've seen the up and down of the use of the commercial buildings, initially with all the Google buses and then with COVID, of course, the clearing out of the building. I do welcome that the space is being used for something that is not a vacant office building. However, I have large concerns with respect to the massing of the proposed projects. As has been pointed out, across the street we have single, maximum two-story buildings. So I would like to encourage the developers to consider a stepping up of the complex. Maybe the units facing North Whisman could be two stories only with a slightly different layout. Maybe they can only have five units less in the overall project, but the stepping up would create a more harmonious fitting with the existing neighborhood. And then secondly, I strongly second the comments that were just made about the heritage trees on North Whisman Road. They're beautiful trees, they're healthy. It takes decades for canopy to grow up. We are facing 101 on the tail end of North Whisman Road. These trees provide a filter and a clearing of the area for the people that live in this neighborhood. And so I can only strongly echo what the gentleman that just spoke before me said, that the heritage trees should try to be maintained and protected as much as possible. Thank you.

[03:32:06] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. I don't see anyone else in the queue for public comment, so we'll bring this back to the Council for deliberation, discussion, and action. Councilmember Ramirez, you're first in the queue.

[03:32:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'll first start with what I like and then I'll share some of the concerns I have. I do appreciate that the applicant is meeting the 25% requirement in our BMR ordinance and that there are a number of different AMIs served in the proposal. Especially my preference is serving lower incomes, especially the households who truly have no options. I think once you get to the 180% AMI income bracket, most households—they may not be able to purchase in Mountain View, but they will have some other options. But the folks at the 100, 120%, and even 160% AMI levels would struggle to find an ownership opportunity, especially families, right? Three- and four-bedroom units are—they're going to struggle to find a home in Mountain View. So that's an advantage that this application has, or that this project has. As I think many of you know, I have a particular frustration with the housing typology of row house townhouse-scale development. And I think it's—we've seen it in other contexts, but here it's pretty stark. This is 10 acres of land. We don't often have projects of this magnitude. The previous project had more than twice as many units on less than, like, a third of this property. We could have dedicated six acres of this property for a park and then at the far back end, right, had a project that looked more like the previous project with commercial square footage, with even more BMR units. That's not what is before us today, but I'm frustrated by the opportunity cost of this particular housing typology of this particular project. And I wish we had a regulatory framework or discretion or something that would allow us to encourage or require projects to meet the needs of the future residents of this community and also the residents who are very close by in existing neighborhoods who are asking for parks and open space and commercial amenities, city services. They're not going to get that here. They're just going to get 10 acres of row houses. And I think that's too bad. I'm also—this is sort of less of a concern, I understand the rationale, but learning about—this is a lot of waivers. I think Councilmember Showalter had mentioned that in the previous item. And some of these are non-trivial. I would love to think about the implications of seeing a project like this and how it might inspire us to make revisions to precise plans, to the standard zoning districts, to make sure that when we think about things like the street network that we're not just subject to a waiver, right? That's a major impact, especially if we're contemplating a transformative change as we are in the East Whisman Precise Plan. So I'm not losing sleep necessarily over street A, but I think what I've learned from this experience is it's going to be increasingly tricky to fulfill the vision of the precise plans that we've currently adopted and that we'll work on in the future, like the Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan. So we'll have to be very creative, and maybe that means using development agreements or some other mechanism to provide something for the applicant to encourage them to help meet some of these community needs and provide the city infrastructure that's necessary to support these developments. But it's a non-trivial thing and I think it's important for us to contemplate that and maybe provide some gentle guidance to staff to think about in the future, right, when other office buildings in this area redevelop. Are there opportunities to use that redevelopment to get the infrastructure that we need to support this community, or is all hope lost and we just have to deal with what we get? I want to be optimistic on that front and see if there is a way to make sure that we're not losing out on our ability to fulfill the vision of the precise plan. So, those are my—I don't know, my soliloquy. I'll be supporting the project. I don't want to make the motion on this one, sorry, someone else will have to read that. But I do appreciate the applicant's willingness to work with the city on the BMR ordinance alternative compliance and bring down those AMIs, serve more or provide more deeply affordable ownership opportunities for missing middle households. But I do wish we could have a different project, one that I think takes a greater advantage of the opportunity that you get when you're redeveloping 10 acres. Thank you.

[03:38:05] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Councilmember Ramirez. I don't see anyone else in the queue, so I'll take my turn. I agree with almost everything that Councilmember Ramirez said. Our hands are a little tied here through waivers and because of state law and the affordable housing component here, which is great. There are things about this that I really, really like. The additional pathways, the connectivity that's going to be put in here I think is a really significant benefit to that area. It's been a long time since I lived in that part of the community, but it was my very first Mountain View apartment there in the area, and I think the additional connectivity to some of the trail networks, whether it's Hetch Hetchy and otherwise, are a big benefit. I do appreciate the additional housing and addressing here specifically missing middle housing. It's not perfect, but unfortunately I don't control the economy. It's probably in everyone's interest that I don't control the economy, I don't trust myself. But I think as has been stated, I'm usually the first, as I did in the prior item, to say that the canopy that we'll get in 20 to 25 years will be better than what we get today. But this is a 10-acre site. A lot of trees are going to be removed. Some of them non-native, but still beautiful and some of the especially the mature redwoods that are in otherwise good health. They're usually very thirsty, but they in this particular case they are in good health, even though they don't naturally belong there. But so and I think the final comment is just as Councilmember Ramirez said, I wish this were the highest and best use for this land. I don't think this particular project is, but again, at the end of the day, we need to respect the process. And I think having housing here, especially that addresses the missing middle, is better than an empty set of office buildings. So overall, I'll support—I plan to support the project. I just wish that if anyone's listening, we are generally a pretty pro-housing Council, and I think as Councilmember Ramirez said, we would probably be thrilled to pack a whole bunch of high-density housing, including some for missing middle, on a portion of this site in order to save some trees and get a larger park. But in this case, we have what we have before us. And at least I do appreciate the applicant putting in the open space and addressing the missing middle and addressing the environmental cleanup. We'll end up, I think, with a cleaner environment on that front, especially with soil there. So, assuming you can make it all happen, which I trust you will with the EPA.

[03:42:26] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I can speak, but I think the Mayor has had her hand up.

[03:42:30] Councilmember Chris Clark: I'm sorry, Mayor. I keep—no, I—my peripheral vision is bad. Mayor, did you have comments?

[03:42:34] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Oh no, that's fine. But yeah, I could do my comments now. I have a very similar feeling as my colleagues who have spoken before. It was an interesting—I guess I'll start with some of what I was almost commenting on there in the questions. Mountain View's a pro-housing city, and we want housing here. We have a pro-housing Council. Our neighborhoods and the people here are pro-housing. And I think it was a disservice to the developer—the developer did a disservice to themselves by acting as if we were a—not naming other cities, I probably shouldn't do that—but acting as if we were a Nimby city kind of thing because we aren't. And as Councilmember Showalter mentioned in a previous project, you get a lot of good ideas, you get a sense of what our community cares about. And this is a very collaborative community, it's a very collaborative Council, it's a very collaborative staff. We would work with you to get what we really want on these projects, as Councilmember Clark's saying, the highest and best use of the land because we know land in Mountain View is valuable and we think that through. So, I understand there's not much we can do at this point in changing it. So I am supportive of the project, but it is really important to have those kinds of community meetings to have that discussion to see what more we can do with the land which right now, yes, what we're putting there now is better than an empty office space. But we could have done better. And that just makes me a little sad about that. But we're getting housing and that is overall a good thing. So, yay, almost a thousand units tonight!

[03:44:48] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Mayor Ramos. Councilmember Hicks?

[03:44:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: So, I liked the—I did like the phrase "frustrated by the housing typology." And so I think I'll use that one too. That and, you know, the opportunity cost. That said, I know there's a market for missing middle row houses. So, after expressing my frustration, I'm going to say some of the things that I think are good about this project and why I'll be supporting it that maybe other people have not brought up yet. First, I think the architecture, I appreciate the architecture. It's not too fussy fake historic. It's more transitional architecture, which since I've used that term before I decided to look up the definition so I knew I was using it right, which is defined as blending the traditional and modern with simple lines and Google told me it's less likely to feel dated as time goes by. So I particularly appreciate that because I think sometimes we do a lot of fake craftsman houses. Oh, I see the architect nodding. Yes. Other architects have done that too and I think we have to do less of that. I could say more. But people say that's becoming the architecture for senior homes, and I love seniors but I think I like the transitional architecture better. So I wish we'd do more of that when we do townhomes. I don't particularly need the patchwork of color transitions, but and I'm a little timid about stone veneer because some of it's so bad and some of it's better. So I hope that you pick a stone veneer that is not so bad. Let's see. I love the boardwalk connections across the bio-retention basin and the replacement of artificial with real turf. So I really appreciate that. I wish we could find a way to make our townhome developments less driveway-centric because they tend to end up being like islands of little homes surrounded by lots of driveway. And I asked a question about that and staff said that's our row house guidelines encourage—well, it's our row house guidelines, which makes me think back to frustration with housing typology. If that's what our guidelines make us do, maybe we need to rethink them so that it's not all driveway, so that it's more shared streets or woonerf-type streets, which I've seen done on the east coast. And like in the previous agenda item, I do fear that we're losing a lot of trees, not getting a lot of parks. So I hope we can find ways to embellish the green spaces near this development, create parks soon or, you know, improve the pathway to the Whisman Park or some other solution like that. And I think that's it.

[03:48:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Showalter?

[03:48:44] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, I'm going to echo a lot of what my fellow councilmembers have said. I do think this is basically a good project, but it isn't the best use of land and really in a sense if we could have had a project with some nice large stacked flats, we could have had a lot more open space. But that's not what's before us and everything is, you know, in compliance with the rules, even though there's lots of waivers. I haven't kept track of how many waivers people typically get, but 20 seemed like a lot to me, yeah. But then when I went through the list of them, some of them were very minor and others of them weren't minor. They were important. But that said, I really think the pedestrian circulation around row houses is very important. I grew up in row houses and played as a child in row houses. We played in the alley, which I don't think in modern row houses works too well because we had backyards behind our row houses before you got to the alley, and there was sort of this unwritten rule that nobody was allowed to drive in the alley. You parked on the front of the street and the only person—anyway, so that's going to be very different. But I do think the pedestrian connectivity is vital and I'm really glad to see that. Also getting rid of the artificial turf and putting in real grass, that's very, very important. And I would really ask you to work with the staff to see how many of the trees along the front edge you could save. I mean, as you've said, there's a lot of work left here. And if that's something you could do, each and every tree that you're able to save would be appreciated by our community. So that, I'd like to say, I appreciate this and I plan to vote for it.

[03:50:43] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Kamei?

[03:50:44] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great, thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Showalter. I wrote that to ask the applicant, I don't know if it's too late to ask if they're open to that discussion at all, but I think they're not moving towards the mic. So I'll double-tap that suggestion. But just my comments. So while I feel like no project that comes forward in these times is perfect, what I do like about the city of Mountain View is you can see a project like the one before us and then you can see a project like this. And so while I hear my colleagues' comments, I think just the different product types that we're able to produce in Mountain View is what I am encouraged by, because we can show density, we can show a variety of units with rowhomes at different affordability levels for ownership. I think as a portfolio we should all have some positive feelings about that because we're doing our part, I think, to meet the very complex needs of our community. And so that's why I'll be supporting the project. And I think one of the things that was very illuminating for me, as I think some of us attended the Joint Venture Silicon Valley—they do their kind of annual State of the Valley—and they reported that in Silicon Valley the average median home price is over 1.9 million with 20% down at 396,000. So your monthly payment including tax and insurance is $11,900. Then they put forward a slide that said childcare is about 2,800 a month and preschool is about 2,500 a month. Yeah, well it says tax and insurance, you're right, it didn't have an asterisk with HOA, so we don't know what the HOA on that is. But just all to say, just thinking about all of that, you have someone who's at market probably contributing $20,000 or more towards being able to have their children in some sort of preschool or daycare plus their mortgage, and that's not even the property tax that you have to pay twice a year. So I just—I hear what my colleagues are saying, but that's the reality of homeownership right now in our valley. And so anything we can do to create more opportunities for our residents to have some sort of entry into homeownership is encouraging to me. And I just really want to—I believe the applicant did—just want to really thank staff. It was such a collaborative process to come forward with this kind of creative solution. And I know that at the end of last year the Council talked about our middle-income housing and really appreciate that here we are two and a half months later being able to look at a project like this based off of what was brought forward. To me that's really fast and just appreciate the hard work. I also really appreciated about the project, as was mentioned, the connectivity, the alignments of the streets. Actually, I think one of the streets, Devonshire, will go to that little pocket park that's there, and then Mulligan is not too far from Athena, which is along the Hetch Hetchy that will bring them to Whisman. So and then the Stevens Creek Trail. So I do feel encouraged that there's a little bit more in terms of access to open space, although agree the comments from colleagues that it would be nice to have more on site. Thank you.

[03:54:41] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, I don't see anyone else in the queue. It looks like we have a motion by Councilmember Kamei when you're ready you can read it. I'll go to Councilmember Hicks first, who looks like she has one more comment.

[03:54:53] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yeah, I just wanted to add to the request to save any trees that are possible.

[03:55:01] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Thank you. So I move that we adopt a resolution of the City Council of the city of Mountain View conditionally approving a planned community permit, development review permit, and provisional use permit to construct 195 three-story attached row houses utilizing state density bonus law and a heritage tree removal permit to remove 139 heritage trees all on a 10-acre site located at 515-545 North Whisman Road and finding the project to be statutorily exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to Public Resources Code section 21080.66, to be read in title only, further reading waived. Adopt a resolution of the City Council of the city of Mountain View conditionally approving a vesting tentative map to create 30 residential lots with 195 condominium units and 26 common lots on a 10-acre site at 515-545 North Whisman Road to be read in title only, further reading waived.

[03:56:43] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Councilmember Kamei. So Councilmember Kamei has moved the staff recommendation and it's been seconded by Councilmember Showalter. I don't see anyone else in the queue, so we're ready for a roll call vote. City Clerk, when you're ready.

[03:56:56] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Kamei?

[03:56:57] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[03:56:58] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Showalter?

[03:56:59] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[03:57:00] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Hicks?

[03:57:00] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[03:57:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Ramirez?

[03:57:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[03:57:03] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Clark?

[03:57:03] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[03:57:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Ramos?

[03:57:05] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[03:57:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries.

[03:57:09] Councilmember Chris Clark: Great. Thank you, everyone. So that concludes our public hearing items for tonight. Item 7 is Council staff and committee reports. Do any Councilmembers or staff have committee reports or other report-outs they'd like to make? Mayor Ramos.

[03:57:41] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. I'm going to report out that I attended the State of the Valley by the Silicon Valley, I don't know what this is called, it's like a forum, but the city paid for it so I'm reporting it. And I also attended—I threw the first pitch in Little League and I made it over the plate. I was very proud of that. And I think that's all. Oh, Councilmember Ramirez and I actually also presented a commendation to Los Altos Town Crier former editor Bruce Barton on his retirement, which was lovely. Yeah, I think that's all. Thank you.

[03:58:57] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Mayor. And I think—congratulations on the Little League pitch. I think there are still photos of me attempting to get the ball over the plate and failing miserably even though I played baseball when I was a kid. Councilmember Showalter?

[03:59:10] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yeah, many of us went to the State of the Valley. And I would just urge everybody to take a serious look at the Silicon Valley Index. It is just chalk-full of information and you can look at it online or you can buy a copy from Amazon. And I also attended a BCDC meeting and we are working on more of protecting the region from sea level rise with policy changes.

[03:59:44] Councilmember Alison Hicks: I also went to the State of the Valley conference.

[03:59:51] Councilmember Chris Clark: And Councilmember Kamei?

[03:59:53] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Great. I just want to report that I attended our city's Lunar New Year with the Mayor. Wonderful event on February 28th. It's great to see how it's grown and thank you to staff.

[04:00:05] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Ramirez?

[04:00:12] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have no say over any of this, but I heard a rumor that there might be an opportunity for the Council to weigh in on SB 63, the regional transit ballot measure and operational funding through VTA. And I just want to request that one, that if this is something that the Council has an opportunity to weigh in on, that it not be merely a presentation but something agendized for us to actually provide some direction by consensus or at least, you know, take a position on whatever it is that staff would recommend that we advocate for. I don't want to be lectured by a politician who doesn't represent our area, for instance. So that would be my humble request. Thank you.

[04:01:07] Councilmember Chris Clark: City Manager, how would you like to handle that? If it's agendized, are we able to have a discussion about it if and when it occurs, or is that something we need to have a show of hands to do?

[04:01:20] City Manager Kimbra McCarthy: Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I think I'll discuss with our legislative affairs manager and we can figure out the best path to move forward to alert Council to what staff's recommendation is and if there are those opportunities.

[04:01:39] Councilmember Chris Clark: Does that work for you, Councilmember Ramirez?

[04:01:41] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[04:01:42] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay. And then I don't know what the report-out rules are. I was supposed to attend the State of the Valley, I registered, but I was sick, as you can tell I'm still nasally and disgusting. But not contagious. So, but anyway, that's been disclosed just in case I needed to disclose it. And there are no other items before us this evening, so we'll adjourn the meeting at 9:28 PM. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for March 24, 2026. Thank you, everyone.

[04:02:24] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for staying up and being with us.

[04:02:27] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Bye!

Gap between item 6.2 (490 E. Middlefield vote) and item 6.3 (515-545 N. Whisman rowhouses)

[02:40:18] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: ...or whether or not a oversubscribed public park where you cannot find a swing on a weekend because people are there trying to enjoy, um, but you have to line to get on the swing. So, um, I just feel I just think there's a little bit more thought that can happen. Also appreciate the comments from our cyclists that said that they not only use it as a, you know, route for themselves, but for their family. In our area there's quite a few, um, who cycle and I was very encouraged on my run to see how many people were walking. And it is though office and commercial quite a peaceful and serene place. And I think I caught a glimpse of Councilmember Showalter when I was on my run and hopefully you could see their beautiful—it's a beautiful area. Um, and it's not too far and hopefully people could also if there's a public park right across with the, um, hopefully what will happen as the public park it could also be a thoroughfare along our Hetch Hetchy to Whisman Park and Pyramid. So just thinking about the connectivity, the walkability, liveability of what the project will bring forward is something, um, that I think is—I just like to highlight. The L-shaped frontage for the retail, I do feel you're going to get a lot of, um, traffic from your neighbor next door that's coming. And so I do think anything we can do to articulate that corner more, um—I just personally I thought it was curious that the—it will be along Middlefield because I with the specialties too, right down on Ellis, I think that your residents might want to walk there. So just thinking more about that that corner, um, activation I think would be great. The placemaking that we talked about earlier in our council meeting, people could enjoy and sit out. Um, the rendering was—was nice, but I think, um, kind of active, passive, open little space on that corner of Ellis and Middlefield, um, could—could go a long—long way. And then, um, I—I will say the thing that I—I did enjoy was the total retail of over 9,000 square feet. And, um, just want to call out that as we are creating more density in this area, how are we going to meet the needs of our residents in terms of city services? So I did talk to the applicant and they were open to continuing the conversation with staff is, you know, could there be a—a drop-off, um, for library books, um, in the somewhere within the open retail. Um, and I solicited feedback from, um, a different, um, library within Santa Clara County. They said the return box is less than 10—10 feet. So, um, just having something like that, obviously there would be staffing which we would have to talk about as budget, but I think that would kind of add to the feel of the amenity-rich, um, project that you're trying to put forward. So, um, I think that is everything. Really appreciate my colleagues, um, allowing me to—to speak about this because I—there's—there's excitement, but I think there's also thought, um, that we need to have and—and care, um, for the area and just because it's existing office commercial doesn't mean that the people who live near it don't care. They care. Thank you.

[02:44:00] Councilmember Chris Clark: Councilmember Ramirez.

[02:44:02] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor. Uh, very much appreciate the comments, um, from my colleagues and especially Councilmember Kamei. I, uh—I live in a different change area in the community, um, San Antonio shopping center area and, um, I—I agree very strongly that one, um, soliciting neighborhood or community feedback is essential because everyone wants to be able to contribute, um, in—the—the evolution of of their neighborhoods. And, um, if I—if if you were to pick between, you know, a neighborhood meeting and the design review consultation, I—I would pick the neighborhood meeting because what you will learn I think will be valuable for the design of the project and the amenities that you will provide in the future. Um, so I think that's something that we should continue to, um, work with the, um, with the development community in in encouraging even if they're not obligated to provide a neighborhood meeting, strongly encouraging that we—we solicit input from, um, the—the existing, um, residents in the the neighborhood who are likely to, um, interface, um, very often with, um, the new development. Um, so a few different, um, um, comments. First, um, Councilmember Showalter alluded to this, um, the speed with which we have had to review this project is is stunning, right? Um, uh, preliminary application submitted, SB 330 preliminary application application submitted at the end of December 2024 and we're at entitlement in March 2026. That's—that's really remarkable. Um, and I think there's—there's—that's—that's good in many respects, but it also means that we have to be very careful and, you know, very quick with our decision-making. Um, and so I know that that leads to some, um, challenges along the way, but I think fundamentally, um, it's—it's—it's a good thing and I, um—I want to, um, commend the staff for—for working very, um, quickly and diligently and in getting I think a very good project, um, in partnership, um, with the the applicant. Um, I also wanted to, um, express my support for and and appreciation to staff for in, um, their creativity in negotiating the development agreement which I think includes, um, some important, um, um, amenities and and um, um, some ideas that we hadn't really contemplated, um, with other projects. So, um, I—I would I guess encourage, um, um, staff to continue to, um, be similarly creative and flexible in working with other developers when we have a very complex, um, tapestry of regulatory frameworks that we're contending with, right? How does the state density bonus law interface with the East Whisman precise plan? Um, I know these are challenging questions, but I think you did a very good job, um, putting together, um, a—a community benefit list, um, and also some, um, um, I guess, um—what's the word I'm looking for? I don't want to say benefits, but, um, some consideration of of the concerns of the applicant as well, um, in to development agreement that I think does a good job, um, in meeting some of our, um, expectations as a city. Um, so, um, those are the major things I was interested in. I I support Councilmember Kamei's suggestion for, um—I don't know if we want to call that sort of like a—a like library annex-like, you know, but, um, thinking about how we extend, um, city services into, um, this—this new emerging neighborhood which right now doesn't really have very many. Um, um, so that's a very creative idea that I'd love to explore. Um, I'm also excited for the nearly 10,000 square feet of commercial space that the, um, project is providing and I hope that, um, you know, we're able to find, um, tenants sooner rather than later. Um, you know, I'm we're starting to see the San Antonio shopping center, um, fill up and it's—it's—um—it's—it's—it's transformative, right? Going from, you know, vacant storefront after vacant storefront into something that is that's that's I think thriving now. We have some really great, um, um, restaurants and and, um, commercial uses there. Um, so I'm hoping that we get to see a similar vibrancy, um, in the East Whisman precise plan. Um, I'm going to go ahead and, um, move to approve the staff recommendation, um, including, um, one: 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, um, building with 460 apartment units, utilizing state density bonus law and approximately 9,371 square feet of ground-floor retail 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 the 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 council report; and two: introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving a development agreement between the City of Mountain View and WTA Middlefield LLC for an eight-story mixed-use building with 460 apartment units units, utilizing state density bonus law and approximately 9,371 square feet of ground-floor commercial replacing an existing office building and the removal of 29 heritage trees on a 2.86-acre site located on at 490 East Middlefield Road to be read in title only, further reading waived, and set a second reading for March 24th, 2026.

[02:47:21] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. So that was a motion by Councilmember Ramirez for the staff recommendation, seconded by Councilmember Showalter. Um, Councilmember Hicks, did you have further comments?

[02:47:31] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes, um. As for voting, I think I'm going to flip a coin. I don't know whether to, um, whether to vote to support the project or protest the the loss of buffer from the trees. Um, but I don't want to do that before first I realized in quest—asking those questions I didn't say anything about the entire rest of the project. And, I—I'll flip my coin and and if I end up voting no, I want you to know that I actually really like the project. Um, I think the architecture is—is generally very good. Um, I wish we were getting more of that frankly close to my house. Um, and I like, you=know, the—I like sort of the display, the second floor public space, I like the way you talk about it getting people outside, I like adding commercial to the area. Um, I think people—there is a deficit of parks in the area, but people also go out to cafes, there's a deficit of of those kind of places as well and you can see that in our downtown as we've closed it to cars, people use the the downtown as a public park. So I'm hoping that this area more and more in some ways will, you know, it'll be a viable outdoor space. And I liked the retail courtyard very, very much. Um, so there are a lot of things that I—that I really like about the project and, um, I'll be flipping a coin. And if I vote no, it will just be because I want more focus on—I—I think that the carve-out for, um, drop-offs is important, but I want us to think a little more about how—how we do those and how we don't, um, sort of endanger some other aspects of the project while doing it. And I was—you're probably completely right, but I was disappointed to hear that it might be a—your mapping app or your Lyft or Uber that would determine the fact that we have to take out the buffer and the trees. There must be a way of like, can't—those companies are near us or we can get them by phone and ask them to change the app rather than be—because this will play out as we keep—we'll be—we'll be cutting down trees and buffers or not planting them in front of each building like this that we—that we build and I don't—I don't think that's a—an optimal solution. So, um, I'm going to go find my coin now, but, um, but—um, thank you for otherwise developing a great project.

[02:49:44] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Councilmember Hicks. And you're right, um, if—if a building does have a designated drop-off, um, you can—at most of the ride shares and others will—will respect that or or default to it—you can override it, but they'll default to it. So that's—that's a good point. Um, maybe someday, um, our AI agents will talk to their AI agents and figure it all out. Um, Mayor Emily Ramos, do you have comments?

[02:50:09] Mayor Emily Ramos: Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. Um, overall, um, love a good housing project. I actually—it's really kind of funny as as Councilmember Ellen Kamei mentioned that this is her neighborhood, I am on the other side of this part of the neighborhood, I'm in the North Whisman area. Um, um, I'm a little bit farther though, I think. Um, but it is nice to see, um, some commercial, um, retail, um, on the bottom floor to have have more—more things to go to in in the my area. Um, I think that—that's—that's a good thing. I I really like Councilmember Ellen Kamei's, um, suggestion about the library drop-off. Um, I was—I was talking to my older sister lives in a bigger city that has like, I was joking with her about the how many libraries they had. They had like 50 libraries, it was—it was kind of ridiculous—not all of them were full libraries though, that's not—that's not the expectation I have, but, um, but to have just some mini-version of that or just a drop-off would be a nice gathering, um, ability so you don't always have to go to the one library downtown. Um, I—I—I like studio units. I live in a studio unit. Um, if that is the the thing that is is kind of in the market right now, I—I don't mind that that much. I know that we do a lot of focus on family units. Um, it—it makes me think about how I used to live in a two-bedroom, but that's because I had a roommate, it wasn't necessarily like because I was like a family, although she could have been like family to me, I guess. Um, but overall, I do like this project, um. Um, I guess that's—that's all I have to say about that. All right.

[02:52:30] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you, Mayor Emily Ramos. Um, so we have a motion on the floor, uh, to approve the staff recommendation by Councilmember Lucas Ramirez, seconded by Councilmember Pat Showalter. Um, we've taken public comment and I think, um, we've made it through the council queue, so we're ready for a roll-call vote. City Clerk.

[02:52:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Lucas Ramirez?

[02:52:49] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Yes.

[02:52:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Pat Showalter?

[02:52:50] Councilmember Pat Showalter: Yes.

[02:52:51] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Councilmember Alison Hicks?

[02:52:51] Councilmember Alison Hicks: Yes.

[02:52:52] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Mayor Ellen Kamei?

[02:52:52] Councilmember Ellen Kamei: Yes.

[02:52:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Chris Clark?

[02:52:53] Councilmember Chris Clark: Yes.

[02:52:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Mayor Emily Ramos?

[02:52:55] Councilmember Emily Ramos: Yes.

[02:52:56] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Motion carries.

[02:53:40] Councilmember Chris Clark: Okay, um, so we'll move on to our second public hearing item, which is 6.3, a rowhouse development project at 515 through 545 North Whisman Road. Um, like last time we'll start with a staff presentation and then an applicant presentation, council questions, and public comment. And I believe for this we have—yes, advanced planning manager Eric Anderson and senior planner Sam Hughes to present this item. Um, and if you're planning to speak on this item, you—you're welcome to use the presentation time to fill out a blue card and submit it to the city clerk so we can get you in the queue early. Um, so, um, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hughes, when you're ready.

[02:55:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thank you very much. Good evening Mayor Emily Ramos, Vice Mayor Chris Clark, and city council. My name is Eric Anderson, advanced planning manager, and I'm—this item is a rowhouse development proposal located at 515 and 545 North Whisman Road. I'm joined by Sam Hughes, senior planner, and we've prepared a brief presentation outlining the project and I'll begin by providing some context describing the project location. The approximately 10-acre project site is located in the East Whisman precise plan within the mixed-use low-intensity sub-area of the plan. It has a general plan land use designation of East Whisman mixed-use. The existing development includes two vacant office buildings, surface parking, and associated landscape and hardscape improvements. There's an 18-foot public access easement with an 8-foot pedestrian and bicycle trail running north to south along the eastern property line. To the north is a two-story, two-building office campus, to the east is a four-story office building site, to the south is a one-story commercial condominium site with various commercial and light industrial service uses, and to the west across Whisman Road are one- and two-story single-family and multi-family residences. The project involves demolishing the existing office buildings, surface parking, and associated landscaping, and replacing that campus with a rowhouse development with 195 units. This involves requests for the following entitlements: a planned community permit, development review permit, and provisional use permit to allow the project as proposed, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 139 of the 151 heritage trees, and a vesting tentative map to create 30 residential lots containing 195 condominium units and 26 common lots. The proposed design involves the following features: a 30 rowhouse buildings, each three stories, containing a total of 195 dwelling units with individual rear-loaded garages; a 0.24-acre publicly accessible open area with games space and landscape gathering amenities in the southeast corner of the property which would be accessible through existing and proposed public access easements; a total of 40,275 square feet of common open space; new streets and pedestrian pathways, paseos and common open areas as well as three new service streets, 11 alleys that would provide garage access; regrading and relandscaping the project frontage to provide stormwater treatment as well as frontage improvements to meet the precise plan street design standards for North Whisman Road. The project is consistent with the general plan, East Whisman precise plan, and rowhouse guidelines, as superseded by density bonus waivers allowed under state law. The applicant is proposed a BMR program that restricts 46 units to below market rate prices equal to 25% of the base number of units. 28 of these units are restricted to moderate incomes between 100 and 120% AMI consistent with the city's BMR requirement. The remaining 18 units are proposed at 170% AMI average which does not meet the city's BMR requirements for rowhouses, but the applicant is proposing an alternate mitigation under the city's BMR program. This alternate mitigation supports the city's goals of middle-income homeownership which were discussed at the recent December 16th of 2025 city council meeting. By offering 28 units or 15% of the units for sale to moderate-income households, the project is eligible for a 10% density bonus. It's also eligible for one concession and unlimited waivers. The project requests one concession for dispersal of the affordable units. The affordable units would be located on the western side of the property where the units are slightly smaller by floor area. The project requests waivers from 20 development standards which are listed in the staff report. The North Whisman project frontage includes four buildings with units facing the street. The buildings are separated from the right-of-way by a private sidewalk providing access to each building and a bioretention basin which can be viewed in the images here. This area is currently on a berm that will need to be regraded and the existing heritage trees along this frontage cannot be retained for this reason. Building materials consist of stucco, fiber cement shingle siding, and stone veneer and use alternating color schemes to provide more variety in building character. Two-story stone-clad accent features with standing seam metal roofs help highlight the front entries. The image on the right shows the central paseo and its terminus an open recreational space and crosswalk across the planned A street. The central paseo will be a new publicly accessible pathway going from the north to the south of the site. On the left you can see the bicycle and pedestrian path that runs along the east of the property and the interplay of the proposed units and open area behind it. The project provides three new publicly accessible paths east to west across the site, connecting North Whisman Road with the existing bicycle path. The project has a vesting tentative map that would create 30 residential lots with 195 condominium units and 26 common lots. The slide here shows the public access easement areas as shown on the vesting tentative map. The project would remove 139 of 151 heritage trees and all non-heritage trees. Heritage trees would be replaced at more than a two-to-one replacement ratio with 282 new trees and 158 additional accent trees for a total of 440. The canopy area at maturity would exceed the existing canopy area. This map shows various hierarchy of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular circulation at the site as well as street parking. The project is not subject to a minimum parking requirement and voluntarily provides 390 garage parking spaces and 30 guest parking spaces. The project proposes 195 long-term bicycle parking spaces and 24 short-term bicycle parking spaces. The project is subject to the AB 130 streamlined process that creates a statutory urban infill exemption to CEQA. The project received feedback at one design review consultation meeting and made some changes in response. On February 4th, the EPC recommended approval of the project based on its compliance with city policies. They made comments regarding the density bonus concession, the loss of heritage trees along the frontage, and the lack of a neighborhood meeting. The city received public comments about the project expressing concern about tree removals, the environmental review process and site contamination issues, BMR unit locations, parkland dedication calculation, and neighborhood character issues such as building massing, traffic, crime and crowding. This slide shows staff's recommendation and this concludes the presentation. We're available for questions, including myself and Sam Hughes, community development director Christian Murdock, assistant director Amber Blizinski, as well as staff from the public works and housing departments. The applicant is also in attendance with a presentation. Thank you.

[03:03:12] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. And this pointed out to me earlier, I forgot to—to ask if we want to do a show of hands for those who've met with the applicant and Mayor Emily Ramos you can raise your virtual hand if you have. Um, I did meet with them. Looks like everyone except Councilmember Pat Showalter and Mayor Emily Ramos. I did meet with them. Um, looks like Councilmembers Hicks, Kamei, myself, Councilmember Pat Showalter. So, we'll proceed now with the applicant presentation. I believe this is seven minutes and the timer will show up here and start whenever you're ready. Um, if you could just for the record just introduce yourselves one more time when you're ready.

[03:03:46] Brian Griggs: My name is Brian Griggs. Thank you for the opportunity to present this project. I'm joined by Jonathan Borieak who is a principal with KTGY who will walk you through the project in a little more detail. My notes are going to be a little more general than the last project, you know, first recognition for Eric and Sam, Lauren Cody, Renee Gun, and Quinn Brier who have been very helpful for engineering. There's a lot of challenges here. And then even more so for your housing director Wayne Chen, housing specialist Anna Reynoso, who have been working through some of the challenges we've had on trying to address the 25% requirement but also be able to underwrite and finance the project. So as you may have seen in the staff report, we're providing 46 affordable units. We're very proud of that. You may have also heard in some of your prior efforts to address some of the affordable housing requirements in the city, you currently have 14 below market rate ownership units. So we'll be more than doubling that—excuse me—tripling that with this one project and we're proud to be able to do that. We think there's a real void of ownership BMR units in the city. Currently there's a little over 4,000 people apparently on the list who would like to purchase a BMR unit and one BMR unit that was sold since 2000—excuse me—2019 apparently had about 250 people in a lottery who ended up with seven qualified people of which they went down the order to see who could actually obtain financing which is another challenge with BMR units. The desire to have the affordable alternative mitigation is really to try and hit different strata. Um, as Eric had voiced and I participated or at least virtually in the December 16th hearing, I think there is a missing middle that's very legitimate. Um, whether that's specifically in the ownership, you don't have a lot of ownership units, so it doesn't necessarily apply just to that. But I think it's very true if you look at people who make 200, 250,000 dollars a year and try and compete when the average home value I think is a little over 3 million dollars in Mountain View, homeownership is a goal of everyone I think and this is one way that we can try and assist in that. The community meeting, um, we swung and missed. Um, we should have had it in hindsight. Any other project we bring through here we will. We're still fighting a little bit the new laws that afford developers a lot of liberty and luxury of not going through design review and trying to push projects forward. We knew we wanted to hit a certain density, we knew that we'd have challenges as Eric said with some of the heritage trees because of the existing berms and topography that in order to get the density that we needed to hit necessitated almost all of the trees with the exception of a handful being removed and we know how valuable those trees are, especially to the Wagon Wheel neighborhood across the street. Um, we did make a lot of changes from design review, but I think as several of you said, it's really the neighbors that we should have engaged with more. Um, we're proud of how the project's turning out. Would we have made a lot of changes based upon that neighborhood input? Maybe, maybe not. But it's still a process you should go through. As far as the environmental, um, I think there'll be questions on that. Um, we spent a lot of time trying to engage with the party who's written out two very lengthy letters last minute, first to the EPC and then to the council tonight. Um, we have worked with staff, we firmly believe that the approval of this housing project tonight is only the first step. The EPA, the requirements—there's nine conditions of approval that require us to go through the EPA, obtain all the clearances that are necessary. The city is not the jury, the staff is not the jury, we are not the jury. The EPA was formed over 50 years ago by the United States government to make sure that the health and safety and protection of environmental sites is satisfied. We're fully aware it's going to cost a lot of money, take a lot of time, but until you have a project, you really can't dig into the next steps. Many of you may know, um, the case manager who worked for 16 years in this area, Alana Lee, unfortunately passed away. We had engaged with Alana as early as last February and had meetings with Alana, had her approval on different testing, we had different plans in front of her and we had a clear pathway towards what we—she felt with the results that we were able to do and some remediation could lead to clear health eventually on this site. That hit a skid first with the furloughs and then with Alana's passing and the recent people who are taking over are really just getting up to speed. So we know this'll be—we won't start construction in two months, we won't start construction probably in six months because we have a lot of work to do. But until I think the council can feel comfortable that once the EPA signs off on this both before we start construction and prior to the certificate of occupancy, this will be safe. And to Councilmember Pat Showalter—Councilmember, excuse me—we're not going to just hit the bare minimum. We know there's rebound, we know there's a lot of things that come into play, we know the standards are going to continue to get lower and lower and the health and safety of the 195 homeowners in here is going to be paramount. So Jonathan, I took five of the seven minutes, so go.

[03:09:49] Jonathan Borreagh: Jonathan Borreagh with KTGY. I think staff did a great presentation, so if we just flip forward a couple slides, keep going, keep going, one more, one more. Okay, I just would like to touch on the open space and really our concept for how we oriented these buildings, right? We're balancing a lot of factors both general plan goals for pedestrian connectivity from existing residential neighborhoods across North Whisman to Middlefield light rail and some of the other uses to the east, and then working both with the topography of the site knowing we had to run drainage towards Whisman. Um, and then working with some other goals we know from our history of working with City of Mountain View over many years of getting front doors onto multiple streets. And so it's you'll notice it's not just a one grid across the site that as street A runs through, buildings turn and orient that as well. Um, and creating two different varieties of unit types allows for a better marketability, allows for greater absorption. And then when it comes to the open space, we have the three public open spaces. There is the mini-park which is just shy of the East Whisman precise plan goals, but when combined with all the other open spaces across the site we're about 1.74 acres. Really the goal was to focus those, not just in one location but spread them out so we've got what we call the picnic park along the existing pedestrian bike access to the east, our plaza park along the linear paseo, and that paseo's 30 feet wide so really kind of up-sizing that both for the homeowners and public use. Thank you. Here for questions.

[03:10:52] Councilmember Chris Clark: Thank you. Yeah, we might have some questions for you, so let me pull up my queue here. For council questions we'll start with Councilmember Lucas Ramirez and I see Mayor Emily Ramos in the queue, we'll do you next if that's all right. Okay, great. Councilmember Lucas Ramirez.

[03:11:29] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark. I appreciate the applicant's recognition that neighborhood meetings are important to the council. Um, so I just wanted to acknowledge that. A couple of questions, I think probably more for staff. First, I appreciate the information about, um, the projected sales for the AMIs, the—the for the BMR units, the projected sales prices, but um, you didn't provide a comparable for a market-rate unit. So I—I was hoping to see what the delta would be, especially for the 180% AMI units. Um, I wonder if our housing director Mr. Wayne Chen can respond to that.

[03:13:07] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Good evening. Thank you for the question. Wayne Chen, housing director. Um, the projected market prices would be something that would really be for the applicant if they have information to share. I did want to note that in the responses to the council questions we had inadvertently provided a former price that was more at the 200% level, and so I wanted to clarify that the information that you have in the chart is all correct except for the 180% AMI, the four-bedroom—that should be 1.59 rather than 1.79. So that creates a further, um, separation between market-rate units. I will say that based on our December study session with the council regarding homeownership that the range for townhomes can be anywhere from 1.6 to 2.3 million dollars and the average is around, you=know, 1.8 or 1.9. I'll turn it over to applicant if they have any information to share about the projected market prices.

[03:15:10] Brian Griggs: Yeah, the range that Wayne gave us is probably the best information, you know, we have a lot of uncertainty as to how long it's going to take us, how much it's going to cost as far as the project. But, you know, clearly the market rate units, there will be a discount to the various levels of AMI. And I don't mean to be vague, I just can't tell you it's a 2 million dollar unit or a million eight unit.

[03:15:33] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: I—well, I guess I maybe this is more of a comment. I'm concerned that the 180—I thought the 180 would be a little bit lower, um, based on the low end of that range that was provided. Um, I'm curious about, you know, what happens when that the 180% AMI projected sales price starts to bump very close to the market rate price, but again, more of a comment.

[03:16:19] Brian Griggs: Then you lower the price.

[03:16:21] Councilmember Lucas Ramirez: Fair enough. Um, question for staff. Um, I wanted to better understand the use of the concession. Um, I believe if memory serves or you may have written it out here, the intent is to allow for—oh, I guess maybe it's not defined here. Um, so I think the concession it says okay here it is, one concession it says unit proportionality and dispersal. Those are two different things. Um, so I'm curious how one concession can be used for both unit proportionality and the distribution across the site.

[03:17:17] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Yes, thank you for the question. So in this particular project, I should say in general we have been seeing a greater increase in frequency of using the concession for this type of situation. Um, the unit sizes are proportionate based on the number of bedrooms, but if there were multiple floor plans, then the concession is to allow the smallest floor plans to be provided as the BMR units. So that's been pretty consistent from what we've seen. Um, in this particular case, which may be a little bit different from say a multi-family condo project in which there's an easier way to disperse the units, because this particular rowhome project has sort of individual buildings and many individual buildings, the location of those smaller floor plans are oriented in a way which it is more prevalent in one of the neighborhoods than in the other neighborhood. And that was probably just a fact of the way that the site plan got laid out. Um, perhaps applicant can say a little bit more in terms of how the site plan was laid out, the distinction between neighborhood one and neighborhood 2 and identifying where those smaller floor plans were located among the buildings. But in this particular case, one was really connected to the other pieces and they were interrelated.

[03:18:47] Jonathan Borreagh: Yeah, so the unit in question was a tandem unit, they're predominantly on one side.

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